PONDERING SILENCE

Van Gogh, Cypresses, 1889

Listen to the Silence.  It has so much to say.  

The silence after the final breath.
The silence of what could have been. 
The silence of pain. 

The silence of deception.
The silence of disloyalty.
The silence of dishonesty. 
The silence of the facts. 


The silence of feeling worthless.
The silence of being fooled.  
The silence of not being valued.  

The silence before confrontation. 
The silences after an argument.

The silence after telling the truth.  Or hearing it.


The silence of grief. 
The silence of heartbreak.
The silence of trying to forgive.
The silence of trying to forget.

The silence of being alone.

Auguste Rodin, Despair, 1890

The silence when deceit ends.
The silence after an apology. 
The silent request for forgiveness. 
The silence of change.

The silence of feeling loved. 

The silence of giving love. 
The silence of touch. 

The silence of closed eyes. 
The silence of a shared past. 
The silence of peace. 
The silence of prayer. 
The silence of moving forward. 
The silence of being together.
The silence of softness.
The silence of warmth. 
The silence of sleep.
The silence of warm breath in bed. 

The silence of staying home.
The silence of feeling special. 
The silence of remembrance. 
The silence of bravery.  
The silence of healing. 
The silence of truthfulness. 

The silence of being alone. 

Van Gogh, Still Life with Basket of Apples, 1887

The silence of a photograph.
The silence when the cicadas rest.
The silence of an quiet house.

The silence of a memory.
The silence in your mind.
The silence in your heart.
The silence in your throat. 
The silence of thinking.  
The silence of promises made.
The silence of promises kept. 

The silence of being alone.  

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (ULTIMATE THINGS)

A friend thought that her cancer had progressed.  Beautiful woman whom I have known only a few years. I wish I knew her better.  She asked for prayers for peace and strength for herself and her family.  Oh the wisdom of this request!  When we are up against it, is there anything we need more than peace and strength?  Is there anything ever we need more than peace and strength?  

Pierre Bonnard, Garden, 1935

We know that disease is no respecter of persons.  A man whose wife was dying of cancer said to me, "I have enough money, enough friends, enough faith, but I can't save Carole."  They were a beautiful couple.  We'd known them a long time.  Then last year one of their grown sons lost his life to depression.  This kind of despair has been on my mind, and perhaps yours, because of two suicides--Kate Spade's (1962-2018) and Anthony Bourdain's (1956-2018).   No silver linings there, no "all for the best" or "everything has a reason." 

We each of us live with the specter of death, our own or that of someone we love.  And yet we live.  We love each other.  We care for each other.  We care for strangers.  We feel for others and put ourselves in their place. 

At book club the other day the friend who asked for prayers seemed to have found strength.  She is doing everything necessary to enjoy and prolong her life and lessen her pain.  She seems to be doing this with determination and a degree of peace.  Her wisdom has not failed her. Then a few days later she got unexpected news.  Another test showed that her disease has not progressed.  Our friend whose wife died, years ago now, is concentrating on his remaining family.  It grows every year.  Marriages, births. . .  I see peace and strength in him too.  I've read reader responses to the recent suicides--so many people describing their paths in and out of depression, such precious strangers living with this disease, sharing their pain, staying the course.  

I expect God to ready me when it is my time.  So far when I have asked for help and guidance it has been given.  My problems are as bad as anyone's--early deaths, family mental illness, shocks--but I do believe I have been given what in our church's liturgy is called "the peace that passes all understanding."  To me this means that there are facts that should destroy peace but haven't. My life has joy. I expect yours does too.  

My mother, Nina Naomi, was not particularly religious.  Although she loved God she did not attend any church.  When her time came, after one round of chemo she refused another.  She faced death with peace and strength.  Most of us are facing lesser trials than the end of life. But strength and peace are always worth asking for.  That's what I learned from her.  We can give up on many things but not the quest for peace.  

Edouard Vuillard, A Seamstress, 1892

 

CONTENTMENT DOESN'T FALL IN OUR LAPS. LIKE A GARDEN IT HAS TO BE CULTIVATED.

When I opened up an issue of The Simple Things (thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk) I saw this page and it triggered this thought about contentment.  So I scribbled the thought on the page.  Shortbread, tea, a lovely book of old-fashioned nature sketches.  How nice to be contented by such simple things.  And how grateful we must be if we have the time for tea, a biscuit and a read. We know that there are lives all over the world where events makes it hard to make a happy home or embrace the ordinary.  We know that if we have the time to read and blog and care for our families and do yoga and play sports and our work is satisfying that we are very, very fortunate.  We hope and pray that our contentment isn't at the expense of others.  That we are thoughtful, charitable, pay fair wages, vote our consciences, work for worthy causes.

