The stairs looked impossible. Here we were, one of us marginally better than the other, both of us with some sort of bronchitis, at the bottom of the outdoor steps leading to our doctor’s office. Maybe we both moaned. I don’t know. I did. I was annoyed that I had to climb steps with compromised lung function.
So, after a two-hour-and-twenty-minute wait [“I guess it’s busy out there,” the doctor says ingenuously] he comes in. My sweetie pie has acute bronchitis. I am somehow less sick. He gets antibiotics. I decide to take Chinese herbs. A kind of race-you-to-the-finish-line deal.
We only went because he was so sick I made an executive decision to take us both for some expert advice. This was after two days of active moping, errands when I probably shouldn’t have been driving, and a lot of bad-movie watching. And moaning and complaining to each other about how terrible we felt. And drugged 11-hour nights of heavy sleeping aided by Nyquil. Which of course we had to go out and find because who keeps that crap in the house?
I had anxiously watched my husband for signs of something worse. My brother had just died of lung cancer which was misdiagnosed for two months back in the beginning of the awful odyssey as being a ‘hard’ pneumonia. Because he didn’t smoke. Hadn’t really been sick as an adult. Had he been a smoker, lung cancer would have been suspected and a tissue test forthcoming. Only when my brother begged for one did he find out what was really going on. So as I am watching my guy struggle with congestion, etc. I immediately go for the worst case scenario. When the doctor listened and said “I don’t hear any pneumonia” I breathed a sigh of relief. Twenty-four hours later, he is better and I can put that scary scenario away for now. I know he is better, because:
His yang energy is stronger. And how do I know that? Oh. Little things. Here are some of them:
“Are you going to be done with your email soon? I’d like to check mine.” Said in a peremptory tone of voice. Not the soft, sick tone he has been using.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but could we do something with the stuff on that chair so I can read later?” The stuff is cardboard and decorative papers and photos left over from my brother’s memorial service. My sister and I made up two large boards of pictures of the various aspects of my brother’s life. It was very hard to do, and a very good thing to do. I realize I don’t want to move it in order to hold onto my brother. There will be a lot more of this, I am sure. Okay. One thing at a time . . . I move it and it isn’t terrible. And I can always sit in the chair, too.
“Are there any clean clothes?” Uh, yeah. I’ve been quietly sneaking away from our nest in front of the TV to put clothes in the washer. They are not folded. [PLEASE.] But they are clean.
“I have to call some patients.” And he finds their numbers with no problem - definitely a ‘tell.’
“Do you think I can work Saturday?” Why don’t you ask if I think you are an idiot?
And best of all? “I’m hungry.”
And me. How do I know I’m getting better? What does yin do? I washed my hair, cleaned the kitchen, finished all the laundry [which is still not folded; but it is sorted], and heated up some soup. If I can manage it, I will change the sheets.
Afternoon arrives and our energies flag. He starts telling me that I better take it easy. He doesn't ask how I feel. It’s so perfectly yang protecting yin. He makes a place for me to sit down and draws me to him. I am cold and definitely overdid it. He is not moving, back in that place where he has definitely used up his energy. But I saw some blue sky and know tomorrow he will be better. Especially if we each take care of the other in the way we both do: I will watch him carefully and read him for signs he needs something; food, tea, water, vitamins; and he will let me go only so far before he demands I sit down . . . you’ve done enough, you must be tired. You have to rest, now, and so on. Maternal watch and offer, versus boundary setting. Yin and yang. Both are necessary.
I will have to be careful. Grief injures the lungs, according to Chinese medicine. My surviving brother is also sick with something very similar. The winter after my father died, all of us came down with bronchitis. So we need to take care of ourselves and balance crying and looking back with taking joy, again, from life, and looking ahead.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
A wise Chinese physician once said . . .
[Be patient, Mark, this is for you.]
Years ago, Woody Allen (whom I now boycott) made a movie entitled "ALICE" which starred Mia Farrow as a housewife who consulted a famous Chinese doctor to help her deal with certain psychological issues. (I don't know: Is boredom an issue? Or is it a state of mind? Do we care?)
Anyway (I promise not to have too many more parentheses) Dr. Yang, the Chinese doctor in the movie was drawn with mythic strokes; his herbal prescriptions seemed to have far-reaching effects on Alice, and spurred her to make changes in her life. I don't remember all of the reviews, but it they weren't glowing. It was kind of an offbeat movie. But the thing is, the character of Dr. Yang was based on a real person, not the same name, so don't get any ideas. And I got to meet him, take a couple of classes with him, see him for my own health issues, and bring a patient to him. His knowledge of Chinese medicine and herbs was, simply, staggering. His understanding of Chinese energetics, upon which herbal and acupuncture treatments are based, was brilliant to the point of elegant simplicity, the kind of simplicity you get to after so many years of study and immersion, you arrive back at the beginning; completely turned around and seeing with new/old eyes.
He was in his 80's at the time. English was not his strong suite, so I had to listen carefully. He spent a long time on my pulses, tongue and face. He made notes in Chinese and gave orders to minions. Then he gave me packets of herbs in a powdered form: Just add water, hold your nose and swallow. But they were so powerful that after just one day, my tongue and pulses completely changed. And I had several periods of free association that were so deep and far-reaching, I still refer to them for inspiration.
