Still soaked from the shine of your full attention, I offer my thanks to the mothers of Palo Alto and everywhere whose lives met mine at the Mothers Symposium at Stanford on Saturday. Tremendous, great good went into it, and tremendous great good will come.
You’ve inspired me to offer my own retreats, my own programs, as many as I can, wherever I’m asked. Please ask.
And to those of you reading, yes you, who were there: I’m so honored to know you by name.
In gassho.
Before I leave you for a weekend of higher learning, I’ll offer this link to a compelling tribute to the lost genius of the novelist David Foster Wallace. It’s in this week’s New Yorker magazine.
“I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”
The article traces Wallace’s unfulfilled “preoccupation with mindfulness.”
“They’re rare, but they’re among us. People able to achieve and sustain a certain steady state of concentration, attention, despite what they’re doing.”
Give yourself the time to read it, all, along with this excerpt from his unfinished work. I know you have the time, and I pray you have the attention.
A little feedback:
Mojo Mom Amy Tiemann is the wind at my back today. Click on her Quote of the Day before midnight tonight to see how she is counting down the days to the debut of the new edition of her book, which I can’t wait to read. Without expectation, maybe?
Over at A Room of Mama’s Own, everyone’s favorite pseudonym MPJ finally took a leap and overcame her dread of a dusty old book. Everyone, go cheer her on until she crash lands at a happy ending!
And good grief, the folks at Mutual of Omaha snagged some of my aha moments for the launch of their new feel good ad campaign. Find Cheerio Road on the lower right, bringing up the bottom. I especially like their timing, because we all know by now that the aha in the insurance industry isn’t me, it’s them.
Edited to add: Oops! Time’s up. My moment in Omaha is over. They ripped me off their website because they don’t like my sense of humor. And I don’t like their sense of theft. The ahas just keep on coming, don’t they? That’s okay. The only readers who were clicking through were, naturally, in Omaha.
Where you can never be too thin or too rich.
Cafe crème d’thin – Place two crushed Thin Mints in the filter basket and add grounds to brew your morning coffee normally. I’ve never tried this myself so you might just want to make regular coffee and enjoy a robust cup of Thin Mints on the side. You still get all the flavor and triple the thinness.
Healthiest thin mint oatmeal – Microwave a cup of healthy instant oats in super healthy soy or no-fat milk for 1-2 minutes until desired healthy doneness. Crumble a Thin Mint on top. For a healthier version, do not add a tablespoon of chocolate chips.
Mid-morning power thin snack – Eat 12 Thin Mints in under two minutes.
Mint thick lunch smoothie – Vital energy in a glass! Empty a box of Thin Mints into a blender. Add crushed ice and a cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream. For extra thickness, add a whole peeled organic banana, but the truly thin do without the added trouble and calories.
Afternoon power thin advantage – Challenge yourself! Eat 24 Thin Mints in less than a minute. Power down and you’ll make short work of it before you look up even once!
Fresh and easy garden mint dinner soufflé – Line a pie plate with crushed Thin Mints. Spoon contents of eight chocolate flavored pudding cups into the center. Top with two fresh mint leaves from your own garden. Remove the leaves and it’s ready to eat!
Afterthinner emergency – You’re out of Thin Mints. Quick, contact your favorite local Girl Scout before her 8:30 bedtime.
Dedicated to our beloved long-distance cookie customers. Your crumbs are in the mail.
When will it end? When you stop asking.
Here’s a cool website with a glossary of text messaging acronyms. Every 8- to 28-year-old knows these already. You may not need it, except to make sense of what I’ve written here. DRIB.
Since I put my cell phone on pay-as-you-go, I’ve seen the actual price of idle chatter. Texting costs even more, so I don’t need to learn the language. I don’t need to text. I don’t even need a phone.
I love it when I find one less thing. Finding three less things makes me feel rich!
Today I want to write about PPD. Post partum depression. And all the other kinds of PPD. Last week the economist Paul Krugman diagnosed one aspect of our big sickness as post-partisan depression. It’s part of the larger post political depression and post prosperity, privilege, privatized, Pollyanna, Pottery Barn depression. Even reading this may give you post-post depression. DBEYR.
Seems like everything in life is post-something else, and nearly all of it is depressing. Someone far more ordinary than me once observed this truth and called it, of all things, noble! BTDTGTS!
Recently I said as much to a friend and mother. “Every mother has PPD. I don’t see any other way.” In some cases, PPD is medically diagnosed and treated as such, in other cases, not. I say it is universal not to make less of it, but to make more of it. Motherhood is a profound spiritual transformation. It is a passage that shatters your physical self, emotional self and psychological self, and thereby your total self image. Your every idea of self. Poof! To say it is depressing is to say it mildly. We are, in PPD, dead mothers walking. NUFF.
“Do some women handle it better?” my friend wondered. Boy, it sure seems so, but seeming doesn’t make it so.
My wish is that no one handles it. Or rather, that we handle it not by handling it, but by inching forward to the other side, taking all the hands and help we need, letting go of all the old ideas that constitute our pre-partum delusions of what we are. Only then can we be completely reborn. Yes, just as we feared, our children are the instruments of our self-destruction! CRTLA.
