Wisdom Tree

Enough Love

This Valentine's Day, I'm twenty years married to the same guy. We're not all sizzling romance as we were in the early days, but love is good.

Still, I don't have enough love. Actually, I'll probably never have enough love.

That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? Aren't we made for desire, for longings fulfilled and unfufilled? It seems to me that I'm much more active and motivated by longing than I am by being satisfied. Whether it's longing for rest or food or touch or company, most of the real living happens between longing and fulfillment.

So, I hope that always, always, I'll be needing even just a little more love. That way, I will be more fully alive, awake, and paying attention to any and all possibilities.

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.

Gently into the New Year

I usually approach the New Year left-brain first. I list goals, then prioritize, then put them tentatively into a calendar. I create a daily schedule by which to do everything that seems important: exercise, meditation, prayer, writing, and so forth. I can spend hours doing this. I emerge from my cave (writing room with closed door, music, candles, and teapot) with my life sketched out in detail, at least for the month of January.

Wait for it . . . failure in the first or second week. This happens year after year. I do the exercise of organizing life mainly because it feels so satisfying, and we should pay attention to what elicits that feeling. I think it helps me think about my year, my life, my priorities and values. Time spent meditating on those things is not wasted, even if the plan crashes within days of its inception.

This year I did the prioritizing and some scheduling. But I resisted the neurotic urge to create a daily schedule. Time for a kinder, gentler me. Time to say yes to the exercise but no to the plan itself. I have decided to walk softly into the New Year.

Also, time for more gentleness with Vinita. It makes me wince to actually write that, but after so many friends, spiritual directors, and supervisors say the same thing, it seems wise that I listen and do as they ask.

I've been married twenty years. I've been me for almost fifty-four years. I've been an editor and writer for two decades. There's wear and tear involved in simply existing on this planet, even more if you dare to love people and the rest of creation, even more if you work hard and nurture creativity. All of that work and love and creativity walk around in one body, a body that never rests. It keeps breathing and circulating blood. It keeps healing itself. It keeps performing the same motions and functions, thousands of hours on end, with no break, ever.

So it's appropriate, don't you think, to treat the body more kindly and more intentionally? What about a massage once a month? What about lotion on dry skin? What about brisk walks and the liquid movements of Tai Chi, the therapeutic stretches of yoga? What about better food? What about laughing more and sleeping better? What about wearing clothes that feel right and look good?

If not now, when? Here's to 2012, the year of living gently. 

Too Lovely

Nature is so flamboyant this time of year that it’s difficult to get anything done. I’ll aim myself in the direction of some productive task, only to look out the window and catch a glimpse of garden. Then what can I do, but go out to inspect everyone’s progress? Are the tomatoes setting on? Are the pepper plants in bloom? Does the basil need to be harvested? Is it time to weed again, or tie up a new gangly shoot?

 

Even at the end of the day, when walking home from the train, I must pass my own front yard and stop to see if the ground cover I’ve planted is making any headway, or if it’s time to rip up the grass and wild violets that impinge on the territory. Once I begin looking, my steps continue over to the top-heavy lilies that lean closer to the ground or to the lone begonia braving its new spot near the walk. The bush we planted last year is sending out slim red branches like mute fireworks against the still afternoon. I have no idea when I should prune it, or if I should prune it at all.

 

Because I walk a lot in the course of my commute, I find many, many front yards to gaze upon, to sniff for fragrance, or to pause before to identify something bloomy or leafy. At times, I must restrain myself from weeding other people’s property. At times, I come close to plucking something to take with me. At no time am I thinking about work of any kind. Neat, constructive thoughts do not fit into summer brain space, they just don’t.

 

I suppose that living in Chicago conditions a person to revel in the few months of pleasant weather that we do have; the winters seem to get longer every year. Still, I like winter, and those cold and austere landscapes have their own charm. But summer—it’s simply out of control in terms of loveliness. Yes, I think that maybe summer is too lovely. Some days it’s really hard to bear up under so many scents on the warm air, or the uncountable hues of flower petals, or even the mystical architecture of leaves and stems. Every day I see some greening structure I have never seen before. It’s a wonder I’m not late to work every single day. As it is, I must get to my desk and have some strong black tea, just to counteract the giddiness that builds up after a fifteen-minute stroll through shade and sunshine, over stones and past fences, all the time surrounded by trembling foliage and the gaudy buds and blooms that are proof that plants have a robust and rowdy sex life.

