Buddha, Gloria Gaynor and The Universe

I have dialogues with the Universe. It's a more modern day, less apocalyptic, version of God, I suppose. We generally have a really nice relationship. I say generally as there are times that I forget the Universe exists, mostly because I can't seem to see past myself. The idea of myself. I think I was sort of mad at it for a while, too. Things hurt me. People hurt me. Situations were unfair. Or maybe I just forgot where I fit in the grand scheme of it all. I'd abandoned it, and my role within it. It was better for me, for a spell, to huddle in a corner, filthy, self-protective, hateful, with a twitch. And like the kind of parent I would want to be, the Universe, as pained as it was to watch me in that state, watched, at a distance, with tears, as I made my own discoveries. Like maybe I needed help. And maybe I needed to learn how to ask for it.

Proud Mary keep on rollin'

Asking doesn't come easy to me.
What if they say no?

The Comrade: I don't really wanna be back here.
The Universe: Why not?
The Comrade: They're mean.
The Universe: They've always had that propensity. That's never stopped you before.
The Comrade: So, what are you saying? It's me?
The Universe: What do you think?
The Comrade: I think I need a judge's ruling on this one.
The Universe: I am the Universe. And I think you're being paranoid.
The Comrade: I think I need some help. Could you send me something? Something I would understand?

These days I never know when acute mental retardation hits.

That's how our talks normally go.
That's why I don't usually go to church anymore. I talk differently when I'm in church. Too pious. Too much on my best behaviour. Neither of us recognises myself. So, now, while I walk up and down aisles at Loblaws looking for anchovies, say, it does sort of look like I'm talking to myself. Where the hell are the anchovies, anyway? They're not kept with the sardines. Near the pickles, you say? I'll look next time.

A woman in her 50's walked into the Cheer's Equivalent Bar, the place of my employ. Marilyn. I took to her instantly. She came in alone, something I always think is a brave thing to do in this city. With solo diners, I have a tendency to take them under my wing. She had a Germanic severity to her. It was framed with a pragmatic Lego-man hairstyle. I learned she was a practitioner of Buddhist therapy/philosophy. The principal of these philosophies is to chip away our feeling-centered subjectivity to get to the reality. One of these therapies is Naikan. Its basis is a three step process:

Within any relationship, ask:
Step 1. What has that person done for you?
Step 2. What have you done for that person?
Step 3. What kind of trouble could you have caused that person?

Marilyn started by dissecting her tenuous relationship with her mother. When she broke up time into manageable blocks, answering each step specifically - we're talking every single birthday cake made, every time Happy Birthday was sung, the ride to school during a rainstorm - she recalled, at around age 6, the image of her mother in the kitchen, sweating in a bra and half suspended house-dress, canning and pickling food from the garden to place in the cellar, so her near to poverty-struck family would be able to eat in the wintertime. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten that. She'd been too busy feeling sorry for herself; sorry that she didn't have the life she'd imagined, like she'd seen on TV.

Marilyn used to believe she was a self-made woman. She did it all on her own. She didn't need anybody. She couldn't rely on anybody, anyway. When she was studying, her teacher had asked her to list all the people who were involved in getting her the banana she was saving for lunch. If she could list 30 people, she was told to sit back down. To think about it some more. She was only scratching the surface. People are there. We just poke needles in our eyes, so as not to see.

He'd called me at work one day to tell me how beautiful, capable and wonderful I was.
The next week I'd forgotten about it. Laundry taking greater precedence.

What have I done?

I'd secretly scripted how I'd wanted to be wooed, then proceeded to be disappointed because no one was following my script. What kind of trouble could I have caused him? Telling him he wasn't enough, in as many words, is one of the shittiest things I've ever done. I didn't love him properly. Insert shame. Insert depression. Throw in a molotov cocktail of anxiety into the mix. I have a stomach ache.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

Universe: Comrade? I'd like you to meet someone.

Marilyn told me about Morita. Another Buddhist based therapy. Have a goal. Feel what you're going to feel. Do what needs to be done to achieve that goal.

