Tamarika

The blog is a demanding master

Is a blog feminine or masculine?

I know that many terms have become unisex these days. For example, actor and server or flight attendant and postal agent.

Today, while joking about what to write in my blog, and saying that it feels like it has become a "demanding master," it occurred to me that I had made the blog masculine.

Is it like the borg or matrix with power over us? When I read the political blogs it feels dominant and competitive, many of the authors stating facts as dogma or wagging a knowing finger saying, "I told you so." Everyone seems to be racing and struggling to get the news up first. There are sites that tell you how low on the popularity ladder you are. One site even gives names like slimy molluscs, wiggly worms or insignificant microbes describing those lowly, unpopular weblogs. At the higher end the more popular sites are called higher beings, playful primates or large mammals. This type of terminology or status seeking hierarchy tells me that the blog must be masculine - surely!

Or is the blog gentle and nurturing? Does its many links bind and connect us in ways that are supportive? Lately I feel part of a group that encourages and cheers each other on. It is not a "touchy-feely" deal with everyone sugar-coating the pain. Rather, it is a group of people who share stories at every level, at times with analysis and critique, at others with a listening ear/eye. There are those who write fiction or poems and some even share their art. Would this make the blog feminine?

Androgynous?

Age of worth (updated)

Speaking for me, is self worth tied up in sexuality? Once I was sensual, even beautiful when I was young. I sensed men turning to look at me riding my bike to the sea. Of course, living in the Middle East it was easy to feel that.

Nowadays no one turns their head after me. At early evening a young student says, "Don't you need to go to bed?" I smile graciously, and think silently with a smile inside my head, "Sure honey, but not to sleep!"

Isn't self-worth about touching souls, wisdom, sense of humor, compassion, bright sparkling eyes?

Be ready heart for parting, new endeavor

It may be the Oscars and the world rages on with politics and opinions. And yet ...

If I had wings I would fly to Buffalo tonight for Marion Boyd's benefit. Janna talked to her class about Mar-Mar's illness and they drew a picture for her.

Ah, Mar-Mar, I hold you in my thoughts as friends and family gather round tonight, and cherish you to health with great love. It almost feels like a lifetime since I last saw you. In fact it was just two months ago that I sped away to Buffalo to be with you.

Memories of kisses on infant cheeks, dancing with babies, creme savors, pop and chicken wings early in the morning, laundry on and on for infant, toddler and preschool teams, laughing out loud, calling me "Boss," weeping with exhaustion, holding hands.

You feel so far away.

As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage - so virtue, so our grasp of truth - blooms in its day and does not last forever. Be ready heart for parting, new endeavor. Herman Hesse

Hey, hold on for me to see you in April - not long now!

Don't take it personally

Don't you just love it when people say, "Don't take it personally?" Usually they say it when you are excluded from a popular club, lost a job or a friend has stopped speaking to you. I wonder how else you are supposed to take it? I know that very often what people mean is that the other person has the problem. They have a problem because they do not see you as good enough for them, you disturb them or they are not worth the energy you put out at being angry or hurt.

Most of all it is just one more technique at avoiding relating to you or validating your painful experience. One more technique at trying to fix it up for you and help you avoid feeling the pain. Take a pill, got to a movie, date someone new, go out and have fun - avoid, avoid, avoid. And at the same time please do not make me feel discomfort at seeing you so blue! Just don't take it so personally.

Whatever happened to just holding still, sitting with the person who feels the pain and being there for them - quietly - without giving advice? Recently, I read Andrew Weil's Self-Healing  newsletter with a piece called Minding Your Bedside Manners about knowing what to say and how to act when serious illness strikes a loved one or a friend. He quotes Susan Halpern from The Etiquette of Illness. This is her advice:

Reach out. There is no one correct way to share your thoughts. You can express concern as "What is it like for you?" or even "I don't know what to say," which can spur conversation instead of avoiding the person or situation.

Accept tears. Crying is a natural way to release emotional tension and grieve. Tears should not be denied or cut short. They need little response other than, "Yes, this is very hard, "I'm here with you," "Go ahead," or "Take your time with your sadness."