The problem was, they were also very expensive and after a couple of months I could not go back. But I had a wealthy patient who was willing to see him and have me accompany her to take notes and observe. The patient had a large non-cancerous growth and was trying to avoid surgery. I had tried to tell her over and over that the growth was a result of internal cold; a solid mass that accumulated because she was so depleted and kept pushing herself. But people of her ilk do not want to be told that. They just want ways around the inevitability of running out of gas.
I watched the doctor do his initial evaluation. Then he spoke:
"You are 4-cylinder car trying to go like 6-cylinder car. " Goosebumps. Just that morning my patient had revealed she had had a strange dream in which she was in a car trying to go up a hill and she could not make it and kept sliding back down.
My patient tried to explain that she had a very demanding job and that she needed more energy. She was trying to reason with him. The doctor looked at her compassionately, and in a deep and resonant voice said: "Mind has no limit. Body has limit."
That was basically the end of her entreaty. There was simply nothing she could say to that. It was an essential truth of stunning simplicity, and not at all the way we learn to think about the body-mind.
In terms of the male sexual ability to perform, this is also apt. There is not necessarily anything wrong with you if you have mental/emotional desire, but not enough energy to complete the job. You are not always supposed to be able to. The body has its way of protecting your essential energy (kidney jing) or life force -- a finite amount you are born with -- so that you do not use too much of it and compromise your health. Or age before your time. This happens in response to two basic things: Aging, which is inevitable; and a too-great demand for energy.
That said, there are certainly things one can do to optimize your response. But first you need to evaluate what's really going on. It may be your yang that is depleted, not only your yin. Or it may be both. For instance, depleted yang could leave you colder or paler than normal. You might notice your workouts are harder to complete. Depleted yin is what is responsible for hot flashes or certain heat symptoms, among other things.
Do you get enough sleep? Sleep is the great restorer of yin and yang energies. Without enough sleep, we age faster, have slower responses to immune system challenges, and don't always feel vital sexual energy, to name just a few of the many ways lack of sleep affects us. Just because caffeine can sharpen our senses and prop open our eyelids after a poor night's sleep does not mean that the rest of our bodies are following along.
The second thing to look at is: are there any underlying physical conditions that would cause your response to be compromised? Your doctor would be the one to determine this. You can also consult a practitioner of Chinese medicine for an energetic diagnosis that would take into an account any lifestyle habits that might be impacting your general health. Moxibustion, the practice of using smoldering 'moxa' -- a preparation of the herb mugwort -- on certain points is extremely beneficial for bolstering/warming up male yang energy and yin.
In short, without seeing you face-to-face, and with very little information, it would be difficult to give more than a general opinion on what you could do. The beauty of Chinese medicine is that it gives an individual a differential diagnosis based on that person's specific imbalances and often uncovers the beginning of sub-clinical conditions before they become more serious. And the treatments are also very directly addressed to a patient's body, not to the disease or condition as is common in western, allopathic medicine.
Be gentle on yourself and do not have the expectation that to be male is necessarily to be able to perform at will. To be male, is, after all, to be human.
Years ago, Woody Allen (whom I now boycott) made a movie entitled "ALICE" which starred Mia Farrow as a housewife who consulted a famous Chinese doctor to help her deal with certain psychological issues. (I don't know: Is boredom an issue? Or is it a state of mind? Do we care?)
Anyway (I promise not to have too many more parentheses) Dr. Yang, the Chinese doctor in the movie was drawn with mythic strokes; his herbal prescriptions seemed to have far-reaching effects on Alice, and spurred her to make changes in her life. I don't remember all of the reviews, but it they weren't glowing. It was kind of an offbeat movie. But the thing is, the character of Dr. Yang was based on a real person, not the same name, so don't get any ideas. And I got to meet him, take a couple of classes with him, see him for my own health issues, and bring a patient to him. His knowledge of Chinese medicine and herbs was, simply, staggering. His understanding of Chinese energetics, upon which herbal and acupuncture treatments are based, was brilliant to the point of elegant simplicity, the kind of simplicity you get to after so many years of study and immersion, you arrive back at the beginning; completely turned around and seeing with new/old eyes.
He was in his 80's at the time. English was not his strong suite, so I had to listen carefully. He spent a long time on my pulses, tongue and face. He made notes in Chinese and gave orders to minions. Then he gave me packets of herbs in a powdered form: Just add water, hold your nose and swallow. But they were so powerful that after just one day, my tongue and pulses completely changed. And I had several periods of free association that were so deep and far-reaching, I still refer to them for inspiration.
The problem was, they were also very expensive and after a couple of months I could not go back. But I had a wealthy patient who was willing to see him and have me accompany her to take notes and observe. The patient had a large non-cancerous growth and was trying to avoid surgery. I had tried to tell her over and over that the growth was a result of internal cold; a solid mass that accumulated because she was so depleted and kept pushing herself. But people of her ilk do not want to be told that. They just want ways around the inevitability of running out of gas.
I watched the doctor do his initial evaluation. Then he spoke:
"You are 4-cylinder car trying to go like 6-cylinder car. " Goosebumps. Just that morning my patient had revealed she had had a strange dream in which she was in a car trying to go up a hill and she could not make it and kept sliding back down.
