Tending Joy

Struggled most of the past two weeks with the memoir.

Eventually turned out something that, while not quite as polished as I would like, was pretty useful, coherent, honest, reflective. You'd have thought I'd be pleased, especially when the comments suggest that my fellow students -- and even my teacher -- think it's a good job. I think so too, even if (I'm still wryly amused) I mixed up the episode that prompted Boyfriend M to walk away from me with the episode that provoked the worst fight Boyfriend R and I ever had. Those events were a couple of years apart, maybe more, but I didn't realize my mistake until I woke up the morning after turning this section in.

But anyway. I am pleased with the work I did, I do think it's a good job. I can already see several ways in which tiny revisions can make it even better.

But, emotionally, it's all flat. I took a break to catch up on reading the blogs of people I care about, and when I came back to be working on it just a day or so later, nothing. Blah. Why bother, oh phooey, who gives a damn about that stuff anyway, same-old-same-old, besides which why do I even want to try to unravel it?

So even though at the end of my allotted 5000 words I felt like I was on a roll and had another 10,000 all cued up to write ... today there's nothing.

I don't much want to write about the episode that really did lead to Boyfriend M walking away -- without so much as a goodbye, which I really hated; he simply refused to ever speak another personal word to me, though we continued to move in the same social circles and constantly run into each other in public for another couple of years. I don't much want to write about the relationship with Boyfriend R, who was so on-the-rebound when we met that I should have had my head examined anyway.

But I also don't much want to write about feeling so desperate for a hug, one night at 35, that I asked my neighbor to babysit and went over to the local bar (in those days I was a non-drinker) just so I could dance. And then at the end of the night had to be fairly persuasive in insisting that I was going home alone, and doing it right now, and no, actually I really did come here just to dance. (Thereby learning that I couldn't go to at least that particular bar if all I wanted was a dance, because the guys I danced with all thought we were all looking to get laid).

I don't much want to write about, well, dozens of things I can remember just fine. I don't much want to look under any of the available rocks to see what I can remember about stuff I don't much think about.

And I also don't feel like reading a book, taking a bath, going for a walk, medicating the cat, cleaning my office, doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, or any of hundreds of other possibilities.

Just now it seems like what's wrong is that we're more than halfway from Lammas to Mabon, the light is fading, it's been raining too many days, and my mood is just tanking. It's been like this every year, earlier and earlier. I have a lot to do tomorrow; I wonder how I can move myself forward to do it?

Too much 'chicken little' news lately. Every time I walk past a television it seems I hear somebody repeating doom and gloom about the economy, but much of it seems to be at the level of rumor. While the economy is clearly in contraction I do not personally foresee famine. I do foresee significant inconvenience to many of us, some of which is apt to be painful. But starving to death? Not.

I notice for myself, though, that there is a nasty side-effect to all this 'sky is falling' talk -- I'm Depressed. Whether the economy is in Contraction, Recession, Depression, Free-fall, or Panic is probably a matter of semantics and attitude (and, from my personal perspective, keeping a positive, confident, hopeful attitude is key, here). But my personal condition just now is probably diagnosable as Depression. Maybe even Clinical Depression, though probably I don't meet the criterion for duration just yet.

I'd like to look around for a 'good reason' but there isn't one. There is, as usual, plenty of stuff going on that I'm not necessarily thrilled about, but so what?

Medical -- I got a wonderfully clean bill of health on round one of gastric diagnosis. I'm delighted ... and it fails to answer the question of 'what's going on here and why am I so uncomfortable?' Tomorrow I get to make phone calls and set up the next round of appointments and testing. This is no big deal and I've done it before. I even understand most of the language.

Professional -- I finished a big piece of necessary work product more than a month ago. I started talking to coworkers about sharing a copy more than three weeks ago. I've had the instructions to upload it to the group project wikipage more than two weeks ago. What the @#$! is keeping me from uploading?

Spiritual -- I've restarted formal meditation three times in the last ten days. I've been unable, so far, to sustain three days in a row. Recent Moon circle was deeply satisfying and surprisingly good work for a group that met without a plan. It's the first time I've gathered with likeminded folks in a month. Feels like a year.