Words aren't always needed. A smile, a hug, a touch, or simply your presence can all mean so much. Attentive listening is an important gift. Sitting with someone and holding a hand is extremely reassuring.

Whenever I have been hurt it feels like a great loss, or an illness. And, yes, I take it personally. Mainly because the feelings are happening to me. At times like these it helps if my feelings are validated and I am supported with working through them. It would be so helpful if someone would take Halpern's advice at times like these. Then I would have the space, or permission to validate my pain, instead of using all my energy in defending my "side of the story."

"Take my advice, I don't use it," Tom Frantz once said to me. He is a grief counselor, friend and adviser. Most people find it exceedingly difficult to hold still and support a grieving person whether it be about illness, death, divorce, losing a job or being snubbed by an old friend. We become uncomfortable and feel as if we have to fix it, make it right or create distance from the pain. So we avoid it with niceties and slogans: "Don't take it personally," "Tomorrow will be better," "There is a light at the end of the tunnel," "They didn't mean it," "I know exactly how you feel."

NO! How can you possibly know how I feel. This did not happen to you and even if it did, surely you would experience it differently to me?

So, go ahead. Take it personally! Sit with the feeling and I will be right there with you. Find out how it affects you, what it looks, sounds, smells, feels like in different parts of you body. Describe it to me, if you like. We will become closer and, slowly, you might make peace with it, yourself, the other. And maybe you won't yet - not yet.

Emotional Evolution

Charlie once told me that I am like a professional groupie. He was concerned for me. I know that now. He was talking about the way I put certain people on a pedestal and dote on their every word. His concern was about what might happen to me when I realize that those people are mere mortal, human beings. How kind of Charlie to worry about that for me. I think he wanted to protect me from the pain of disillusionment. Or was he telling me something about himself?

Young children believe significant adults in their lives are always right. More than that, children believe that adults are immortal with super powers.  When parents say to children things like, "I know what you're thinking," "I am always right," or "You are destroying me," children believe them. They have to feel this way because they depend on adults for physical and emotional survival. We are always surprised, shocked, or full of wonder when teenagers become disillusioned with the adult world, forgetting our own painful period of adolescence, if we ever had one.

In that context, my adolescence happened very late in life for me. It has taken me a long time to shake off the reality that I was taught by the significant adults in my life.  And it is still ongoing. Most people I admire I believe are so much more than I am: more beautiful, caring, intelligent, wise, younger, older, competent, organized, moral, ethical, pure, virtuous, fun, energetic, humorous, charming, kind, compassionate, poetic, literary, prolific, scholarly, spiritual, vegetarian, right, better off, exciting, brilliant, popular - the list goes on. I match myself with all of this and come up lacking most of the time.

Granted, a lot of it has to do with the idea that I am a younger sibling. However, I think it is more likely that I am emotionally stuck when I choose this way of thinking or believing. My emotional evolution seems to progress, and then every now and again draws me back to my inner child of this or that age. Lately I have been think that religious fundamentalism (whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist - whatever) or orthodoxy, is connected to a person's or society's emotional evolution or level of maturity if you will.

As children we need this type of magical thinking of a super power who knows best and controls us sometimes as a benign dictator, and at others like a cruel and vicious one. The paradox and complexity of human development is that we need them for our survival - life or death. Adults own the Truth for children and that way we learn about reality, right and wrong, good and evil. Children make up rules and rituals that develop a form of justice, fend off the evil eye or create power structures - much like organized religion. Just recently I was privy (as an observer) to a group of e-mails that talked about the necessity of "benign dictators" when "the people" did not know what they were doing. Time and again I hear people talking about God in that fashion. It is not by chance that most of the Gods we are taught to believe in are male. After all we all grew up (and still are) in a patriarchal system. The more we shut out other opinions, beliefs or points of view, the more emotionally stuck, or less emotionally evolved we are.

Dear Charlie, I wish you could hear me now or that we might continue this discussion. I miss you so much because you opened yourself up to me in ways that assured me of your mortality and human-ness, and never allowed me to think that you owned any truth or that you were better than me in any way. You shared your vulnerabilities, fears and shortcomings with great love. Dear friend, there is no need to feel concern for me. Disillusionment is freeing. I am learning that I have a choice in what I think, believe and feel. I no longer fear exploring all kinds of ideas and truths and am thrilled with my new found skepticism about purism.