Is there an afterlife? AAMOF, it’s right here. But I’m not certain that I’m over my PPD. I’m pretty sure I’m still suffering from it, and making everyone else suffer along with me.
On that emoticon, :-)))))
It will be over when the Dow goes down to 5,000. DAMHIKT.
My mother’s name was Artice. It was an unusual name, and it brought her unusual attention. Almost everyone thought, on first hearing, that her name was Artist. So she was an artist, and she was a mom. I am a mom, and it’s taken me a long time to realize that I am an Artist too.
A few months ago, the photographer Denise Andrade came up to my house and before she could knock at the front door I opened up a side door from the bedroom and hollered for her to come in. So she came in through the bedroom. I suspect that’s the way she comes in most places, through the hidden chamber, to the real you. She said something right off that she will not remember, but that I will not forget, since it is something that I would never in my right mind say about me. She said:
You have a cute figure.
I think that’s why she got pictures that looked like this. Like no one I’m used to seeing, but who must live around here off a side door to a hidden chamber.
Now I’m not supposed to be hidden. I make a point of being all up front and in your face. But even that pose, you know, that Zen pose can get stale and predictable. I’m so glad I didn’t fool Denise for one minute. She has an eye, you might say, that doesn’t sleep. That’s a big-time Zen compliment, but I’ll leave it to you to find out what it means.
I asked Denise to come over because I wanted updated author photos. Because I want to be up front and in your face. Because the last ones were taken three years ago, and because a lot can happen in three years when you get to be my age. So then Denise went and made me look about 30 years younger.
A friend I haven’t seen or spoken too in 15 years saw one of Denise’s photos of me online and said, “Is Zen the secret of ageless beauty?” Zen is ageless beauty all right, but Denise is the secret.
So if you’re an artist, like a writer, and you need a stunning author photo for a book jacket or something, even if there is no book jacket in sight, especially if there is no book jacket in sight, you should go straightaway to Denise and invite her in through a side door. Sometimes you have to get a photo first, and then the book jacket shows up. I know. This one here is the photo my Dutch publisher chose. That’s right, Dutch as in the Netherlands as in Amsterdam, where Georgia and I are going, courtesy of my Dutch publisher, in April, to celebrate the Dutch translation of Momma Zen.
There were several items in the New York Times this week that got me salivating. But the one that cut closest to home was this one about the minstrel and erstwhile Zen Buddhist monk, Leonard Cohen: “On the Road: For Reasons Practical and Spiritual.”
As you might expect, the writer finds it paradoxical that Cohen has decided to re-take the stage at this late age. The story’s hook is that Cohen’s road tour is a mystical mingling of the sacred and the secular. The writer thinks that is notable, but I’m certain Cohen doesn’t. He’s not mingling anything. He is simply singing for his supper, because he’s broke.
Can anyone relate?
Cohen doesn’t pit the practical against the spiritual and make a divine quest out of it. There is no difference between the two. There is no either and no or. That ideological distinction is only in the mind of the writer. And it might be in your mind too. When you’re hungry, and you are broke or near-broke, it’s a good time to get your ideas about spiritual versus practical out of your mind and strap them to the bottom of your feet. And then walk the heck out of them.
Eating is a divine act. It is a mingling of the practical and the spiritual. Pass the ketchup.
A painting of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger. – Zen saying
Cohen is the kind of icon to whom we all lay claim. In truth, I have no claim. I was born a poor, illegitimate music lover and I heard my first Cohen when he was all but done as a singer, living as a mountain monk, and his Ten New Songs was released in 2001. A fellow Zen practitioner gave to me. When I heard Cohen’s bottomless voice surfacing from somewhere deep beneath his navel, when I heard the pure, raw, spare simplicity of the words, I was amazed. “Damn,” I thought, “this guy has spent serious time on his butt.”
But there’s a time to get up off your butt, and it’s about the time you realize that coming or going, walking or sitting, standing up or lying down, you’re always on your butt. Run out of money and what are you going to do? Put your butt on the road.
“Past mind is ungraspable. Future mind is ungraspable. Present mind is ungraspable. With which mind will you eat this rice cake?” – Zen koan
So everyone’s struggling now. Who’s not struggling? Since last summer, every idea I had of my illustrious future has been chewed up and swallowed. Every previous source of income has vaporized. These days I do many, many things, and I do anything for money. Little dribs that come when I need it most. Little sums that get me through. Funny, I actually see more possibilities now. There’s far more tunnel, to be sure. And there’s more light that shines in from all those cracks in the way I thought my life would go.
So come on now, everybody, sing along. Let’s sing and then have supper. You’re invited to my place for dinner, you see, because it’s all one place.
Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
PS My friend Ted says you can find the unfiltered Leonard here. And you can find Ted here.
Please read this article I wrote about my favorite Mormon mommy blogger who isn’t a fan of the undergarments and other interesting bits.
