Occurances

Post 40’s, post small kiddos, pre-emergence

Those who know me well know that there is a truth that I learned many years ago and I repeat it over and over when I feel like it’s called for. Here it is. “There are things that you know that you know. Things that you know that you don’t know. And things that you don’t know that you don’t know.” If you’re like “Huh?” I’ll lay out an example. I know that in Summer the weather is hotter. I know that I don’t know much about complex chemistry. And lastly, I don’t know that I don’t know probably about way too many things (ha! I can’t claim it as I don’t know it!). As I get older, I would like to at least become more aware of the many things I don’t know about so that there is hopefully something that I can do about it. I believe that particular occurances come when they do for us to learn, in order to make us stronger for the next moment. I don’t want to analyze exactly why this is in life but it’s proven itself to me. Will there ever be a time when we can say “There is nothing that I don’t know that I don’t know”? Oh God No. But here’s to chipping away…

Birthdays, I find, are more of a time for reflection than even New Years. My birthday just passed recently. Being born on May 31st, I find that it’s a time when our calendar school year is almost up, world is abuzz with springtime life, summer relaxation is about to set in and reflection and expectations roll out in front of me like a lush yet prickly carpet. I want to keep the faith and check off that to-do list with relieved satisfaction, yet I want to just BE in the sun to let every fiber of my being go through somewhat of a detox from all of the input of the bustling schedule; energy that constant exertion takes. I suppose to make peace with the duality, one has to earn their place in the sun. It’s like eating the incredible dessert before the beneficial protein or fiber…you just don’t do it, right? And one has to be patient. I am always trying for the ever-elusive patience. With practicing meditation (still not regularly, but shoot for every other day!) and practicing yoga regularly, you would think that the buzzing zen might come forward before the immediate reaction to a delay. I try to practice it when I’m behind a slow car; I seem to experience someone driving incompetently slow on a regular basis right in front of me. But I am still getting worn down after about 5 or ten minutes where then my hand gestures will fly and the eventual F-bombs scatter. Interestingly enough, I experienced the other side of this lack of patience/rage when driving the other day (it happened to be on Mothers Day). I was at the intersection in South Nyack coming up on 9W (where they mean to put in traffic lights but still have them dangling and expectant). I pulled out a little too far and the driver turning in from 9W had gesticulating convulsions at me in a matter of seconds. What was amazing to me is the level of rage this woman exhibited in these few short moments. Like she may have been waiting for just this specific time to have all of her collective crap just fly and let loose to give her poor soul a break.

When obligation to other things can be put at bay, this time of year also brings a letting go through the dirt. Digging through the many rocks, buggy creatures and threads of roots to pull out enough soil for an adequate hole to place the hopeful green, is somehow so satisfying. It seems to harken back to why humans like fire or why our spider senses go up and stay up for no particular reason sometimes. Who would think that digging through the dirt, planting and then watching the eventual growth would provide such satisfaction? And yet every year it does. Planting, weeding and tending to a garden for me also provides a therapy of sorts because I can just follow the simple act of tending toward an eventual outcome. No one talking at me. Nobody needs to be entertained. In commune with the plant kingdom. I tend to my children of course, but it is not such a controlled environment! Especially as adolescence creeps in and the weeds of what a teenager indicates start growing around their essence (but I digress!). What has always done well in my garden are cucumbers, peppers, squash and eggplants. By growing them, it forces me to cook with them more and I love giving them away to my friends but even to someone like the woman at Chevy when I took my car in. She needed a thank you and it seemed nicer than only words could provide.

In our world of way too much media (I go onto Facebook, Instagram and Netflix more than I would like to!) it is good to come upon a book or a song that somehow eases a pain inside of you. Songs for me sometimes express a stifled emotion and I will jump aboard the ride to belt a cluster of notes for the easing of some pain or to celebrate a gushing joy. There are so many songs and genres that I enjoy from older to new, ranging anywhere from INXS and the B-52’s to Wilco and Michael Kiwanuka. But that doesn’t even cover 1/100oth of it! A couple of songs I’ve liked lately are Ball & Biscuit by The White Stripes and We The Common (For Valerie Bolden) by Thao & The Got Down Stay. Getting caught up in a good novel is taking a trip in a different way. It’s so wonderful to press pause on my life and get taken away to a complex, amazing narrator or to hear the quest of a true life bleeding out their biography. Lately, I’ve been listening to Audible books. This way I can feel literary while folding dreaded laundry or riding in the car. If my life was spilled out onto a page, I would like to have a cover of a book shown while a nifty little tune plays in the backround. My book picks for this blog are: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. It’s a 1st person narrator and she is crafty, wry and wacky. I also just listened to The Unwinding of the Miracle. This is Julie Yip-William’s account of her life as she battled Colal rectal cancer and you just fall in love with her. Even through her ugly truths.

Last reflections…While riding my bike today at the hook, a thought that I’ve had before came drifting in. Do you know what those new Dyson fans look like? A big circle with NOTHING in the middle. How does it work? How does it blow such strong air if there is nothing? There is some complex answer to that. I like to look at it like a symbol. I picture myself as this fan. There are always so many thoughts like complicated circuitry in an electrical factory. And the power can still be there even though physically it is in the realm of nothingness. Also, while being this fan the air can pass right through my being and I can feel like just a conduit of nature.

Please, please, please leave a comment or a question for me! I would really like to keep building upon ideas that I have for this blog and I would LOVE some input. Also, I previously said that I would write this blog every Tuesday. I have not always been true to those words because this is harder than initially thought! I now hope to put this out there every other Tuesday. Why Tuesday? It’s not Monday and I was born on a Tuesday.