At the same time, I rather like being a sort of groupie. So many human beings are full of wondrous talents and abilities that never cease to excite and exhilarate, inspire and challenge me. I rather like to hold onto some of their teachings and ideas for awhile - hold them in the palm of my hand and seek out the kernels of truth that enhance my reality. My naivete and surprise at the mystery or complexity of life keeps me energized and alert.

Bloggers Unite V

Please, read this.

New friends

She speaks of dreams.

Child bloggers

Bruce Perry says that some of our most important thoughts come in places like the shower or on the treadmill. As an old blogger friend would say: fuse out noise and then focus. Well, as I was in the shower today I thought about all the fun we have been having down at Amba's place recently. And then my childhood playmate, Mimi, came to mind associatively.

Miriam, as she hated to be called, was my neighborhood friend. I remember us as precocious little girls. We did not play with dolls like other little girls in the fifties. No sirree. We played "notes!"

When we were nine and ten years old Mimi would come over to my house. It would take a few moments of checking in, boredom, and decision making and then we would look at each other and say, "Let's play notes."

We had a little box (I think it might have been a matchbox) tied together with two very long pieces of string in a type of pulley system. The strings were long enough to reach from upstairs in my house right the way down and round to a small closet under the stairs. Each armed with pieces of paper, which we prepared ahead of time, we would station ourselves at our posts. Mimi upstairs and me down under in the closet. I would write a note, tug on the string and she would pull it up to the top of the stairs. Then I would wait while she replied. We wrote our notes back and forth for what seemed like hours. Scribing about everything we could think of often I could hear her giggling up there at the top of the stairs after receiving one of my replies. I loved that game when I was a child. I loved the secrecy of sitting under the stairs knowing that a note would soon come tumbling down in the little box in reply to something I had said or asked. I adored the tension as I waited for her response, an acknowledgment of something I shared.

It reminds me of bloggers. Some of us show our photographs and some do not. Even so, we remain a mystery to one another. Sitting in our different little "closets under the stairs." I think about what it might be like to meet up as a group over drinks or coffee or tea. Would it take away from the tension of waiting for responses, acknowledgment or the feeling of something left unknown, unsaid about the other? Such a different, detached, mysterious sort of intimacy, hearing and seeing our "voices" muffled in cyberspace.

Mimi and I have gone our separate ways. I have not seen her for over twenty five years. When I think back to those childhood days I guess we were child bloggers.

Feeling an age

Talking of getting older. It interests me how some people say they feel 20 when they are 50 or 30 when they are 80. Of course it has different meanings for everyone.

Have I reached a stage of acceptance but I feel 55? I mean how can someone who is 55 really feel 15? Physically we are older at 55 than at 15. More forgetful, different digestive system and sleep habits and so on. What we probably mean is that emotionally we are stuck!

Lately I like feeling my age. Sure there are disadvantages physically at times. But on the whole I am so much more self assured and happier than when I was young. I am able to negotiate with my inner child more easily and find it less difficult to forgive. I experience love and compassion more deeply than ever before, and enjoy my solitude. I have more patience to listen to others and am more comfortable with unanswered questions or the mysteries of life. I have noticed that when I look in the mirror I am not so surprised to see gray hair or wrinkles, and I take great pleasure from spending time with my cats. Just sitting together and purring as we each meditate on personal matters - cats on tuna perhaps or the red cardinal that flew by - me on my next blog posting.

I remember being 8, 10,18, 20, 32, 40, 52 or any of those ages. Some of the memories are exhilarating and sensual. Some cause me great pain. They are all still a part of who I am now. I can pull them out at any time. I have no time for nostalgia today and wishing I was 20 again. What a period of angst and low self worth that was for me. I felt invisible, marginalized and undeserving of anything including education. I remember experiencing great joy when Gilad was born and Stanley sent me a bouquet of yellow roses when I was 23. Emotional memories enrich and enhance my life now but I feel 55. Tired and sad some days. Other times full of energy and joy. Many moments at peace and often genuinely grateful for people I love.

