Mild Mannered Reporting

"I can't stand to fly. I'm not that naive. I'm just out to find the better part of me." Five for Fighting 

Cheri posted a practice reminder recently suggesting we imagine what we'd ask Superman to do for us, if we could. For some reason this tickled a place of childish delight inside me, and has excited all my pleasure centers, to the point that I (almost) don't remember the second part of her practice reminder which was to see how much of that which we were asking of Superman we might be able do for ourselves. Luckily, my heart rushed in with the answer before my head could intervene and talk myself into world peace. "Plenty of money," was what I would ask for. Now I don't know how the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or x-ray vision yields the ability to provide this, but that is the joy of awakening a child within, now isn't it? 

I suppose the plenty of money would cut out a lot of conversation in my head, ostensibly anyway, regarding what I can and cannot do with my time at this stage of my life where I find myself at a crossroads by dint of being out of work, yet too young to retire. So what *would* I do once I had this plenty of $$$? I'm almost too excited to contemplate, the thought seems so joyous. Off my stepdaughter would go to the college of her dreams, and so too my daughter to medical school following college. John could stay at his hourly job not one minute past when his heart tells him it's time to leave, and not knowing whether we would or not, we could stop the chatter surrounding the endless futile speculation about when we'll go back to a decent income level.

Assuming I had the time, (maybe Superman can do several things for us and longevity could certainly be added to the list), I could spend it on further learning in a new field, and ever so casually resume looking for work in my current field. 

The 2nd part to the question was to ask which of those things we could do for ourselves. This was also interesting and in some ways even more fun to think about. Remembering one of my first 'hooks' into practicing sitting meditation and studying with Cheri was hearing her underscore that all anyone *ever* wants is a certain feeling-- I think that I'd like to be able to provide the means for what I project is a fulfilling feeling that our girls would receive by making their educations just happen. In many respects this was a feeling I enjoyed by virtue of my own parents' generosity.

The other items fall into the category of a sense of urgency-- John needing to believe he can let go of his job when he needs to, me believing I can't stay out of traditional work and those things are so subjective, unless I am in the throes of believing the tug of war in my head. "What about benefits? What about money?" on and on. And of course there is validity to those concerns, but what gets lost sight of on a regular basis by me and I suspect others- is that those things need not become fuel for self-battering as they can be made to become by abusing 'voices' inside. 

As the Superman game suggests, facts can be laid in their place alongside a healthy sense of wonder and imagination with a result that might be something far greater in the real world than ever imagined. Right now I am just loving going about my day with a schedule all my own and knowing it's always going to include time to craft and lunch at home with food I had plenty of time to prepare. Maybe 'the next thing' will include income enough to make sure I always have that time and that personal space as well as the ability to pay the bills.

I have not been served wrong by taking the opportunity to wonder aloud or to myself 'just for fun,' that's for sure.

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm."

Emily Dickinson
Copyright 2010 Celia M. Feret All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used without permission from the author who can be reached at celia.feret@gmail.com.

Zen Train

"We say, "Love your brother." We don't say it really, but... " Davd St. Hubbins in 'This is Spinal Tap'

Cheri is fond of commitments- making them actually. You'd think that might not be the case, because so much of what everyone thinks of as Zen involves living in the 'now'. But in the now, when we commit to something 'then,' we get to observe the changes we experience if any between this 'now' and that 'now'. Was that as confusing to read as it was to think up? 

For example, I made a commitment to lighter eating every day, several days ago. Today, I hardly remember the commitment at all, let alone why it seemed so important. Consequently, I ate a lot starting last night when John and I decided to do fondue for dinner, a favorite indulgence of ours, and the only time John *ever* eats the least bit unhealthily.

All I know is, this was the longest weekend ever and at the same time it flew by. There was so much to do, yet it involved suprisingly few 'action items,' as I used to love to say in the corporate world. In the service of getting things done, in addition to my sanity, I made a decision to forgo a workshop centered around annual goal setting, and I think therein lies the answer to why all this overeating, in part.

I've never been fantastic at knowing or setting (these are different) healthy limits-- I guess that's obvious in a blog devoted to overeating. Well, add two ex-spouses and children from those unions to your current marriage, and all bets are off as to what constitutes appropriate rules of engagement. In short, John requested I participate in something that would benefit one of his children, and the only day to get it done in a sane manner was the day devoted to the workshop. Giving up the workshop wasn't so bad in and of itself but the project I agreed to undertake was excruciating-- not so much physically although it was no fun to look up volumes of personal data for financial aid forms, but because it was like a trip through the memory lane of hell that was often our early family life.

