Woman Downstairs

After sitting with the book, The Woman Upstairs for a week, I am struck by how much I don't want to re-write that story in my life. People ask how it ends (spoiler alert), and the reality is that it ends with her flying into a rage, the thing the reader is doing from the beginning. The main character Nora is telling a story in hindsight, I suppose a cautionary tail, but it is hard to know why she would want to even relive it. The hard part is wishing the end would be the beginning of the story about the enlightened Nora. I realize this is the author's point, that I am supposed to feel rage and to do something about it, but what? What does the downstairs girl do with herself?

Now in re-connecting with My Name Is Asher Lev, one of my all-time favorites, it begins with a confession of his own journey to making art. In the first paragraph you hear Asher confess that he defies all understanding in his making art. It is inspiring. I want to want something and fight for it and make it happen. Today that looks like me writing on a Saturday morning. I paid a babysitter to come and managed a lot of internal and external conflict around being selfish with my time. I am back here. I have to do this to feel ok with everything else.

So what next. A story. A word. narcissism? commitment? endurance?  NO, or a bigger YES. Art. Artist. Musician. ME? Them? Us? I imagined myself as a famous artist at my show, putting a box over my head or a mask on my face and watching people watch me, like I am empty, because I can do that. I can choose to engage or not and need to work hardest at just listening and not attempting to play a role.

Where is my joy?
How do I rest?
What matters in this moment?
For me, it is listening to the trees and fighting for my relationships with God.

Strumming on my Day

As I learn to strum and pick at my guitar strings, letters and notes that sound on or off depending on me, not their tension, I am struck by how acquard my arm feels stretched over the fat body. I cut my nails and forget my pick and then half hold it, as I give into my fears of sounding bad. Occassionally it will all feel easy and I sing out a few lines, but mostly it feels like I go slow fast, stop, figure out where I am, begin again. Playing with my teacher, he listens, looks and makes motions, suggests I tap my toe, and even attempts to add in base chords and sing the harmony, "so as give a sense for what is possible," he says.

This week I tried to change my strings and broke the lowest two E and A, snapped the little plastic peg, with the bottom half wedged in the hole. I tried for half a day to dig it out, taking some wood with me before I got my fist in and pushed from within. After all that snapping, I tried to tune the thing and couldn't remember which notes went with which string. After that, I headed to another lesson without practicing, like I used to as a kid for violin (and which I do every Saturday when I show up to run, without having run any days since last Saturday).

The thing is that I can't keep away, despite my shortcomings. I must play on. Last week I went in to Oz Music, all keyed up from leading music at kids camp and running around trying to make myself fit, and after 30 minutes of fumbling with chords and words, I walked out rejuvenated. All my heavy breathing and tensed up shoulders were forgotten. 

This is true of my entire life. I love to play music, and I'm bad at tapping my toe to get a rythme, but I want to try, want to get into a groove, so that I can be where ever I am. It is the drum beat of waking up with an understanding about the day. A sip of Roos coffee, children eating, a playing out of the knowns, so I don't wander through a maze of indecisions.

What do I do every day?
Wonder what to do until it is sprung upon me by some crisis or request?
YES, sigh.

So I am hoping to change this. I  am so glad for moments when I arrive somewhere, like a camp site, a guitar lesson, my writing desk and the plan is clear, the survival items are taken care of, and I can just be in the space.

I suppose for some this means a plan for cleaning and cooking and managing the corners of closets, which sounds defeating to me. I imagine the kids having their clothes set up for them to find. A bowl of fruit they can access, the five meals that we rotate through. Somehow I am not there yet. I do the massive clean my house and then let it go for months, until a wave of guilt or an influx of guests convince me to take action.

I keep thinking all the efforts of living in society are somehow labeled as "adult," and I am still a child waiting to be told my schedule. This is why I tend to be swayed by the people who knock at my door. I need to develop the parental sense to look for what is enduring over my gravitation towards quick reactions.

Responsible To Whom?

For two days now I have woken up praying my prayer about order with God (see earlier post for details). I keep changing the words, stopping to consider meanings and by the end feeling like it is a lot to manage. The simple prayer might be, God may I be responsible and available to you in this moment.

I was recently introduced to a concept of being responsible to others, rather then for them, about being with them rather then trying to handle situations for another. It is helpful as I watch people's houses foreclose, struggle through child custody battles, grapple with reasons to live and attempt to manage through the clutter of tasks that buzz in our ears. The list below takes me past trying to solve for this moment and builds for an enduring relationship.

• When I feel responsible for others…I fix, protect, rescue, control, carry their feelings and generally don’t listen.
• When I am responsive to others…I listen, show empathy, encourage, confront, share and am sensitive.
• When being responsible I feel…tired, anxious, fearful, and liable.
• When being responsive I feel…relaxed, free, and self-aware.
• When being responsible I care about…circumstances, solutions, answers, and being right.
• When being responsive I care about…feelings, relating one to one, and the (other) person making it on her own.
• When being responsible I expect…the (other) person to live up to my expectations.
• When being responsive I expect…the (other) person to be responsible for themselves.
• When being responsible I am…a manipulator
• When being responsive I am…a helpful guide.

(Retrieved from: http://hatch.us.com/2012/03/02/responsible-vs-responsive/)

Christ seems to be a master at this. In Mark 9, I was reading about this boy who is demon possessed and falling on the ground rolling and foaming and convusling. Jesus asks the man for a history and hears that the boy has been like this since childhood, almost dying from fire and water. How exhausting to be always afraid for his life. The man asks Jesus, saying, "If you can do anything, take pity on on us and help us!"Jesus puts it back on the man, saying, "If you can? All things are possible to him who believes." So the man gets it and cries out saying, "I do believe; help my unbelief." Then Jesus responds and sends the demon out of the boy, commanding the demon not to enter him again. 

This act of belief, trust and seeking healing with others is my work to. It isn't that I won't act, it is just that God is central and that I have to work towards belief in his power, and not my own ability to take on a task.