Not So Grounded

Pakistan Journal

I lived in Pakistan in 1993, the beginning of Benazir Bhutto's 2nd term as Prime Minister, and I remember most her contradictions.  Harvard & Oxford educated, a strong woman leading an Islamic country, wildly popular across the West and  in her own streets ... yet she was a Feudal (a term actually used, despite that I mistakenly considered it a middle-ages concept).  Astronomically wealthy, her Pakistani laborers filling her Swiss bank accounts.  She was plagued with corruption charges, and as democratically elected prime minister, she rolled back some reforms of her military coup predecessor designed to improve life for the country's illiterate poor (approximately 85% of the population).  Here's her BBC obituary.

Her contradictions, of course, were merely grander versions of my own.  Living in Pakistan challenged all sorts of lofty beliefs I could safely harbor abstractly at home.  The value of cultural diversity.  Religious freedom.  Live & let live without judgment.  The nostalgic value of tight-knit families and clans.  Democracy vs military rule.  The contradictions I felt about Ms. Bhutto magnified across the my whole life. 

As with all travels, I met lovely people who share all the same human love, compassion, and warmth.  And as with most travel, I remembered how much more children are loved, valued (and just plain played with) elsewhere than in the U.S.  Consistent universals I find no matter where I go. 

But I also came away better understanding the 18th Century impulse for Enlightenment.  Religion, tight-knit families, strong cultures, social structures ... they can all be kinda oppressive.  Laced with a staggering number of Do's and Don'ts, particularly for women.  I couldn't get on a public bus if there were no other women riders; I couldn't go downtown alone without a cacophony of scary catcalls; in public I couldn't expose anything but my face.  Women were almost invisible:  I saw very few local women anywhere, unless amidst throngs of their children, husbands, and extended families.  Unless they were buying food at the markets.  Or begging on the sidewalk.

I left Pakistan grateful that I did not live there all the time, which felt weird & arrogant & wrong to me.  I've traveled to many continents -- rich & poor -- and everywhere else I genuinely appreciated why people called those places Home.  The unique beauty of each different place.  But this was a place that felt so heavy to me.  Lovely, good, warm people.  Absolutely magnificent landscapes that still inspire me.  Yet seemingly burdened by an ethereal weight that, admittedly, seemed crippling & old & no longer necessary.

My judgments sound horrible, I know.  I've wrestled with them ever since that journey 15 years ago.  Conflicted and unresolved.

So in the meantime, I genuinely mourn Ms. Bhutto and all the others who died in each attempt to kill her.  Genuinely mourn for Pakistan and Pakistanis, as more violence & instability & gut-wrenching trouble seethe.  No matter what, no person or place deserves this.            

Cleaning House

I spent the weekend cleaning house.  My family was away, and I had the place -- and my life -- to myself for 48 solid hours.

There were things that needed cleaning.  In the tv-screen glow of ASU's historic win (Marie always has the best photos), I sorted through the final mass of John's stuff that I shoved into the den back when the impending Wedding trumped any neat organization.  Then went through clothes, hung photos and paintings, reclaimed the guest room, chucked old junk ...

I didn't think much all weekend.  Instead got lost in the beauty of an immediate moment, the action at hand, clearing things clean, and finding lovely new space.  It felt like surprising excavation, not heavy catharsis -- exposing the old & buried to brand new light.  Which became magically re-ordered, things effortlessly flying to their proper place like Mary Poppins tidying up.  Finally.  It's what I always fail to remember:  actually cleaning all those boxes, whether stacked on a table or shelved in my heart, is so much easier & more fun than any dread I anticipate.

Then I put on some Modest Mouse:  "We've listened more to life's end gong than the sound of life's sweet bells."

What Did You Promise the Universe?

Last night John & I meandered to this excruciatingly simple question -- What did you promise the universe?

I found the question months ago, on Elizabeth Gilbert's website ("Some Thoughts About Writing").  In describing her own epiphany during those typical "This sucks!" writing moments, she realized, "I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write."  And so she finished Eat Pray Love. 

The question -- and her answer -- stopped me thunderbolt sudden right then & there.  At the time I was angsting a bit (okay, a lot) about whether or not I was a Writer.  And there it was, the perfect question to figure it out.  Normally I can exercise such existential barbells for days or months or years ... instead, took me about 3 minutes. 

