Category: The See-Saw Of Life

I was sitting on the edge of the tub late last evening, soaking my foot trying to pamper a beginning blister or two gotten from lots of weekend walking with the wrong shoes. Suddenly the word overkill came into my mind from nowhere, and it hovered there. So I started playing around with the word wondering where it would lead. Perhaps previous conversations with people on separate occasions brought this word to the surface. Dictionary.com defines overkill as, “an excess of what is required or suitable . . . .” What comes to your mind when you hear this?

Hmm! Does it seem to you that there’s an excess of just about everything you can think of? For instance, if you want to take a yoga class, and you can’t stand the hot yoga your friend likes, where do you begin to look for a class? There’s so much out there. Do you just keep joining classes until you find the right one for you? And have you looked at the shelves of soaps? And shampoos? The lotions and potions? All the over-the-counter stuff for “health care”? All the money spent on buying the wrong products. As I go on and on I’m finding this quite fascinating because when stopping long enough to think about it it’s all part of the complicated world we live in.

Look around and you’ll notice that many women have trouble finding pants that fit properly. Finding the right pair is not easy for most of us. So sometimes we settle, and that’s funny because, with such an array of choices, it’s strange to have to settle for something not quite right because we can’t find what works. I’ve passed by empty fitting rooms in stores, and noticed big piles of pants on the floor, some pants are inside out. Customers probably wore themselves out trying to find pants that fit. It should be a simple matter, however, there’s simply too much of everything. And a lot of it doesn’t work. And sifting through it all takes lots of energy, patience and time.

Spas used to be special. Now they’re everywhere. Some good; some not so good. The thing about the not so good is that, unless you hear otherwise, you end up spending money and time to discover that it’s not good. Glitz and ads are not indicators that a place is great.

And yes, another thing, shoes. I brought a pair of shoes to a cobbler who’s very good at what he does, and because I was complaining about the new shoes I’d just bought, he went on to say that the quality of shoes is not what it used to be, that so much is mass-produced as in just get it to the marketplace. Even some so-called designer shoes, expensive ones, don’t have the quality they once had.

It’s entertaining (many words could be used here, but let’s just say entertaining) to go on and on thinking about the excess we see everywhere; it tends to put things into perspective. And that could be a good thing. It’s a bit thought-provoking to get into the why of excess we find all around us. If we were to go deeper into the why of it, what would we discover?

It’s good to be aware. Right?

Some people have such complicated and taxing personal lives, and others have such simple and lovely lives. The mind of some can’t fathom simplicity. When they conjure up the word, simple, it tends to mean something unpleasant to them. I think they feel with simple they’ll wallow in having nothing, being nothing, and doing nothing. I suppose if that’s what the thought process is, that is what could happen. You know, “As Within, So Without. ”

Simple is easier to define than complicated, after all it’s about simple. Simple allows for lots of other things to happen in one’s life, whereas complicated keeps gathering momentum until it strangles. This is a very simple example of complicated: There are people who, when they pick up their mail, save everything -every scrap of paper-lest “something important” slips past them. These people have a big pile of mail collecting that, they say-with a sigh- “I’ll get to soon.” I know this because I’ve seen it in action. Now that pile of mail becomes burdensome for them to look at. It’s another job for the future that weighs on the mind. This is how complicated could be simple; there are people who pick up their mail, shuffle through it because it’s a habit they’ve acquired, and in a few minutes, know what stays and what goes-no pile, unless it’s to be taken care of within a short span of time. Yes!

Another example of complicated: for some the December holidays begin in October, sometimes even September. They say, “After all, there’s so much to do, it’s important to begin early.” Three months plus of planning! They then become high strung due to the demands they place on themselves, and things get complicated. December holidays can be, should be, wonderful. However, when there’s a fanatic frantically planning months ahead, how can they be. Nah! There are so many fantastic things to do in our world to allow life to get that way.

People must want simple because there are lots more magazine articles and books written about it. Simple is an agreement with oneself that the old way goes, and another, less stressful way, is ushered in. It really is that simple.

I don’t have a TV. I possess one, but it’s not connected to cable service. It’s a perfect situation for watching DVDs. Having a TV was too distracting, and once the darn thing was on, it was too easy to get glued to any silly program. There’s not been one minute when I’ve been the odd one out because of not watching a current reality show. And there’s not been one minute when I’ve pined away for a TV show. It’s been an experiment, and the experiment worked. If you want to know how rewarding it can be, simply unplug.

