Pandemic #1: No. More. Bullshit.

For decades I've been thinking about the many ways overselling and spinning positive undermines trust. Like to the point I imagine it could be our undoing.

I've watched it erode business relationships in the corporate world. It's abundantly clear with PR and politics and white-washed history.

I talked about it with my college students as they built arguments in their research papers. In the classes I teach now at the jail, we discuss the difference between saying "I will never use again" and "I am committed to staying clean and these are the things I'm doing to help me."

Don't even get me started on the challenge of selling VWs when direct competitors are offering smoke-and-mirrors discounts on the radio non-stop!

And how here we are dealing with a pandemic.

I understand the desire to play down the negatives when so much is at stake. But it is precisely because there is so much at stake that we need the truth, straight up, no bullshit.

We need expectations properly set.

Especially from the top.

Please. No more bullshit.

What I Learned Today

A few months ago, I listened to a presentation given by a man named Carl about his struggle with addiction and his path to recovery. This included practicing meditation, and specifically participating in a local Sangha--a group of people that practices meditation together in community.

I was intrigued.

Since then, I've become convinced that a practice of meditation could be key to keeping my mind and body more connected with one another.

While I do have amazing experiences living in my body, my default setting is living in my head, disconnecting from my body.

Today I visited a local Sangha, the one Carl talked about, for the first time. Here's how the guided meditation went for me, the images coming to me without any effort beyond breathing in and breathing out.

It seems I had an epiphany. Maybe epiphanies. About myself? About the world around me? Maybe both?

We imagine ourselves as a flower.
Breathe in, flower. Breathe out, fresh.
I am one of the gazillion flowers I walked by on Teton Pass this summer.
Suddenly, I am vulnerable on the steep side of the mountain,
at the mercy of brutal elements.
Breathe in, flower, Breathe out, fresh.
I picture basking in the warmth of the sun, being nourished.
Breath in, flower, Breathe out, fresh.
I picture the relief of the rain, so cool after the hot sun,
drinking deeply at my roots, which are holding strong.
I have what I need to live.
I am fresh.

We imagine ourselves as a mountain.
Breathe in, mountain. Breathe out, solid.
I am the maiden,
lying along the top of Mt. Timpanogos with my arms crossed.
Suddenly, I am not solid.
I am vulnerable, struggling to find my balance on the narrow ridge.
Breathe in, mountain. Breathe out, solid.
I am the mountains near Thistle,
washed to the bottom of the canyon when I am too saturated with rain.
Breathe in, mountain. Breathe out, solid.
I am the scree at the base of a crag in Rock Canyon,
hoping hikers know what they are getting into if they cross over me.
Breathe in, mountain. Breathe out, solid.
I am the Wasatch Front, riddled by faults.
Breathe in, mountain. Breathe out, solid.
I am an ancient volcano, spewing ash and lava.
I breathe in; I breathe out. I breathe in; I breathe out.
But I can't imagine the mountains are solid.
Am I?

We imagine ourselves as water.
Breathe in, water. Breathe out, still.
I am floating on the surface under the moon and stars.
I am in my element.
Breathe in, water. Breathe out, still.
I am dozens of feet down in the Caribbean Sea, below the waves,
watching a sea turtle twice my size swim past without disturbing a thing.
I am still.

We imagine ourselves as the sky.
Breathe in, sky. Breathe out, free.
I am up on a cliff, the blue sky is vast.
Breathe in, sky. Breathe out, free.
I am up on the cliff, the blue sky is vast, but I am not.
Breathe in, sky. Breathe out, free.
I am up on the cliff, the blue sky is vast.
I stretch my arms wide; I refuse to stay small.
The blue sky is vast, and so am I.
I am free.

After the Wild Fires

The other day, Roger and I took a drive in our little 2002 Audi convertible (a spontaneous purchase when it came in on trade at the Volkswagen dealer I worked at selling cars this past year, and, oh, it is sweet). We drove the loop around Mt. Nebo, the tallest mountain in view from home.

Last summer, wild fires raged through the area. This was my first time on that road since, and I was curious to survey the damage.

Growing up, I didn't have experience with wildfires (though we often hiked to lookout towers in the mountains of New England, so we must have had them from time to time). When I moved west, and especially since living in our Utah neighborhood nestled near the mouth of a canyon, I've seen so many fires. I've seen every mountain around us on fire at least once.

The two things that have surprised me most as these mountain wild fires have become familiar to me are (1) it is rare for entire forests burn to the ground - the fires skip and jump and often leave many trees they pass completely unscathed, and (2) that the mountainsides and forest floors are always green the following Spring.

The past few years I've experienced some metaphorical wild fires, as have too many people I love.

