Category Archives: Human Nature

A Parenthetical Life

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What exists between brackets is an odd collection of addenda and afterthoughts, of accidentals and coincidentals. Bookended by parentheses, em-dashes, and pages of drama and comedy in the history of the universe as it plays out are tiny dust-motes and cobwebs, and hidden in these, all of the second fiddles, bit players, and walk-ons who create the background of the scene almost without being noticed.

It’s that almost, though, through which we ‘members of the company’ enter into the action. We may sneak, erupt, or even fall backwards through the portals, but without us, the action can grind to a halt and intermission become interminable. If a night janitor doesn’t unlock the executive washroom when the evening’s repairs on it are finished, the dyspeptic CEO might be late to that morning meeting wherein he was supposed to sign papers finalizing the corporation’s lucrative sale. If the pest inspector doesn’t notice that one little corner of the house’s foundation has a few carpenter ants surveying it hungrily, in a short while the home will be in ruins. If the air traffic controller, invisible in her tower, delays the landing of a medivac helicopter for a moment too long, the patient waiting for his heart transplant dies. So much potential lies in the smallest acts or failures-to-act.

A tombstone or obituary won’t determine my worth. Headlines and spotlights won’t, either. Most of us crave a sense of being valued and wanted, even if we don’t desire fame—but many will never know what genuine impact they’ve had on others, or others on them, being unsung and unannounced. I am at peace with that. I firmly believe that if we are to be judged, it won’t fall to the people immediately around, to a popular vote, or to any authority present on the planet to determine our impact, or more specifically, our value.

I, for one, will keep lurking and living in the interstices between the stars, content in doing and being my generally invisible best, modest as that might be. When I’m gone, others will fill in the gaps. And probably do so with better style and grace, having learned from my traipsing across the stage, lines or no lines. That’s my role, to set the stage for the starring actors and support their grander parts in history.

(Yes, even if my character remains forever nameless on the marquee.)

Photo: Plumbing the Depths

Not needing to blow my own horn doesn’t mean I’m not a necessary part of the show.

I’m Dying to Know

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Do you dare to think about your own death in reasonable, detached terms? Do you think that’s morbid and grotesque to even consider, or do you find it easy? If you find it easy to contemplate in the abstract, is it because you suffer from depression or are suicidal, or is it simply that you recognize living as an inherently terminal condition?

This is big stuff. Even the clinically depressed are sometimes able to recognize, on those tiny instants of light in the midst of the abysmal dark, that their death, no matter how insignificant and unworthy they may think themselves, will affect others. I know this from experience, and from lots of reading and conversation and observation. I know that even when I was at my lowest—thankfully, not as hideously low as that reached by many, as I know in retrospect—my rational moments told me that no matter how they felt about me, or even if they didn’t notice me at all, when I was alive, everyone who was peripheral to me in any way would have some tidying-up to do after my death. Physical, perhaps, for those to whom body removal and disposal fell, but whatever tiny tasks I was not present to perform anymore would either default to another’s To Do list or leave a gap, incomplete. I realized that I am the butterfly effect, in human form. You are. Every living, breathing being has a space in the universe, a purpose, and however unnoticed in life, has an impact both by living and by dying.

All the same, I feel especially fortunate that in my family, talk about death and dying were far from taboo. It wasn’t all that uncommon to find the dinner table talk veering in that direction, if somebody we knew was unwell or had just died. We didn’t need euphemisms and pussy-footing to protect us from the reality of death. It’s nothing more or less than the inevitable cessation of life, and if we can’t talk about that, we’re stuck dealing with all kinds of petty and logistical nonsense just to get through the process when we’d rather be spending time living and loving each other and getting through the complexities of the occasion with a modicum of grace and humanity.

So my family already knows that I would prefer they donate what they can of my organs or remains to someone who has a better chance of survival and health if I give it to them, or to scientists who can learn how to give future patients that better chance. In fact, the government know this: I’m on the organ-donor registry, should I die unexpectedly or with usable parts intact. My loved ones also know that I’d prefer a minimum of fuss disposing of whatever remains of my physical shell after that, the cheapest and quickest cremation and scattering of my ashes being my top choice. I figure that any Supreme Being capable of inventing the human creature from scratch can easily put me into another, newer shell if and when it’s my turn to exist in any other form, and as for the current body, it’s a good source of recyclable carbon and nutrients to replenish any part of the earth that enjoys a good, tasty meal of ashes, say, my long-loved flowers the irises.

