Butternut Woolens

Two things are heavily on my mind tonight.

One, the children have been out of school for 10 hours and the first thing Boy B said as he slammed his backpack on the floor was "I'm bored. Whine, whine, whiny, whine, entertain me, blahbity, blah, you and my brother are stupid, whiiiinnnne, cookies."

I'm afraid. The summer looms like a battleship on the horizon, big, gray and unassailable. I'm just a Somali pirate in a rubber raft.

Secondly, I'm forgetting stuff.

So in desperation, I logged into my online calendar tonight and actually posted the following:

Friday-12 am, all day. Post two children for sale on ebay.

7 am-If children haven't sold, feed them breakfast.

8 am-If children still haven't sold, boot them out the back door. Have a quiet cup of tea and read the NY Times at leisure.

9am-If children haven't sold and dare to come back into the house, start talking about esoteric housecleaning chores. Remind children cheerfully to close the door behind them as they bolt for the yard.

9:15 remind Boy B that I'm tired of him complaining about his brother. Go play already.

10 am-Check ebay listing. Chew fingernails. Amend listing to include free shipping.

11 am-When Boy B slams into the back door, slams it behind him rattling its glass, marches into my office, throws his helmet on the floor and declares "There's nothing to do", level a steely gaze and say, "You could wash the dishes. Sweep the floor, put your things away. Read a book, go to the park to look for friends, make a craft project."

12 pm-If children haven't sold, feed them lunch. Ignore complaints and constant bickering that reminds me of unhappily married old people who I can't get away from. Deny whiney tempramental requests to play pointless computer games because I have "work to do on the computer" which mostly consists of obsessively going to ebay to check my listing.

1 pm-Check ebay listing. Amend listing to include more description: Two slightly worn, but energetic twins free to good home. Not of the working breeds, but wonderful companions during the school day and for about 30 minutes before bed. Sleep through the night mostly except when vomiting or waking up at 5am in the hopes of being able to play a computer game, well on their way to being housebroken if you remind them eleventy times a day to please lift the lid already you're grossed out by sitting on their pee drips. Get along well with kids and animals, mothers, not so much. Would be best in home with cool teen brother and his friends to hang with and watch in utter adoration, especially if teens won't take any smartmouth crap. Will deliver within a three state and two Canadian province radius. Call me now. Order before midnight tonight.

2 pm-Check ebay listing with fingers fervently crossed.

3 pm-Break up a wrestling match and name-calling event in the kitchen and yell at kids. Check ebay listing.

4 pm-Remind Boy B that his frustrated, crying brother is correct, he can not buy Park Place with money from the bank.

Send Boy B to his room for upsetting the Monopoly board and scattering all of the money. Send overtired, exasperated Boy A to his room for a nap shouting above his howls of protestation that he isn't, in fact, tired. Pick up and put away the game, the snacks, the bike helmets, sneakers, other toys and books, a beading project where Boy A was making missiles and bombs. Wipe the toilet seat, step on a Lego and then a Matchbox car. Ignore the ringing phone and the thumping sounds from Boy B's bedroom.

4:15 Check gin and lime supplies.

Go into Boy B's room to talk to him about his behavior. Notice he's as receptive as a battleship. Ping a few bullets off his hull.

4:59 Race the children to the post office a moment before closing time, slap "Priority Mail" stickers on their foreheads, throw my debit card to the clerk behind the desk and run away.

6 pm-Cut the limes, pour the gin, throw a steak on the grill and put my feet up.

Count the days until school starts.

Do you know how when you really want to do something, something good for yourself, so you make a plan and then just about kill yourself, or at least cause a great deal of discomfort, in carrying it out only to fall short and give up somewhere along the way?

Now that we're having Spring-like weather, I've been running now and then. Having the snow finally melting off means I can once again run on gravel and dirt Forest Service roads at the lower elevations near my house instead of on the shoulder of the paved road which is very narrow in the winter due to the accumulation of steep plowed icebergs. Fortunately this paved road dead ends at the border with Canada, so it doesn't see a whole lot of traffic and running in the middle of a lane isn't much of a problem. Being that it does go to a foreign country however, the county plows it magnificently and the moose and I enjoy that.