Personal -- Without warning I found myself doing nothing on the memoir for more than two weeks. Not even critiquing the writing of other folks over that time. Not even printing stuff out to look at. Not even looking at what's already printed out. I feel browbeaten by everyone in my household, whether they're 3000 miles away or right here. I feel like everyone tells me what they think I should do, tells me why I should do it, and then repeats the cycle about three times before I can even reply. But just now one of my housemates gave me precisely that feedback about something I was saying ... and it was so. So: I feel browbeaten AND I'm doing some browbeating of others.

Psychological -- Nothing has any damn' flavor just now. It's Sunday, so I go to services, so what? It's Saturday so I go to a party, so what? It's Friday so I go to the doctor, so what? I find myself wondering if the present medical situation is an example of an old pattern: getting sick as a way of getting out of something I don't want to do -- a throwback to junior high school when I would catch cold the night before a major exam if I didn't feel super-prepared. If it's that, then what's being avoided: staying in Guatemala indefinitely? going home to choose which six events I will attend in the next twelve months? negotiating with spouse and housemates about how much time we're going to spend where, doing what, in the next year?

Family -- My sibs want me to be the one who chooses which professional to hire for the next bit of Mom's estate. I don't feel like I have any more info than I've already shared. Why does it always have to be me? My grandchildren still aren't being schooled appropriately -- in five years they've gone from being homeschooled to being unschooled to being under-educated. The ten-year-old can't read and the eight-year-old reads at a first-grade level. They're both bright kids but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about this unless I want to try to wrestle their parents for custody -- which I'm not prepared to do. I can imagine doing avoidance about that, but why just this moment? It's been going on for years.

Aging -- I'm seriously noticing that this part is the back stretch. I can still learn new physical skills, but probably not ones that require new heights of coordination or strength. I can still learn new mental skills, but apparently not ones that require significant acquisition of new lore. I can still learn new music but I will never again have a singing voice better than the one I had last year (never mind what I sounded like at 45). I can still make relationship with new companion animals but will probably never live with another big, young dog. I can still lift babies and young children, but I dinna think any more ten-year-olds will be able to ride me piggyback. (Mostly I can accept all that, but sometimes I resent it all to hell).

Privacy -- Lately all the junkmail is warning about identity theft. Lately several of the blogs I read speak of having been compromised, finding one's personal "real name" posted right next to one's personal "screen name." Lately I look at Facebook and realize I don't really want to have people putting up snapshots of me from the Year One and naming my real name. Somehow this seems an order of magnitude worse than the long-ago husband who carried a naked photograph of me in his wallet and once (toward the end of that marriage) threatened to show it around the bar. Do I really want everyone who knows me in any part of my life to be able to see who I know in every other part of my life? and who they know? and who thinks they know them? (Can you spell 'guilt by association'?)

So. Maybe this is a rant, or another venting session. Maybe having laid it all out on the page I'll feel better. Or maybe later I'll feel better, anyway. This post represents the largest piece of coherent writing I've done in two weeks.

Fehhhhh.

So tomorrow I go to Yoga Retreat. At this retreat I expect to:

* Practice silence for extended periods each day

* For the first time ever, teach a Yoga class from beginning to end, straight through, without comment, suggestion, or discussion

* Be student in a class taught by one of my peers, ditto

* Practice Kirtan (sacred chanting) for the second time ever

* Join in Sangha for the first time in decades

There is nothing to fear here, but inside me there is resistance, defensiveness, and a surprising amount of panic.

I have no concern for the quality of my teaching. I know the material well enough. I teach well enough. I am certain to make mistakes and omissions, but none will be so drastic as to keep me from graduating. Probably I will teach well enough during this retreat to pass my "Qualifying" class, which actually doesn't occur for another couple of weeks (so is a higher standard than required just now). This is not what I am fearing.

I have no concern for keeping silence, in fact I'm inclined to welcome it; the alternative is so often 'idle chitchat when I'd rather be thinking my own thoughts'.

Similarly, though I have found meditation difficult to "sit down to" throughout the ten weeks of this course, I welcome the meditation that is in the schedule. Certainly I will uncover some of the painful selftalk and other-people's talk that I have been avoiding (I'm trying scrupulously to acknowledge my own responsibility for the differences between "what I have heard" and "what the other person might have actually meant to say."). Even so, this will occur in a time and place when everyone else on the grounds is also in meditation; it is likely to be freeing and gentle and very supportive for my personal practice after this class has ended.