Those close to me also know that I have far less interest in what they do to celebrate or mourn my passing than the still-living will. If the occasion of my death can be used as an excuse for a marvelous concert to raise awareness or funds or mere pleasure for the sake of a musical group, whether my spouse is still alive to conduct or attend such an event or not, that would be lovely. But hey, I’ll still be dead, so y’all can do whatever it is that makes sense to you and I promise I won’t roll in my grave or be a pesky poltergeist or complain in any other way. Still dead, if you didn’t catch my drift.

And that, in fact, is a beautiful thing, and a great comfort to me. I don’t look forward to the actual process of dying or the moment of my death. I’d happily live a long, long life in great health and an approximation of sanity that seems cheery enough to me, before dying for real. But once I do, I feel genuinely confident that none of this worldly stuff will matter to me in the slightest, so as much as I like to “plan” ahead to keep my survivors from any terribly fussy practical matters in the event, I’m not worried. Go ahead and dance on my grave, if there is one. Keep on living. Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine. Really.

Digital illo: Mine was a Death's Head

To My Health!

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To all of the world’s citizens who don’t get to enjoy gloriously good health: I am sorry. I am very, sincerely, truly, awfully sorry. I know that I’m incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed a life of mostly stupendous health, with few bumps along that road. I’m just superstitious, or pragmatic, enough to recognize that only a few little atoms or cells, a small dose of good luck and a platoon of guardian angels, or a couple of nanoseconds, separate the deathly ill from the sparklingly healthy among us, and all of this knowledge or intuition makes me all the more pleased with my incredible good fortune.

Photo: Nasal Catarrh

How’s *this* for a compellingly charming and romantic read! Imagine reaching over to the bedside table for a little light bedtime perusal and finding this lovely tome in hand. Among other things, I suspect I’d feel the urge to get right back up and wash my hands, imagining who was previously thumbing through the book!

Once in a while I get a little tickle from the universe to remind me just how lucky I am to be a healthy human. Most of the time, it’s nature and circumstance showing their cockeyed sense of humor by putting jocular hints and signs in front of me as I go along my way. It can be more pointed and poignant, too: those whom I love and hold dear, along with so many who are not connexions of mine, battle poor health and infirmity and imminent death every day around me. This is the painful and stark reality of our mortal condition. None of us remains untouched, unscathed.

Photo: Steam Baths

This vintage sign always amused me when it still hung street-side in Seattle. Now, it lives Underground there, where it’s seen only on history tours of town. Once, it might have signaled (besides the subcultural club scene with which it was once associated) an old-school nod to better health. Me, I hope very much that I will stay on the better health side of the equation for a good long time before I, too, go Underground in my own way. Meanwhile, I’ll be careful to keep my “lower level” steam cleaned. Wink-wink.

But I will remain grateful forever, knowing as I do how near the precipice we all dance and how finite human existence will always be, for the long stretches of grand health I enjoy. If there’s any way for my wishes and hopes, prayers and positive vibes, to reach even one other person on this earth with equally blissful health, I am committed to putting those tendrils of care and hope out toward each and every one as well. And I salute, in great hope, to your excellent health!

Turn on the Waterworks

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I don’t own a pool. Poor, poor me. Weep for me, all ye who have any tears to spare. Ha ha! Just kidding!! I’ve never, ever owned—or even felt compelled to own—a swimming pool, actually. I’m much too lazy to want the responsibility of either maintaining a pool or keeping it secure, and even too lumpish to be an avid swimmer. My only claim to fame in the latter regard is that I managed, almost inexplicably, to pass the required lifesaving/pool safety class at my high school, and this I only accomplished because I was stubborn and kind of unsympathetic as a rescuer, having learned some dandy but unfriendly tricks for subduing a panicked person who was struggling ‘uncooperatively’ while drowning.

When the weather gets hot enough, I might turn a slightly more longing eye toward any swimming pool in my vicinity, if only for the cooling of my heels. But I’m too pragmatic in my aversion to labor to indulge in the fantasy for very long. Just until the latest hot flash or external heat wave diminishes a bit, at most.
Digital illo: Turn on the Waterworks

So it’s kind of funny, even to me, how incredibly rejuvenated and rejoiced I am the minute I get to the coast anywhere. I forget, conveniently and blessedly, between times quite what an impact being near open water has on my spirits even though I don’t relish swimming in it and don’t even care especially about wading in it. The tang of the water’s salt and the occasional spritz of mist when a breeze carries it to my cheek, these are the attributes that pull at my heart. The gentle, steady lapping of tidewater as it sweeps back and forth across the scree and sand, this is the soundtrack of my contentment.

You can keep your gently chlorinated, mosaic-spangled, sanitized beauties, all of you pool owners out there. I don’t mind the special occasion of dipping my toe into the temperate, turquoise splendors of such sparkling basins when I can, but I will always lean toward the shore. Call me when your tidepool sports dancing anemones and bold sea stars, your lap pool spontaneously cleans itself with a refreshing swish and spray of tidal movement, and your patio is scattered with shells and sandblasted gems of glass and dried seaweed in graceful bouquets and…well, I guess I’ll see you when I get back from the ocean.

