the pelican

once more with feeling

what it is

criminy. round and round and round she goes and where she stops, even she doesn't know.

nope haven't been blogging much and guess the main excuse is that an enormous amount of my emotional energy has been spent mired in the muck of office hooey. drowning in it. heck truth be told i dived right into it with my clothes on. a running jump into a pile of hooey. a hot steaming pile of optional suffering.

see there really is no reason i should be in this position as office manager slash office administrator slash paralegal slash general catch-all doormat at work. true, i'm a good listener and empathetic and all of that. true i've always been a flack-catcher to some extent, absorbing it all, diffusing it, hearing all the stories, offering little bits of sympathy, compassion, assistance, chocolate, what have you. i'll edit your letters and pleadings and show you the court rule that pertains to the situation and tell you what kind of stickers work best and patiently help you pull your mangled piles of paper out of the copier and google up some research for you and bring cookies back from the bakery at lunch and gently read the help files with you to discover how to get the text to appear diagonally in your exhibit and tell silly personal stories about previous litigation nightmares and hold hands and cover phones and turn off the coffee before it burns and turn off the lights and lock the doors. it's what i do. it comes naturally. i wish i didn't sometimes but i just do it. probably a combination of being the hyper responsible hyper vigilant child of an alcoholic, genetics, genuine concern, and a bit of desire to somehow “do good” or “make things better” or “smooth things over.” want to heal it all and make it all better and want everyone to get along and play nicely and be happy and be gentle and kind with each other and for there to be peace and joy and love all around with cookies and presents and rainbows and soft fluffy bunnies.

yeah. a control freak.

a control freak who mistakenly believes that taking on the entire emotional dynamic of the office as her own personal cross to bear will somehow create a peaceful working environment.

right.

taking too active a role in the happiness of others doesn't do anyone any favors. and it doesn't work. and it's trying to force my will over the situation and being upset when it doesn't all go the way i think it should. i mean these people are human beings, replete with baggage and education and chemicals and appetites and emotions and judgments and conflicting desires and stress and let's face it, anything can happen.

anything.

conflict and struggle and ego battles and emotional scarring and warring as well as cooperation and humor and silliness and fun and play.

and as long as i keep that in perspective, i can go about my business doing my imaginary little do-goodie-ness without too much harm and even enjoy watching it all take place. when i can sit back and just see it all for what it is and be amused by the interplay. the comings and goings, the beginnings and endings, the cycles and cycles and cycles of repeating spiraling loops of behavior and interaction and chemical reactions.

when i remember that it's all game, and there is no winning or losing, only constant play. that i am not really an active player, but part of the game itself.

but when i lose sight of the play, and take myself and the situation too seriously, oh look out.

when i place expectations and personal attachments into the whole mess, it's no longer loving and giving but controlling and willing and disappointing desiring for things to be other than they are.

as long as there is a desire for things to be other than they are, there will be unhappiness and suffering. optional suffering. extra suffering. suffering of the self-created sort.

like being on a martyr trip in my head listening to all my inner rationalizations of how hard i try i do i do oh i try so hard i give it all away and nobody appreciates it and it's all my fault and i have no more to give and i can't take anymore of it and i need a vacation oh i can't keep up with all i have to do and i wonder if they're mad at me now and what did i do to create this mess and oh how i've failed failed failed so miserably and nothing i do every comes out right and all the best laid plans and the road to hell is paved with good intentions and what have i done oh what have i done oh the frustration oh dear me.

control. the world will never be as i expect it to be, because my expectations are just that. expectations. attachments to outcomes. hard core desire at it's ugliest and most violent because it is not acceptance and awareness but some sort of misguided will to power.

in my perfect world where i am goddess everyone gets along and plays nicely and takes care of each other and shares their toys and makes their deadlines together and gets the work out and wins cases and laughs and giggles and bakes pies and dances on the grass and gives thanks for the beauty of the sun on the mountains in the morning and respects each other and loves each other and saves each other and redeems each other in their constant effort to be more and more compassionate and tolerant and patient.

and to want the world to be other than it is, is to do a sort of violence to it, regardless of how good the intentions, because it is to not accept it for what it is. to not accept it as it is and still love it and care for it. not because there's some sort of reward or positive outcome to be had. not for money or glory or fame or fortune. not to be right. not to be the one in control. not to get what "i" believes it wants.

but because it is simply being what it is.

which is actually quite beautiful.

see how it sparkles and shines in its infinite variety.

phew.

to step back for a moment and breathe out and see it. for it is magnificent.

and it may not all be exactly as my ego thinks it should be, but it is what it is.

and guess that's not half bad.

after

all.