 

Also, nature is not the least bit interested in tidiness or efficiency, but that’s another post altogether.

 

So, go ahead and pay attention—stop and smell the roses, if you will. But know that you do so at your own risk.

Aphrodite's Notebook: Descending Clementines

Mr. Bones is our boy-cat. We’ve had him about a year and a half—he wandered into my path when I was walking home from the train one afternoon. He meowed and yowled and stood in front of me, so skinny I wondered how he was still alive. But he knew exactly what he was doing. Of course I picked him up and carried him home; of course we ended up keeping him. We added him to the family of girl-dog, boy-dog, and girl-cat, not to mention boy-Jim and girl-Vinita.

 

Mr. Bones no longer looks like his name; he is sleek and filled out and full of himself. His nickname is Avalanche, because whenever we hear anything sliding or crashing to the floor, we apprehend Bones fleeing the scene as we arrive to assess the damage.  If we don’t pick him up and put him in bed with us, he might wander around the house half the night, causing all sorts of upset. Once tucked in, he seems to realize that it’s bedtime and that he’s tired.

 

I was working in the living room last evening when I heard an unusual sort of crash—it wasn’t glass or plastic breaking, or metal bouncing off the kitchen tiles. Jim made it to the accident site before I could put down my laptop.

 

We have stairs leading from the kitchen down to the family room in the basement. There’s a half wall between the kitchen and the stairwell, upon which I place things from time to time. I keep a fruit basket there. Bones must have tried to get into it or get something out of it. In any case, the basket came off the shelf, and the several clementines in it went tumbling down the stairs and rolled across the family room floor in as many directions. According to Jim, Bones was so startled that he actually made it downstairs before a single Clementine reached bottom.

 

I tell of this incident because I’m goofy-crazy about my pets. I file this in Aphrodite’s Notebook because cuddly creatures provide positive stimulation of the senses. When you stroke those velvety ears or hold an affectionate cat, dog, or “other” against your cheek or your heart, that pleasure is in a category all its own. Maybe Jim and I go a bit far by allowing a cat to sleep under the covers between us, but it’s soothing to have that purring presence breathing against your tummy, especially during a Chicago January or February.

 

It’s pleasurable simply to give comfort, to pet and coo and look into the eyes of the dog that wants nothing more than to be petted and cooed over. Our girl-cat, Little Buddha (completely different personality from Bones!) meows at me, then runs downstairs and stretches out on a certain rug, which is my cue to come play with her, which I do by grabbing her belly, after which she clutches my hand and pretends to bite. Sometimes she just wants to stretch out on my chest while I’m reading or in Jim’s arms while he’s at the computer. Affection given, asked for, received, reciprocated. If only human relationships could remain so simple and direct, so honest and uncomplicated!

 

For Lent this year, I will be especially attentive to touch. I will more intentionally offer to other people touch that affirms or comforts them. I will allow my hand to linger a bit longer on my husband’s shoulder. I will extend my hand in fellowship to more people in more situations. I will accept the peaceful and encouraging touch of others as willingly as I receive Little Buddha when she nuzzles my shoulder, Mr. Bones when he curls up on my lap, Nala when she places her head under my hand for a pet, and Buddy when he lies on the couch so that his length rests against me. These lovely creatures will teach me a manner of peacefulness if I allow it. If I am wise, I will pass it on.

Aphrodite's Notebook: Eric Joisel

Aphrodite is known as the goddess of love, but it's not simply about sexuality. Aphrodite's essence has to do with creativity. Anyone who is creative, generative, and passionate expresses Aphrodite. My friend Paul Campbell, SJ, found this amazing story about a man who folds paper into exquisite art--you'll be amazed and delighted. Enjoy!

 

 

Aphrodite's Notebook: Fall Right into Love

You were created to love. So why not give in to it? Yes—give in. Fighting love is such a worthless cause. But we are more likely to fight love than let it happen to us. Usually we’re too distracted with trying figure out love and make it fit our ideas of love. We love ideas, not love. We love control, not freedom. We love definitions, not explorations. We love security, not risk—and love will always involve risk.

