Dear Santa,
For Christmas I would like an American Girl doll that looks like me. Here are other things that I would like: Puppy, iPhone, and an adopted sister.
(And a whole lot more that I forgot.)
Love,
Georgia Miller
Editor’s Note: 1 out of 4 and a new pair of socks.
Every day seems like one more past due the time for lame ducks to fly south. And north and east and west. To all the lucky ducks who know what I’m flapping about, your webbed feats are now finally in flight.
And speaking of bills coming due, it’s time for me to give great thanks to the hosts of my most recent layovers.
To the gracious parents and staff at Palos Verdes Hills Nursery School: You gave me such a warm howdy-do to the feathered nest where I was hatched! Thank you for an evening encircled in love and attention.
To the good people of Kansas City’s Rime Buddhist Center: You must be the very kindest and open-hearted flock of Buddhists I’ve ever come across. This makes two times I’ve touched down in your lotus pond. And as sure as we warm-blooded breeds migrate, I’ll be back.
To the sweet circle of women gathered by this newfound soul sister: We shared ourselves and our stories over candlelight and tea (while the kids mattress surfed upstairs, no less!) We are indeed birds of a feather.
Thank you all for reassuring me, once again, that when we put ourselves in motion, we can’t help but fly.
Feather originally uploaded by erynnchelsey.
Never again believe what you read.
Never again fly on the most overbooked air travel day of the year.
Never again go via this airline through this airport.
Never again be in a hurry to get home when fog socks in your destination.
Never again leave your dog at home with a dogsitter who misunderstands/misreads/forgets when you are returning.
Never again get the smell of fear, anxiety, panic and dog poop out of the rugs.
Never again use sudsing detergent in your new front-loader.
Now, never again say never again. Instead, sit a few hours of Rohatsu at the temple this week and make your mind open, your heart forgiving and the world right side up.
Forever again.
Come Christmas, McKenna Hunt, a gregarious little girl from Safety Harbor, Fla., will receive the play kitchen and the Elmo doll she wants. But her mother, Kristen Hunt, will go without the designer jeans she covets this season.
– New York Times
To give their children health, mothers do without.
To give their children sleep, mothers do without.
To give their children attention, mothers do without.
To give their children time, mothers do without.
To give their children comfort, mothers do without.
To give their children respect, mothers do without.
To give their children shoes, mothers do without.
To give their children security, mothers do without.
To give their children freedom, mothers do without.
For a mother, doing without is never doing without love.
Try designing that into a pair of jeans.
So we cut out our Sunday subscription to the New York Times. We are loyal readers, but we can’t afford any more of this news.
We cut out our weekly personal training. Giving ourselves a swift kick in the butt.
We cut out our support of the conservation voter’s league. A cruel end after a tireless fight.
We cut out our daughter’s studio art class. Until the paint dries on the ugly mess we’re in.
We cut out our online subscription to the Wall Street Journal. We’ve long since stopped gagging on it, but wouldn’t you know they were double charging us?!
I was overruled in my attempt to cut out satellite TV. Some channels never change.
We quietly removed the Obama-Biden valedictory sign from our front yard. To usher in a bold and brave new day in this bountiful country we love and share.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy day after.
Happy every day after.
To you, to me, to everyone cradling a secret wish or a distant dream. Read this through, see what comes, leave your disbelief under the shade of a strong and fragrant cedar, and trust your life as it unfolds.
A welcome blessing for Cedar Leonard Kroon, in full amazement and gratitude for life.
Now, leave your own wish here for what you may not yet believe could come true, and let’s see, let’s just see, what unfolds.
I’ve had this post in my mind for a very long time, nearly every time that I look at Redhead, age 4, and her next-door fishmate, Firefly, soon to be 3. Actually, I’m not certain of their chronological age at all, just that they have been in our disbelieving care for what seems like forever. Here’s my secret formula for goldfish longevity.
1. Suffer the immediate demise of two to three other goldfish and tell yourself you will never be so foolish as to bring another one home.
2. Leave the house for the morning.
3. During which time your husband drives by the pet store and escorts your daughter inside, then leaves with a 25-cent fish and $40 in tank, decoration, and filtration supplies.
4. Install said fish in this high-dollar, intensive care, assisted living habitat.
5. Remind your child every morning and evening to feed the fish.
6. This requires repeating the following phrase eight full times, twice a day, every day, for 1,460 days: Did you feed the fish?
7. Repeat after me, Did you feed the fish?
8. Repeat it 23,360 times over four years.
9. Then feed the fish yourself.
10. Leave the house for the morning.
11. During which time your husband takes your daughter to the old-fashioned carnival in the park, then leaves with a free, 25-cent goldfish in a cellophane bag.
