The Importance of Magical Thinking

These are confusing times. Anything is possible. Anything.

Yesterday, I went downtown early in the morning with my ally, Brian, who has been commissioned to film the process of two murals being painted. Brian flies drones and sells his aerial photography services to anyone who needs them. I went with him to scope out the site, meet the muralist and film the boom lift being set up.

Downtown Greensboro is nice in the early morning before all of the hullabaloo of the day begins. I guess almost any place is nice during that time, when the world has not yet swung into full motion. It is conducive to a peaceful, contemplative state of mind. I wandered about taking photos of emptiness and quiet.

A car pulled up and three people emerged. I looked for the muralist. Brian had the impression, for some reason, that the muralist is from China. I observed a white man, a black man and a brown girl. There was no overtly Chinese-looking person. The young girl approached me with a large smile and introduced herself. She was the most exotic looking of the three and I looked for indications that she might be from China. I decided looks cannot be trusted and she must be the muralist. The fact that she looked no older than 12 made me doubt this belief and I considered simply saying, "Are you the muralist," but thought that would be rude. Instead, I waited for the information to present itself as information often will.

Let us focus on this state for a moment. For a second, I believed that a girl, age12, had been commissioned to paint two gigantic and prominently located murals in Greensboro. That reality existed in my brain. This experience can be attributed to a state of magical thinking: a moment in which anything is possible. There are no fixed definitions of anything. There are no imposed boundaries or beliefs. In the world of magical thinking, there is absolute freedom and expansiveness.

To experience such freedom even for a second is such a blissful thing. This passes quickly, for the constraints of the world are quickly imposed upon us. There isn't much room for magical thinking in the hullabaloo.

As such, it was determined that the white man is the muralist. The information regarding the muralist being from China did not reveal itself. Nor did I seek clarification.

The importance of this missive is to define that moment in which all possibilities are equally viable. A clown can be president. A boddhisatva can be a dishwasher. Friends can become enemies. Enemies can become friends. Truth can overcome lies. Justice can be delivered. People can have enough to eat. Healthcare can be available to everyone. The power that was put into the hands of the wealthy can be taken from them. We can live in solidarity with one another. We can care for each other. There is such freedom, such expansion in these thoughts. Let us focus our attention there. We must silence the inner editor and actively put our attention into that space of any and all possibilities. And someday, a 12-year-old girl with exotic eyes and brown skin will paint a gigantic mural in a prominent location in your town.

Let There Be Peace

Yesterday was my dad's annual patriotic concert.  He conducts the Winston-Salem Community Band and has for a thousand years.  I go to his annual "tribute to our veterans" specifically to hear John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."  I can't help it.  A love of Sousa is imprinted in my DNA.

One of the more moving moments at this annual event occurs when the band plays a medley of all the military branches' anthems.  My father invites all members of the audience to stand during the anthem which represents the branch of military which they served.  People whose bodies are compromised by age, people who look as if they will teeter over when vertical, pull themselves upright and stand during their anthem.  I saw a woman who must have been one hundred years old stand to "Anchors Away." Her face was twisted as if she'd suffered a stroke.  And from where I was sitting, it appeared she had only one eye.

My father inserted "Let There Be Peace On Earth" near the end of his program.  This song contains potent words which the melody alone conjured in my mind: 

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

It's been a rough week at Planet Care.  A new acting manager in my department has a tyrannical approach to the people who get shit done.  As a result, all of my co-workers are angry and hate-filled.  Additionally, a local LBGTQ community staged a protest, coming into the store yelling and setting everyone on edge.  The week building up to the protest was tense.  They are planning to stage another.  This is because two weeks ago, one customer said, "That's disgusting," when he passed two same sex customers kissing in the store.

I walk into work trying to keep all the hatred and anger from penetrating my psyche, which proves in the end to be unsuccessful.  And once all the hatred and anger gets into me, it is difficult for it to get out.  So sometimes simple things like acknowledging the years a person has lived on the planet, the years that person spent in service to others - in whatever capacity - makes me feel better.  It makes them feel better to be recognized.  My father is a great man and does a great service to the veterans by honoring them in his small and simple way.  And to insert the hope of Peace on Earth into his program is probably the best way to honor people who have been subjected to all manner of atrocities.

Let there be peace on earth.  And let it begin with me.

Happy Monday!

People In Cars

It's funny how being in a car emboldens us to do things that we would not necessarily do outside of a car.  I pick my nose in my car.  I engage in primal screams in my car.  I make up songs and sing them into my portable recording device in my car.

People in cars are funny.

Today, I was driving in my car, my Great-Aunt-Minnie-Lee-Mobile, when I approached a long line of other cars waiting to get through a left turn lane at a traffic light.  I thought for a moment, "Oh no!" but then I remembered that there was no rush: my destination would be open for a couple more hours.  So I slowed my car to a halt, allowing enough room for some cars waiting at a connecting street to turn left in front of me, and for others to get in front of me in line.  This made the man in the car behind me furious.  

He blew his horn.  I looked into my rear view mirror and saw him gesturing at me.  He put his hands on top of his head and jerked his hair in an upward motion as if he were plumb pulling his hair out.  He shook his head violently as if this gesture would suggest to me what an absolute idiot I was by being polite.  

