miriamSpace

seeing me seeing you seeing me

2010-01-19T01:29:54Z

The bus was quiet today - I never realized Martin Luther King day was so celebrated. I tried to feel positive about that instead of just sad that I was among the few who still had to work. I quickly realized the irony since I like my job and I am working for justice - environmental as much as social justice - something I believe Dr King would support today.

On my way to work I was one of two riders. Last week people had to stand it in the bus was so crowded. On my way home ridership had increased by thirty percent! I was one of three.

There was a beggar on the offramp as we exited the highway. I looked at her noticing her worn clothes and raggedy sign crafted from an old box and felt as I usually do, a bit of hopeless sorrow. This woman, or someone like her is at this intersection most days during rush hour. Due to the holiday there was no wait at the intersection and I watched her behind the protective glass of the bus window as we sped past. I wondered if she realized it was a holiday and why there was minimal traffic. I assume rush hour at this location is a lucrative spot. Would she get more or less donations on a day like this?

To my surprise there was another beggar at the next stop light and this one looked me in the eye - the protection of the glass doesn't hide as much as I thought. How do you look at a beggar? I want to give them dignity without inspiring a false hope that I might give them cash, which I never do. I reflect back on stories of beggars and realize I have an assumption that if I look at them with dignity (whatever that is) they might recover and work their way to not being a beggar. The ridiculousness of this hits me - and I become aware that it stems not from a place of actually wanting to connect with this person but rather from a place of me wanting to look good in the world. Its is amazing how quickly I went from thinking about someone's very real suffering to focusing on me.

empty

2010-01-02T18:29:48Z

I want to write something but
all I feel is the emptiness of
having everything I want and need
and knowing it is not enough

rest in peace

2009-12-01T16:04:43Z

My beloved guinea pig Mani passed away this morning. There will be no service, there will be no memorial. But I will write about her here and remember all that she taught me and her special traits.

Mani you were named after the Sankrit word for jewel and the Spanish slang for peanut.

At first you were in a cage but you had such odd hours. Sometimes you would run around your little cage but then when I put you on the floor you would hide under the couch.

So I decided to let you run free in my room - my little jeweled peanut. You loved to do your exercises after I went to bed. I could hear you doing laps around the rug that was your race track. You were so fast.

And clever. You loved to hide under the dresser or in the closet and when I put things to block the way you spent hours poking and exploring until you found a way through the obstacle and into your cozy dark hiding place.

You were the first being that I gladly rearranged my life for with no thought of return other than the joy of your joy. A special bed that you could not hide under was built. Things arranged so you had the maximum race track room. I carefully ensured that you had enough cozy spaces to hide under but not too many that I couldn't keep them clean.

And although shy at first you were a social bird. When the girls came over and we sat on the floor you would walk around and smell everyone's feet (which I am sure you thought were lots of strange guinea pigs). Any quick movements sent you dashing for safety but then your curiosity would get the best of you and you'd come tottering out again. You didn't like to be held (too much loss of control I assume) but when approached in the right gentle way, you loved a good chin scratch or side rub.

You loved it when I did the laundry, hanging it from the rack. You would dart in and out of the clothes. And when I tossed a load of clean dry clothes on the floor you would play with them as I did the folding. You could never resist checking anything out that was dumped on the floor - it was your domain and girl, you knew it. You owned that floor.

You kept the demons away when I felt them creep on the edges of my loneliness. I wasn't scared of the dark with you around - even if it was just because I knew the monsters would eat you first. But I'd hear you rustling around and know that as long as you felt safe I felt safe.

We shared four wonderful years together. A good long life for a guinea pig. Memories of you will always flit through my mind and dance across my heart. Thank you for our time together.

If you are reborn, may it be in a better life where you have the freedoms and favorable conditions to practice immediately after taking birth.

May you know happiness; may you know the causes of happiness.

meant to be

2009-11-30T15:43:16Z

I can't stand it when people say "it was meant to be" or "everything happens for a reason" or "I just need to find the lesson in here" as if everything happens for the purpose your your higher education. All these phrases, meant to comfort people when times are tough and unpredictable (though the first one is more often used when times are going great), have this assumption embedded in them of a higher power and the idea that world centers around the person in question. While some events might be avoided had you learned the lesson beforehand it is just as likely, or more likely that things are out of our control beyond the ability of learning any lessons. Sometimes divorces could be avoided but sometimes people just change. Sometimes accidents are a result of your own negligence, but other times they happen when you were doing everything right. Sometimes people get fired or laid-off for no reason of their own. And sometimes people meet the love of their life later than they expected - but it doesn't mean it was meant to be. I don't believe that all my previous relationships failed just so I could meet this one special person.