My patient tried to explain that she had a very demanding job and that she needed more energy. She was trying to reason with him. The doctor looked at her compassionately, and in a deep and resonant voice said: "Mind has no limit. Body has limit."
That was basically the end of her entreaty. There was simply nothing she could say to that. It was an essential truth of stunning simplicity, and not at all the way we learn to think about the body-mind.
In terms of the male sexual ability to perform, this is also apt. There is not necessarily anything wrong with you if you have mental/emotional desire, but not enough energy to complete the job. You are not always supposed to be able to. The body has its way of protecting your essential energy (kidney jing) or life force -- a finite amount you are born with -- so that you do not use too much of it and compromise your health. Or age before your time. This happens in response to two basic things: Aging, which is inevitable; and a too-great demand for energy.
That said, there are certainly things one can do to optimize your response. But first you need to evaluate what's really going on. It may be your yang that is depleted, not only your yin. Or it may be both. For instance, depleted yang could leave you colder or paler than normal. You might notice your workouts are harder to complete. Depleted yin is what is responsible for hot flashes or certain heat symptoms, among other things.
Do you get enough sleep? Sleep is the great restorer of yin and yang energies. Without enough sleep, we age faster, have slower responses to immune system challenges, and don't always feel vital sexual energy, to name just a few of the many ways lack of sleep affects us. Just because caffeine can sharpen our senses and prop open our eyelids after a poor night's sleep does not mean that the rest of our bodies are following along.
The second thing to look at is: are there any underlying physical conditions that would cause your response to be compromised? Your doctor would be the one to determine this. You can also consult a practitioner of Chinese medicine for an energetic diagnosis that would take into an account any lifestyle habits that might be impacting your general health. Moxibustion, the practice of using smoldering 'moxa' -- a preparation of the herb mugwort -- on certain points is extremely beneficial for bolstering/warming up male yang energy and yin.
In short, without seeing you face-to-face, and with very little information, it would be difficult to give more than a general opinion on what you could do. The beauty of Chinese medicine is that it gives an individual a differential diagnosis based on that person's specific imbalances and often uncovers the beginning of sub-clinical conditions before they become more serious. And the treatments are also very directly addressed to a patient's body, not to the disease or condition as is common in western, allopathic medicine.
Be gentle on yourself and do not have the expectation that to be male is necessarily to be able to perform at will. To be male, is, after all, to be human.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Case for Starbucks
What’s so terrible about being pumped up with adrenalin and full of caffeine? Well, I can think of two or three things right off the top of my head . . . adrenal exhaustion and the much put-upon lining of the human stomach, to begin with. Coffee is a hot bitter herb, pretty yang as yang foods go. And what it ‘gives’ us imbibers is a rush of hot energy, a certain snappiness to our tongues, the illusion we are smart and fast and productive. Sort of the opposite of sleepy couch-potato-ness, putzing around not doing much, meandering through a morning, afternoon, and in worst/best case, evening.
But yin is kinda really important, too. Yin is that calm, thinking-things-through-at-our-own-pace energy. The slowed down, subtly-colored, quiet energy humming in the background of our bodies, running things we don’t want to pay attention too [digestion, heart beat, secretions being produced etc.]. It’s the quiet classroom, for once no one talking, kids with bent heads doing an assignment. Or the person in the back of the restaurant, sitting alone, quietly reading through lunch. You get the picture. The unheralded underpinnings of life, and so on.
But, yin is also a rainy day, dark, a bit foggy, a kind of I don’t really want to go to the office [NO! WAH! DON’T MAKE ME LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!!] energy, sometimes.
Like today. Fog. Everything dripping. Ice, snow, drippy, slushy GREY and WHITE with some brown thrown in to increase the depresso factor.
Suddenly that cup of coffee I never finished this morning and left in the microwave is calling to me.
I took a shower to ‘wake up.’ You know how HARD it is to get in a shower on a wet drippy day? And get wet without even getting to the car? I have not stepped one foot outside, and I had to get wet. And I didn’t like it. Because even though I put on nice dry soft clothes, I am going to have to go out to the car and it’s going to be more of the same.
And I am definitely going to finish my nice hot coffee first and probably stop at Border’s which has the best coffee on my errand route. Unless you count the deli with Green Mountain coffee . . . or Perennial Chef, or, well, even STARBUCKS.
There are worse things.
But yin is kinda really important, too. Yin is that calm, thinking-things-through-at-our-own-pace energy. The slowed down, subtly-colored, quiet energy humming in the background of our bodies, running things we don’t want to pay attention too [digestion, heart beat, secretions being produced etc.]. It’s the quiet classroom, for once no one talking, kids with bent heads doing an assignment. Or the person in the back of the restaurant, sitting alone, quietly reading through lunch. You get the picture. The unheralded underpinnings of life, and so on.
But, yin is also a rainy day, dark, a bit foggy, a kind of I don’t really want to go to the office [NO! WAH! DON’T MAKE ME LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!!] energy, sometimes.
Like today. Fog. Everything dripping. Ice, snow, drippy, slushy GREY and WHITE with some brown thrown in to increase the depresso factor.
Suddenly that cup of coffee I never finished this morning and left in the microwave is calling to me.