But the heartburn here is that I saw this freight train coming a mile away. We call that the good news in Zen because here to fore the freight train of wanting something other than 'what is' would come, take us aboard, spit us out somewhere along the track and be bounding on to the next station before we knew what was happening leaving a wake of destruction in its path.

Other than being able to 'see' opinions and emotions bubble up to the surface, sometimes before, sometimes after I spouted them out to my husband of endless patience, otherwise known in these stepchild situations as Mr. Rock and a Hard Place, I see no value at the moment in my new found powers of observation at this moment.

 "Whatever you are, be a good one," Abraham Lincoln

Fall Fever

"If there is no wind, row." Latin proverb

Isn't that quote cool? That was on my monthly drycleaning newsletter-- so if you think your drycleaner's newsletter cannot make your day (or at least cause you to pause), consider yourself disabused of that notion.

I notice at the career center where we 'restructured' employees get to go as much as we like these 2 months post handing over out laptops and badges, that though levels of energy and enthusiasm vary widely as you might expect among us, to a person, everyone given the slightest opening will say something tantamount to, "I'm so HAPPY I don't have the headaches of my old job."

I had a few unwelcome sea changes these last months especially but didn't think I'd feel much beyond terror being jobless with a spouse also jobless. I find myself dejected at times, and sometimes even sleepless the way I was when I felt like a given project or team assignment was untenable-- but there's no denying it's so very nice not to have those particular day to day worries.

In trying to partake of everything available while it lasts, namely the job placement services, I've scattered myself widely across workshops, free coaching and job fair preparation such that I'm not feeling very effective. I don't feel too put off (although I'm not jazzed by any means) that I don't have a great many interviews (ok, none yet) lined up.

I am revising my resume targeting it toward writing jobs and clinical jobs should an opportunity come along. I'm loving have the days to chart various courses for myself and when I keep my eye on just what's in front of me, I don't ever entertain worry or fear.

Fall is my favorite season. I won't lie- it's because it acts as harbinger to 'the holidays' beginning in the US with Halloween and ending with New Year's. I caught myself thinking I wouldn't have the right to enjoy them 'with no job' but have managed to get Fall and Halloween decorations out and about our house even a little early this year.

I say early because in a fit of holiday decorating superiority, I declared a few years ago that Halloween decorations should not be donned (can a nonperson don something? I don't know) prior to 3 weeks before Halloween and certainly not before the month of October. Well, it's September 30 and ceramic jack o' lanterns abound. Aren't we rebels?

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” (Chinese Proverb)

Happy Blessed Opportunity

"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon." Woody Allen

The title of this blog entry gets referenced with sarcasm, or maybe mirth is more like it, by members of the spiritual community with which I study Zen. The group of persons that sit and study with a Zen teacher is called a sangha (silent ‘h’) and in ours, you can consider yourself a sangha member if you want to be.

As it happens, I am handwriting today’s entry for transcription later as I sit in the parking lot of Alice’s middle school campus (though she is in high school—I actually drove here after dropping her off at the high school campus both because the parking lot is large and I can park under the shade of a pine tree and meditate, and because it’s too early to go to Target!) and I am waiting for John to arrive with stepson Robert in tow, to jump start my battery which I just discovered has died.

I love and appreciate my Zen practice so much, although it makes me giggle to describe myself as having such a thing. I think to giggle might also be the experience of anyone who really knows me (the word sister comes leaping to mind here). I doubt even after 6 years of daily  sitting  meditation (sometimes at home, sometimes in my car) accompanied by trips to the Zen Monastery Peace Center as I can manage -- where not only is everything done in the silence of the ‘privileged environment,’ the entire time, but, we are encouraged to refrain from eye contact --  would anyone confuse my temperament with His Holiness the Dalai Llama (and the word children comes leaping to mind here).

So, all of that is a round about introduction to my reassurance to anyone reading, that I am not now nor will I ever profess later that I’m in fact grateful for the chance to sit alone in the school parking lot for an additional hour I didn’t sign up for. This opportunity to enjoy the sights and sounds around me that in other circumstances I’d have left behind, otherwise quickly forgotten as I speed off to Target (When you are a working parent with a sitting meditation practice, trust me, you are ALWAYS mediating in one parking lot or another), is the slice of solace I didn’t even know I wouldn’t hate until it came my way.

