A Very Narrow Bridge

The world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid. ~Nachman of Breslov

Category: Children

November 19, 2014

Ordinary

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about: The people I love are pretty much normal.

Yeah. I know.

Anyone who’s ever heard me talk about someone I love—not least of all my kid—is reading this with a certain amount of skepticism. The amount of skepticism that usually involves saying something like “bullshit.” But it’s true.

They are my normal. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is that warm, or that compassionate, or that funny. That not everyone has that kind of presence, or depth of insight. That not everyone laughs that way, or smiles that way, is that talented. So when I meet someone and mention that I’m my sister’s brother, or my brother’s brother, or my friend’s friend, or my son’s dad and that person lights up (and this happens a fair amount), I am delighted. But I’m also a little confused. Because those people whom I love are also just normal.

They are just people like everyone else. They are moving through this life just like everyone else. Subject to the same emotional spectrum as everyone else. Just as crazy, fussy, annoying, angry, stubborn, distant, full of bad habits and self-defeating behaviors as everyone else. As me. And I love them. And I think they love me too. We share that love. Not despite the fact that we are normal. We share that love because of the fact that we are normal.

Love is a normal part of being human. It’s there for the taking. Because we are human. It’s there for us. Love. And I know. There are some people who don’t feel loved. And there are people who are abused by the people who they want to love them. And human beings do detestable things to each other.

But I think the horrendous things human beings do to each other, to animals, to the planet, are not arguments against love being a normal part of being human. I think they are arguments in its favor. Those acts, those hate-filled acts, come from fear. From distortions and complete misunderstanding of the nature of love. And none of us is immune to that kind of misunderstanding. It happens in degrees; thank God not all of us are damaged enough to act out on that misunderstanding in violent, hideous ways, but sometimes we just don’t get it.

Being human is hard.

I just re-read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, one of my favorite books. Here’s what the main character says about love:

There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence? (238)

I love that quote. This has been a really shitty year. A lonely year. Sometimes a violent year. It’s sucked so far. But those three sentences remind me, again and again, that I don’t get to control things. I don’t get to choose how people love me, and I don’t have to subject myself to other’s demands on how I love them. I get to be who I am and accept the love that’s there for me. And I get to send some love to myself. Because I’m human. And that’s hard.

But there’s a way to do it. It’s not easy, but there’s a way. I have to remember that we are all just people. Just normal people. The people I love and the people I don’t. And me. And you. We are all just moving through this life.

Gilead takes the form of a very long letter written by John Ames, a 76-year-old Congregationalist Minister to his son, who is not yet seven. He married late in life, and his love for his wife and son is the slow, deeply burning love that comes with age and comfort. Though, when he first meets his wife his love is the awkward, embarrassing, self-doubting love that shows up at the beginning of things—he writes sermons hoping to impress her and then feels foolish when he delivers them looking at her. He takes his hat off in her presence and then feels stupid for having done it.

Here’s how he describes how he feels:

I can tell you this, that if I had married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had given me ten grandchildren, I’d leave them all on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother’s face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which would not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and in the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor he has hidden from the world – your mother excepted of course – and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. (237)

He loves them so much that, had he never met them, he would still love them. He would still love them because he understands that the love he has for them is a reflection of Love. “An embracing, incomprehensible reality.” And he loves them simply because they are who they are.

I get that. That’s how I love my son. For his ordinariness. Not because he’s smart or funny, or because he is a fantastic baseball player. Not even because he moves through the world with a startling ability to accept Love. Without naming it, without demanding it, and without being ignorant of the fact that being human is hard.

I know. I can see your skeptical face. And I can hear you laughing and saying “bullshit.”

But it’s true.

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August 15, 2014

Unresolved

I saw the movie Boyhood last night. I liked it.

At the very end of it Mason, the kid we’ve just watched grow from 6 to 18, is shrooming with Nicole, a woman he meets on the first day of college. “We don’t seize the moment,” she says, “The moment seizes us.”