12. Inwardly scream, then regain your calm with the thought, “I bet these fish could share the same tank.”
13. Remove remains and give teary daughter a tutorial on “survival of the fittest.”
14. Leave the house for the morning.
15. During which time your husband drives by the pet store and escorts your daughter inside, then leaves with a 25-cent fish and another $40 in tank, decoration and filtration supplies.
16. Repeat steps 4-9.
17. Use only distilled water to refill tanks.
18. Fully and/or partially refill tanks every Saturday.
19. This requires two gallons of distilled water at $1.29 each once a week for 208 weeks.
20. Marvel at the lifespan of your fish, but do not do the math.
I just spent $80 buying four tickets to my daughter’s upcoming theatrical debut. Hours earlier, I spent $137 on a pediatric dental check up. (Oh, the pain of having no cavities.) We celebrated by spending $5.60, even with a coupon, at the overpriced ice cream store. I haven’t even tallied the cumulative damage of grocery shopping six separate times last week.
The sum total is I hate to spend money, and I never hated it more than now.
But after reading one of my favorite mamas shout it out, and the country’s most sensible columnists spell it out, I had a revelation earlier today. I’d better go with the flow. In fact, I’d better flow even mo’.
Spending is the new saving.
The only way to keep this boat afloat is to start bailing it out.
We’re going to have to save this sinking ship by spending money.
This is acutely painful to me, and in that way I can be sure that it is my penance. Because it is so powerfully my own lesson, I have to start by apologizing for dragging the whole globe into this ordeal with me. Sorry, shipmates.
***
I know, I know. After I just railed against wanting the things we don’t need, now I say we need to buy what we don’t want. What I’m really saying is what I’m saying to myself. I cannot be both optimistic and fearful, trusting and stingy, loving and miserly. I did my best to cover my bases. I didn’t expect it to turn out this way. Now I’m going to have to do the really difficult thing.
I’m going to have to admit that it didn’t turn out the way I expected it to.
I’ve read what some of you write about financial pressures, where you stand, what you’re in and what you’re not. Layoffs and loans. Skimpy paychecks and thrift store bargains. Market trauma. Unopened IRA statements. Maybe you had a lot to lose and did. Maybe you didn’t, so you’re not far behind. Either way, we’re all in it together. And I will say this: I have had my time to work hard and save money. What I saved was never intended just for myself, but to ease the way for others: my daughter’s education, my family’s age and infirmity, my commitment to the dharma, and a comfort against the vast dark specter of uncertainty. I am no financial genius, and I am no saint, but I felt, up to now, secure. But more than that, I felt smart, disciplined and dutiful.
But I’m none of those things. I have no insulation from bad news or disappearing digits. No buffer from the bottomless bottom line.
But as of now, I have four tickets to some guaranteed good times, and paying top buck is the only way I can share.
God bless us, every one.
One very late night among many very late nights lately, Georgia spoke up before falling asleep. Does this mean I am a professional? she asked. I assured her. Yes, you are a professional.
My nine-year-old is a professional. A professional beggar. She was the last in a cast of dozens given a role in our little town’s live theater performance of “A Christmas Carol.” She is deep into final rehearsals and costume fittings, and this is where our story turns. She was cast, or so we presumed, as a beggar girl. The costume is for a beggar boy.
You don’t have to tell me that to a nine-year-old, the difference between a boy part and a girl part is unfathomable and untouchable. And although she has been counseled by her parents that there is little to be done at this late and desperate hour, no fix or balm; although everyone has tried to convince her that playing a boy is Oscar bait for pretty girls, she cannot be sold or satisfied.
Because she is safe in expressing all of herself to me, her deep and dark feelings, she does. Every morning and night she tosses them up to me, her worrisome frets and ceaseless spins, about how to change the costume, how to replace it, get around it, make one more phone call, concoct one more reason, convince the powers that be, etc. etc. chapter and verse. (Mind you, she does not under any circumstance want to quit the show. She is an actress, first and last.)
On the way to school on Friday morning she lifted her chin and said again, as if anew, “I still really need to change that costume,” perhaps hoping that phrasing it as a need instead of a want would score results from her miracle-making mom.
I stopped cold and said icily, in a voice that would freeze your eyeballs: IT’S NOT IMPORTANT!
And it’s true, it’s not important. It just wasn’t a very nice thing to say.
We are beggars, the both of us. She is begging me to do something. And I am begging her to do nothing. We are, each of us, nearly always begging for what we don’t have.