I agree that all events have a certain amount of opportunity in them - and instead of moaning and groaning, if we can have the equanimity and presence mind to move forward then we can look for a possible brighter side. We can use uncommon events as a time for reflection, redirection, and opening our mind to possibilities that perhaps were unseen or unavailable before.

But the world does not revolve around us and for every event that brings opportunity there are also ones that bring death, starvation, homelessness, loneliness, and confusion because you thought you understood the world but really, not only are we not in control, but the world is also too diverse and large for us to understand.

Yeah, I hate hearing that last one too. I want the world to make sense like a math puzzle or a recipe. I want to have the perfect grand unification theory of everything. However, when I do, when I think I have it all figured out, that is when I am not opening my eyes to possibilities that don't make sense but are there anyway.

Go figure - but not too hard...

forgiveness

2009-10-29T14:04:12Z

Recently I had the good fortune to attend a teaching on the Ngondro - a Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist meditation. The teacher spend much time on the four thoughts and recommended picking one of them each day to meditate on throughout the day. I've had a tough time settling on just one:
1. This precious human birth is rare and difficult to obtain
2. All things born are impermanent and bound to die
3. The results of virtuous and unvirtuous actions are inexorable
4. Cyclic existence has the nature of an ocean of suffering

These four thoughts have provided me much insight as I practice my purification meditations. I keep feeling haunted by how I have caused suffering in others and how others have done me wrong. However, by meditating on thought number 2 I realize I just have to let it go at a certain point. I can look at others' inappropriate actions towards me as opportunities to practice patience, clear communication, compassion, etc. And as to ways I cause suffering in others, when I can make it right I do, when I can't I can feel remorse, vow never to do it again, but then I have to let it go and accept that it will bite me eventually (thought number 3).

And that brings us to thoughts number 1 and 4. With the final of the four thoughts I can quit trying to fix everything and make it perfect - because it will never be perfect and there will always be suffering. Yet, by meditating on the first thought I am very thankful for all that I have; both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with it.

lost and ground

2009-09-26T02:54:55Z

Waking up this morning I could feel an absence, something different in my throat. I tried to make a noise and sure enough - voice completely gone. No humming (something I do quite a bit), no talking, singing, or yelling; only whispering (something I don't do that much).

Lacking a voice was grounding - like all my unshared thoughts, obvservations, and feelings were sinking down through my body, through my toes, into the earth.

I had to think about what I was going to say, and decide if it was worth the effort. I spoke a lot less but had a smile on my face a lot more.

Yet there were no reasons to share my thoughts, only reason a good reason not to.

Plastic Soup and Project Kaisei

2009-08-17T21:03:30Z

I've written a few times about the massive explosion of plastic that has taken over our oceans - flowing from our rivers and boats to the place where the currents meet. They call this the North Pacific Garbage patch - it isn't a solid island but more of a plastic soup where debris can be found hundreds of meters below sea level and spread out hundreds of miles across.

Project Kaisei is out to study this soup and see what we can do about it:

Project Kaisei consists of a team of innovators, scientists, environmentalists, ocean lovers, sailors, and sports enthusiasts who have come together with a common purpose. To study the North Pacific Gyre and the marine debris that has collected in this oceanic region, to determine how to capture the debris and to study the possible retrieval and processing techniques that could be potentially employed to detoxify and recycle these materials into diesel fuel. This first research expedition, scheduled for the summer of 2009, will be critical to understanding the logistics that would be needed to launch future clean-up operations and testing existing technologies that have never been utilized under oceanic conditions.

While I am not a fan of "recycling" anything into fuel (seems about as plausible to me as burning trash for energy) I am excited about a team of people actually studying this stuff and thinking about how we can clean it up. They seem to have an awesome communications team with them, who combining with Google Earth can show you where they are and give you super cool very short videos about what they are finding and learning.

Now if only we can figure out how to prevent this "waste" in the first place...

The Invitation - Poem

2009-07-03T03:38:53Z

Friends and I were discussing "what we want to be when we grow up" and it inspired her to share this poem. I hope it inspires you.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

fullness

2009-06-20T13:00:32Z

At our last Buddhist meetup group we were talking about generosity and lack, the difference between martyrs and bodhisattvas...
One person commented "when you give it is important to be giving because you are already full - not because you'll feel full (or think you'll feel full by doing something good."