That’s not a spoiler because the movie can’t really have spoilers. It’s pretty much left unresolved. We don’t know what happens to Mason as he grows up. We don’t even know if he kisses Nicole. (He should. Even I, who has very rarely been present enough to actually notice when a woman wants to kiss me, unless very, very few women have wanted to kiss me in my life, which can’t possibly be the case, knew  they wanted to kiss each other badly).

We don’t know what happens to the rest of Mason’s family. We don’t really know anything. We get no resolution at all, which makes it the most satisfying movie I’ve seen in a while.

Because we don’t know.

We only really know that the moment seizes us. And that’s true. It does. For good or bad, the moment seizes us.

We watch Mason grow up. A 6-year-old has almost no control over his life. As we get older, we have more and more control. An 18-year-old can make his own decisions. (Seriously. Mason. Kiss Nicole.) But even with that control, that ability to seize the moment, we also need to allow the moment to seize us.

We need to make it an embrace. We can’t completely chicken out (Harry, I’m talking to you here), and we can’t try to muscle our way through either (Harry, I’m talking to you here.)

A good embrace involves both asserting and yielding. Seriously. Think about it. Think about the best sex, or hug, or conversation you’ve ever had. It was both asserting and yielding. That’s what presence really means. Asserting and yielding.

People talk a lot about being in the moment. Well, that’s hard. Really hard. Almost too hard. Every choice we make leads us to the next movement and it’s really, really hard not to try to hold on to that previous choice. So we need to yield a little to make some room for the current moment. But we also have some choices to make to move us on to the next moment. We might regret our choice. Sometimes we need to regret that choice because the next moment down the line requires it. We don’t know.

Mason and Nicole and their roommates are hiking in the mountains where he’d hiked with his dad years before. In that earlier scene he’s talking to his dad about a girl he likes and how he can’t find anything to say to her. His dad explains that he should ask her questions and listen to her answers. That’s what’s happening with Nicole. They are speaking and  listening to each other. Asserting and yielding.

Their friends are howling and shouting to the sunset, to the canyon, to whatever. They are asserting themselves completely. The scene they are taking in is just a tool for their own egos. And they are missing the point.

When we make room for the moment, when we allow our ego to withdraw so that we can actually be about the action we are doing in that moment, we are getting out of our own way.

We are opening up possibilities. Millions of possibilities, none of which brings any real resolution.

I find that reassuring.

 

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August 2, 2014

Making Room

I’ve been writing about Elly a lot lately. I guess he’s been teaching me a lot lately…

He doesn’t live with me all the time, so when he’s with me I need to do what I can to let him be alive with me. This isn’t easy. It means that I need to balance us. When he’s with me I want to fit all my parenting into the time we have together. But I also need to make space for him to fit all his son-ing into that same time.

I want to feed him, to shelter him, to clothe him, to protect him, to heal him if he needs it, to teach him, to learn from him, to laugh with him, to play together, to listen to him, to reassure him, and if necessary, to correct his behavior.

Sometimes I only have an hour with him on a weekday afternoon.

Not going to fit all that in an hour.

Unless I’m really there with him. Unless I let go of all those goals. And give him some room.

If I step outside those expectations for a moment, and just be present with him for that moment, opportunities to do some, most, or all of those elements of parenting will present themselves. Usually all of them.  Sometimes simultaneously. Because he has that space.

It’s not easy, but there are a couple of thing that have helped.

First, there are the Buddies movies. These are awful movies. They are about talking puppies. Filmed puppies that talk. The kind where they add a voiceover to the puppies. Horrible movies. And I like puppies. Elly loves these movies. He has for years. They make him laugh. Then I start to laugh.

And I thoroughly enjoy myself because I have stepped out of my expectations for a moment. It’s not always going to be about my ideas of what’s worthwhile. He doesn’t run things, but sometimes he gets a turn to make a choice for both of us. And I need to make room for him by clearing out some of my ideas.

Shedding my attachment to outcomes for that moment opens up all sorts of opportunities for deepening my relationship with my kid. For being a parent. Because I’m there.