I took a shower to ‘wake up.’ You know how HARD it is to get in a shower on a wet drippy day? And get wet without even getting to the car? I have not stepped one foot outside, and I had to get wet. And I didn’t like it. Because even though I put on nice dry soft clothes, I am going to have to go out to the car and it’s going to be more of the same.
And I am definitely going to finish my nice hot coffee first and probably stop at Border’s which has the best coffee on my errand route. Unless you count the deli with Green Mountain coffee . . . or Perennial Chef, or, well, even STARBUCKS.
There are worse things.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tell me what YOU think
Inspiration always helps when a writer is trying to hit one out of the park. When I sit down to write something, I want it to count. And although writing is very yin, the need to hit the mark is yang energy.
I have written my entire life. I have letters and notes I wrote at 6, 7, 8 years of age. I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t know how to go about it. My 10th birthday present from my two maiden aunts was a suitcase and a dictionary. There should have been a copy of the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road inside, along with a big, black, Underwood typewriter.
In high school, I spent every spare moment on one after-school job using the electric typewriter [what fun!] to write satiric commentary, letters to myself on what my 16-year-old eyes perceived as the insanity of the adult world. No-one saw any of this; my high school papers were labored and did not reflect my real thinking; just poorly constructed, desperate attempts to fit in and not be noticed. Give a teacher what s/he wants, stay under the radar, live your real life somewhere else. Not unlike many not-yet-fully-developed adolescents.
But not until I conceived of the idea for the book I am working on, did my yang energy, my meet-the-world-and-take-my-place-energy, literally arise out of a need to reach people with my words, have them actually read what I write, and think about what I was saying. My strong belief is that understanding male-female interactions from a yin/yang point of view can actually make a difference. I want people to get it, use it, teach me what they think is important.
I would like to ask you, the reader, to tell me what you want to understand about people of the other gender. You may remain anonymous, if you wish, but all answers will appear in this blog.
I have a funny story for you:
I got a blowout the other day. I was driving a Jeep, the big version. I happened to be near a gas station, and I pulled in. The guy at the pump immediately said “There’s no one here to change the tire.” Great, I thought. I had a ton of food in the car, a lot of it needing a refrigerator. So I called my friendly tow-truck driver. It would be an hour or more. That meant two. I noticed a man in mechanics’ dark blue coveralls with the name of the garage over the pocket. He was moving cars to the back of the garage. Twice I had to move the Jeep so he could get by. He wasn’t really nice or polite about it. Who is he, I thought, if not a mechanic? But maybe he was invisible to the attendant. Maybe I was imagining him. He was certainly ignoring me as if I was invisible, except when he showed irritation when I was in his way. Maybe red lipstick woulda helped.
Frustrated, tired, and irritable, and, okay, maybe a little ready to cry [I had a whole lot of pressure that day] I thought, let me get the process started, so he could do the tire quickly. So, wearing a skirt and pretty shoes, I opened the back and unscrewed the spare and proceeded to lug it out of its well and roll it around the car. Getting black gunk all over me in the process. I moved the groceries off the back seat where I’d just dumped them five minutes ago to get all of them off the spare tire - including four 24-packs of water - so I could get the jack stored under the seat. [I’m not familiar with this particular vehicle.] I then proceeded to squat down, looking under the car, to find the place where the jack fit in.
But when I actually picked up the lug wrench and approached the flat tire, another man magically appeared and stopped me. “You no change the tire.” He was kind, but very firm. “I will have the man do it. This is not for a woman to do. Why you do it.” It was not a question.
“The guy pumping gas said there was no one here.” I was innocent.
“Ah, no-one here. There are two men here. You do not have to change the tire. I am the owner. Jose will change the tire.”
I said, “Are you Italian?”
“Sicilian,” he answered.
“Me, too,” I say. Immediately he opens his arms. I am amazed as I hug him. From an invisible person with a shredded tire, I have become a lady, welcomed with open arms. And I wasn’t even wearing foundation or blush. I silently thank my departed Sicilian father.
I am instructed to stand aside while the previously indisposed mechanic comes and drives my car around back, pulls out his magic air gun, and – I timed it – changed the tire in three and a half minutes. About as long as it took me to move the groceries a second time to unearth the greasy jack thingie I never ended up using. As he tightened the last lug nut, he said “You a lady, I the man. Lady no change the tire.” Yeah, uh, and who was that guy inhabiting your coveralls 20 minutes ago when I was ready to cry?
Apparently it was okay for me to sit and look miserable, but when I attempted to do a ‘man’s work,’ that just tore it. Guys materialized of nowhere lest an act against nature be committed. The truth is, I could have changed that tire, I have done, but I hate doing it. It hurts my hands; if the last person tightening the lugs was a sadist you have to sort of jump on the wrench to loosen them; and the tire is dirty. Then you have to lift it up into the place where it fits in the back and there’s no way the black crap doesn’t get on your clothes. And as you drive away, you always worry that you didn’t tighten everything enough and your tire will fall off. Your dirty hands stick to the steering wheel. Not to mention the utter cruelty of looking like an idiot if the tire gets away from you and rolls into the road.
Now, I know what happened. I could use yin and yang, and explain the different dynamics, but you know what? I’m not gonna do that. Some things are best left unanalyzed.