Things I’ve Learned

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Most of the stuff I’ve been taught over the years hasn’t stuck especially well. Key among the useful and meaningful skills and knowledge that have been handed down to me are the remarkably applicable ones wherein I ought to spend most of my energy on keeping my mind open and my mouth shut. Many a disaster can be averted, I know, and many a mountain scaled, if one only practices this simple-sounding combination. But I also know from long experience that the person able to perform this remarkably magical duo of acts on a consistent basis is all too rare, and I am hardly the best practitioner of them.

Other people’s shortcomings, of course, are neither my excuse nor my problem: it’s I alone who need to iron out the kinks in this skill set. Along with these, there are a huge number of additional talents I ought to have cultivated better by now, knowing as I do through experience and example how significantly they can and should improve my life and the lives of those around me. For example, what if I stuck to the demonstrably excellent principle I’ve been taught, in which one stays focused and present in the now, the moment being lived, rather than entangled in mistakes past or muddled by the ever-impossible-to-read future? I can only imagine I’d waste a whole lot less time, energy, and worry, and spend it much more profitably and pleasurably.

I have learned a lot of things that, on their own and at face value, seem quite minute and insignificant but can actually be useful, if I pay attention to them. And if I bother to consider their inverses, their hidden sides, they may all the more inform and improve my existence. Life isn’t all clover and strawberries. Yet, as it happens, the occasional, if less-adorable, onions and garlic can season delicious dishes that even the most sensitive palates can love. A weedy dandelion brings provocative beauty, sometimes by its mere contrast, to the most refined and orderly of gardens. At times, the best company is oneself alone. Bigger, newer, louder, faster, stronger, and prettier are not always better. Cuddly looking creatures can bite. Long, heavy books can be well worth reading, but “Classics” aren’t always so.

Does hearing, knowing, practicing, or appreciating any of these tidbits really make me a better or more righteous person? Nope. But a longtime practice of attempting to find and test such little specks of potential goodness in the chaos of life might—could—help.
Digital illo: Things I've Learned

I’ve learned a lot of brilliant and useful things in my lifetime thus far. It’s too bad I’m not always good at putting them into practice. But I’m working on it, really I am.

Wriggling with Happiness

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Digital illo: My Heart's Aflutter

Heart’s Aflutter

Forgive me if I seem a nutter,

the way I mumble, moon, and mutter,

but I can’t help my palpitating

when my heart is all aflutter.

Pardon that I cling to what’re

rhymes as rife with fat as butter—

maybe even nauseating—

but my heart is all aflutter.

Please absolve me when I putter

aimlessly, and stammer, stutter,

stumble as I’m indicating

that my heart is all aflutter!

Long May It Wave

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Photo: Scar-Spangled BannerToday, the day Americans celebrate this nation’s incorporation as an independent country, there are and will be a lot of fireworks, eat-drink-and-be-merry parties, solemn salutations of admiration and thanks addressed to the people and acts that led to the establishment of America, and “patriotic” speeches of allegiance and fealty to whatever each speaker or audience relishes as the greatest rights and privileges of living in this place. We don’t all agree, not remotely, on which things are Rights and which are merely privileges, never mind which are to be relished. We don’t share a single, singular point of view defining patriotism or our national identity or strengths.

That, in fact, is what I see as one of our greatest strengths. We are a country that prides itself on individualism, if not individuality. And that, in turn, we define differently, each of us. As little as I know about the country I call home, my sense of it says that the name United States suits us well: a collection of wildly, wonderfully, weirdly differing entities—both states and persons—pulled together into one larger whole. It doesn’t homogenize or even blend us. We remain diverse and divergent. And that is the strength that our founders hoped, as I understand it, to cultivate.

We tend to fail, nationally speaking, more than we succeed at this delicate and complex effort. We mess it up pretty (no pun intended) royally both out in the wider world and within our own borders. Often. But there are frequent gleams of starry hope, as well. There are those among us who will stop and truly listen to each other, who will negotiate, counter-propose, parlay, parry, and persist, in the pursuit of better solutions. Those who choose to recognize differences without letting their own beliefs in the matter condemn their fellow citizens as second-class or unworthy.