Second is breathing with him. I sit with him and we just breathe together. “Inhale when I inhale, and exhale when I exhale.”

He used to hate this. It started when he would be throwing one of his (rare) tantrums as a toddler. I would grab him up into my arms, hold him close to me and then just breathe. He’d resist and squirm, but then he’d calm down.

Now we breathe before bedtime when he’s with me. And sometimes just to calm down after being goofy. To calm him, I suppose. I get to stay goofy because I’m a responsible adult.

How did it move from a technique for removing a tantrum to a bedtime ritual he expects? Probably because he hated it when he was a toddler. But even as a toddler he liked being calmed by it. He was calming himself with me present giving him space to do that work.

And he doesn’t know that I’m teaching him to be aware of his breath. Or to control his breath. Or the effect his breath can have on his physical being.

I guess I fooled him, didn’t I?

Finally, I just let him be with himself when we are together. I let him be aware of where he is at that time, within that moment. Without directing him. Sometimes that means waiting while he throws an osage orange against a tree to watch it explode. Sometimes it means just letting him sit by himself and be quiet for a while. Even when we only have an hour together.

This is the hardest one of all and, honestly, I have no idea how I learned to do it. He taught me, I suppose.

I can’t do these things without first being present within myself. Without knowing where I am. What I am thinking, what my emotional state is, how my body feels. So that’s the starting place. I need to be aware of myself in the moment so I can know whether I need to step aside and let go a little, or make a decision and be forceful.

I used to feel like I died every time I’d return him to his mom after spending time with him. I would grieve for the time we spent together and I constantly wanted more.

Then, somewhere along the way, I learned that I can be happy with what I have. I can be a complete parent whenever I am with him, even if it’s just an hour after school. All I have to do is make space for it. And the way to make that space is to start by being present for him.

And getting out of my own way.

 

 

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July 28, 2014

It’s a Good Thing I’m Here

When Elly is scared by something I always say the same thing. I’ve said it for as long as he’s been talking. It goes like this:

Elly: This is scary.
Harry: Well, it’s a good thing I’m here.

It always works. Just pointing out that I’m with him makes him feel better. It’s a good reminder.

I need to remind myself sometimes.

I need to remind myself because I play roles. And I don’t like some of the roles I play, so I need to remind myself that it’s me who’s playing those roles and it’s me who can stop playing them. And the way to remember this is to look for myself within those roles. Because I’m there.

It’s easy to find myself in some roles.

I am a father. That’s just how it is. Like the color of my eyes. Like my height. Like my birthday. It will be true for as long as this life lasts, and probably longer. It’s just a fact of who I am at this point. So it’s easy to find myself.

I’m also the guy who laughs in some of my yoga classes. I laugh and I make smartass comments because I love those classes.

There are other roles I play that aren’t so helpful. Roles I play that make me bitter. Or angry. Or just make me feel sorry for myself.

And I’m in those roles too. The same person.

Right there.

Same guy.

But they are distortions. I am covered up by malas, or encased in klippot (husks or shells that cover up the Light within us and in the world–you have to look it up yourself because I couldn’t find a good link. Maybe this will help. I dunno. It starts out about trees, but I didn’t listen to the whole thing. Sue me.)

Being a father or the guy who laughs while I practice yoga are openings into myself. They are connections. To myself and Everything Else. To the moment. To my path forward. They are exactly the opposite of the malas and klippot.

The roles that I play that make me upset are external. They are there to try to please someone else because, in effect, they are just being a Harry-shaped aspect of someone else.  They are based on me, but they aren’t who I am. I can only be who I am if I remember I am here.

And, yeah, I can’t like every role I play as much as I like being a father or the guy laughing in yoga class. I have to go to work and be the guy who does my job and all that, and the guy who does the dishes and takes out the garbage. But those are responsibilities in which I can be completely present.

We all put roles on other people. All the time. We do it because we’re afraid.

We are afraid of so much. And it’s important to remind each other that we’re here.

Us.

Not our hopes and dreams about each other.

