Rachel Henry2 Comments

My friend Mary Ann may be dying. It’s hard to tell because she is still so filled with joy (see Just Marvelous).

When my grandmother was dying, I found it difficult to be in her physical presence because the changes in her body so clearly spoke of death. On the way to visit Mary Ann, I worried that I’d have the same reaction.

magnolia treeMary Ann wears a wig, which I had never before seen her without. Her natural hair is short, sparse, and gray. She sat amid multiple afghans in a partially-raised recliner, and her legs had some bruises. I prepared to grit my teeth and be uncomfortable, but then she saw us and lit up.

This astonishing burst of Mary Ann-ness came pouring out of her. She was delighted to see my mom and me even though she may not have known who we were. Even in ill health and loopy on pain meds, she still manifested an incredible optimism and enthusiasm for life.

She almost immediately said, “God is good.” This is not always my favorite phrase, but when uttered not as a saccharin-sweet coating but with all sincerity by a ninety-year-old with a broken pelvis, it’s hard to argue with.

Mary Ann wasn’t slipping away as I’d feared; she was distilled down to the radiant heart of her being. It made me wonder what my essence is, what I would emit in a similar situation.

Shortly after finding out Mary Ann had taken a turn for the worse, while standing in front of a magnolia tree with only two pink blossoms left, I felt this surge of joy, and I thought, if I’m going to send Mary Ann anything, it should be this feeling. She sent it right back.

Running the Universe

Rachel Henry3 Comments

I have an atheist friend who always wants to know what I gave up for Lent. This combination of question and questioner is one of my favorite things in the world.

I don’t enjoy failure, so I don’t choose things like chocolate or sweets. Plus, I don’t really believe in the utility of suffering. Instead I give up an attitude or action.

This year I gave up being worthy, meaning earning God’s love. I think this could translate into non-religious language if you thought about earning being alive. No matter what you do, you can’t make yourself somehow good enough to have deserved coming into being; it’s all gift. I soon realized not being worthy also had to go because it gives me a reason to refuse that gift.

Letting go of worthiness is one step in my ongoing attempt to recognize that perhaps I am not running the universe. It’s risky, though, allowing God to try her hand at this particular task because clearly omniscient and omnipotent have nothing on me.

I confess I haven’t gotten very far. I like being in charge, and it’s easier to maintain the illusion of control if my actions are filling up some imaginary scales that will determine how nice God is to me.

My main practice has been remaining mindful of these few lines in St. Romuald’s Brief Rule for Camaldoli monks, “Remember above all that you are in the presence of God.” The rule goes on to suggest being, “…content with the grace of God,” which takes earning or controlling anything out of the equation. I sometimes translate the first line into, “Remember above all that you are in the presence of infinite love,” which helps me trust God a tiny bit more.

There are two more weeks of Lent, and my odds of achieving enlightenment by Easter are low. I’m not sure I’ve even given up enough control to fill a mustard seed. But occasionally I remember to stop and imagine myself surrounded by God’s presence, and in those moments, the world opens up and out and offers a sense of another way to be.

In case you’ve lost count, God, I think I’m at thirty-seven moments—approximately.

A Little Help

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Hypothesis: Self-medication through stress eating, shopping therapy, and the like are seriously underrated.

You may have guessed that I have undertaken some such behaviors recently. Specifically, I don’t want to know how many grams of sugar I consumed yesterday—please no illustrations about the size of a sugar cube and the distance between the earth and the moon.

The cause of said consumption is The Visit, which is two weeks away and breeds details at the rate of particularly fervent bunnies. I’m beginning to suspect that my to-do list contains some sort of feedback loop that adds two items to the bottom when I cross one off. Though meditation might be more effective, eating sugar allows me to treat my officemates with some modicum of kindness.

The wisdom of this choice perhaps depends, as do so many things, on the degree and duration of the practice. A couple glasses of wine to unwind after a stressful day—fine; a couple bottles—not so good. A couple of extra cookies for a few weeks—OK. Excess sugar for the foreseeable future—diabetes.