I have written my entire life. I have letters and notes I wrote at 6, 7, 8 years of age. I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t know how to go about it. My 10th birthday present from my two maiden aunts was a suitcase and a dictionary. There should have been a copy of the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road inside, along with a big, black, Underwood typewriter.
In high school, I spent every spare moment on one after-school job using the electric typewriter [what fun!] to write satiric commentary, letters to myself on what my 16-year-old eyes perceived as the insanity of the adult world. No-one saw any of this; my high school papers were labored and did not reflect my real thinking; just poorly constructed, desperate attempts to fit in and not be noticed. Give a teacher what s/he wants, stay under the radar, live your real life somewhere else. Not unlike many not-yet-fully-developed adolescents.
But not until I conceived of the idea for the book I am working on, did my yang energy, my meet-the-world-and-take-my-place-energy, literally arise out of a need to reach people with my words, have them actually read what I write, and think about what I was saying. My strong belief is that understanding male-female interactions from a yin/yang point of view can actually make a difference. I want people to get it, use it, teach me what they think is important.
I would like to ask you, the reader, to tell me what you want to understand about people of the other gender. You may remain anonymous, if you wish, but all answers will appear in this blog.
I have a funny story for you:
I got a blowout the other day. I was driving a Jeep, the big version. I happened to be near a gas station, and I pulled in. The guy at the pump immediately said “There’s no one here to change the tire.” Great, I thought. I had a ton of food in the car, a lot of it needing a refrigerator. So I called my friendly tow-truck driver. It would be an hour or more. That meant two. I noticed a man in mechanics’ dark blue coveralls with the name of the garage over the pocket. He was moving cars to the back of the garage. Twice I had to move the Jeep so he could get by. He wasn’t really nice or polite about it. Who is he, I thought, if not a mechanic? But maybe he was invisible to the attendant. Maybe I was imagining him. He was certainly ignoring me as if I was invisible, except when he showed irritation when I was in his way. Maybe red lipstick woulda helped.
Frustrated, tired, and irritable, and, okay, maybe a little ready to cry [I had a whole lot of pressure that day] I thought, let me get the process started, so he could do the tire quickly. So, wearing a skirt and pretty shoes, I opened the back and unscrewed the spare and proceeded to lug it out of its well and roll it around the car. Getting black gunk all over me in the process. I moved the groceries off the back seat where I’d just dumped them five minutes ago to get all of them off the spare tire - including four 24-packs of water - so I could get the jack stored under the seat. [I’m not familiar with this particular vehicle.] I then proceeded to squat down, looking under the car, to find the place where the jack fit in.
But when I actually picked up the lug wrench and approached the flat tire, another man magically appeared and stopped me. “You no change the tire.” He was kind, but very firm. “I will have the man do it. This is not for a woman to do. Why you do it.” It was not a question.
“The guy pumping gas said there was no one here.” I was innocent.
“Ah, no-one here. There are two men here. You do not have to change the tire. I am the owner. Jose will change the tire.”
I said, “Are you Italian?”
“Sicilian,” he answered.
“Me, too,” I say. Immediately he opens his arms. I am amazed as I hug him. From an invisible person with a shredded tire, I have become a lady, welcomed with open arms. And I wasn’t even wearing foundation or blush. I silently thank my departed Sicilian father.
I am instructed to stand aside while the previously indisposed mechanic comes and drives my car around back, pulls out his magic air gun, and – I timed it – changed the tire in three and a half minutes. About as long as it took me to move the groceries a second time to unearth the greasy jack thingie I never ended up using. As he tightened the last lug nut, he said “You a lady, I the man. Lady no change the tire.” Yeah, uh, and who was that guy inhabiting your coveralls 20 minutes ago when I was ready to cry?
Apparently it was okay for me to sit and look miserable, but when I attempted to do a ‘man’s work,’ that just tore it. Guys materialized of nowhere lest an act against nature be committed. The truth is, I could have changed that tire, I have done, but I hate doing it. It hurts my hands; if the last person tightening the lugs was a sadist you have to sort of jump on the wrench to loosen them; and the tire is dirty. Then you have to lift it up into the place where it fits in the back and there’s no way the black crap doesn’t get on your clothes. And as you drive away, you always worry that you didn’t tighten everything enough and your tire will fall off. Your dirty hands stick to the steering wheel. Not to mention the utter cruelty of looking like an idiot if the tire gets away from you and rolls into the road.
Now, I know what happened. I could use yin and yang, and explain the different dynamics, but you know what? I’m not gonna do that. Some things are best left unanalyzed.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Provoking Yang
There is a current news story about the young woman who walked into an airport with a provocative piece of art on her chest, allegedly reminiscent of a bomb, and clay in her hand – supposed to resemble C-4? – What’s interesting is the commentary.
People either despise her for her stupidity or think the police overreacted. But this incident shows the complexity of protection vs freedom. Some comments indicate that anyone who knows about bombs and computer would know the circuit board she was wearing was innocuous. Some people loved calling an MIT student dumb. Other people see the police statement that she is lucky they didn’t shoot her as indicative of a police-state mentality. Innocent people should be able to walk through airports freely without oppressive policing. These reactions do not get to the basic problem, however.