Not all phrases we encounter make as much sense.  I recently came across the admonition, "Enjoy life while you're living it."  This struck me as nonsensical.  Why not just "Enjoy Life?" Except that is too simplistic.  What if we have been uprooted?  Or worry about those who have?  What if someone we love seems distant?  Or a child is floundering. What if a friend has cancer? Or we're afraid of aging? Or dying.  Such common problems.  Then it seems to make more sense to cultivate contentment.  Work at it.  Someone said, and I don't know who, "A wise woman takes care of her soul."  This made me think that the greatest contentment comes from emotional safety. Shutting our door at night and feeling comfortable in our solitude.  Or getting into bed with the person we love.  Waking and our sweet pet is there waiting for attention and food.  Being alone but not lonely.  Or with people and not lonely.  Or family and not lonely. Helping when we can and accepting when we cannot.

I was thinking about feelings that slow us down--envy, fear, anxiety, jealousy, fatigue, frustration. . . .   Then how we want to feel--at peace,  loved, appreciated, free, treasured, secure, rested, energized, smart, successful. . . . long lists.  Both lists are legitimate.  They are real and have real, undeniable causes.  Sometimes circumstances must change before we move from feeling anxious to feeling appreciated.  If we are being deceived the deception must stop.  If someone who owes us loyalty is disloyal they must change.  If we are afraid to take action, we must change.  Whatever hurts anyone must stop. 

When gardens are cultivated beautiful flowers grow.  So it's true--contentment doesn't fall into our laps.  It does have to be cultivated.  I bet we are all brave and strong enough to do that.  I bet we are doing that now.  With affection, Nina Naomi

Pierre Bonnard, "Garden," 1935

"SHOW UP, BE KIND, LEARN, REPEAT," FRIDA KAHLO

Flow (www.flowmagazine.com), a magazine that I like, has a cover that reads:  

SHOW UP

BE KIND

LEARN

REPEAT

The words are by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). What a wonderful life motto. It's not enough on its own of course. There are situations when the path is not so straightforward that to simply show up and be kind is sufficient.  She knew that.  From polio and a bus accident, she lived with pain.  But it never hurts, does it, to show up and be kind?  I bet most of us do that already.  When this motto is part of our lives, surely we are better people.  I would like to visit the blue house where she lived.  It is now a museum.   

La Casa Azul, Coyoacan, Mexico City

Many of us know Frida Kahlo as a painter of self-portraits and works inspired by nature and Mexican artifacts.  And as the wife of the muralist Diego Rivera.  She said, "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone and because I am the person I know best."  Isn't that beautiful and brave?  Doesn't it combine the pleasure and pain of aloneness?  

But she also was a diarist and her letters, poems and notes have been published.  I like a passage by her that reads more like poetry than prose: 

I USED TO THINK I WAS THE STRANGEST PERSON IN THE WORLD

BUT THEN I THOUGHT THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD,

THERE MUST BE SOMEONE JUST LIKE ME

WHO FEELS BIZARRE AND FLAWED IN THE SAME WAYS I DO.

I WOULD IMAGINE HER, AND IMAGINE THAT SHE

MUST BE OUT THERE THINKING OF ME, TOO.

WELL, I HOPE THAT IF YOU ARE OUT THERE AND READ THIS

AND KNOW THAT, YES, IT'S TRUE I'M HERE,

AND I'M JUST AS STRANGE AS YOU. 

I don't know why exactly this interesting woman and artist thought she was strange.  Or why she thought of her strangeness as a flaw.  But I like that she is seeking connections.  That she believes in connections.  I love the idea that "there must be someone just like me." 

As her pain increased Kahlo painted from her wheelchair.  But she took her limitations in stride.  She said, "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly." Imagine that.  I wish we could all look at our limitations that way.

Kahlo did not like American "high society."  She said, "I feel a bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery without anything to eat and with no place to sleep . . . it is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger." 

We don't have to be political to have some of those feelings.   Most of us try to use our money and time in an ethical way, keeping ourselves and our families healthy and strong, paying fair wages and helping others less fortunate.  That's part of being kind. I need to make time to study Frida Kahlo more.  Not as a chore but as something I will enjoy.  And her motto--that I will take to heart.  Thank you, interesting woman.  Nina Naomi  

  

 

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (FAITH, COURAGE, COMPASSION)

I've been reading about Nora Ephron (1941-2012), journalist, writer and filmmaker.  She wrote When Harry Met Sally,  Sleepless in Seattle and Julie and Julia.  Ephron's mother and father wrote screenplays for Hollywood movies.  Nora was told by her mother, "Everything is copy." Later when her parents began fighting and drinking, Nora fled.  She wrote letters home.  In a play her parents wrote she discovered scenes from the letters she had written them.  So everything was copy to her parents.  Even Nora herself.  