It’s almost more annoying for things to be sometimes OK. It requires us to exercise real judgment, to recognize when a behavior has crossed the line from helpful to harmful, and to muster the self-discipline to stop. It’s much easier to designate something as right or wrong, no self-regulation or decision making required. The rigidity we impose on our lives if we go that route, though, can be just as harmful as whatever we’re trying to avoid.

Or maybe I choose to believe this because I am really bad at sticking to any self-prescribed course of action. The proof will be in the post-visit pudding, or lack thereof.

Going It Together

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The problem with the seven deadly sins is they are so easy to commit. Avarice, for example.

A couple of weeks ago, I was admiring a basket of goodies someone had put together in that Martha-Stewart-has-nothing-on-me style that no gift I give will ever resemble. It’s highly unlikely I’ll even think of using a basket.

I said to whoever was there, “That is not a skill I have,” and someone replied, “Don’t be greedy, Rachel. You are very talented.”

I used to believe I had to be good at everything, even though I clearly wasn’t. I should have had the moral fortitude, for example, to be happy as a bus driver. Never mind that driving large vehicles terrifies me; clearly, this psychological weakness needed to be overcome. Luckily, I only beat myself up about not overcoming it rather than calling one of those “We’re hiring drivers” numbers on the back of a big rig.

This hyper-self-sufficiency is very American but not very helpful. We can get so focused on pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps that we fail to recognize that others are doing much of the heavy lifting (as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in Outliers).

Releasing the need to be good at everything has allowed me to appreciate people who excel in the areas that confound me. I can more easily see the beauty of others’ work when not putting energy into feeling insufficient instead. Becoming a little less greedy has also freed me to realize that my talents truly are talents, not just something all those doctors and lawyers could do if they chose to stop doing their more impressive work.

The best part of recognizing and accepting this diversity of gifts is being able to celebrate the reality that we actually need each other, that this whole life thing is way too big to be undertaken alone.

“There Must Come a Time – 70”

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Seventy is far closer to the end of life than I want to contemplate, but my mom plans to enjoy the entire decade.

Mom is one of the only people I know who has rejoiced at getting older. At some point in her mid-sixties she said to me with great delight, “I’m a crone!” By which she didn’t mean the shriveled up old woman who lives in the scary house, but a wisdom figure, an elder who may choose to live in a scary house for fun if she so desires.

When we say, “She looks good for her age” we mean “She looks younger than she is.” I’m as attached as the next person to being mistaken for a student, but I can also already tell where the spots on the back of my hands will be—at least the first round. Without Mom’s example of aging gracefully, that might freak me out more than it already does. She has given me a priceless alternative to clinging to the appearance of youth or mourning its loss.

I have a friend who is ninety, and the last year has been difficult for her. I understand—as much as anyone still in the first half of her life can—that aging is not easy. But in our culture we so rarely celebrate the joys of getting older: learning that so few situations are do or die, worrying less about what people think, gaining wisdom from having seen your successes and your failures fade, finding depths in yourself when those you love die. Not everyone learns these with age, but I’m not sure anyone can learn them without it.

When I was organizing Mom’s birthday party recently, many invitees said to me, “I thought she was younger than that.” I don’t think a drop of moisturizer has ever touched my mom’s face, so either she has really good skin or something else accounts for true youthfulness.

It might have something to do with elasticity of spirit and willingness to hope. And it may be what we need to enjoy life regardless of the number of years we’ve accumulated. Whatever it is, you’ll find it in my favorite seventy-year-old. Happy birthday, Mom.

Stop Thinking So Much

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If I had stuffed the ballot box at the Academy Awards, Hugo would have won best picture. It reminded me of all the things that matter: magic, dreams, love, belonging, persistence, hope, purpose, creativity. All in two hours.

I have recently spent a lot of time thinking really hard about complicated stuff. It can be fun. It sometimes makes my brain hurt and hopefully helps someone in some way. But I don’t believe even the clearest thinking will ever cause the type of transformation that happens in Hugo.

A brief synopsis without spoiling the plot: a young boy’s tenacious search for love renews several lives and brings some magic back into the world, the kind of magic that helps us understand why kids need to believe in Santa Claus or convinces us to clap to save Tinkerbell’s life.

