I was a fan of Charlotte's Web long before the adorable Dakota Fanning rendition. I read the picture book aloud, the paperback silently, and when I'd finished, the animation. I immersed my eyes and brain and imagination in talking sheep and goats and pigs and spiders, and when in the 4th grade our teacher asked if anyone was interested in taking home to live out it's glory days our classroom rat, I knew my parents would be the only ones who'd say yes to my animal rescue missions. In my house, in my living room, across from the piano, and next to the fireplace, Templeton lived out his two year life in the lap of luxury: a mansion style cage I asked as my Chanukah present.
Templeton was some rat. No Templeton was more of a son of a bitch. But when someone passes, even a rat, as he did in 1990, it's bad form to speak badly of them. So, that Templeton, he was some rat.
He ran the roost as the little one always does. The cat, the golden retriever, even my human sister feared him. But he was alright. He was some rat.
Charlotte's Web tells the story of a pig destined for a bacon fate. Who, by the miracle of his courageous little spirit and the help of a spider, made unlikely friends and prizes abound. Charlotte reasons if she can make the farmer see the things in the little pig no one sees, he won't have to die. Some Pig, she writes.
Terrific.
Radiant.
And, humble.
I have a "some pig" theory when I need to see the best in someone. Somewhere in a barn, there's a spider who thinks there's a pig that's radiant and terrific, and it's only my task to try to see that too.
I like baseball despite my friend's insistence it's boring and slow. (Their words). (And they are wrong). But it would be a seemingly tiresome mission to convince them otherwise. Instead I enjoy it for what it brings me, and through that, through the nuggets of optimism and "did you see that fast ball on a 3-2 count" details of the game I hope they will see it as the "some pig" it is.
Social life. I'm not allowed to have one in October. Because when I do, I'm out on such an outing, and the Dodgers have a 9th inning like the one we had today. A game 2 clinching NLDS Dodger win 2 outs in the 9th inning win. And while I'm dumb enough to leave my house in October, I'm also smart enough, even by accident, to leave on the television and let tivo rewind the entire game for me.
There is a charm about getting to watch a 9th inning like todays, when you already know they won. Because it's not like those bases loaded bottom of the 9th situations where runners are stranded and there's disappointment. It's more like Christmas where you know there are presents downstairs, it's just about how fast you can run to violently unwrap them. So I violently unwrapped the 9th inning, thank you Tivo, and it was just as the 11 text messages I received said, a win. A win. A win.
A radiant.
A terrific.
If not humble.
Win.
That was some pig, win.
That was some win.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Simplicity
Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a friend. A two hour phone call from a friend. A beau like firefighter friend. We talked of the recent weeks he'd spent in Oregon fighting a fire. We talked of the self defense class I'd taken. We talked of the NFL season thus far and a quarterback friend we share. We talked of the MLB post season at our fingertips and a relief pitcher Dodger friend we share. We talked of his sister and her new chocolate lab. And we talked of my mom and the surgery on her black lab. We talked of his parents and their cruise up the eastern seaboard to see the changing of the fall foliage. We talked of my mom and the same cruise she's taking as they debark. We talked about how impossible it is to ever make what we have work, and we talked about what our friends will never understand: our lives are indescribably connected despite our best efforts in opposition.
In yoga, whether you're doing bikram or power, meditative or any other form, uji breath is the common link. The uji breath is so common, that it's at the core what yoga is. Through yoga, you learn how remarkably critical the breath is. That that breath can heat up your body, and cool it down, open muscles and close them right up again. That when life gives you nothing but woes, it's that breath in which you always return to. As regular as the timing of the sun. As powerful as a foreign military. As simple as a child's laughter.
Like grief, a quickness to acceptance is at the core of happiness. It's my reason for being happy more often than the average bear. It's all resilience is. I see acceptance there. Pass go, collect $100 dollars. Buy park place and breeze through collecting monopoly pieces. Win the game. Prize: acceptance. Now go be happy.
I told fireman what a fool he is. I told him that he should go out, and try to find someone as awesome as me. There's no way to say this seriously, so he laughed. "Just try," I said, "and find someone as awesome as me." Just like that I said it. Laughter.
I wasn't attempting to be funny. I was absolutely seriously. Though a diztiness about my personality makes it remarkably hard for anyone to take me seriously. But I was very serious. He never will realize it. He will never realize it not because there's anyone else. Or because he doesn't think he's not putting forth his best effort. I know at the root of my uji breath, his effort, unlike all other aspects of our connected life, is misaligned.