 

posted by: limine at 13:41 | link | comments (14) |

bird's eye view

before and after photos for a little perspective.

today's daily dharma message:

"In other words, (from a Buddhist survivor's view), I can't do anything
about the disaster but I can do something about my reaction to it. I'm
not going to add to the suffering it has caused with a new suffering of
agonizing about myself and feeling helpless and feeling angry at the
external world. I'm going to take responsibility for being in the way of
the disaster as part of my own karma and therefore I'm going to use this
tragedy as an advantage toward freedom, towards Buddhahood...."

~Robert Thurman

Full Interview

posted by: limine at 10:10 | link | comments (4) |

cat situation

taking care of a very sick old cat. 22 years old. with an ocular tumor. very skinny. very very frail.

for someone who is going to be gone for the better part of a month on a trip to new zealand.

here's the deal: do i leave her there all alone and visit her for an hour or so every evening after work, or bring her home to the cat hotel for wayward boys?

can't stand the thought of her staying there all alone all day and all night. she is very thin. very old. she's at that stage where she weaves. she's not cleaning herself much. she's very very affectionate, and she's eating, and she's not quite on the edge yet, but very very close. geriatric. to be perfectly honest, not sure that she'll still be here when her person returns.

the trip here to the cat hotel will be quite stressful. she's frail and essentially blind in one eye. and the boys, well, they won't be threatened by one sick old lady, but five male cats in a gang would be no doubt a bit traumatic for her. or, i could put her in the spare bedroom and keep her isolated from the boys.

the move will be an ordeal, and the shock may not do her much good. but i can't stand the thought of her just sitting there alone all day and all night, possibly just waiting to die at this point, all alone. she is almost, not quite but very close, very soon, of needing in-home kitty hospice.

and even here, she'll still be alone for most of the day while i'm at work.

should i leave her alone, in her own house where she's comfortable and knows everything well, but will be all alone and very lonely and sad, or, do i bring her home with me to the cat hotel?

will the trauma of the boys and the strange environment be not worth the extra attention and affection she would receive as a full time resident for a month?

posted by: limine at 22:44 | link | comments (6) |

mlk day

actually got the day off work today. the law office actually took time off. amazing. never seen it done before in all my years as a paralegal. well once when i worked for a big firm, they at least gave us a lunch appreciation meeting, and we voted on the attorneys' kids' diversity slogan buttons, and the managing partner read the i have a dream speech. but we still had to bill that day and work went on. but that was a bigger firm. most of the time, even that much official acknowledgment doesn't happen in a law firm. well, we work but we do all talk about it, have to say most plaintiffs' law firms do respect the day and the symbolic import, i'll give them that, but the work must go on. and oh there's no court, no banks or post office, but many trial attorneys just never really stop working. in their minds i think, that's how they honor the day, to continue with their cause, to work for their injured people while the insurance paid billing for farting defense is out on the boat sipping cocktails on their three day weekend. and in fact, of the attorneys in our office, one partner is in a mediation today, and another is in depositions. but they gave the office the day off, and that's quite nice.

ah the sun upstairs in the morning in my little alcove under the eaves at the top of the stairs. in my little nook where i type. bright sun reflections on the tree to my left side north. and across the room as i face outward through all the bookcases, the east. the squawk of the geese across the way, the trees and that morning sunlight. yep. kettle goes off downstairs, cup of tea imminent. toast and marmite. jack is curled up dozing and warming my green wool knitted by sister sock feet.