In the past, when we’d rent a house for the summer, there’d be no TV. It was amusing to see my children’s faces as they ran throughout the house, looking and looking and not finding one, and still not believing there wasn’t one, until they heard the words, “You’re right. There’s no TV.”  Wow!  – what alarmed expressions. This is the interesting part, within a few days they easily adjusted. There was a chance to bike, be with friends, swim in the local pool, hike, read at night – so much to do. It turned out that not having a TV in the good old summertime seemed right.

I’ve since come to realize that there’s a lot to do even when it’s not the good old summertime. When I’m at someone’s house, and the TV is on, it’s entertaining – a quick look and see. After that, it’s out of sight; out of mind. Oh yes.

In Malta I spent three weeks at the Jean Paul Guesthouse in Bugibba before moving to an apartment. “The British” as in, “Did you have an enjoyable British breakfast?” and “The British come every year.” – were regular customers there. The guesthouse had a lively group . . . of British, and the times we hung out together were about storytelling, light drinking, and lots of laughs. Lilian and Salvo were the owners. She was the cook and he stayed, more or less, in the background mingling with customers and keeping the guests happy in his gracious way. They were good at what they did. Since that time, I’ve come to understand that a B&B is consuming in every possible way.

Lilian was an excellent cook, and the decision always was whether to stay at the B&B and enjoy her cooking, or go out. It’s so easy to travel around Malta, bus rides are pleasant in that one travels speedily in a rickety vehicle, talking to other tourists, who were mostly British or German – and a few friendly Maltese, while passing cities, and taking mental notes for future explorations.

Note: Lilian and Salvo eventually sold the B&B (the British will surely miss them); but, they needed a rest.

And it wasn’t so long ago when a friend of mine kept me informed of the goings on of a friend of hers who for years dreamt of having her very own B&B. She filled the commercial freezer in her Manhattan apartment with breads and scones, and all the foods that people enjoy when at a B&B. She was fine-tuning her cooking skills.

Then the time came for her dream to come true. She and her husband purchased a B&B for big bucks in a beautiful Cape Cod area. Within a year, the woman whose life-long dream was to own a B&B, was ready to throw in the towel. She said the guests at her B&B were too demanding. She was so busy catering to their every need that she didn’t have time to bake her own breads and scones – she sent someone to purchase them every mornIng. I suspect she should have opened a bakery instead of a B&B.

My daughters and I used to go to Avon-by-the Sea at the Jersey shore. We always went to the same B&B even though it went through three different owners in a short span of time. The B&B was in a big house close to the beach. The last owner grew up not far from the area, then moved to California and became a teacher. When she retired she wanted to realize her dream of owning a B&B. Does it have a familiar ring? She told us she’d been to 17 banks before getting the money to purchase. And that happened due to the kindness of a banker who gave her a few very, very important tips. She was a determined one. Her B&B was charming. In the hallway surrounding the rooms were bookcases filled with her favorite books. She designed comfortable and charming rooms in exactly the way you imagine a B&B room to be. She put a lot of love into her business. However, within a few years, she was gone. The last time we called to reserve a room, there was a new owner. The new owner said that the previous owner is okay; that was good to know. But, I wondered,  what happened?

Of course, not all stories end with new ownership of a B&B every few years, but whether they do or not, does it matter? The important thing is that people found the wherewithal to follow their dreams. Sometimes you have to buy a B&B to get to where you’re going, it could be a path to something else in the form of a detour, an experience where an important skill is acquired along the way – a steppingstone to the real dream.

It’s all good. Right?

Lately I’ve been thinking about some simple words and how nicely they were put together. They are:

“Two men looked out from prison bars.
One saw mud the other saw stars.” -anonymous

These simple words convey an awesome message. I wonder, who wrote them, when were they written, and what inspired them.

Yesterday while reading the New York Times it suddenly dawned on me what a world of contrasts ours is. There was a photo of a child lying on his side at a Mozambique clinic, and under the photo it said he had malaria. It went on to say that, “In Africe, the disease kills 3,000 children each day.” On the next page was a photo of a fisherman on the Nile in Cairo. Under the photo were the words, “men like him live by their wits and earn a few dollars on a good day.” And there were similar photos. Then I noticed the ads of beautiful products by Prada, Chanel, Mikimoto, Tiffany & Co., Coach, Gucci, etc. next to the photos. At that moment those ads alongside the photos seemed completely inappropriate. But we accept these contrasts. We see them, but we really don’t – except when something nudges us to see beyond the newspaper page.