The light was red.  Traffic was not moving.  Yet I had stalled this man's progress too much.  

Eventually, of course, the light turned green.  And the first stream of waiting cars made it through before it turned red again.  The man in the car behind me continued to make gestures and blow his horn as if that would make all the cars ahead of him move.  He pulled out a portable phone unit and began to make his most exasperated facial expressions as I'm sure he used his most exasperated tone of voice to the person on the other end.  

I listened to happy music and watched the people walking in the warmth of the bright sunshine.  It was a lovely scene, most pleasant to observe while waiting for a green light.  One man walking down the sidewalk wore a brilliantly colored shirt.  I wanted to call out of my window to him.  I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his shirt.  But I did not want to break the sacred in car, out of car barrier.  It is sort of intrusive when people in cars yell at people outside of cars.  I didn't want to be that person.  If I were outside of a car, I would do this. I let it go.

I occasionally glanced at the man behind me playing an angry cartoon character in his car.  I had an impulse to get out of my car, walk back to this man's car, lean over and say, "Do you really think that by letting a few people out in front of me, you will be any more delayed than you already are?  Why did you not take a different route when you noticed the line of cars ahead?  Are all these melodramatic gesticulations necessary?  What is so all fired important that makes you miss the beauty of the day?" I decided this was a very bad idea.  

Still, I wondered about him.  It must be some sort of survival mechanism for him to behave in this manner, I thought.  He apparently needs to feel inconvenienced by the world around him.  And this is more important to him than pausing to enjoy a moment of stillness.  How tragic.  But his anger is his anger and doesn't need to permeate my psyche.  My ability to transcend his negativity was a personal victory.  In a way, I am celebrating that by writing this blog entry.  Anyway...

The light once again turned green and the few cars ahead of me crawled through the intersection.  The light turned yellow as I approached it and the man behind me blew his horn much longer than he needed to in order to make his point.  I proceeded through the intersection and he raced through a red light.  Once through the intersection, he passed me of course.  My car's bumper was too contemptible for him to bear another second.  It was only after he was down the road a way that it occurred to me, I should have flashed him a peace sign.

Traffic was heavy going into downtown.  Many people in many cars - some patient, others less so -observed the rules of the road, stopping at lights, allowing pedestrians to cross if they were nice, pulling out in front of others if they weren't.  

A boy in a car in front of me was furiously playing the drums on his steering wheel and dashboard.  He was bouncing up and down in his seat and swinging his arms wildly about.  I wanted to know what music he was listening to.  What was causing him to move with such wild abandon in the driver's seat of his car?  I was supremely curious about this.  

I moved into another lane with the notion that I would pull up along side of him and yell out of my window to ask who he was listening to.  Because there was no sacred barrier here. We were both in cars.  But my row of cars moved at a quicker pace than his row of cars and before I could call out to him, I was already past him.  But until I lost sight of him, he continued to play drums on his steering wheel and dash board while bouncing up and down.  

Yep.  People in cars are funny.

Once in Love

I saw the ex-husband guy last night. No matter how much time passes, seeing him is awkward. Maybe the awkwardness arises from the realization that love doesn't die. No matter how much you wish it would. Or possibly it arises from the embarrassment of the memory of a certain time in which I lost control.

This morning, I am filled with a vague sadness. I long for a sense of peace or resolution that I believe will never come.

A wise woman once told me that we are born with a very particular need for a very particular kind of love. No one knows how to give us that love. Not our parents. Not our partners. Not our friends. The only person who knows how to give us the exact kind of love we need is ourselves.

In keeping with that notion, maybe certain relationships arise out of the need to manifest a very particular expression of love. Steve and I definitely created our own world. And for a time, it was a lovely world. Two truly beautiful and amazing beings came onto the planet as a result of that world: our daughter and our son. And this is an accomplishment. No matter what became of the relationship.

Still, it surprises me that there is a lingering grief. When will the grief die? All that I know to say is that Steve and I made a life together. And we created a forum in which to express a very particular kind of love. That expression was unique. It will never have another forum. Because Steve and I together were unique. And even though we cannot be together - because we just can't logically figure out how - the heartstrings are still entwined. And unfortunately, always will be.

I say unfortunately because in this moment, I feel a huge regret for losing the ability to manifest love with Steve. It seems there should be a lesson here. Probably it is so blatantly simple I just can't see it.

Another wise woman told me recently that no matter what your spiritual beliefs, the reality is this: we must move towards Love, towards acting from a place of Love. The opposite of Love is fear. So whenever we experience fear, remember that we want to operate from a place of Love. Choose Love over fear. Love is all you need.

One might say I chose fear over love in my relationship with Steve. But maybe a greater Love was calling me in its direction. By abandoning that relationship, I was forced to walk alone for a while. Over the years, a love and compassion for my self have unfolded. I think it was necessary to be alone to do this. And I think that through striving to know and love my self better, I found an important teacher: Danny Bayer, whose absolute love for, acceptance of and patience with me have helped me grow in ways unimaginable.

I believe it is still possible to summon Love from the ashes in which I attempt to smother it. I'll uncover it a little, dust it off, and see what I can see.