It’s difficult to believe in fairies as an adult and even more difficult to admit it. Growing up is a tricky business. Real things like mortgage payments and having enough to eat take a lot of our time and energy. Bigger real things like war and global warming can dwarf stories and imagination, which may then seem so small as to be not real, especially if we rely on logic alone.

The movie works because it takes you out of thinking and into a world where dreams come true if you hold on tightly enough to what is important to you. I think this world is as real as any other, but sometimes it slips our mind because dreams often don’t come true and many people never become what they were meant to be, or at least so it appears.

I forget all the time, like when I arrive at work on Monday morning and realize it is only five weeks until The Visit that follows The Report, or when I have, for the umpteenth time, let taxes, sleep, procrastination impinge on my writing schedule. But our forgetting something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

So go see this movie. Because when you leave the theater or turn off the DVD player, you’ll remember what lifts your heart up, and whatever that is will cause greater change and more joy than all the thinking in the world.

Spectacular Fail

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I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to swear at the cat and the computer the day after returning from a retreat, whether or not they both deserve it. Luckily I discovered a mantra over the weekend that accounts for such moments: “spectacular fail.”

I spent the last three days at a Camaldolese hermitage on the Big Sur coast. At the hermitage you get your own room with a small garden overlooking the ocean. They feed you well—the best spanakopita I’ve ever had—and all you have to do is sit and walk and be quiet and go to services if you want to. It is fabulous.

Now, of course, in the Great Holiness Competition, one must strive to use every moment at a place such as this to its maximum holiness potential. I believe there’s an equation that will calculate that potential for you. Unfortunately, during the entire drive up, my brain insisted on thinking about work, which as we all know has an enlightenment quotient of zero. (All of us except the monks. It is actually in the monk directions—otherwise known as the Rule of St. Benedict—that working will help them get to know God.)

After arriving I looked out my window at the hills dropping into the ocean, one of the most dramatic scenes nature offers, and commenced worrying about my mental obsession with my job. It is particularly useful to worry about obsessing. At this moment, “spectacular fail” came to me. I thought, what’s the worst thing that could happen if I did that? Rock bottom would be spending three days surrounded by peace, eating good food, and listening to Gregorian chant. That’s it. That’s as bad as it could possibly get.

Then I went to vespers, or evening prayer. There are a lot of things to do wrong at monastery services. If you’re a non-Catholic and have found all the kneeling, sitting, and standing at a Catholic mass clearly designed to make you feel more in touch with your inner idiot than with God, multiply that by at least a power of ten. I have been to New Camaldoli four or five times now, and I still have visions of singing the wrong psalm, forgetting to bow, or in some other stupendous way making it clear to the monks that they should put an asterisk next to my name to remind them to say, “Sorry, we’re full.” next time I call for a reservation.

When these thoughts came rolling in, I stopped and said to myself, “spectacular fail.” After giving myself permission to mess up in a big way, I realized the monks might have witnessed a mistake or two in their time.

My mind did quiet down. The peace, silence, and beauty of the hermitage seeped in. I didn’t do anything irretrievably stupid, or if I did, the monks were much too kind to notice. And next time the likelihood of my doing something world-ending feels overwhelming, I have this handy phrase to help me out.

Spiderman and Red Cellophane

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My dad has always been my most faithful valentine.

He and I share certain challenges with punctuality and housekeeping, which gives me the handy excuse of genetics. He sometimes calls on my birthday to say, “I’ll stick your present in the mail tomorrow” or leaves an envelope under the Christmas tree describing a gift that has yet to arrive.

heart-shaped box of chocolatesBut when it comes to Valentine’s Day, he is always on time. Every year of my life, I have received a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates. The Russell Stover my sister and I looked forward to as children came wrapped in this fabulous cellophane that turned the whole world red when you looked through it. The invention of the Internet gave Dad instant access to See’s, a serious improvement in chocolate quality if not in packaging.

The card in the box of See’s says the same thing every year, “Happy Valentine’s Day. Love, Dad.” I love the consistency. Some might call it repetitive or unimaginative, but I find it reliable and comforting.