 

If you think it rather odd that a Christian talk this way, then consider how faith usually works. To put it bluntly, faith requires that we fall into God’s abyss. We must take the step and go over the edge when it comes to faith. We decide to live as if there really is a Divine Love out there who is focused upon our welfare. We choose to believe the impossible, the fantastic. And only when we’ve taken that step do we find something under our feet that turns out to be solid and reassuring—until the next time when a step of faith is required.

 

It’s the same with love. And I’m talking about Love—the Love that fuels the universe and keeps our hearts pumping and the rain falling. This love is in our DNA, and it’s always enticing us to give ourselves, forget ourselves, take chances with other human beings—in sum, jump off that cliff.

 

If you claim to love but never have that feeling of air under your feet, then your love is the pinched, fearful kind, and it has not yet grown into its potential. Divine Love includes chills up and down the spine—because you have no control over how anything will turn out. Love opens itself and welcomes rather than judges what comes in the door. This can be a scary way to live. But I think Jesus was into scary love. I think the saints took risks that most of us would never consider. And once they’d descended into that beautiful abyss and met their God, they wanted to keep jumping off the edges of things.

 

So, whether it’s a budding relationship with lots of unanswered questions, or a work of self-giving that looks impossible (think Haiti; think the gangbangers down the street; think government that must guide us through these times), take a chance and fall into Love. I’ll try to do this myself. Maybe later we can check back and tell one another how it went.

Aphrodite's Notebook: Birthday #52

Birthday #52 was a satisfying day. I took a personal day from work and went to my favorite doctor for my annual exam. Birthday present #1: no need for a pelvic exam this year because they've always been normal and every two years is enough! She also wrote out a perscription for a visit to the chiropractor (we have one across the street from my workplace), who can then send me to a massage therapist for regular appointments. Yes, I'm making the plunge. Have decided that my frequent headaches are connected to tight muscles in back and neck. So help is on the way.

Birthday present #2 was a visit to Eddie B's, who had lots of slashed prices. Soft, roomy pajama bottoms and a big soft but heavy shirt for lounging around the house, which we keep at about 60 degrees during the winter.

Birthday present #3 was lunch at Sayat Nova, an Armenian restaurant first recommended to me years ago by good friend LaVonne Neff. This is the site of my first meeting with another good friend, Cindy Crosby. It's where I took longtime friend Kathy and her husband Ken Woods last year when they were in Chicago for medical reasons. It's small and cozy; their stuffed grape leaves are marvelous. I indulged in the house red wine, something Spanish and somewhat spicey. Thoroughly enjoyed their combo plate that included baked eggplant stuffed with ground and spiced lamb, the stuffed grape leaves, tabbouli, and green salad. Perfect.

From there I felt compelled to walk all the way down Michigan Ave. to Caribou Coffee for my free drink because it was my birthday. Dark hot chocolate and a cinnamon-sugar doughnut. This was possibly the day's only misstep; I wasn't hungry and didn't need all that sugar. How very slowly I am learning to say no.

Then the train back home. The day was chilly, rainy, and full of gusty winds, so I was soaked by the time I walked in the door. But, besides the ecstatic greetings from dogs and cats, there was present #4 on the dining room table, all wrapped and pretty: one of my favorite photos of Jim's, printed on metallic paper and framed for hanging. I had asked for this specifically, and it will soon be hanging in our entryway.

Throughout the day I was taking notes in my journal about the state of my creative life, plans for my blog, writing projects, seminary work, etc. This planning and dreaming/discerning stage will last until the end of the month. But I see all of it as possible, which is a definite shift from a month or so ago.

Another birthday gift: someone has generously offered to pay my seminary tuition for 2010. Blessings abound.

And then, to end the day, Jim and I boarded the train and went to Frontera Grill, one of chef Rick Bayless's restaurants and yet another gift for birthday #52. This turned out to be a high alcohol day for me: I had their two special winter drinks, a mojito with ginger added, and a margarita with cinnamon and plum--both quite successful. We had a special tamale appetizer, then Jim enjoyed the famous chile rellenos and I the skirt-steak tacos. Also, a crisp and juicy jicama-cucumber-pineapple salad. We finished with the two kinds of flan, one a Mexican vanilla and the other with cream cheese and tangerine, topped with candied tangerine rind.

We had a quiet ride back home, then made it to bed at a decent hour. Very nice.

Special note: Aphrodite's Notebook won't always be about food, but it will always be about things sensual, creative, full of beauty, life, and love. Enjoy!