What I am fearing seems to boil down to a couple of things:

I am fearing indoctrination. I am fearing that I will continue feeling snuck up on by someone else's religious intention to 'convert' me. I am fearing that some of what we will be chanting (at length, in declining volume, and then instructed to whisper it, and internalize it) will be statements that do not seem true, to me; I am fearing that some of it will be invoking deities with whom I do not seek relationship; I am fearing that some of it will include promises I don't intend to make nor keep.

I am fearing running up against feeling disrespected.

Weeks ago, when I attempted to ask our teacher to stop using the word "wicked" to mean "evil done by evil intention" because as a Wiccan I was feeling offended by it, he said, as accurately as I can recall, "and why is that?" When I explained that it sounded like an ethnic slur in the same way that "Jew him down" or "Welsh on a bet" are ethnic slurs, he said, as accurately as I can recall, "I don't know that. I have no knowledge that that's where the word came from." I remember thinking at the time that he meant "so I don't see any reason to stop using it", and in fact, just Saturday he used it, and defined it at length, in a way that made clear that he has disregarded our conversation.

The conclusion I draw is that he uses the word that way because either he doesn't recall that I am offended, or he doesn't care that I am offended, or he somehow believes that as my Yogic practice has matured my tendency to take offense at behaviors of religious bigotry will somehow have abated. Is another conclusion available? How can I make my wounded inner youngers believe that they are not being actively disrespected when this is happening?

Yesterday he handed out a paper with a dozen religious symbols on it, calling it a picture of the 'all religions' temple built by Swami Satchidananda in Virginia. I looked at the paper and sighed, and said aloud that "my religious symbol isn't on here." His reply was "Yes, it IS; you are mistaken." He then pointed out the symbol for "all other known religions." Great. Shinto, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Native American, African, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Taoism each get a symbol. I recognize at once that this looks to me like each Eastern religion gets its own recognition, the American and African continents each get one 'all-inclusive' symbol for the religions originating there, and everyone else gets to be 'Other.' Hmm. (Looking again I see that no religion originating in Europe or Australia gets a symbol, either.)

I'm sick and tired of being "other". I might feel better (or maybe I wouldn't) if he acknowledged my discomfort. I hate that he pretends that what I see is somehow not true. I hate that he feels qualified to tell me that I am "mistaken" about whether or not my religious symbol appears on a single uncrowded sheet of paper.

I hate that I could find no way to confront this statement at the time without feeling a fool in at least one of six or seven ways.

Perhaps I would still feel offended if "Paganism" were given a single symbol not the Pentacle. Perhaps I am just a bit hypersensitive because of how long it took, and how much effort it took, to get the US Veterans Administration to decide that the Wiccan Pentacle was an acceptable symbol to be put on the grave of a Wiccan soldier.

Perhaps the take-home lesson of this exchange is that I need to reduce my sensitivity. Certainly only my own reactivity is actually within my own control; his behavior certainly is not.

But I am thoroughly sick and tired of white males telling non-whites and non-males to stop being so sensitive when they make racist or sexist comments; I am thoroughly sick and tired of Christians telling the rest of us that their religion is the best or their God is the best (or only) or that this is a Christian country. (If you want to look at our forefathers, this is probably a Unitarian or Transcendentalist country). I am thoroughly sick and tired of feeling like an outsider in this place where I live; in work I have chosen that I do well.

I am thoroughly disgusted with spiritual teachers who seem to believe that because they intend to be calm and peaceful when they teach, then somehow they don't have to worry about other people's feelings.

I see, through all of this, how much it is a projection. How intolerant I have been of difference at various points in my life. How certain I have been that other people should be doing it my way, or at least try it my way, or at least that they should recognize that my way is better. How frustrated I have been with people who dare to object to some infelicity of speech or accidental offense I have given. How much I want it to always be the other guy's fault when hurt feelings occur, whether theirs or mine.

But ... but ... inside me is a little child, crying. What if they make me say I'm sorry when I'm not sorry; doesn't that break something in the place where I know and say what's true? What if they make me say over and over again that I am "unworthy" to know God; will I stop knowing that this is a lie if they make me repeat it? What if they make me say over and over again that I honor Shiva as my "Lord" when I do not... How can I feel honest while singing a lie?