I prefer the softer dirt roads however and earlier this week I ran and felt really crappy. I'd stop and catch my breath, then try again. I needed to do better. I took some iron pills, resolved to do better and ran it again a couple days later. I noticed it was kinda uphill. I couldn't run the whole way without stopping. I decided to try harder next time, to not be such a wimp. So what if things hurt, don't give up. So I put on a knee brace, took a couple of Tylenol and tried again.

Yesterday I decided to drive further up the road, past the steepest parts to begin where the road topped out and undulated with gentler ups and downs through the forest. It's really beautiful up there now with the leaves just barely coming onto the trees and the bare dogwood sticks flaming against the brown flattened underbrush and the bark of the birch trees gleams against the deep, clean blue sky.

Turns out I've been trying to run uphill for 1.9 miles and thinking disparaging thoughts because I wasn't doing it very well. Only 0.1 miles in this stretch is not uphill and it's kind of a steep downhill, which is harder on my knee than the uphill is on my lungs. And this made me laugh and lighten up and remember what Pema Chodron has said about discipline.

She talks about Buddhism as being the middle way, neither aescetic (hair shirts) nor indulgent (the box of Ding Dongs I ate this week). She says that driving ourselves is a form of self-aggression and denigration and that when we are in this state, we can't be at peace OR feel compassion for ourselves or others. I remember reading this in her book a few months ago and nodding, mmhmm girl, you say it, but not really thinking it applies to me any more. Maybe when I was younger and driven and competitive in my career, but not now. Now I am secure and wise. Now, I'm balanced.

Bwhahahahaha!

But if we don't use discipline to make ourselves better, how will we achieve our goals? How will I ever be able to run the 5K Boogie to the Bank race with my nephews if I don't bear down and do the training now?

And as a side note, by 'running with my nephews', I mean high fiving them at the start and then not seeing them the rest of the day. They run 5K in just over 15 minutes. Me? Pretty much most of the morning I'm guessing.

But this is an interesting question. How can we use discipline as a vehicle to move us along in the direction we want to go WITHOUT creating a tear in the fabric of our emotional well-being?

Because this is how it goes for me. I set a goal, I try really hard, at some point I don't meet my own inflated expectations (remember the 50,000 word National Novel Writing Month?), I feel kinda crummy about myself, I don't like feeling crummy so I say a form of 'screw it' and assuage my hurt with a box of Ding Dongs or some other indulgence, then feel bad about THAT, then resolve to try again only harder, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.

What a waste of energy.

I did something different yesterday.

I like to run a long way slowly. I really like clicking into a rhythm that I could carry on for hours. I like feeling the breeze, listening to the birds, noticing the colors of the forest and sky. I like to explore the trail, what's around the corner? It could be anything, let's find out. So with this adjustment, this intention to enjoy the run in mind, I set out. At first I was really stiff, everything south of my waist hurt, but after about a hundred yards that went away.

Further along, I noticed pain in a toe on my right foot. I ignored it. Pain is part of training. I'd already forgotten the part about enjoyment. It hurt. I said to myself, so what, it's only a little discomfort, I'm tough, I can get over it. Then, remembering the hair shirt and wanting to have compassion for myself, I stopped and adjusted my shoe then continued. Pain. I ignored it. Then I stopped again and adjusted my shoe and continued. Pain. I stopped, took off my shoe and adjusted my sock and continued. Pain. Blowing out my breath, WTF?, I sat down on a rock, took off my shoe and sock and noticed blood between my toes.