Us. Together.

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches four mantras to help us remind each other of this:

My Beloved, I am here for you.
My Beloved, I know you are there and it makes me happy.
My Beloved, I know you suffer and I am here for you.
My Beloved, I am suffering and I need your help.

It’s a good thing we’re here.

 

 

 

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July 21, 2014

What’s Already There

Once when he was pretty little, maybe three or four, I was telling Elly a story. At one point he stopped me and asked where the story came from.

“I’m making it up for you.” I told him. “Just for you.”
“But how do you know what to make up?” he wanted to know.
“I dunno, Habibi,” I said, “I guess I’m just listening to what’s already there.”

I’ve been telling him stories for years. Stories filled with characters we’ve gotten to know very well. Dosa the Spice Merchant; The Witch of the Woods (who is really a healer) and her impossibly old student Samuel; The Librarian Prince; the Spider who wove herself a violin; The Soldier Who Waited.

All these characters move in and out of the stories I tell him. Sometimes spending months with us, sometimes disappearing for years to make room for new people. It’s a big story. And I make up each part as I’m telling it.

That’s not easy. At all. It means I have to do a lot of listening. I have to listen to him. I have to listen to myself. And hardest of all, I have to listen for the story.

Not easy.

Because sometimes listening is incredibly simple. The story is love. Sometimes that’s loud and clear. Sometimes even overwhelming.

But sometimes that Love story is drowned out by the Wrong story. The story of doubt and shame and everything I think makes me wrong.

And both stories are already there.

They have to be. I wouldn’t know love without heartbreak, I wouldn’t know courage without fear, and I wouldn’t know joy without sorrow. They have to be there for the other to exist.

Last week I was having a hard time hearing the Love story. Maybe because Elly was away and I didn’t see him. Probably not, though.

Really what was happening was that I was spending too much time listening Wrong story. The other voices.

I let them convince me that I wasn’t deserving of those things I want, that my perceptions are wrong, that I’ve over-estimated my abilities. That I’m wrong. About everything.

So I wrote to one of my teachers. She gave me some very difficult practices to do.

And she also said “[The heart] is an empty vessel for light to come through.”

The Love story is loudest when the heart is open. The Wrong story is loudest when it’s closed. That’s why at some of the most difficult times, we feel most constricted. Emotionally and physically.

Sometimes it’s hard to open your heart. Being human is hard. We have to balance a lot. Those things that frighten us and those things we love. We need to accept both. Both are already there.

Both stories are with us for this whole life.

But it’s up to us to choose which one gets our attention.

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June 26, 2014

The Shape of Silence

I am drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book.

It’s silent.

It’s early in the morning and it’s quiet—my favorite time of day.  But what I’m experiencing is silence, not quiet. It’s the silence I only feel when my son is waiting for me to wake him up. A defining silence. A silence with a shape.

Once I was in a yoga class and we were chanting with the teacher. It was a small class, but it was a small room and it was crowded. And here’s the thing: I couldn’t hear the people next to me.

I couldn’t hear their voices.

It’s hard to pick out a single voice in a room with a lot of people chanting together.  I tried listening to the person next to me.

Nothing.

Then I noticed the silence around her voice.

Not her voice. The silence. And I got it. We were chanting because of that silence. That silence in between our voices. The silence that connects us.

Our voices move into that silence and the silence makes room for them. It doesn’t resist. It can’t because without our voices in that room the silence couldn’t exist. And without the silence we would never hear our voices. They would be mixed together. Competing.

We need that silence because silence creates humility. I could hear because of the silence around me. If I had only been listening  to the sound of my own voice, I would have missed the beauty of other voices and I would have been worse off for it.

This week we read Parshat Hukkat (Bamidbar [Numbers]: 19:1-22:1). The Israelites are in the desert and there is no water. Miriam has died and her well, which had provided water until that point, has disappeared. God tells Moshe and Aharon to assemble the people and speak to a rock in their presence and it will provide water for them to drink. It doesn’t work out that way. The story goes that Moshe hits the rock with his staff and, because of this, he’s not allowed to enter the promised land. Because he hit it instead of speaking to it.