We've seen this elsewhere.  When I hear preachers use as a sermon example  someone's confidential concerns ("A parishioner once asked me. . . .") I wonder if that parishioner wanted their problem to become copy, even anonymously.  If any one would.

I've also been noticing someone who uses a health scare (now resolved) as a fulcrum, writing and talking about it in posts, books, tweets, podcasts, events, interviews, every available venue.  For months now this has struck me as an unhealthy use of one's potential tragedy--as a route to recognition; a manipulative route perhaps, or a cheap route.  If a child says something adorable, as all children do, and we tweet it, in a sense the child becomes copy, does he not?  Condolences become copy, a child's love, a friend's concern--all become copy.  Someone may wish to be left out of a book, but the writer ignores the wish in the interest of good copy.

I love someone who embraced his personal tragedy with faith, courage and compassion.  Recognition would have been the last thing on his mind. He moved from diagnosis to acceptance with grace.  He didn't blog, tweet, talk, write, publicize, sell, market or in any way look for secondary gain from the heartbreak he was facing.  He trusted the love of God and family and sought only peace.  He never gave up trying and hoping to live, but never made a show of himself.  He wanted no microphone, no camera for his tears.  He thought of himself as a child of God and no better than anyone else. He was a witness. He was young.  I love someone else who died old and was the same way.  

Maybe this doesn't matter.  But maybe it does.  Somehow it seems we have choices to make at every time of life.  I hope I make the right ones.  Nina Naomi

A PLACE TO STOP, THINK AND WONDER, PART II

This week I got to do one of my favorite things--go to a museum. Three in fact. Oh how I love that! 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

We're in a furnished apartment in Princeton, NJ again, just an hour's train ride from New York (Posts: A Place to Stop, Think, and Wonder and Home, Not So Simple).  For many of us walking around a museum is not active enough, I understand that. But when you're in a museum you see every sort, college students, families with prams, couples, school children, lots of people on their own.  Everyone looks interested.  Phones are out but only for picture-taking. No one is rushing.  Everyone is taking their time.  Perhaps these are special occasions for everyone who is there.  None of us get that much time for museum-going. It's a luxury.  

One day we went to the Whitney (Whitney Museum of American Art) and the next day to the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).  Another day the Met.  I had never been to the Whitney before.  It's located at the end of the High Line (www.thehighline.org), the beautiful public park created on an out-of-use elevated railroad trestle.  The High Line runs from W. 34th near Penn Station to between 10th and 12th streets.  All very clever and sustainable, built around the self-seeded landscape that sprang up during the 25 years the trestle was abandoned. 

The High Line, NYC

The top picture looks like a bucolic setting, doesn't it, but see the adjacent glass buildings in the next photo?  The walkway is filled with people strolling, eating, tipping the street musicians.  Dogs aren't allowed.  Like so much that we find in the famous big cities around the world, this is a fun, creative place.  A showcase really. It makes me wish I lived in one of the world's major cities.  There are so many--Toronto, Vancouver, Berlin, Lisbon, the capital cities in South America . . . .  I feel jealous!

The High Line, NYC

After our walk we went into the Whitney.  The views from every angle are wonderful.  The views in the two photos below are of the same distant roof-top garden and the even more distant 9/11 memorial piercing the sky.  Wouldn't city living be fun if one could afford an apartment with a roof-top garden?  The High Line is free to everyone, but much of the beauty of New York is very, very expensive.  I enjoy just looking at it.   

View from the Whitney

View from the Whitney

The Whitney was having a show on the artist Grant Wood (1891-1942).  He painted the famous American Gothic, 1930.  

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

I learned that his sister posed for the woman and his dentist, of all things, posed for the man.  There's lots of conflict about the artist's attitude toward the dour Iowans he painted.  But most everyone notices the pitchfork and how that shape is repeated in the man's overalls, facial lines and the windows of the house. The question is, what does that repetition mean?  What struck me is that he could also paint this painting: 

Grant Wood, Sunlit Studio, 1925-26

Of course I looked this up too.  It was his studio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, above a carriage house where he lived with his mother and adult sister. It can still be visited! How interesting!  But the studio looks more French to me, with the shadows and checkered flooring.  Except for the stylized somewhat foreboding plant in the foreground, with the creepy tongue-like leaves. Maybe they're the equivalent of the pitchfork in the other picture.  Art historians must have sorted all this out.