A toenail had gouged a sore into the side of its neighbor. I wiped off the blood and thought about this. Could I ignore it with shear willpower? Evidently not. Should I try harder to ignore it? Am I being indulgent? The fact was, I was hurting myself and not enjoying my run, nor getting a helpful training. I didn't have a band-aid or piece of tape or anything that would cushion the sore. The nail would have to be cut back, it was the only solution other than giving up and it was such a beautiful day in the woods, I didn't want to give up. So feeling like an animal with pretty red painted toenails, but an animal nonetheless, I maneuvered the foot up to my mouth and chewed off the offending toenail.

And proceeded to be enlightened.

I noticed how often my mind wandered. It reran perplexing situations, complete with the dialog I'd wished I'd said. It wondered and worried about the future. It thought up terrific creative art projects involving birch bark and red dogwood branches. And most annoying, it narrated blog posts and told me to hurry up and write these witty and important ideas down before they were lost in the ethersphere.

I hate that. I write for hours almost every day and the last thing I want to do when I take a break is have my mind continue writing.

So remembering gentle discipline, I said, "thinking" and pulled my attention back to my body. Whenever my attention wandered, I'd feel it as a discomfort in my chest. When I was remembering bad things in my marriage, I'd feel a slight tightness in my chest, my breath would shorten and I'd feel like I needed to stop running in order to catch my breath.

Ahh. Now we're getting somewhere.

I tried the experiment several times and it was always the same, whenever my attention wandered, no matter the topic, I'd feel like I didn't have enough air and that I needed to stop to catch my breath. The more upsetting the topic, the greater the tightness. I tried not to think, but I couldn't. I kept thinking. The only way I could stop thinking completely is if I concentrated on my body.

It was happening a lot, this shortness of breath. So much that I was starting to feel frustrated at not being able to concentrate, I wasn't getting into my running groove. But rather than fighting and demanding that I keep running no matter what, I decided when it happened I'd stop and walk for 5 deep breaths, then I'd start again.

Now it felt like everyone on the team was back on board. Lungs were good with it, knee was good with it, colon was happy, mind decided it could go along, too, because it was noticing that by doing the 5 breaths thing, I was covering a lot of ground. I was running a long way! I was meeting my goal even though I wasn't. In fact, I was meeting my goal precisely because I wasn't trying too hard. And not only that, I was having a good time, too.

Pema says a consistent meditation practice is essential to feeling peaceful and compassionate because by meditating every day in every kind of condition we learn to be steadfast with ourselves. I noticed at the monastery that one of the priests had a bad cold. She would sneeze or cough a lot during meditation, but she kept sitting there. Every day, she got up at 3:50am, as always and did what she did for the day. Clearly she was miserable, her nose was red, her eyes runny, she had a reddened sore looking upper lip. She seemed very tired. But I think she was choosing to continue on not out of a driven state of mind "I HAVE to", but perhaps from a state of steadfastness, "Look, now I get to practice steadfastness when my body is sick. I wonder what my mind will do with this?"

When I was little my overwhelmed mother would call me lazy if I didn't want to help with household chores. But I've come to realize I'm not a slacker at all. I think the path for me is to back off a bit now, to develop a finer discernment of the truth of things. What looks like indulgence may in fact be a good middle way.

Today:

Boy A looking at his new ruler with pictures of all the Presidents on it: Cool! My friend C... is related to this president, John Quincy Adams.

Me: Wow, really? How cool is that. How did he find out?

Boy A shrugging: I'll show him tomorrow. His last name is Adams, too.

Hey! There's 3 of them!

At dinner last night:

Boy A: I know what Cinco de Mayo is.

Me: Oh, what is it?

Boy A sucking in a big breath: See, England gave money to Mexico, I don't know why, they just needed more money...

Boy B cutting in: Yeah, but England said after a while that they didn't have to pay it back any more.

Boy A cutting in: But they also got money from another country, French I think it was.

Me: France?

Boys together: Yeah! France!

Boy A: But France didn't say they didn't have to pay it back.

Me: Huh?

Boy A: Cuz France wanted the money back..

Boy B cutting in: They decided they needed it after all...

Boy A breathlessly: So Napoleon went to Mexico to beat up on them and get the money back...

Boy B nodding: Yeah, he did.