Excerpt from the ToDo Institute:
Psychiatrist Shoma Morita used the term "arugamama" to describe the state in which we simply "accept things as they are". He believed it was fruitless to try to work on our feelings, our thoughts. A better solution was just to accept them the way we accept distracting thoughts and feelings during meditation - we notice them and bring our attention back to our breath. If you are beginning the process of divorce, it is normal to have feelings of anger, sadness, fear, loneliness, etc… Rather than use your energy to try to elevate your mood, you can accept these feelings as natural and learn to coexist with them as you move through the challenging and painful process of separation. This idea of "coexisting with feelings" is what distinguishes Morita therapy from many other approaches. It's very much like going for a long walk and getting caught in an unexpected rainstorm. Once you accept the fact that you are going to get drenched you stop trying to avoid the rain and are free to simply walk. Once you are home, you can concentrate on getting dry."

"Every crisis tests our faith - our willingness to trust that life will unfold the way it needs to unfold. The crisis brings us face to face with the limits of our power to control the world in which we live. Ultimately our personal destiny and the destiny of friends, family, even the planet, is outside our control. Yet it is still important to do what we can do, for our ability to shape the future will never be known until long after we have taken action. As Ghandi said, "Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it."

Hello Universe? I need you now. I think I let too much time pass. I think I let my pride stand in the way. I think I kept pushing until he...
He's been pushed and he learned to push back, too. See that.
Okay, I see that, but...
It's both of your responsibilities. His friend is right; he needs to want to do it. You don't want to be the one to force his hand. It's like that couple you heard about last night. She threatened suicide, so he married her.
It's different.
But the same.
What if I don't get him back?
You won't crumble and die. Just tell him how you feel. Tell him how scared you've been. Tell him how you've learned to not trust others who are closest to you, just as he's learned to fight the ones who were closest to him when they expected too much of him. Both of you have been guilty of not understanding each other enough, to love each other properly. You now have a goal. The ultimate goal. Feel what you're going to feel and do what you need to do to realise that goal.

Did you know...
There are times this stupid girl doesn't think any one gives a shit about her.

If you'll excuse me, I have important business to attend to.

Free Association

My second eldest brother, the one the ex-boyfriend always reminded me of, once said: You talk in riddles.
A Wee Comrade: [at the tender age of 8] Everything is connected.

On
Off
On
(yet tentative)
Off
[blows out pilot light, gently shuts door behind her]

The Applier once commented on the single break-up attempt between Ack, the ex-husband/best friend, and his short-term if-you-close-your-eyesTeletubbie-sounding girlfriend of some months.

Ack: How many times does it normally take?
The Applier: My last one required three. Expect further contact.

He was right. I suppose it does take a while, considering the equation (2 people + time) x investment to the power of this day and age. And after the first break-up attempt, one occasionally runs into an old friend, say, who happens to know both parties and says something like:

Old Friend: So, you're all ready to move on then?
The Comrade: [with as much pride as the ship's commander, ten minutes into the Titanic sinking] Yep.
Old Friend: Ready to have sex with other people?
The Comrade: EW!
Old Friend: Okay, okay. But, are you ready for him to have sex with other people?
The Comrade: What?! No!
Old Friend: Everyone looks for comfort.
The Comrade: God.
Old Friend: Would you like to borrow my phone?

So, we made another stab at it. By stab I mean we didn't talk about the things that were really the problem. Glowing by fetching tea lights, we illuminated only the bits that had held our tenuous union together. The rest we just avoided. Put up the green screen. We'll finish it in post. Until I, at least, couldn't avoid any longer.

I tend only to see epics on the big screen. The last one was remember, remember the fifth of November... the gunpowder, treason and plot... my most cherished graphic novel, updated and brought gloriously to the silver screen. Regardless of endless script changes or fetal celluloid curled on cutting room floors, there are desperate times that I seek extra significance. Meaning. 9 times out of 10, this being no exception, I go to see movies alone. I went to see The Break-Up. Watching the movie was, well, just like being a non-invasive third party viewer into my own relationship. It was gut-wretchingly accurate replete with no Hollywood ending. I have no idea what I was thinking, as it didn't give me the answer I was looking for.

Bugg? Tom? You were right. I was trying to aid and abet it
By sadly trying to mash it into something it was never meant to be.