That said, a promise we make out loud before and after sitting meditation, is “to use everything in our awareness to see how we cause ourselves to suffer.” To this end, I have participated in all sorts of exercises over the years with the goal of greater self awareness as in who are these ‘selves’ I call me? To wit, I have worn my watch on an alternate wrist, walked around with a notebook all day to record all sorts of observations within and without, worn a bread bag twist tie on my finger for the sake of remembering to “come back to the breath” or center, often times one and the same experience.

I never was and am not now a fan of disrupting my carefully planned, normally jammed schedule. For reasons not entirely clear, but about which I don’t care one ounce of kapok, I don’t feel the need to sit cursing our car, my bad luck, or worrying myself to death over whether I’m still going to make my doctor’s appointment, or fit in my Target errand. Nor do my thoughts run to trying to second guess how John and Robert feel about rearranging their morning and what it means if some of them is or isn’t feeling or acting put out.

“It is what it is” and that includes time to sit quietly, once dreaded by me and now a chance to gather my thoughts, read more of my book and to savor in writing m newfound solace where once there was angst.

"To enjoy the world without judgment is what a realized life is like." Charlotte Joko Beck

Annie Get Your Gun

"Now Ive been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun." Cat Stevens

There are the days when we sing about the peace train and there are the days when we oversleep the alarm, can't find our ticket,  and forgot why we ever thought it was a good idea to board anyway. That would be me today. Poorly slept, behind in what I need to do and what I planned to do even though at least on paper I have ample time to do it all (Note to retired friends: I now totally get how it is one can NOT have a day job yet scarcely find time to return a phone call!).

I became interested in what my meditation (Western Zen) teacher, Cheri Huber calls an awareness practice, organized around, well... meditation... readily and dramatically after attending a day long workshop at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. Starting to meditate so quickly (like the next day) surprised no one more than me quite honestly. Celia's Top Ten Least Likely Activities would include meditation right *after* sleeping outside in a tent and aforementioned guest stints on Survivor.

However, Cheri 'got' me when she began explaining that nothing in the universe was dedicated to my suffering. Now my husband John over and over respectfully disagrees with this idea, and is happy to supply a list of people he KNOWS want him to suffer but I, lacking in that masculine, affable, sales guy confidence have to admit that my suffering could not possibly hold anyone's interest that long. By process of elimination, like the day at age 5 when I vehemently denied magic markering my parents' painted white windowsill and my mother, acting on a hunch, asked me to turn over my hands which revealed black magic marker (I still to this day wonder how she KNEW to ask me that!)-- that meant I was doing something somewhere along the line to muck things up for myself just enough to have perpetual angst and never feel like I was participating in the right life or living the "right" way.

As in the Big Box Zen store where the guide shows us around the voices and parts of our emotional selves that go around masquerading as ourselves, I came to believe that sitting meditation would take me toward the path to becoming the internal observer of the store that alternates between being overseen by a kindly, older grandfatherly like presence with infinite patience and understanding, and a psychotic control freak with an emotional age of 5 at the very most standing at the helm with machine gun ready to fire.

We talk about watching ourselves *become* someone else. With much study we define these aspects of our personalities and sometimes give them names. They are spoken of as subpersonalities. Over time (and I wouldn't ask how much at this stage as it certainly doesn't sell the process), we come to understand that however powerful those familiar scenarios are when we have become a part of ourselves, we are not *that* person but the presence that watches, contains, and ultimately can love that person. Sometimes, often in fact, that person is 'those 2 people,' in the form of a younger child being given information by an older child. That's where, in part, the voices section of the Big Box store does well and when we sit we get in the habit of noticing what is being said in between couting breaths.

So today, very fair to say that identification with a tired, overwhelmed and much in need of grown up attention subpersonality had her way with myself and my family (gee, wonder if my name is on John's list of suffragettes). Often, the only remedy is to hope we realize when we check out and patiently wait Father Knows Best style for this little person to feel reassured by the bigger presence that we actually can offer at these times. Other times, we wake up to an emotional battlefield the day after smelling of virtual gun powder and littered with used up artillery. The trick is to see that all that is nothing more than remnants of us doing what we are conditioned to do, and fearlessly start over.