So let’s look at this another way:
Yang energy is a protective energy. Yang does not think: it acts upon perceived threats. And thank goodness for that. We don’t want the people assigned to protect us to think about it too much. No waiting around while the threat gets carried out; no long decision-making process while various responses are weighed and evaluated. Strike, hard. Eliminate the threat. Go back to the cave and watch TV, take a nap, eat. That’s yang energy. Essential to survival. Necessary to protect yin energy.
On the other hand. Yin energy is also essential. Balance. Yin is ease, the spaciousness of freedom of thought and expression, home and hearth, playfulness, sweetness, lightness of being. Yin also nurtures yang. Without these things, we would literally perish.
So here you have two sides to what happened in Boston. Sort of.
OK. But yang also does not like to lose. And the yang energy of the US took an enormous blow on 9/11/2001. There are tons of people out there who literally would rather die than let anything terrible like that happen again. And we need these people. We need that edge, that state of alertness, because there are still people who would take any opportunity to do it again. And our 'protectors' are essential to our survival, not only form terrorist attacks, but from the erosion of society that happens when you feel in danger all of the time.
Yet, we also cherish the ideals of the supposedly free society we live in. How to balance them?
Well, would you walk up to a sentry on duty in Baghdad and pretend to draw a gun just to provoke his defensive stance? Uh, not a good idea. Yet that is what this young woman did. The fact that she was not a threat is after the fact. Had she been truly armed with something, people would have died. Is there anyone on sentry duty at our airports who would take a chance on that happening? Are there people out there who believe the stuff of futuristic films and think that somehow, the people charged with protecting our airports, should have divined that she was not really threatening by knowing the difference between what she was wearing and a real bomb? Obviously there are. Reality is messier and not so clear. Of course, TSA pulling my 80 year old mother out of line [more than once] for a more careful search may have more to do with poor training and bureaucratic idiocy than we’d be comfortable knowing. And I have a feeling that this kind of thing is what many people are more pissed off about.
Truly, provoking a reaction from art critics is a better – and more appropriate method of getting attention. The guys with guns [and some of those guys are girls – no slouches in the shoot-first department] are there to prevent mayhem. If they seem trigger-happy, remember what we lost. Yang protects yin, and will do so even if it means s/he who puts his ass on the line dies. To mock that is a perversion of the natural order. Had she been shot, I would have felt two contradictory things: Thank GOD they are on TOP on any possible bombs – and I would have cried at the death of a yet another kid who did something careless and stupid that got her killed.
And for those critics who think that she got off with too light a punishment, take it easy. She’s a nineteen-year-old who did a really dumb thing. The fact that she was not hustled off and made to disappear– or shot dead instantly – is a good indication that yin is alive and well and nurturing the yang of our system, at least in Boston.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The Wedding Dress
I’ve always been an unconventional person. Not by choice, out of some need to reject the status quo, but because I was just born with a different sensibility. Certain things that matter to most people simply don’t matter to me. I can’t force it and gave up trying years ago.
I am a warm hostess, but don’t care if I use paper napkins, although I have the other kind. I want people to be comfortable, enjoy the hell out of what I serve and eat heartily, have fun, and really good conversation. I want them to feel like being at my house was a gentle and relaxing and happy, timeless stretch. And I don’t feel badly if they have to ask me for something I neglected to put out. In fact I am happy when they do. It means they are seeing to it that they enjoy themselves. Life is too short and I’m not embarrassed by details like remembering the artificial sweetener. Go into my cabinets in search of it. Mi casa es su casa.
For a few years, my daughter has been reminding me occasionally that she would probably, at some point, get married. My response was, fine, but I’m not paying for one of these elaborate disgusting affairs. 5 years ago I sat in the living room of an older couple and suffered greatly through the cutesy video of their daughter’s wedding. I was sickened by the excess, by the artifice, by the utter waste. Three years later, after an expenditure well on it’s way to six figures, the kids broke up, boy and girl twins notwithstanding.
So when EJ announced that the engagement ring she’d been wearing for months actually meant she’d be getting married, I panicked. Oh GOD, I thought, what am I going to do?
My daughter can be vulnerable and sweet and open to suggestion like any other young woman about to get married. However, her real state is closer to hell-bent; in a quiet way. Anything that deviates from her vision becomes annoying and ceases to exist. She doesn’t yell and scream, throw tantrums, withdraw, or anything unpleasant like that. She just goes around the obstacle and does not look back. Which is why when I suddenly got a text message on my cell that read: “Can you look at wedding dresses with me tomorrow?” I knew there was nothing else to do, even though I almost said NO! Wait!
We arranged to meet at a corner in the city in an area known as the garment district. Tall buildings are honeycombed with one clothing manufacturer after another, floor after floor after floor. Mostly showrooms, although some real sewing goes on here and there. The designer she had in mind was having a half-price sale on floor samples. In a wedding dress, this can represent a gigantic savings. So at the appointed time, we met, hugged and took a slow, cranky elevator to the showroom of one Paula Varselona.
I was innocent as a new-born lamb.