My wonderful friend Ryan brought this to my attention:

I make associations
Not riddles, as my brother accused.
I like to think of them more as connections.

New Friend Lisa: [on the topic of an affliction her ex-boyfriend once suffered] He had a floating testicle.
The Comrade: That doesn't sound so bad. It sounds sort of freeing.

It's anything but freeing, as I learned. A floating testicle is connected to the body by a tube and blood vessels but, because it's not in a fixed spot, as normal testicles are, the connectors can severely twist into a torsion state. If immediate medical attention is not sought, family jewels will be robbed.

The Comrade: So, is it kind of like a bunched up telephone cord where you have to let the receiver drop every now and then just to get the twists out?
New Friend Lisa: Exactly.

I imagined an ornately drawn Monty Python hand of God reaching from the sky to pluck this young man by the chode. With legs splayed, he spins slowly, then like a dervish, until his scrotum is straightened and stretched like salt water taffy. Relief eventually reaches his (also) twisted face.

I make associations because it makes me see myself more clearly; it shows how everything and everyone is interconnected; it's the universal translator; and it gives life meaning. I haven't felt myself lately. I've been feeling angry, hurt, useless. More than anything else, I've felt disappointment of late. My friend Andrew, a co-worker at my place of employ, at the Cheer's equivalent bar, had something to say about it.

The Comrade: They're breaking my heart.
Andrew: The sooner you realise that people are shit, the better off you'll be. I used to be like you; I believed in them too, but all they do is disappoint.
The Comrade: So, what do you do?
Andrew: I expect nothing of them. Actually, that's not true. I expect them to be absolute dickheads and when they're not, if they're nice, then I'm pleasantly surprised.
The Comrade: Sigh.

At least once a week, someone would say to me, I've never told anyone this before, but... I would hear incredible tales. And I would feel lucky. They would choose me because I told them intimate stories about my own life and I listened with generosity. I have an empath's soul because I remember where I've come from. I can trace my snail's slime back to its source. Each time there's an interaction, wisdom is simultaneously drawn upon and gained. No one's told me something they hadn't told anyone before for a very long time. Why? Because I've hated more than I've loved lately. And what I've learned this year is not to trust. So, why would anyone tell the enemy anything truly dear to them?

My new friend Lisa, the girl who once saved her ex-boyfriend's sack, not that anyone noticed, is a singer/songwriter who is also a private music teacher to lucky children between the ages of 5 and 17. I say lucky because they get to choose their course of musical study. Standard, outmoded curriculum hasn't chosen it for them. They learn how to sing and play an instrument at the same time, something I wish I could do. I'm still working on rubbing the belly and tapping the head to 2/4 time. As they progress, they learn to create their own compositions. Lisa encourages them to craft music around pieces they create in creative writing classes. Things that matter. A couple of weeks ago, I got to hear some original pieces at their end of year recital. Fervent codas reiterated why that guy didn't look her way, or who to cast blame for Mom's cancer. At the most awkward time of their lives, these kids performed with deft ease in intimacy and confidence. That's the greatest tool Lisa teaches. I secretly promised to seek her out as a future guide to my unborn child. How different a child could turn out if only she was given the freedom to realise her faculties. I didn't have private tutoring. I did, most gratefully, perform music throughout my youth, though. I was lucky enough, fuck that, I was one of the last students who took advantage of her educational right to study music. A right that has been ripped away from the poor kids today. The one thing that gave me a modicum of self-confidence. It's probably the one explanation of why I feel more comfortable walking across the stage of a packed theatre than singularly meandering down a fluorescent lit, antiseptic corridor to anywhere.

It wasn't until I started writing that I paid attention to lyrics. Words didn't penetrate until at least the 5th rotation. Anyway, music was the salve I sought, not cheap words. Music was the thing that jettisoned or plummeted me. Lyrics were heard more like another layer of sound rather than anything with meaning

and I ran, I ran so far away...
I couldn't get away

... maybe.

This is my new favourite song by my new favourite band.

I am a waterfall waiting inside a well.
I am that wrecking ball before the building fell.

I have not been using my powers for good.

Someone just whispered that tomorrow is another day.