for me, this has been a return of appreciation of good and simple things from a dark depression abyss that has been drowning me for days. oh i know it's oh so fashionable to be depressed. bored. out of place. that distant disdain for all i survey. to look down upon the world and find it wanting. to see only what could have been, what should be done, what never has been, what once was and will never be again. unrest and distrust and disappointment and endless longing and fidgety nervous loneliness. oh the suffering of an abundance of melancholy.

but i can only take so much of myself and the wallowing. it's got its place, it's going to happen from time to time. waves of grief and pain and loss and confusion and meaninglessness. they recede eventually and then i notice this morning light in the eastern windows and i imagine a book i'm going to write. or it could be a play. book first maybe, to explain it all of course. it all makes sense and it even makes me cry. now how to go about making it happen. and i feel excited and happy and hopeful again.

and i owe it all to Martin Luther King today. because he embodies this principal that i value perhaps above all others. nonviolence. he advocated nonviolence. he stood up to the greatest sadness and grief and injustice, anger anger anger and welling hurt and most soul crushing awareness and experience of the inhumanity of humanity, and he just looked it in the eye and said this is the turning of the tide and we will all prevail. the truth will out. he just believed. he knew change would come, not through acting out in violence, but through an awareness in consciousness. he took that leap of faith. and he was so beautiful.

some people seem to only want to make this day all about racism. just a basic hate based racist thing, of course this is a reality and true, but civil rights are so much bigger, so much greater, so much more symbolic than just racism. human dignity for all. appreciation of diversity is only the surface. deeper in, Martin Luther King was about staring ignorance in the eye and overcoming the ugliness of hate through nonviolence. ahimsa. he just never stopped standing his ground, standing in his own truth. and he was so very effective. he accomplished so much. continues to reverberate through, to inspire, to appreciate, to remember to overcome hated and violence with love. to show ignorance to be what it is, the truth of its nature, to look at it in the eye without acting out and simply turning it to face itself. peace activism. gentle constant persistent conscious change. being the change. being the alternative. compassion as an end in itself. yeah.

so i owe it all to MLK day because it just hit me how to incorporate it all. how to stuff my ideals into a sort of symbolic form, to express it, to make it an adventure, to say it without saying it, because i want there to be some redeeming thing, want to give it meaning not just be about suffering want it to fit it into events and actions and how it's not all pointless and meaningless and maybe it will be ok maybe it won't just be cliche won't just be too contrived maybe could be sort of a journey after death kind of thing, a jump into another reality, imagination imagination and the journey the journey after death at the gateway of souls. and of course it might be crap but what the heck think i'm going to start work on it anyway, see.

well so anyway.

anyway i got stuff to do. day off in observance of Martin Luther King day.

got things to write. things to think about. things to do, things to do.

and the sun climbs higher in the sky.

posted by: limine at 10:51 | link | comments (4) |

elephant heart 

 

it's been eleven days since the tsunami.

 

today, i'm wearing some little silver elephant earrings and my sparkly elephant angel socks.

 

no, not a republican. just an elephant fan.

 

you see, the day of the tsunami, the elephants cried.

 

they knew. they just knew.

 

and then they ran for the hills, scooping up people to save as they went.

 

and now they're helping out, working hard in the clean up efforts.

 

always loved elephants. they seem like big soft dinosaurs. just to look at one does something to the heart. they radiate ancient wisdom.

 

elephants are smart. and emotional. they mourn for their dead. and they protect their families and friends. and they are stong and wise and old and great.

 

and, they're in all the best stories.

 

once upon a time, six blind men who didn't know what an elephant was, were allowed to go one by one into a room with an elephant. afterward, they fell into a terrible argument. one felt the elephant's trunk, and insisted he was like a snake. one felt his side, and thought he was like a wall. one felt his tusk, and was positive he was like a sword or a spear. one felt his leg, and was adamant he was like a tree. and one felt his ear, and said he was like a fan. and one felt his tail, and was certain the elephant was like a piece of rope.

 

ever listen to a bunch of spiritual aspirants argue about the truth?

 

of course the elephant knows that he is all of these things. and none. and more.

 

and elephants never forget.

 

because all wise elephants know

 

that "i am"

 

and always will be

 

the elephant

 

in the room.

 

posted by: limine at 10:10 | link | comments (7) |

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