I've been feeling pretty full and fortunate lately - seems like a good time to contemplate the my nature of giving.

Local Wintering

2009-05-05T04:23:55Z

I just cooked the last two local vegetables in my refrigerator: cabbage and celeriac. They both looked kind of poorly and I think have been sitting in the bottom of my fridge since November or December. However, the celeriac wasn't even moldy and the cabbage only needed a few of the exterior leaves removed.

Amazing.

I once commented to a coworker that I had no idea how our ancestors kept vegetables through the winter since I can't seem to keep them for more than a month. She responded that they propably checked their vegetables a lot more often and had lower standards.

It was with this perspective in mind that I bought cabbage and 20 lbs of squash at the beginning of last winter. I checked the squash often and cooked whichever one looked like it was about to turn. Using this method I didn't cook my last one until last month.

And this month I finally worked my way down to the celeriac and cabbage. The lentil soup hasn't cooled enough yet or I'd mention out it turned out.

natural healing

2009-04-28T02:33:59Z

Three weeks ago I chopped the tip of my finger off. It was an accident - a result of being overly ambition with too little sleep. I was chopping chard at six-thirty in the morning (trying eat a healthy breakfast) and misjudged where my finger was buried in the vegetable. Before I even had time to say "ouch" my finger tip was bit shorter with a third of my nail missing.

I always say accidents, illnesses, and muscle soreness are all wonderful anatomy and biology lessons.

Things I have learned from this so far:
1. There is a little artery running up that side of my pointer finger
2. There are a lot of nerves in a finger tip
3. When you smash your finger the nail falls off but when you slice it off the rest of the nail doesn't even seem to notice (I've had to cut it once already) and it keeps on growing
4. The skin under the nail heals slower than the skin on the tip of my finger
5. At least some nerve endings are still alive
6. It takes about 10 days to learn how to do 9 finger typing at about 75% of the speed of 10 finger typing

Now my finger has healed to the point where I don't always want to keep the bandage on (it starts to smell) so unless I am doing some heavy lifting I leave it off and people can see the ugly black scab covering now a quarter of my nail (I mentioned how it keeps on growing). From a distance it looks like I have either bad nail polish or something nasty on my finger. I have a couple options to answer when people notice and ask:

A. It is the scab of dried blood from chopping my finger tip off (this one really grosses them out)
B. It is a natural healing patch aimed at maximizing my body's ability to heal from the trauma of cutting the tip of my finger off (I haven't tried this one or the following two yet).
C. The initial onset of leprosy
D. OMG! What is that? What happened to my finger?????

got dirt?

2009-02-22T00:13:31Z

Have I told you yet?

I've got worms. Actually, I have had them for quite some time and have learned exactly what not to do:

1. Don't over feed your worms by a zillion pounds - especially not a zillion pounds of healthy organic locally grown squash seeds
2. Make sure you bury all your food deep below the newspaper - even if it is "just a few tea leaves"
3. Check on your worms frequently, even if you know you have over fed them and are trying to "just let them do their thing uninterrupted".

The result of my bad behavior was a ton of squash sprouts and a ton of fruit flies (if you can imagine how many fruit flies it would take to weigh a ton, you'll have a glimmer of how many were breeding in my apartment).

Anyhow, that was all weeks and weeks ago. I managed to get rid of the fruit flies (it felt like a second job for about a week), and I haven't put any new food in my worm bin for at least a month. I also left them at work for several weeks, figuring that fruit flies were less likely to survive and reproduce in an office space than in my kitchen.

I finally brought them home last week.

So today, since I was re-potting my giant bamboo plant, I found myself digging through worms, worm poo (looks, smells, and feels like really really rich black soil) trying to harvest some of this special "dirt" they produce. You know, it felt kinda like spring!

Okay, not really, but a girl can get desperate in the depths of February in Minnesota.