Actually, he does speak. Just not to the rock.

… וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם שִׁמְעוּ נָא הַמֹּרִים הֲמִן הַסֶּלַע הַזֶּה נוֹצִיא לָכֶם מָיִם…
He said to them, “Now listen, rebels, can we get you water from this rock?” (20:10)

Then he hits the rock.

I’m not sure it’s the hitting that’s the real problem. I think it’s the speaking to the people, rather than the rock. To me it sounds like he’s speaking to hear the sound of his own voice. He’s not speaking to the silence of the rock or, even more to the point, to the silence of the water. He’s talking to the people. To the rebels. He’s talking in opposition. About how great he is.

He should have spoken to the water. The water would have given him more shape than just talking did.

Water is yielding, it makes room for us. It moves out of the way to accommodate our shape, the same way silence gives our voice its shape.

It’s time to wake my son, so I open the door to his room. He’s awake. Reading a book. And the silence between us is a connection. It gives shape to our relationship: A son-shaped silence and a father-shaped silence.

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February 13, 2014

Home is The Present

My friends are getting new furniture. And painting. And rearranging. They are spending a lot of time with paint chips, and catalogues, and at furniture stores.

And they are so happy with this project. And so excited to see how it will turn out. And, honestly, it’s amazing to watch. They are making their home reflect who they are. Who they have become over the years.

But there’s more. There’s a lot more at work. They are creating a space that will remind them of who they are. The colors they are choosing aren’t just pleasant to look at.

They are more.

Those colors are manifestations of who they are. And who their children are. And who they all are together, as a family. Even as their kids are getting older.

As they are painting and rearranging, they are noticing that things they’ve owned for years fit perfectly into the new places. That they match the new colors of the walls as if they’d gotten them with this house, this color, this corner in mind.

The hooks they are choosing to put up near their front door are more than a convenient place to hang coats. They are a welcome to those of us who visit. Their house is becoming a place to live their values, more and more.

So of course it makes them happy to do this work. And of course it makes me happy when my friend shows me ideas in catalogues and then waves her arm across the room to explain where a chair or a sofa might go. It is important work. Work filled with joy.

…

This week we read Ki Tissa (Shemot [Exodus] 30:11-34:35). It spends a lot of time on a shopping list. A shopping list of items to build the Mishkan. The dwelling place.

The Hebrew word: משכן‎, has the same root as one of the God’s Names: שכינה‎ (Shekhina), which is how we refer to the Divine Presence. The Immanent God. It’s sort of the noun form of the idea of Being Present.

The Mishkan was temporary; it was taken down and set back up as the Israelites moved through the wilderness. It was a Place for the Present. No one was pretending it was permanent.

Then, a little way in–past the first part of the shopping list (Can you please pick up a copper basin for the priests to wash their hands in? Oh…right…also and myrrh—500 weight should be enough. And cinnamon…should I write this down for you?), we meet Bezalel.

.רְאֵה, קָרָאתִי בְשֵׁם, בְּצַלְאֵל בֶּן-אוּרִי בֶן-חוּר, לְמַטֵּה יְהוּדָה
.וָאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ, רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, בְּחָכְמָה וּבִתְבוּנָה וּבְדַעַת, וּבְכָל-מְלָאכָה
…לַחְשֹׁב, מַחֲשָׁבֹת
See, I have called Bezalel…by name, and I have filled him with the Divine Spirit, wisdom, understanding, and the deepest knowledge of every craft…to design designs (to think thoughts)

Bezalel is chosen to be the master craftsman, the designer, of the Mishkan, the home for the Presence. 

For a guy with no lines, Bezalel has a lot to do. And that name. Bezalel means “In the Shadow of God”

But Bezalel has within him some pretty remarkable gifts. The Divine Spirit. Wisdom. Understanding. The Deepest Knowledge. And, with these, he can design designs. Think thoughts.