Then we went to the MoMA. It's so wonderful how museums take us out of ourselves and put us somewhere else.  We can look at a room of paintings of 16th century Dutch peasants and feel what it might have been like to live then, to lift hay into a wagon, to wear a head scarf and apron and call in the goats, or spoon the soup into wooden bowls. That's the way I feel.  

At the MoMA we were thrust into a world of color. I lingered most in front of the Matisse (1869-1954) collection.  The colors are so beautiful! Look at this painting, the wall, the girl's hair, the tablecloth, the fruit.  This is Matisse's daughter.  I expect a child today would be hunched over a screen and the bright hues would be those of a video game.  A cartoon-type painting perhaps, or an illustration. 

Henri Matisse, Interior with a Young Girl, 1905-06

I may not get another day like this for a long, long time.  My own local kingdom (Post: This is Your Kingdom) does not have such famous treasures.  But that's the way life is, isn't it?  We have to find all different kinds of places to stop, think and wonder.  We can each do that.  

HOBBIES ARE WONDERFUL

Let's face it--hobbies are wonderful!  Those times in our lives when we've been too busy or too tired for our hobbies we've lost out, haven't we?  It's like being too busy or tired to have friends. Hobbies absorb us.  Some things that qualify in my mind don't even sound like hobbies--yard work, container gardening, even pulling weeds.  That's something I attack with gusto and when it's done, I feel pride.  My stress is gone.  Some of my friends run even in a chilling rain.  Punishment to me but not to them.  Hobbies are ways to follow our hearts and when we spend an hour doing that our minds are clear, our spirits light.  We can't wait for more time to do it again. 

Exercise hobbies, indoor or outdoor hobbies, intellectual hobbies.  Following the stock market was my dad's hobby.  Not investing, following.  Blogging can be a hobby, both the writing and the reading.  I love that blogs reach people all over the world.  When I check audience stats and see a new reader from Peru or Turkmenistan, Portugal or Brazil it makes me happy.  The Ukraine, S. Korea, Germany, Australia, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada. . . . I wish we all could meet.  I would learn so much!

I think hobbies are by definition worthwhile.  They're never a waste of time.  Doing something for ourselves, getting to know ourselves better and the people with whom we share an interest.  Forgetting our day-to-day concerns.  This is good for our hearts and minds.  Things that take concentration.  Using hammer and nails. Repairing our run-down houses. What a useful hobby! Up-fitting and re-purposing.  Collecting, crafting, creating.  Completing a difficult puzzle, playing the ukulele, swimming or running or canoeing.  

Pine Knoll Shores, NC, Loblolly Dr.

I collect sea glass (and seashells, of course).  So, I'm outside, bending and stooping, in all kinds of weather.  After a storm is best. The place I've found with the most sea glass is on the shore at Atlantic Highlands, NJ, a small Victorian town on the New York Bay.  Luckily, we have relatives there.  Can you imagine how many decades of tumbled broken glass wash up from Manhattan? This is the stash I collected in just one hour's foraging with a 4-year-old nephew this week. We picked through the trash and the seaweed.  I don't find this much glass in a year on our beach in North Carolina. Look at that cobalt blue, such a rare find for me. 
 

Sea Glass from Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Some people like a hobby that completely absorbs the mind but doesn't exhaust the body.  So running is out but writing is in.  Or weight training is out but learning a language is in.  Hobbies help us find our inner rhythm, don't they? When we're in the middle of something that we enjoy we don't worry about the future or ruminate about the past.  We stay right here, in the present.  Centered, not frazzled.  That's healthy, all the experts say. 

I'm taking part in a free Mindful Living Week (www.mindfullivingweek.com), a series of podcasts with presentations, dialogues and guided practices.  Although it requires way more time than I think I can give (who has a spare hour a day ever?), I'm giving it a try.  Today was good.  We're supposed to set an intention and create an inspirational space.  I skipped creating the space and went straight outside and sat under a tree.  But the intention was easy.  I chose one word--release. I can go any direction with that. Release from worry, release from fear, release from self-absorption, release from any negative thing I can think of.  Seems to me all that's left then are the positives.  I'll see where that takes me.   

What's your hobby?  Do you find that worries and regrets haven't a chance when you're absorbed in your hobby? I'm committing to finding new ones and making more time for the old. That's my well-being commitment.  Want to share this goal?  Let's see how we do. Nina Naomi