***
A long time ago I had a Buddhist boyfriend who dumped me (but that’s another story) and as he got sick and tired of me he started to say abruptly rude things. They were probably true, but as the saying goes, I wasn’t ready to hear them. I hear them now! One thing he said was that I needed to learn the difference between need and want. He probably said it in the context of my complete debasement, in the midst of vain and endless pleading, while I clutched his pants leg, being dragged across a parking lot, wailing But you can’t leave! I need you!
The difference between need and want? I hadn’t a clue at the time. He set me wondering even as he set me wandering and I presumed that he had achieved some lofty kind of Buddhist understanding far beyond a groveling earth-dweller like me.
(Beware any Buddhist who appears to have attained any understanding, particularly the lofty kind.)
He hadn’t achieved anything, but he was right. I really didn’t need him, although my “needing” of him did set me off on this path to satisfy my wants, and I really did need that. We all do.
***
What is the difference between need and want? One starts with an “n” and one starts with a “w.” That’s about all I can distinguish. They are just words we either like to use or don’t like to use, choose or don’t choose, to label our dissatisfaction, our unfulfilled desire. Because really, whether we sanction something as a “need” or not, do we really need it? And when for a breathless moment we want something, do we really want it for long? I guess not, because look how easy it is to live without all the things we once wanted, and none of the things we don’t have but still think we need.
Life really is pretty easy by itself, unless we need or want for something different.
Needs and wants are the things we beg for, whether it sounds like begging or not, whether we are aware or not, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the costume. Begging is the role of a lifetime. The curtain rises, and we start begging. The curtain closes, and who knows what becomes of the beggar? The real question is this: when, in the brief span between the rise and the fall, will we ever stop? When will we ever enjoy the show?
Shhhhh! It’s starting.
***
A reminder to put my whole self in the cup, and get the world in return.
Photo originally uploaded by Alastair Bird.
Since I’ve come home from sitting so much has appeared. Thousands of words flew out by themselves. I wrote a piece this week that amazed me so and reminded me that writing – and everything – is not a thought process, but its own process. We do not write words but the words write us, and then we can read them along with everyone else and learn something.
The piece I’m referring to won’t be visible for a few months, and when it is on paper it will be brand new to you and me both.
What I want to say is how inextricable stillness is from motion and motion is from stillness. Either one, when unlatched from the hindrance of our repetitive critical thinking, makes things happen! When I am stuck, I go for a walk and get unstuck. When I am going nowhere, I sit still in meditation, open my mind and get somewhere.
I hope that you try it for yourself. Getting out of your own way is the way out!
Soon I’ll be in motion again near and far. I’m always inspired by the chance to meet and speak with practicing parents and/or practicing Buddhists, and if you are anywhere in the neighborhood, please go out of your way and come along:
Thurs., Nov. 20, 7 p.m.
Palos Verdes Hills Nursery School
Sun., Nov. 30, 10:30 a.m.
Rime Buddhist Center
Kansas City
This week I have a new article appearing in the quarterly magazine Buddhadharma, entitled “Looking Under the Bed.” It brings to light my rather poorly hidden view of the urgent need for real practice. The magazine is on newsstands this week, and my commentary is partially excerpted here.
I am grateful to the editors of Buddhadharma and the sister publication the Shambhala Sun for their kind and steady solicitation of my work. I encourage you to read as much of the publications as you can online, and to consider buying the current issue or subscribing. It’s true that there is too much debate and discussion about Buddhism in Buddhism (that’s the -ism I can do without) but there is always a need to refresh and encourage yourself in the Way, particularly by reading things that might make you uncomfortable!
You might also have noticed a new entry in my blogroll: the Shambhala SunSpace, a new editors’ blog updated frequently with short bursts of shine. Take a look under it all for yourself.
Edited to add: Find your own Buddha night light here.
There are many, many things that are dear to me, but one of the dearest is a reader.
A dear reader contacted me with this finding, a sterling silver “breakfast cereal necklace.” Yes, that very breakfast cereal that is so dear to us mothers, dear because it infiltrates and overtakes our lives and carpets and tabletops and carseats, ground into dust on floorboards, sofas, strollers, and high chairs, hidden in tiny fists and under tongues, carried in ziplocks, diaper bags and purses, never ever to be without until the day they disappear for good.
They disappear. You can try to cast them in silver and string them around your neck, but they disappear, and that’s what makes them precious, our Cheerio days. They disappear.
This is a road that is neither solid nor silver, and all the more priceless for leaving no trace.
Thank you, dear reader.
Suffering from the peculiarly exhausting cocktail of jubilation, mileage, time change and things-to-do, I opened up the mail yesterday to find at long last the arrival of our his-and-her first edition Obama-Biden car magnets, the ones we anteed up for months ago in hopes of having the final word on the subject.
That’s OK. I think these two will stick around for awhile.