Across the hallway from the elevator was a long curving glass wall. We were obviously in the right place. Immediately we entered a room with a bit of smooth, gray carpet, an odd-looking round, raised platform, and white, off-white, ivory and ecru froth and fluff as far as the eye could see. Wedding dresses hung everywhere, stuffed into every space. Where there weren’t wedding dresses there were other things that glittered from small chunks of rhinestones and gold with ribbons to eight-foot veils jammed on a giant rack. Sequined bags of all sizes, tiaras, earrings, things I couldn’t even identify, everything flashing and sparkling and calling attention to itself. For someone who likes that kind of thing – I do – it was fun. But the dress part was daunting. How do you choose a wedding dress. I was totally out of my league.
All of the samples were not yet back, we were told. EJ was nevertheless wading in. I looked at another rack. I wasn’t impressed. Wedding dresses are boring, I was thinking. I desultorily pulled one hanger after another, wondering when we could go to lunch, until a big puffy rose caught my eye. It wasn’t a showy rose, but a flattened saucer of delicately-colored blush rose, with the merest wisp of sage green leaves; there were several more of them here and there along the way in a poufy-skirted, ivory-colored strapless confection.
I pulled it out of the rack and called EJ over. “That’s the dress on the website!” She was excited. Hmm, I thought, can it be this easy? Then: Website?
She grabbed the dress and charged into the back room, shedding layers of clothing, until she was down to just . . . her . . . thong.
“You wore a THONG to look at wedding dresses?” I was wrong to say this of course, because obviously it came out in Chinese instead of English, judging by the Huh? What? Look I got from her.
A salesperson came in followed by a woman whom I immediately liked. All business, yet allowing EJ to enjoy the moment, the two women escorted her to the platform [mommy having a quiet AHA moment in their wake]. The second woman turned out to be Paula, herself.
There, my daughter transformed instantly into a princess and I became the mother of the bride. Just. Like. That.
Because the dress was utterly, completely, over-the-top, perfect.
It was so perfect, so magical, that a woman who had been shopping for a mother-of-the-groom dress, came over and in a round of that old, time-honored New York game called “one-upping” instantly made her prospective daughter-in-law the topic of the conversation. How thin she was; how small. While she was talking, people passing by the glass walls of the showroom tapped and gave thumbs-up signs. EJ couldn’t take her eyes off herself in the mirror. The woman shopper, annoyed at being ignored, finally uttered the coup-de-grace: “Well, it’s not like you’re thin.” The skinny saleswoman immediately bristled. Eventually mother-of-the-groom left.
Never mind that my daughter was standing inside a size eight that had to be taken in all over. Never mind that she has a spectacular body that causes male jaws to drop. Our saleswoman was incensed. Not EJ. She never had a body-image issue or an eating disorder. She just laughed and said to me “I’m starved – let’s go to lunch and think about this.”
All through lunch she kept asking, “Should I get it? Should I get it? I love it!” After we ate, I said, “Let’s go back and get it: It’s perfect.”
But because this isn’t a fairy tale, and we are two women, shopping, of course we didn’t get that dress. But the one we got had a smaller skirt, a better strapless top, and several, large blush-pink roses on ivory silk. Paula Varselona earned my complete admiration when she stated gently that one does not wear a thong under this dress and, yes, does wear a bra.
Her fiancé called and was so excited. He wanted to know everything. I took the phone out of big-mouth’s hands and said: “You only need to know one thing. When she walks down the aisle to you in that dress, you are going to drop to your knees.”
That was the first wedding thing we did.
After that came the search for the perfect wedding ‘venue’ – a new word in my vocabulary. The Venue had to have the possibility of making the event become magical. And be worthy of The Dress. Then The Invitations. Now we are working on The Cake. After that will be The Flowers. The Music. The Photographer. EJ has expressly stated that she does not want a video. All is well in the world: we are in harmony. Even the guest-list has been completed with no bloodshed.
Somehow, in the same way women forget the pain of childbirth, my unconventional side is silent, and I have ‘joined the process’ of helping my daughter have the perfect wedding. I am unapologetic about my enthusiasm, and have engaged the side of me well-suited to planning, say, an invasion of a smaller country. No detail is too small, and nothing can be done too early to assure success.
After the wedding, however, I will probably revert to using paper napkins again.
I am a warm hostess, but don’t care if I use paper napkins, although I have the other kind. I want people to be comfortable, enjoy the hell out of what I serve and eat heartily, have fun, and really good conversation. I want them to feel like being at my house was a gentle and relaxing and happy, timeless stretch. And I don’t feel badly if they have to ask me for something I neglected to put out. In fact I am happy when they do. It means they are seeing to it that they enjoy themselves. Life is too short and I’m not embarrassed by details like remembering the artificial sweetener. Go into my cabinets in search of it. Mi casa es su casa.
For a few years, my daughter has been reminding me occasionally that she would probably, at some point, get married. My response was, fine, but I’m not paying for one of these elaborate disgusting affairs. 5 years ago I sat in the living room of an older couple and suffered greatly through the cutesy video of their daughter’s wedding. I was sickened by the excess, by the artifice, by the utter waste. Three years later, after an expenditure well on it’s way to six figures, the kids broke up, boy and girl twins notwithstanding.
So when EJ announced that the engagement ring she’d been wearing for months actually meant she’d be getting married, I panicked. Oh GOD, I thought, what am I going to do?