Today that amounted to taking that person running my mouth away for a while and going to a favorite karmic refuge, the movie theater. I have been engaging in meditation, retreats, email classes, and reflective listening offered by the Zen Monastery Peace Center for just about 6 years now and it's been a lamp of solace and joy that has restored both of those things even when Machine Gun Milly is taking the lead.

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher

Big Box Zen

"I cannot tell if what the world considers 'happiness' is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness..." Chuang-tzu.

Since I'm between jobs (By the way, don't you just love the phrasing implying the next job is just laying there waiting for me to take it up?)-- now seems like a pretty good time to dream up a fun one. So, I keep thinking, since we are talking dream jobs here, how about a fantasy job? Most people who know me will thing full time quilter and that would fit the bill, for sure, but at the moment, I was thinking more like Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life. Except I'd be more like the Buddha's trainee and technically in Buddhism as I understand it, we don't try to *get* anywhere, but rather to realize that we are, at any given time, *here* with no need to go elsewhere, so I'd have to give some thought to how that correlates to an angel getting his or her wings (worth noting perhaps that bells in fact are frequently run in the Zen tradition in which I am a participant so whatever the end goal, the ringing of bells would certainly figure prominently as it did for Clarence).

I'd have a name tag of course (Buddhist Guide, Trainee) and the job description would include showing new souls (which would probably be called incarnations) around the karmic world which in my rendering of it, takes on the appearance of Costco, an oversized warehouse with everything you could ever want alongside that much which you never even realized you want.

So I'd take the pre-conditioned human, between lifetimes if you will, and point out a few things that, should he or she awaken with a desire to end suffering in the upcoming lifetime, might come in handy. The largest section of the karmic big box store, would be the huge central area that stores swing sets and barbecues in the summer and Christmas trees at holiday time. "This," I'd matter of factly point out, is your content. Getting stitches, bored rainy afternoons, first days of school on up to family members dying, miscarriages, divorces, and watching loved ones die of cancer and car accidents, drink too much, win a triathalon, get a raise, have an affair, and pay too much for coffee because they forgot the sales circular at home."

I'd go on to explain that the content will forever be competing for attention and shelf space with the inborn knowledge that your sense of well being is not controlled or defined by IT- whatever IT is (thank you ebay!) And I'll do my best to reassure by reminding my charge that most go through their entire lives forgetting that they know this is true, and, when you consider the state of the content, who can blame them.

Next we'll go up and down the aisles on either side of content. Rows of shelves containing toiletries, over the counter medicines and vitamins are just about the perfect location for The Voices in Your Head. "Lots of folks catch on to these babies pretty quick," I'll jovially explain. "They're the things that talk at you all day and all night long, telling you what you're doing wrong, what to say, what to do and think. Sometimes they will throw a complete curve ball and tell you how great you are. But don't be fooled. They live to make you completely forget that YOU aren't THEM and as such don't have to pay one bit of attention."

About this time, the entering soul will probably ask what all the fuss is about. "Why would anyone or anything *care* to throw me off track enough to create all this distraction?" And this will be a test of Buddhist trainee meddle because I'll so badly want to provide the 'proper' answer. I'll want to have something at the ready, like a SOAR story (situation, obstacle, action, result) we're encouraged to prepare by out outplacement coaches, lying in wait for the toughest interview question. Or I'll want to be able to believably explain that the system was actually intended to protect us from the harm of going crazy by coming up with a belief system however bogus.

If my thoughts are properly collected however I'll say instead, "All we know for sure is that there seems to be for every productive forging ahead that we do, an equal and opposite drive to deconstruct our ability to stay in the here and now, seeing it all, not believing any of it, and in that seeing, having the true freedom to attend closely to the life experience we truly want to have."

That will lead us to the section that runs parallel to the cash registers. Where mountains of oversized boxes of candy, pyramids of plastic jars of Twizzlers reside. "Here's where all the action is. Your conditioned responses. Things you do automatically. Sometimes these are perfectly matched to the content and other times, not so much. How much you can stay in your observing self and disconnect from your voices telling you how you should feel about your swing set, I mean your content is going to have a lot to do with how well you can choose what to do when." This conversation will probably require breaking into the Twizzlers for some relief, a perfect example of a conditioned response to hearing voices tell me I can't manage this part of the tour, but that's what training is for I'll realize.

And how will I realize this? Because a thought or feeling in the form maybe of the person who checks what you have bought against your receipt will arise in a moment of clarity, to remind me I do have options-- and lots of them. Like today for example, I can stay in my pajamas all day, skip church, eat junk food (oh, wait- that's what I AM doing!)-- you get the idea.