It’s funny how often many of us Americans get mighty excited, thinking that somebody else is busy trying to impinge on our personal Freedoms (apparently we are historically hysterical when it comes to that) merely by valuing different aspects of the legal freedoms we all enjoy here or by wanting an equal share of the same ones; we’re past masters, too, at howling injustice over others’ intolerant narrow-mindedness, which of course translates directly as “any thinking, belief, or experience different from mine” and thus is equally self-definition, should we think through it carefully. We each obsess over how to make the rest of the nation see our individual points of view as the simple and clear logic they embody, and as the obvious morally and ethically correct way to think, live, and be, whether any of our own choices and decisions are in truth logical, moral, or ethical, let alone demonstrably so. But that difference, too, is part and parcel of the multifarious and colorful country we call home and of its hard-won foundational tenets.

So while I spend the Fourth of July, like any other day, in mindful and slightly irritable worry over all that could and perhaps should be better about my native country, not to mention about me as one of its inhabitants, I also cling to the hope and optimism that continue to reside here. People are still kind to each other, from holding open doors to donating large quantities of time and other resources to the health, education, safety, and well-being of others, and more importantly, some even do this without requiring that their beneficiaries support and adhere strictly to the donors’ worldview. That, to me, is a great assurance that this nation does still hold dear some of the essential characteristics on which it was founded, even if with a noticeable amount of ignorant hubris stomping on the extant good on this new shore. We remain flawed and selfish and foolish, each in our own ways, but for the most part, this is also a country full of people who, through hard work and goodwill and the desire to fulfill the promise of our forebears, native-born and otherwise, mean to keep becoming better.

May this better part of each of us become a great banner of Peace, Justice, and Hope. May the winds of the future send it curling around those who are in need of the wealth with which we, corporately, are gifted, and give them not only enough resources and courage to be lifted up but a share of that same peace, justice, and hope. And long, long may that banner wave.

Imperfections

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Blood Grass

Short bursts of breeze in the long leaves,

the slightest of eddies as though

their pulse were pumping actual red cells

through the tall margins of the field—

Likelier that their real nature as flammable,

short-lived bursts of vigorous and

violent life, destined to flame

up, out, leap to cosmic oblivion, and die—

Are these our guides, or are

they mirrors of the flimsy, volatile existence

that we share? Only there, in

the margins of the field, do the flames

and shadows of our being have

a moment’s sway, for better or for worse,

of honesty out in the sun. Only there,

where the grass grows tall and yet

has not the strength or

depth of root to thrive, do we

see how little of the energy

with which we’d credited ourselves

really shines for longer than

a short, weedy season, bending

this way, bending that, and sparking

into sudden flares of incandescent

death

before returning to earth,

extinguished without

having distinguished ourselves, yet still

flying a bold red flag as if

we were something more.Digital illo: Japanese Blood Grass

Just Because…

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Digital illo: Life PatternsJust because something is beyond my understanding doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Just because it defies convention doesn’t mean it Can’t Be Done.

Just because it surpasses my imagination doesn’t mean it’s unnatural and illogical.

Just because it seems superhuman doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Just because I’m small and insignificant and mortal doesn’t mean I shouldn’t seek deeper understanding, challenge my boundaries, learn from nature, investigate logic and the natural order of things, and

lean hard against the edges of

impossibility…

May You Live a Life that is Texturally Rich

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Digital illo from photos: May You Live a Life that is Texturally RichMy fellow undergrads and I used to wink at each other in amusement over the repetition of this magical phrase, “texturally rich,” that occurred with such impressive frequency in the comments and instructions of our drawing and printmaking professor. Then I grew up (a little). And became an art teacher at the same undergraduate institution. And caught myself using that same well-polished phrase myself, with no doubt equal frequency, if not more. Because, as I learned, the influence of textural variety, depth, accuracy, placement, and inventiveness can be incredibly subtle and amazingly powerful at the same time. This, as it happens, was a hallmark of that professor’s ways of living and teaching as well.

The more I learn, the more I have come to value that aspect equally. Noticing, respecting, and imitating a wide range of life’s textures in my own not only is more fulfilling, exciting, interesting, and enriching than not for me, but I find that it helps me to better understand and admire others and their respective multitudes of characteristics and quirks. And, in turn, to attempt to incorporate those, literally and figuratively. If I see the world around me as one smooth, flat, undifferentiated expanse of sameness, I have no need to learn and grow, and no real opportunities to do so. If I take note of all of the colors and shapes, thoughts and beliefs and ideals, of those around me and the environs in which we spend our time, and make the careful effort to examine these with thoughtfulness and patience, who knows but what I might gain, along with the wrinkles of age that will improve my physical texture, some new wrinkles of wisdom on my brain and new folds of compassion to put others more deeply in my heart.

Not least of all, I am guaranteed to be safe from ennui and protected from inventing for myself an unnaturally uninteresting universe, if I manage to keep my eyes, heart, and mind open to the textural richness all around me.