He’s been called by name. He’s been given these amazing gifts. And all he has to do to make it happen is be himself. Be true to himself. Be present. He’s creating a home for that Presence. One that will be more than the copper, gold, silver, wood, cloth, spices, water, and fire that are going into it. They are lovely, these elements, but there’s so much more going on here.

So much more.

Because all these items, all these designs, and plans, and choice…all this work is about creating space for the Presence. One that’s a manifestation of the Divine within him and that can only happen with all that work. That work to build something that manifests that Divine within all of us.

Spirit. Wisdom. Understanding. Deepest Knowledge. We all have them. It’s just that sometimes they are in the shadows.

My friends are busy at their work. Similar work. Maybe even the same work. Building their own space for the Shekhina. For the Present. And all they have to do is be themselves.

And they are having so much fun.

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December 6, 2013

What’s Happened So Far.

I’ve been given an assignment; I need to write a spiritual autobiography.

I’ve decided to share this outline with you .

I probably won’t share the completed one with you. Sorry.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

It all started with the people.

With the visit from The Rabbi to my house when I was three; I fled in stark terror and hid in my room.

Then Sunday school and “God is One” and the bronze doors on the ark in the sanctuary and trips to the choir loft.

With camp and laughter and boats and swims across the lake and Cat Stevens songs around campfires. With my best friend, whose house was filled with Jewish art and whose parents actually sang whole prayers at Shabbat dinner.

And then it moved to the unplanned-for Bar Mitzvah I demanded.

And confirmation, and studying Buber and Heschel with the rabbi and my friends in his office. To college and helping to take the entire Hillel budget and spend it on a colloquium about peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

To disappointment and anger and running very far away. To a gentle tap on my shoulder and the clear message: “I am still here.”

Then to studying Mishna in my professor’s office. To Israel. To the huppah. To sandwiches and beer and text study in Philadelphia. To youth programming in Baltimore. To Israel again. To blessing my son Friday nights before he was born:

 היה אשר תהיה והיה ברוך באשר תהיה
“Be who you will be, and be blessed in who you will be.”

Then to a bris and another blessing:

“Be like your namesake and listen for the קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה. The thin voice of silence. The still, small voice.”

Then heartbreak. And to the beit din.

To a gentle tap on my shoulder and the clear message: “I am still here.”

Then to potluck minyanim in apartments around New York for Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv. And holidays and Hebrew study.

To Washington DC. To traditional synagogues where I didn’t feel quite at home.

To someone telling me: “You know all this yoga and mindfulness and meditation is just going to bring you back to Judaism, right?” To “Yes, but not just now.”

To a gentle tap on the shoulder and the clear message: “I am still here.”

To a Rosh Hashanah potluck. And then my tallit wrapped around me at Kol Nidrei.

To my mother’s funeral. To shacharit every morning. To latkes and shabbat candles and holidays.

To studying with a havruta. To kashrut. To Shabbat. To Rashi. To piyyutim.

And then to this week: Parshat Vayigash (Bereishit [Genesis] 44:18 – 47:27)  and this line. This one simple line.

לֹא-אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה, כִּי, הָאֱלֹהִים
“It was not you who sent me here, it was God.”

I was mistaken. It wasn’t the people who got me to this week. The people were helping. Just, I really hope, as I have been helping them.

What has gotten us all here? You, me, the people who made everything in this post happen,  the cocker spaniel down the street—all of us?

It’s the thin voice of silence saying:  “I am still here. There is nowhere else but Me.”

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July 1, 2013

Catch

There aren’t rules as much as there are expectations.

Neither of us is going to intentionally throw the ball into the street or the woods. It’s just not done that way. But even with our expectations, we can’t always count on the ball not sailing over one of our heads. I had a bruise on my knee for days when the ball got away from him and hit me there–hard. Catch is not a game without risks.

It’s hot and humid and we are both sweating, but this is an important game. I throw the ball to Elly with my right hand, he catches it in his glove with his left and throws it back to me with his right.