As happens to many chronically single people, my attitude toward Valentine’s Day fluctuates. Some years, such as this one, I get in the spirit and hand out Spiderman pencils at work just for fun. Other years I sequester myself away from the adoring couples whose faces might end up buried in their shared pasta dishes were I allowed out in public. If forced to confront this romantic bliss, single people often recover by watching the beginning of Oliver Twist over and over again, the part filled with misery and endless, dreary, gray days.

During those ill-disposed years especially, the box delivered to my doorstep saves me. Inside awaits a pound of chocolate that speaks of solid, unwavering, male love, not the kind splashed across the store aisles and television ads, but one I know will abide, year after year.

Thanks, Dad. I love you. Many unsuspecting, pasta-sharing lovebirds thank you, too.

Vegetation Equals Inspiration

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Here’s what I learned last week: trees are really, really cool. And important.

One of my favorite things about the local university is a series in which faculty members talk informally about books they’ve written. I attended the inaugural event for potential networking purposes and anticipated dull, dry, academic subject matter. Instead, I have been enthralled by Michigan farm houses, baseball in Taiwan, and urban trees of California, at least two of which are subjects I wouldn’t have touched with a twenty-foot pole, never mind a ten-foot one.

For a professor to find the time to write a book between teaching, grading, office hours, and multiple committee meetings, she must be passionate about the subject matter. I realized after the second talk that any time you put someone in a comfy chair, give her a cup of coffee, and invite her to have a conversation about what inspires her, you’re going to get something really good.

As with most things I learn, this is not news. Joseph Campbell’s “Follow your bliss” has been printed on everything from coffee cups to bumper stickers. Campbell has his own explanation of why to follow this advice. I think the reason is simple: because it’s one of the only ways to be infectious in a good way.

I like trees. I even consciously spend time with them, but if I wrote a book about the urban trees of California, or any trees for that matter, it would probably lack zest. The professor who gave the talk loves trees, delights in trees, knows the intimate details that make each one a unique source of wonder. His book inspires.

We don’t always get to spend as much time as we want doing the things we’re passionate about. Only a lucky few work for pay in their preferred area, and time gets consumed by life’s more mundane tasks. As a friend of mine says, “Adults do a lot of filing.” It’s also easy to get distracted, think our passion will not interest others, or simply forget the excitement of doing what we love because we don’t see that excitement modeled often enough.

If I, who fell asleep during the fourth inning at Wrigley Field, can be fascinated by baseball, your expression of your passion will capture someone, probably many someones. Practice it. We need more wonder in this world.

Note: In case you’re interested, the series is Cal Poly Authors.

Reach Out and Touch

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Yesterday I understood for the first time that mechanical engineers build things. I may be a bit behind the curve on this one.

I was talking with a mechanical engineer who said he was looking for a company who wanted to build things. He put such passion into those last two words. This conversation was the latest in a series of reminders about the way we connect with objects that we don’t with pixels on a screen.

At a baby shower last week, the mom-to-be removed tissue paper from bags to reveal ever cuter items, and I thought, I am so screwed; I brought the dud gift of the shower. When she got to mine, she took one of the children’s books out of the bag and began reading it to the gathered adults. They all got quiet and listened. For a writer, it was a magical moment.

I am not opposed to e-books, and I understand more and more publishing will go that way, though no one knows quite what that way is yet. But no one of any generation will react to a download the way this future mom reacted to the physical object, the hard cover and paper pages.

That same week two real letters arrived, the kind that come in the mailbox not the inbox. Some of the delight of letters must be caught up in the ripping of the envelope, the holding of the pages. I would not have reacted in the same way to receiving the same words in an email.

I think whatever it is that makes mechanical engineers want to build things also attracts us to printed books, to gathering in groups in person not just online, to eating together. Look at the countless handmade goods on Etsy or the way people enjoy moving things around with their fingers on an iPad. It’s the closest computing gets to the physical (at least for most of us—some people are blurring the edges).

It’s easy for me to forget that my thoughts do not encompass reality or even the most important parts of it, and staring at a screen all day can reinforce that amnesia. But physical connection, with something other than my smartphone, reminds me that our senses are designed for more than reading type on a screen or watching youtube videos—and can offer a lot more joy besides.