Someone asked me if I didn’t also read that other Mormon mommy blogger, that ex-Mormon mommy blogger. The one who is drop-dead funny, skinny, blonde, rich and popular. Yes of course I do. Anyone who hasn’t yet dropped dead probably does. It’s alluring. Hers is an altogether better looking, smarter sounding life than mine. She has so many readers talking back to her that she has to close her comments. When that happens, it’s no longer communication; it’s entertainment. Damn funny entertainment. Entertainment is good.
And yet a long time ago I came to my own crossroads about my entertainment choices. I came to the spot where I learned, the way all hard lessons are learned, how far I could go by entertaining my own good looks and cleverness. How long I could last on my acerbic wit and abrasive tongue. How far I could fly on style and chemical highlights. One thing I learned is that too much chemistry can lead to the day your hair falls out! And so while I find entertainment entertaining, I do not find that it goes the distance on a daily basis. I don’t know about your daily basis, but my daily basis often requires a stronger salve.
Faith is what goes the distance. Not a certain kind of faith, mind you. But faith in action. Faith in trial and error. Faith that cannot always be trivialized or repudiated. Faith that is sometimes difficult and demanding and entirely unreasonable.
On faith alone, then, go and read whatever you like, but read the article too.
My pitiable little comments are open.
Get up when the alarm goes off. Make your bed without a second thought.
Walk your child to school. Notice the sky, the buds and the berries. Let the sunlight and fresh air dispel the mood of sullen reluctance.
Greet her teacher with a wide smile that imparts your trust and respect.
Walk the dog. The dog knows the way.
Say hello to your neighbor sweeping his sidewalk. He is nearly recovered from that terrible train collision. When he asks you for some good news, say, “Rain is in the forecast.”
Let him tell you about the groundcover seeds he’s about to plant. Laugh that between the two of you, you’ll keep the nursery in business this year.
Visit Jim’s blog and donate a couple of dollars to rebuild the far side of the world. Extend the domestic rescue and recovery to Mongolia, where English is still revered as the language of liberation, and learning it is an act of love.
Using what’s at hand, make dinner.
Drop by the grocery store for extra cheese from California, Wisconsin and Ohio.
When the checker asks if you found everything, say yes. Then ask her how her day is going, and mean it.
Clean up the kitchen without complaint, because one day soon you may need the rain gutters cleaned.
Day done, go to bed. Don’t waste a minute of this wondrous mind to self-criticism, worry or distraction.
Rest easy, knowing that tomorrow won’t bring any more than you can handle, or any less than you absolutely need.
The first time to watch the Academy Awards is overwhelming for any young girl, especially an aspiring actress. We carried her crying to bed, her heart overcome with imaginary acceptance.
Mom, do you know what would be nice? If they gave the ones who came in second at least a medal.
The one who comes in first, of course, gets a shampoo bottle.
Within hours of the birth, the complicated and life-threatening birth of my beautiful and brilliant daughter, a single word began whizzing across that high-speed thoroughfare between my ears. Back and forth along the byway that bisected my mother nature. As I simmered in the newness of motherhood and the inconceivable possibilities that lie ahead, convinced of the utter perfection and excellence of her future, the word on my mind was not now or possibility. I was grateful, but the word was not grateful. I loved her, but the word was not love. It wasn’t peace, or calm, or happiness. It wasn’t blessing or miracle. It wasn’t amazing or grace.
It was Stanford.
Ninth Annual Palo Alto Mothers Symposium
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
Saturday, March 7
9:30 a.m.-noon
Momma Zen: Finding Peace and Patience in the Everyday
with Karen Maezen Miller
How or if or when my daughter gets there no longer matters. What matters is that you do, that we all, each of us, get to a place of peace and patience, by the very means we have at hand. Then, and only then, have we finally given our children lives to make their own.
“Year after year, this unique gathering of mothers generates a spirit of support and compassion that ripples out into our families and our community. We hope you will find refuge from the demands we all experience as mothers, sometimes enlivened and sometimes burdened by the magnitude and influence of this role. We invite you, for a morning, to take a break from all the rules, goals, consequences, and other criteria against which we measure ourselves; and to embrace the possibility that most of what you need to know about mothering is available within you and the present moment.” – The Mothers Symposium
I don’t have anything to wear.
Does this make me look fat?
You hurt my feelings.
I hate my hair.
Does my breath smell?
Does waxing hurt?
My boss doesn’t like me.
I’m beginning to look like my dad.
It’s my natural color.
I borrowed your moisturizer.
The secret life of men is the secret life of us all. So there are no secrets.
Now, can you keep it a secret?
Hey mom, I have an idea to make money.
What’s that?
Let’s invent medicine that really works.
Why hasn’t anybody thought of that?
And that tastes good!
***
Mom, you know what worries me every time I fly?
What’s that?
You know when they say in the event of an emergency landing do not take your personal belongings?
I’ve heard that.
What if I’m carrying my American Girl doll?
We’d get you another one.
Just checking. That’s what Dad said too.
***
Mom, I’m worried about some of the kids in my class.
Why’s that?
Well, they are in third grade already.
Yes they are.
And if they don’t know anything by now how will they ever graduate from high school?
***
Mom, I feel sorry for God, you know why?
Why?
Because he has to create like a billion, million jillion fingerprints.