Boy A: Napoleon lost even though he had 30,000 guys and Mexico only had about 3,000.

Boy B: Yeah, that's what happened.

Boy A: So that's how we got Cinco de Mayo.

Today's New York Times is running a 5 page story on the Upper Big Branch mine disaster on their front page. They secured interviews from a foreman at the mine and compare Massey Energy's practices with a similar mine in Kentucky.

I thought I was done with this issue, but apparently I'm not.

Something I'm noticing during this year-long experiment I'm conducting with my own life is how much more compassionate I feel not only for people who are easy to feel compassion for, for example, the people I like, but people I don't even know, just regular people who aren't even knitters. I feel so tender these days for regular people I don't know.

I think in the past when I would hear of a tragedy like this, at first I'd feel a kind of shock, then a bit of sadness and righteous indignation, then I'd push it away with a reasoning that goes something like this: "Yes, bad things happen, but what can I do about it? Nothing that's what, so I need to just get on with my life. I'm not going to think about it."

Pema Chodron in her book The Places That Scare You talks about this development of compassion. She points out what I've done in the past. I experience an event and then unconsciously push it away before I can fully respond to whatever I'm feeling. She says that this pushing away, this aversion to what's really happening, hardens us and this hardening ultimately cause us more suffering by disconnecting us not only from others, but from our own selves. She recommends developing compassion during meditation by offering goodwill and forgiveness to ourselves, then to people we like, then to neutral people, people we don't really know, but who we interact with, then with difficult people, the people we don't like, don't want to forgive, and really wish didn't exist in our lives. Oh, she didn't say that last bit, that's mine....*mutter, mutter*..

But I'm noticing something I don't think she talks about. It goes the other way, too. I'm noticing how I can push away something that's pleasant, too. It's like there's a part of me that just reflexively pushes away EVERY experience. But I'm noticing when I DON'T do that, when I take a moment to really take in and FEEL what's happening, I end up feeling ....happier.

It's weird.

Last night is a good example. I wasn't feeling well all day.

The kids finished with their 2 hour soccer practice in the rain and as a little treat I proposed we get a bite to eat at McDonalds. (My new thinking #1-McDonald's is not The Enemy to be avoided at all costs. And yes I have read Fast Food Nation).

They were happy about that, mainly because they wanted the super duper dragon in the happy meal. (New thinking #2-plastic toy movie tie-ins are not going to cause the Rotting of Young Minds).

We got our food and parked in the parking lot. Instead of the black and ultra cool dragon, they got black and uncool penguins, but they took it well. (New thinking #3-Children's Disappointment Does Not Hurt Them.)

As we ate we watched a seagull eyeing Boy B's outstretched french fries. (New thinking #4-Attempting to Feed Wildlife is Not a Sin. Yes, I know all about the problems with feeding wildlife. My grandfather was cited for feeding elk at his ranch near Yellowstone. And for the record, the seagull did not actually eat the french fries, Boy B just used them as a way of drawing the bird nearer so we could appreciate him. No bird was harmed in this meal. Well, that's not true, there was a chicken who was harmed.)

I'd never noticed before how beautiful seagulls are. So clean looking with their smooth snow white breasts and tailored gray backs and wings. Did you know their tails are black with white polka dots? This one had a jaunty black bar across his yellow beak, too. I got so much pleasure from the simple, short act of watching that bird instead of chivvying the kids along so I could get them home and into bed so I could go to sleep and hopefully feel better. It made me wonder what else I may be missing. Is is possible to cure a case of late winter blues and a terrific headache by making a habit of staying in the moment? Of letting what is there, be there as long as it is there?

I wonder.

I'm not done feeling compassion for the people of West Virginia and the rest of coal country. Perhaps because I was there when it happened. Perhaps because I was looking at a mine safety inspector job. Perhaps because I've been in underground mines. Perhaps just because. For what ever reason, I feel a connection and I'm just going to hang with it for awhile and see what comes up. There is so much to learn. And to enjoy.