This is a good day. Let's see how I feel tomorrow.

Blowing in the Wind

Capturing a feeling in a moment of a hundred words is interesting. It is almost like taking a risk. On the one hand I open myself up to depth of feeling in having to describe it so succinctly. Trying to create atmosphere, emotion and context in a few words, it becomes poetry. On the other hand I notice a feeling of detachment as I clear away some of the details. I am able to put distance between myself and the pain as I mold the piece of writing to tell some but not all the story. In a way it keeps me safe. I do not give myself away. I am able to keep people guessing and still retain parts of me that are too vulnerable to expose. The difference between a painting and an illustration, perhaps.

Recently a small piece of news slipped by the pundits and politico-bloggers. Or perhaps I missed them. It entered the news like a whisper and disappeared again.

When I was a young woman growing up in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe now) I sang protest songs of Baez and Dylan. I sang at youth group meetings around camp fires and at a couple of work camps I attended. The latter were run by a group that was working toward multiracial unity in the country. Liz Palmer was one of the organizers. In late 1967 she was deported from Rhodesia because of a section of an act that stated: "Any person or class of persons deemed by the Minister, on economic grounds, or on account of standards or habits of life, to be undesirable or unsuited to the requirements of Rhodesia."  She was considered a "non-conformist" because she taught in African schools, made friends both black and white, and lived in what was considered the cosmopolitan part of my hometown, Bulawayo. She lived in Lobengula Street which was the boundary between black townships and the white city. In January 1968, someone who was living in Manchester at the time, read an article that Liz Palmer wrote in the Guardian. I still have the newspaper clipping that he sent me.

Now, I pull out the flimsy, yellowing piece of newspaper clipping. Just a question mark is inscribed next to a section that reads:

I also helped organise voluntary service projects where African and coloured students and a few, rare, open-minded young whites would work together, white-washing a center for handicapped Africans or making a garden at an old age home. After work we would talk or sing: I have a poignant memory of a pure-voiced young Jewish girl singing: "How many years must some people exist before they're allowed to be free?" Contact of this kind, unselfconscious and on a basis of equality is almost non-existent and we all recognised the special quality of such moments.

He had recognized the singer as me. When I sang that song on those evenings after working side by side with people like Liz, Jan and the others I certainly felt the "special quality" of those moments. I was filled with passion and hope for a better life for us all.

When I read recently that the Israeli government has decided to stop bulldozing Palestinian homes I rejoiced. The decision to halt the demolition of homes came after an investigation by an Israeli military panel deemed it unproductive: "The demolitions usually occurred at night, within hours of the attack. Palestinian families often were forced to flee with nothing more than their nightclothes. In many cases, homes that were blown up or knocked down were compounds that housed several generations of a single Palestinian family ... such punitive measures sowed fury and hostility among Palestinians, rather than serving as a deterrent to future attacks as intended."

As we "defend ourselves" or "fight for our freedom" we must always be aware of the way we behave toward one another. People will treat us the way they have been treated. I am always amazed at how political pundits are surprised when history repeats itself or people do not learn from it. The more we cause pain and humiliation, the more we feed into the system and strengthen cycles of atrocity and shame.

Blowing in the Wind (Bob Dylan) is one of my favorite songs to this day. The words became a part of what I still believe with passion and hope:

Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?

Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?

The blogosphere or media did not make much of the news the day that story was published. But I did quietly, alone in my home. I rejoiced because of my love for Israel.

One of my recent favorite authors, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela writes in A Human Being Died that Night:

Societal groups can transcend cycles of violence and forgive, if not necessarily fully reconcile with, other groups. But that process is made more likely, and less tentative, when it is supported by an ethos of acknowledgment and accommodation and underpinned by the nationally constructed language, cues, and symbols of collective reconciliation ... our capacity for ... empathy is a profound gift in this brutal world we have created for one another as people of different races, creeds and political persuasions.

We have a long way to go towards reconciliation and forgiveness after so many acts of violence and pain toward one another. But each small act of apology will bring us closer bit by bit.

... peace is not something you wish for. It's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away! You begin with what you have, where you are and pass it on (Robert Fulghum said that!)