There are more sections to tour in our Zen Costco-- but first I have to work with someone in customer service on putting on my game face (and realizing I WANT to?!) as I hand over my badge tomorrow.

"I would like to learn, or remember, how to live." Annie Dillard

Thanks for the fish

'There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.'
-Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe



I do not believe I read any Douglas Adams from which the title of this entry (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) comes, inspired the opening to today's entry. I didn't even know DA died at the much too young age of 49 until I searched his name moments ago.



One of the reasons I am slow to blogging is having read a few 'run of the mill' blog entries, I have noted that the contents are of most interest, most likely, to the reader and in many cases, few others. I decided to forge ahead in spite of this because, well, to state the obvious-- I can -- whereas I know I could not last one half of one half-day on Survivor. The closest I've come to that is sleeping in a tiny unheated cabin for one called a hermitage at my Zen teacher's monastery (And if you don't have a Zen teacher, you really should). At that I felt like Rocky climbing the stairs in the Philadelphia Art Museum the first time I used the out house on prem. (The requisite silence of the privileged environment precluded appropriate musical accompaniment regrettably.)



After I posted my maiden entry here on Sunday, and took childish delight in my comments and followers (thank you Dad!), it dawned on me that I won't even write a Christmas letter because I find it an impersonal way to communicate, (though I love to read each and every one we receive) yet here I am BLOGGING effusively and backwards sommersaulting in my mind because, among others, my dear friend BU said she was along for the ride all the way over there in Florida! And speaking of Dad, boy do I owe him an apology for his email accompaniments to his wonderful photographic submissions to friends and family (Dad, they're long winded I have said. That's fine with me, he has replied. And so he should.)



Even before I received word that my job had been eliminated, I interviewed for a wonderful writing job in another company and it seemed as if I got along famously with the team. The hiring manager delivered the feedback that 'there were some problems with your writing samples.' I'm sure anyone reading this can imagine that is like telling a Miss America contestant.... "Miss Minnesota? Your looks? That bathing suit? I don't think so.... " Though she said complimentary things about my personality, I was crushed because I so felt as if I hit it off with her. In fact, I think she did me the courtesy of explaining 'about my writing' because she did like me so well.



She spoke about the writing being multilayered and difficult to tease out that which was original from that which was overlay-- I am paraphrasing but that's what I walked away with. Have I justified my maintaining a blog with this explanation and will I let an HM read it? I don't really know but, as stated elsewhere, I'm in it to see what happens and couldn't be more flattered that my loved ones (and everyone who has responded to me is *definitely* in that crowd) want to read.



Ciao for now,



C

PS: RR- start your blog so *I* can read it!



While I admire the glass is half full type...I'm comfortable with the fact that my glass will always have a slow and steady leak. (author unknown)

First day of the rest of my life- oh gawd

I am the most chatty person you'll ever meet. If it's anything I do well, it's keep in touch over email, often portraying myself in a far more interesting fashion than were we to speak face to face. Yet the notion of a blog somehow terrifies me (which in and of itself is odd if you consider what a person has to do these days to navigate the sea of blogs to find one worth reading).



So why am I blogging? Frankly, I just saw "Julie and Julia" for the second time in a month and I can't think of a direct application between blogging a journey through a classic cookbook for a year (though one of Ina Garten's would be my choice I'm sure!) and quilting-which would be my equivalent source of joy and comfort to that of Julie Powell's.



All I know is right now I sit here on the cusp of ending 10 years as a technical writer for a Fortune 100 company in Silicon Valley and I just know that in one year from this date my life might not look (probably won't look) a thing like it does right now. And I don't want to miss it- so writing about it will give me something to do and if I pick up a reader (or cajole enough friends to come along for the ride)-- so much the better.

Why is my story unique? I'm 45, which maybe the new 35, but it's not the new 25 in the job hunting world, that's for sure. As everyone knows we are in a 'down economy,' my husband has been unemployed by a combination of choice and chance for the prior 4 years, and to complete the picture I've been turning toward career change for quite a while now.

I trained as a clinical social worker and have been inching slowly toward returning to that field and have just found the courage to start mentioning that when people ask how my job search is going.

Wish me luck,

C

"I have met the builder and broken the ridgepole. I shall not build that house again."

THE BUDDHA, UPON HIS AWAKENING