Like really devastating, life-changing wild fires.

As I return to writing here, I realize that much of what I've experienced are not my stories to tell or are stories that need to be told in private, in person.

And so in an irritatingly vague way, I will say this:

As my wild fires ripped through--and some are still flaming up--I have feared total devastation. I have experienced deep, personal visceral fear. I have wondered what I'm rooted in and if my roots will hold.

And yet, here I am! Here we are! There are trees still standing alive; there is green everywhere.

All is not lost. It is not.

Write Something

I'm in between again.

I'm trying to figure out my next step in my life and trying to use this time to get things in better order - house, finances, relationships, body, mind, soul, etc.

The last time I found myself in this space was after we closed our bookstore. It took me a long time to find my sea legs without it. One of my kickstart strategies back then was to practice 40 good habits every day for 40 days. I wrote about my experiences, and it was transformative.

This time my challenges are substantially different, but I again see a need to be more deliberate about creating structure. (To be honest, I'd rather hang out at the beach and read a book, which, in my opinion, isn't so bad for my body, mind and soul. Especially if I take breaks for a swim! But. Balance.)

It is not in my nature to do the same thing twice.

On Tuesday night, I made a list, a framework for a reinvented daily approach.

Organize something
Clean something
Purge something
Write something
Read something
Practice something
Stretch something
Change something

On Wednesday night, I came across this passage in Mark Manson's book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck, in which he is quoting his high school math teacher:

"Don't just sit there. Do something. The answer will follow."

Manson goes on to discuss the relationship between inspiration, motivation, and action and concludes with this thought: "If you lack the motivation to make an important change in your life, do something--anything, really--and then harness the reaction to that action as a way to begin motivating yourself."

It is in my nature to appreciate synchronicity.

And so on Thursday, I am all in.

Coming Down the Other Side

I don't know how old I'll be when I die, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to last until I'm 104.

I have most likely crested the hill long since.

Signs of my descent:

I find that I talk to myself with startling frequency, and, worse, I am getting lax about doing it when other people are around. People are starting to notice. So far it's nothing revealing. "I think I'll have a slice of pizza," as I poke around in the fridge, forgetting Jack has just walked in, home from school. But what if some of my crazier thoughts start falling out of my brain and coming out of my mouth?

I am forgetting things more often. I had to teach a class the other day without my reading glasses. I asked the class not to pay attention to me as I read an excerpt from a book, holding it in my hand stretched out as far as possible. And then I had to turn around and drive all the way back to campus to retrieve my phone that I'd left on the desk in the front of the room. I realized it after I'd gotten almost all the way to my other job, twenty minutes from campus.

I have realized that no one truly knows what the heck they are doing, including and especially myself. At least not the whole of it. And sometimes not even the bits and pieces. I've realized there aren't any actual grownups anywhere who have it all figured out.

This is simultaneously freeing and unsettling.

I'm feeling good about the freeing part, though.

On the way down, I've discovered I give fewer and fewer effs. I don't even really care anymore that I have to wear reading glasses. Except when I don't have them. And even then, I discover I'm okay with long arms and good lighting.

Trifecta

I've mentioned this before. I don't know if I experience synchronicity more than usual or if I just tend to notice it a lot. Here are three of my recent favorites:

The time a friend dropped by with a present - a copy of Eric Carle's classic Pancakes, Pancakes! - at the exact moment I was cooking a, wait for it, pancake!

The time I bought a fabulous handbag woven from river grass at the gift shop of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, and the next day I saw someone post in a Facebook forum that she was looking for a new purse, something unusual. The forum has members from all over the world, but I clicked on her name anyway just to see if she lived anywhere near Charlotte, NC, so I could recommend the river grass bags. What were the chances? She actually lived in Charlotte!

The time I was teaching a new class of inmates at the jail and there were two guys who went by Tony and one by Anthony. I reminisced about the old Prince spaghetti ad where the mom yells out of the window in an old apartment in the North End of Boston for her son Anthony, who comes running home because he knows it's Wednesday and Wednesday is Prince spaghetti day. Later that day, a high school friend happened to post about Prince spaghetti day on Facebook and a bunch of us reminisced together.

That was a pretty run of the mill synchronicity for me.

Then it got a little spooky.

The very next day news broke in the Boston Globe that the actress who played Anthony's mother in that Prince spaghetti ad had passed away. Dead.

A synchronicity trifecta.

We are all connected, people.

Twelve Days Going On Forever

At least that's what it feels like.

Twelve days of--how can I say it delicately?--respiratory ailment. With no end in sight. Ugh.

Foggy head, failing voice, awful fatigue, plentiful phlegm.

(I may be fighting to function, but at least my facility for alliteration hasn't faded!)