I promised the universe I would help people think differently.  My methods don't much matter -- writing, my consulting day-job, innocuous conversations with friends & family ... whatever I happen to be doing at the moment.  The topic doesn't much matter either, just whatever anyone needs to be thinking differently about at the moment I happen to be shifting that thought.  And heaven knows it's got nothing to do with me giving the "right" new thought -- way beyond my skill set.  Just a different thought, a new way to ponder something sideways. 

Suddenly all my favorite moments aligned, I'd finally found a single thread woven into my seemingly odd & random patchwork of professions & passions.  And I have a prod to unstick indecisions:  does it really fit with my promise?  I go with a "yes," let go if it's "no." 

All with one exquisite little question.  (I'll let John share his answer when he sets up his own blog).

Barbara Kingsolver

I'm finally reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.   My nephew's just finishing a course at Appalachian State on food networking -- he loved the class & read all these cool books, two of which he's given me now that the semester's over.  It chronicles a year when the Kingsolver-Hopp family ate consciously, deliberately, locally ... everything found within 100 miles of their home, preferably where they knew who grew, slaughtered, or made it, or, better yet, did so themselves. 

I'm on page 19, stopped only 'cause I need to figure out dinner for my family.  I am aware -- feeling too tragic for irony -- that not an ounce of this meal meets the Kingsolver-Hopp criteria.  I don't even grow a garden beyond a collection of summer herbs, and while I buy organic and painstakingly read labels & places of origin I know my culinary carbon footprint remains astronomical.  I feel more depressed upon hearing Al Gore's speech today as he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their joint efforts on behalf of the world.  On behalf of me and my family.

Tragic, despondent, and an odd combination of agitated & hopeless are not wise places for me to rest.  So instead I'll push to feel it all differently.  Be grateful to the Nobel Committee for today's spotlight on the most deserving work & leadership.  And grateful to a magnificent writer I have voraciously read for over fifteen years, for her ability to model action that is both imperative and humbly doable. 

Love Unlimited

I've been thinking about love lately.  Trying to make sense of it, truth be told.  A ridiculous enterprise, I know, but I've always enjoyed impossible quests ... Long ago I abandoned the popular idea that love -- even romantic love -- is an emotion, something ya kind of fall in & out of, like a exhilarating ski run or a good long crying jag.  I realized I just never stop loving someone once I started; instead they keep accumulating in an ever-growing collection of Loved Ones till I finally must accept the whole start-stop, this-one-then-that-one thing has gone awry.

The weirder thing is none of it feels like different love, either.  He's the love of my life, I love her like a friend, I love him like a brother, I've found my soul mate ... It just doesn't work that way for me. Nestle a space in my heart and it's your's forever.  Just big, soft & warm no matter who or how long ago, whether the facts were storybook or gruesome. 

Instead, the different flavors are mostly defined by the different contexts.  I love my husband wildly, in part, 'cause he's my husband.  Our context -- our marriage -- holds unique opportunities, responsibilities and commitments.  It's all about intensity & intimacy, blending expansive transcendence and the most simple mundane.  Rocking each other's worlds and washing the dishes.  That's a lot of acreage to tend, and so when that kind of love works -- and our's does & then some -- it's Huge.   

I love my best friends with similar power, but different scope depending on the context.  I laugh harder with some of my friends than with even the most gifted comic -- lightening our loads seems to be our love's purpose.  One friend & I read each other's minds on a daily basis; it used to feel pretty spooky, but now comes in way handy when I'm not exactly sure what I'm feeling. Another always cracks open my heart so wide it sings.  About everything.  I haven't spoken to most lovers in years, but I am routinely grateful for their lessons and gifts. 

Try as I might, I can't rank all these people into best, good, past, or sketchy.  They're all just love.  Each unique and remarkable in its own way.  So I'm going for an unlimited supply.       

Wanda Woman!

A Wanda Full Day ...

We Cabbage Queens marched in the Boone Christmas parade yesterday, as is tradition.  (See my 7/7/07 post for some background).  Photos are actually from last year; still awaiting this year's shots (always takes us Wandas awhile to download & share photos now that our former webmaster has retired.)  Parade was earlier to accommodate ASU's football game. (They later beat Eastern Washington 38-35).  So it was cold & about half the crowd.  But fun and a feel-good morning since we raise money for our excellent local domestic violence agency, OASIS.  But will someone please explain to me why we can't throw treats to the kids?