It was a two hour conversation with lots of time to talk about lord knows what. But tucked in there like an eight year old at bedtime, was the place of work. I said I'd struggled so to find purpose in a year that's brought a lot of unemployment. And how I'd learned through introspection and good friends, that my earthly purpose is supremely more important than just a job. As much as that man can talk, he didn't say anything. Until he did. "Rebecca I can't really agree with you. For me, my job is everything. It's first. It comes before anything else. After family. No, before family. They are my family. Everything else is second. And that will never change."
No, no, it certainly never will.
And in the simplest way, our interconnectivity unwhined like a summer camp friendship bracelet through the heat of the tepid air. We are so very different.
I woke up early this morning. I hadn't slept if at all last night, worried, anxious, hesitant, about a job interview today. I'd been up late preparing, and couldn't settle in to sleep. I woke up to an alarm, followed moments later by a phone call from my grandma, "I need you to take me to the hospital."
In that second of pause, of finding my uji breath and trying to wake my sleepfilled eyes, two hours of talking to a firefighter beau came back. A fast forwarded tivo induced recollection of everything we'd talked of, of all ways we were the same, and different. My instantaneous response was of rescheduling the interview. Of jumping in clean clothes and getting to her home to take her.
When he calls me back, whenever, if ever that will be, and asks me of the interview - if he remembers, I don't think there's any part of him that would understand how I make the choices I do. As I don't understand the choices he makes. But in rushing to happiness, I seek acceptance that I never will understand him. And in spending any amount trying to do so, I waste time in seeing that my complexity lies in simpleness. Lies in choices. Lies in priorities. Lies in drawing in an uji breath and letting my muscles know that this life, like it drew us to one another, will draw me to someone who, in our indescribable connectivity, chooses me first, too.
In yoga, whether you're doing bikram or power, meditative or any other form, uji breath is the common link. The uji breath is so common, that it's at the core what yoga is. Through yoga, you learn how remarkably critical the breath is. That that breath can heat up your body, and cool it down, open muscles and close them right up again. That when life gives you nothing but woes, it's that breath in which you always return to. As regular as the timing of the sun. As powerful as a foreign military. As simple as a child's laughter.
Like grief, a quickness to acceptance is at the core of happiness. It's my reason for being happy more often than the average bear. It's all resilience is. I see acceptance there. Pass go, collect $100 dollars. Buy park place and breeze through collecting monopoly pieces. Win the game. Prize: acceptance. Now go be happy.
I told fireman what a fool he is. I told him that he should go out, and try to find someone as awesome as me. There's no way to say this seriously, so he laughed. "Just try," I said, "and find someone as awesome as me." Just like that I said it. Laughter.
I wasn't attempting to be funny. I was absolutely seriously. Though a diztiness about my personality makes it remarkably hard for anyone to take me seriously. But I was very serious. He never will realize it. He will never realize it not because there's anyone else. Or because he doesn't think he's not putting forth his best effort. I know at the root of my uji breath, his effort, unlike all other aspects of our connected life, is misaligned.
It was a two hour conversation with lots of time to talk about lord knows what. But tucked in there like an eight year old at bedtime, was the place of work. I said I'd struggled so to find purpose in a year that's brought a lot of unemployment. And how I'd learned through introspection and good friends, that my earthly purpose is supremely more important than just a job. As much as that man can talk, he didn't say anything. Until he did. "Rebecca I can't really agree with you. For me, my job is everything. It's first. It comes before anything else. After family. No, before family. They are my family. Everything else is second. And that will never change."
No, no, it certainly never will.
And in the simplest way, our interconnectivity unwhined like a summer camp friendship bracelet through the heat of the tepid air. We are so very different.
I woke up early this morning. I hadn't slept if at all last night, worried, anxious, hesitant, about a job interview today. I'd been up late preparing, and couldn't settle in to sleep. I woke up to an alarm, followed moments later by a phone call from my grandma, "I need you to take me to the hospital."
In that second of pause, of finding my uji breath and trying to wake my sleepfilled eyes, two hours of talking to a firefighter beau came back. A fast forwarded tivo induced recollection of everything we'd talked of, of all ways we were the same, and different. My instantaneous response was of rescheduling the interview. Of jumping in clean clothes and getting to her home to take her.
When he calls me back, whenever, if ever that will be, and asks me of the interview - if he remembers, I don't think there's any part of him that would understand how I make the choices I do. As I don't understand the choices he makes. But in rushing to happiness, I seek acceptance that I never will understand him. And in spending any amount trying to do so, I waste time in seeing that my complexity lies in simpleness. Lies in choices. Lies in priorities. Lies in drawing in an uji breath and letting my muscles know that this life, like it drew us to one another, will draw me to someone who, in our indescribable connectivity, chooses me first, too.
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