It’s late in the day, and we are getting tired. We make mistakes, but chasing after the ball is part of it because the game is about learning, not perfection.

“What happened there?” I ask as the ball passes 20 feel to my right—I’m not fast enough for that.

“I wasn’t looking at you.” comes the response.

My fancy sidearm throw flies over Elly’s head and I apologize: “Sorry–held on to that one too long.”

He laughs, “At least you’re better at sidearm than I am!”

A while ago I saw a play performed in American Sign Language. The actors, students at Gallaudet University, signed and there was a voice interpreter offstage reading all the parts. The characters repeated one line over and over: “There’s nothing to be done.”

At intermission the ASL interpreter with whom I saw the play pointed out that while the interpreter was reading the line directly from the script, the actors were always signing “There’s nothing to be finished.”

I liked that better.

Being human is hard, not hopeless. We are here, and that’s sometimes hard enough without becoming mired in how upset we are that we are limited to this hard existence. I need to remember how lucky I am to have this life at all. This life, this kid, this game. I need to remember that it’s about learning, not perfection.

It starts to rain. Soon we are soaked and can hardly see the ball.

“One more!” I shout from across the field where I’ve chased the last errant toss. I throw the ball in a long high arc across the field. Elly is ready. He watches the ball come towards him through the rain. And he’s smiling because there’s never been a bad day to play this game.

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June 23, 2013

All the Stories

It’s raining this morning so we are sprawled on the couch watching a movie.

The villan has just tricked the hero into turning over his magic staff, the source of all his power, which the villan promptly breaks and then throws, along with our hero, into a deep pit.

“What will happen now?” Elly asks, matter-of-factly—we’ve done this before.

“I dunno, Habibi,” I reply. “Is it about the staff, or is it about him?”

Sure enough the hero, with the help of a friend, is able to access within himself what it takes to repair his staff and escape the pit.

He asks me if I’ve seen this movie before.

“Nah…I just know a lot about stories.” I say.

Because of you. I don’t add.

But as I watch him watching the rest of the movie, or watch him listen as I read to him, or even watch him when it clears up and we are playing catch, I realize that it’s true. It’s possible to know all the stories. Every single one that’s ever been told, or ever will be told, and it’s all because of my son. Or at least because I love him so much and because he’s been using that love to crack me open, to stop me dead in my tracks, for as long as he’s been around.

Because I’m not talking about having an extensive book collection, I’m not talking about Joseph Campbell, and I’m not talking about structuralism. I’m talking about something else altogether. Something simple but not at all easy.

I’m talking about the stories that we keep within us. In our meridians, in our nadis, in the Sephirot. I mean the Stories. The stories that connect us. That allow us to go beyond ourselves. The stories that, if we only stop for a moment and listen to them, allow us to become bigger than ourselves.

Those stories. 

Those stories are hard to access. They are harder to hear. And they are hardest to remember. Being human is hard. We want to believe so much about ourselves. So much about what’s important to us is, well, important to us, and we’re not ever going to completely get over that in this lifetime.

But. If.

But if we sense them, even for a second or a breath or part of a breath, they can help. For that second, that inhale or exhale or that blink of an eye, we can know the stories.

All the stories.

If we know all the stories, for that briefest moment we can recognize something in ourselves. We can recognize everyone else in ourselves. If I know all the stories—the same stories that you know, the same stories that include you, how can I resent you? How can I hate you for your resentment of what’s important to me?

I can’t.

I can’t because I know the stories and knowing the stories means I can see and understand your resentment. It’s the same as my resentment. Your hatred and fear are the same as the hatred and fear I’ve experienced. My anger is the same as the anger you’ve felt. We’ve heard this one before and we can see that it’s not about the staff we might carry, it’s about what’s within us.

All of us.

And it’s hard because we like our staff. We believe we need the staff of what’s important to us, the staff of our hurt and our anger, even the staff of our happiness and our accomplishments. We like those things. I downright love those things enough to horde them.

But if we know the stories we must also know how they end. And they end the same for all of us. And they end too soon for us not to at least try to listen.

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