Many families dine with the TV and its news of homicide, mayhem, war-torn bodies, children with guns. Eating and watching and listening to this must do something to the spirit of the one watching. And so this is the other side of the coin – seeing, but unable to help.

I know I’m not going to Mozambique, or the Nile to see if I can somehow make a change. But then, these kinds of photos continue to remind us of the vast numbers of people in the world who suffer day after day without any hope of change coming any time soon.

In The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, there’s a chapter called Always Do Your Best. Maybe that’s an answer. Wherever we find ourselves, in whatever situation we’re in at the time, if we always do our best we’re contributing to helping the world. And one day, if we find ourselves able to help on a mass scale, we’ll step up and do our best – wherever we are; we do our best.
www.miguelruiz.com

In bookstores are book after book, new and old, suggesting ways for us to move more slowly throughout the day. Books, such as the following, take us away from the hustle and bustle and bring us closer to a more balanced day: Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell, A THOUSAND NAMES FOR JOY A GUIDE TO LIVING IN HARMONY WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE; Geri Larkin’s, The CHOCOLATE CAKE SUTRA INGREDIENTS FOR A SWEET LIFE; Cecile Andrews’s, SLOW IS BEAUTIFUL; and Eckhart Tolle’s, THE POWER OF NOW and A NEW EARTH tell us how and why.
www.thework.com
www.eckhardttolle.com

the other side of the coin tells us to cram as much as possible into the day because, the other side of the coin says, we have only one life to live. But, when our days are full with tight schedules, how much can we see, understand, feel, listen to, and appreciate in the course of a day? Stepping off the roller coaster we’ve made for ourselves gives us a chance to clear our mind. When all is said and done, will we be concerned with our schedule, or will be wondering about something more important? Maybe it’s wise to have a reality check sooner than later. It’s good to keep life in balance.

“Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of all creation-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humankind.” -Matsuo Basho, poet-pilgrim

Have you ever stood in one spot for a few hours in a crowd? This past Sunday I did, in a large ballroom with hundreds of other people in Manchester, NH, waiting for Barack Obama to appear. The word was out, tickets sold fast; come early. It was a miserable three hours of standing. A $25.00 ticket should have gotten, at the very least, a chair. It didn’t. There was food, but clearly, most people weren’t there to eat, so, by-passing the tables of cheese, crackers and wine many eagerly headed to the next room to see what the democratic party’s new star had to say.

On the faces of some it was evident that they would have accepted pain and punishment just to be part of this democratic process in action. After an hour’s wait someone thought to open a door. We all looked; what a bright idea, yes, open a door to the outside. Let us breathe freely. We did, for a few minutes, before the door was closed. Many leave. The thought occurred to me that, had our brains not turned to mush, we could have marched out in unision, backs turned to the stage. Why so complacent? There’s power in numbers. Whisperings in the crowd are heard, they say, “Barack is delayed at a big fundraiser.” This is where he was? Indeed, it was all clear, politics as usual.

Finally, the governor and the rest of the party arrive. Speeches and more speeches-nothing new said.

Was it worth it? Were there any electrifying moments? Barack Obama seems a nice, authentic, intelligent, often witty, human being. You sense a pleasant presence. Will someone please save him before . . . well, you know.

What an afternoon. We leave, exhausted.

I’m wondering, what is this “impact” that took place Sunday afternoon-the one written about in newspapers and talked about on television?

I never really liked halloween. It’s only recently that this thought surfaced because I didn’t consider it one way or another before, but now I know. I’ve nothing against seeing the wonderful, creative costumes passing by this time of the year, but I never really liked halloween. The day after posting this, I saw fun, creative costumes everywhere. And the feeling is happy. Maybe there’s a change of mind here. Change, it’s always in the air. There are signs all around indicating who’s inspired by this day, and who’s not. For some children costume planning begins weeks before halloween. Others will grab any kind of cloth a few minutes before it’s time to leave, throw it over their shoulders, and claim to be superman. Then there are the houses, some are nicely decked out in the best of halloween decorations weeks before the day. Others have a pumpkin placed on the steps the day of, and still others, nada. And it can change in a heartbeat. Those who once were the big planners lose interest, and the suddenly superman warms up to the day and begins winning prizes for the best costume.

And so it is.

Enjoy, or not.