My daughter can be vulnerable and sweet and open to suggestion like any other young woman about to get married. However, her real state is closer to hell-bent; in a quiet way. Anything that deviates from her vision becomes annoying and ceases to exist. She doesn’t yell and scream, throw tantrums, withdraw, or anything unpleasant like that. She just goes around the obstacle and does not look back. Which is why when I suddenly got a text message on my cell that read: “Can you look at wedding dresses with me tomorrow?” I knew there was nothing else to do, even though I almost said NO! Wait!
We arranged to meet at a corner in the city in an area known as the garment district. Tall buildings are honeycombed with one clothing manufacturer after another, floor after floor after floor. Mostly showrooms, although some real sewing goes on here and there. The designer she had in mind was having a half-price sale on floor samples. In a wedding dress, this can represent a gigantic savings. So at the appointed time, we met, hugged and took a slow, cranky elevator to the showroom of one Paula Varselona.
I was innocent as a new-born lamb.
Across the hallway from the elevator was a long curving glass wall. We were obviously in the right place. Immediately we entered a room with a bit of smooth, gray carpet, an odd-looking round, raised platform, and white, off-white, ivory and ecru froth and fluff as far as the eye could see. Wedding dresses hung everywhere, stuffed into every space. Where there weren’t wedding dresses there were other things that glittered from small chunks of rhinestones and gold with ribbons to eight-foot veils jammed on a giant rack. Sequined bags of all sizes, tiaras, earrings, things I couldn’t even identify, everything flashing and sparkling and calling attention to itself. For someone who likes that kind of thing – I do – it was fun. But the dress part was daunting. How do you choose a wedding dress. I was totally out of my league.
All of the samples were not yet back, we were told. EJ was nevertheless wading in. I looked at another rack. I wasn’t impressed. Wedding dresses are boring, I was thinking. I desultorily pulled one hanger after another, wondering when we could go to lunch, until a big puffy rose caught my eye. It wasn’t a showy rose, but a flattened saucer of delicately-colored blush rose, with the merest wisp of sage green leaves; there were several more of them here and there along the way in a poufy-skirted, ivory-colored strapless confection.
I pulled it out of the rack and called EJ over. “That’s the dress on the website!” She was excited. Hmm, I thought, can it be this easy? Then: Website?
She grabbed the dress and charged into the back room, shedding layers of clothing, until she was down to just . . . her . . . thong.
“You wore a THONG to look at wedding dresses?” I was wrong to say this of course, because obviously it came out in Chinese instead of English, judging by the Huh? What? Look I got from her.
A salesperson came in followed by a woman whom I immediately liked. All business, yet allowing EJ to enjoy the moment, the two women escorted her to the platform [mommy having a quiet AHA moment in their wake]. The second woman turned out to be Paula, herself.
There, my daughter transformed instantly into a princess and I became the mother of the bride. Just. Like. That.
Because the dress was utterly, completely, over-the-top, perfect.
It was so perfect, so magical, that a woman who had been shopping for a mother-of-the-groom dress, came over and in a round of that old, time-honored New York game called “one-upping” instantly made her prospective daughter-in-law the topic of the conversation. How thin she was; how small. While she was talking, people passing by the glass walls of the showroom tapped and gave thumbs-up signs. EJ couldn’t take her eyes off herself in the mirror. The woman shopper, annoyed at being ignored, finally uttered the coup-de-grace: “Well, it’s not like you’re thin.” The skinny saleswoman immediately bristled. Eventually mother-of-the-groom left.
Never mind that my daughter was standing inside a size eight that had to be taken in all over. Never mind that she has a spectacular body that causes male jaws to drop. Our saleswoman was incensed. Not EJ. She never had a body-image issue or an eating disorder. She just laughed and said to me “I’m starved – let’s go to lunch and think about this.”
All through lunch she kept asking, “Should I get it? Should I get it? I love it!” After we ate, I said, “Let’s go back and get it: It’s perfect.”
But because this isn’t a fairy tale, and we are two women, shopping, of course we didn’t get that dress. But the one we got had a smaller skirt, a better strapless top, and several, large blush-pink roses on ivory silk. Paula Varselona earned my complete admiration when she stated gently that one does not wear a thong under this dress and, yes, does wear a bra.
Her fiancé called and was so excited. He wanted to know everything. I took the phone out of big-mouth’s hands and said: “You only need to know one thing. When she walks down the aisle to you in that dress, you are going to drop to your knees.”
That was the first wedding thing we did.
After that came the search for the perfect wedding ‘venue’ – a new word in my vocabulary. The Venue had to have the possibility of making the event become magical. And be worthy of The Dress. Then The Invitations. Now we are working on The Cake. After that will be The Flowers. The Music. The Photographer. EJ has expressly stated that she does not want a video. All is well in the world: we are in harmony. Even the guest-list has been completed with no bloodshed.
Somehow, in the same way women forget the pain of childbirth, my unconventional side is silent, and I have ‘joined the process’ of helping my daughter have the perfect wedding. I am unapologetic about my enthusiasm, and have engaged the side of me well-suited to planning, say, an invasion of a smaller country. No detail is too small, and nothing can be done too early to assure success.
After the wedding, however, I will probably revert to using paper napkins again.
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