In the short time I have had my worms, they have been busy (overfeeding them probably helped). I could not believe how many eggs, little babies, and big worms I came across as I was trying to sort out their doo to add to my plant dirt. I knew from my worm composting class that the dirt would be teeming with life but it was still cool to see all the little critters (not only worms but also various little bugs) skitter and run about as I disturbed their cozy eco-system. I also pulled out quite a few more squash sprouts. Is it close enough to Spring that I should be replanting those in their own container?

sandburg

2009-02-20T00:00:56Z

The Carl Sanburg of my youth was silly and frivoulous but very delightful. I only vaguely recall my father reading about Gimme the Axe, Axe Me No Questions, and Please Gimee in his big booming animated voice. The plot lines all run together but the wonderful ridiculousness of the stories remain a favored flavor of memory, which is why when I saw a book of poetry for sale in the used book store I picked it up. Having never known Sandburg's poetry I was immediately taken in and amazed. It is like my super fun childhood friend grew up to be an incredible adult. Before picking up the poetry I knew next to little about Sandburg's politics, history, perspective, and life and who knows how much I would have cared before. It has been a long cold winter - my mind and spirit were ready for serious thoughts and words from an elder of a different but difficult time.

This is the first poem I read which still captures my attention:

]]> Napoleon

The little boy blew bubbles
Floating the air to glisten and shine
With a rainbow joy and airiness silken:
They floated and broke and were gone

The man blew bubbles,
Made nations and kings and captains
And armies that marched and slaughtered
And laughed at the blood on their hands--
But the armies and kinds and captains
Are broken and vanished and gone.

adversity

2008-12-26T01:01:11Z

I finally had my bike fixed and was able to ride to work yesterday.

After being crabby for a week it was great to have something real to gripe about - something that could take all the bitching I could throw with delightful passivity. The weather, the roads, the wind, and the random cars on the road really couldn't care less. It was exhilarating to be fighting against the wind again, to notice my frozen toes when I still had three more miles to go (about half-way).

And when I was all grumped out I began to notice all the beauty - the delicious sent of cold - the snow covering a group of rocks, the weak sun making what few colors around so much more vibrant, the frozen river, the pattern of slush on the road. There was/is no end to beauty when out in the world unprotected with no bubble of heat, glass, and metal around me, with no radio to distract me. And when I am traveling at 8 to 10 miles per hour I tend to notice more.

I need to bike more in the winter to stay sane - riding brings much needed adversity and struggle to my life.

fix-it

2008-12-19T02:59:29Z

I've been struggling with transportation. I've got two winter bikes both of which need work and a car, which also needs work. However, thanks to my ignorance, curiosity, and can-do attitude, I discovered what is wrong with my car.

For a month now people have been telling me that something is wrong with the oxygen sensor or something of that sort because, as I put it, my four-wheeled-motorized-vehicle is "idly challenged". Not all the time, but irregularly when in neutral it sounded like I was trying to race some one. My rpm meter would oscillate anywhere between a few millimeters and whole inch depending on lord only knows what. There were a few other weird symptoms that really made me want to call "car talk". Maybe I should still call them just to see if they can figure it out:
Occasionally revving engine (only when in neutral)
My heater would stop working
The engine temperature would go up
When in gear sometimes the car would act jerky - as if I didn't know how to drive a stick (which I swear I do).

Upon recommendation I threw some fuel-injector cleaner in the tank but that didn't do much (that I know of).

Have you diagnosed the problem yet?

]]> Well, to give you a hint, I am a really bad car owner.
For example, I meant to change the oil this summer but never got around to it.

Nor have I checked any fluid levels.
Before taking it to any mechanics I decided to check the fluids and add some oil (it burns a bit - but just a bit!).

I totally needed windshield wiper fluid.
Power steering fluid was bit low but not dying.
Brake and transmission levels were fine - I didn't even know what those reservoirs were before this!
I had to add about a half a quart of oil (I told you it doesn't burn much).

But

The bigger winner was coolant/radiator fluid. It was at the bottom of the reservoir. I added this and drove home. The car acted the same but this morning when I climbed in and went to work I was surprised to notice that the heat worked fine, no jerky action, and best of all - no demon taking over my gas pedal making me appear like a much more obnoxious driver than I really am (I swear! Though my nerves did get a bit worn listing to that rev all the time...).

I could hardly believe it! My car was fixed with a ten dollar bottle of coolant (and only partially used at that).

Unfortunately a car-intelligent friend (who also misdiagnosed the problem!) said that a car almost never loses coolant so there must be a leak somewhere. So alas, the problem is only diagosed properly - not fixed. However, I am thrilled that while identifying the root cause (the leak) at least the symptoms shouldn't be plaguing me so much.

Then, just to add some cream on top - I fixed my windshield wiper blade too (just had to adjust it a bit - the ice knocked it out of whack). My luck seemed to run out when I tried to fix my holiday lights though...

Oh well - if I manage to get my bikes on track so I can actually get out and enjoy this weather I'll be happy as a a guinea pig with a green pepper.