In Self We Trust

I've talked about trust and faith here many times over the years. Trust grows from the word for tree - something that is firmly planted, deeply rooted, will bend in the winds of change and, if it is a strong trust, will not break ... easily.

Self-trust is where I find my deepest roots. We can know our strengths and our weaknesses - accept them all - and shape them into the best that we can be. I'll admit, I forget this foundational understanding too often. I look outside of myself for people and beliefs that I can trust. They always fall through - when I don't remember to start with trusting myself.

Trusting myself means that I pay attention to the signs and signals that I receive ... from my intuition, from my body, from my mind ... and those subtle signals and signs that I receive from others. It means paying attention ... and interpreting those signals as best I can.

So ... when my body over-reacts to my insulin - I need to pay attention and allow the communication to unfold so that I can decide what is best for me. And ... when someone make apparent overtures of friendship - yet offers subtle and not-so-subtle insults, I need to pay attention and allow myself to walk away. Not in anger, not in fear, not in resentment - but in trust that I am doing the best for myself - and so ... for the other as well.

Trust begins with the self, and then it flows outward to include others. I was talking with a friend recently about how difficult it can be to develop trust in the beloved - especially for us older folks who've loved and lost and are fearful of being hurt again. We agreed that its well worth allowing that trust to unfold over time. She is in a wonderful marriage with a decent, good-hearted, thoughtful man. We talked about their marriage, which began as a commitment, and has become a covenant.  Because they chose to trust ... and they chose to be trust-worthy.

We also talked about the importance of trusting the community to support the relationship and that commitment/covenant. It's something I've been thinking about recently, because I see, so often, that the community does not always support the trust that develops between two people. In our covetous, I-want-it-right now culture ... many people believe that if they meet someone they're attracted to ... it's okay to pursue a relationship. No matter what. No matter if that person is already in a new relationship or a long-term marriage. Rather than support that good that has been growing ... they come in with their storm of self-absorbed desire, and try to destroy that relationship so that can have it for themselves. Doesn't work that way, though.

If the roots of the relationship are deeply embedded in self-trust, and in trust of the other, that storm will be weathered - though some leaves and branches may break and fall. And, those of us who are not yet fully enlightened can hope that the lightening strikes at the rotten heart of that storm.

Passages

Yesterday I took a new, big step and gave myself my first injection of insulin. My doctors have been trying to convince me to add that to my treatment plan for diabetes, and I've been resistant to insulin (ha ha). But this doctor is Machiavellian. She would simply stop prescribing my usual medication unless I agreed.

I have many, many issues with the medical industry. I have issues with the fact that they hold us hostages to their decisions about prescriptions and referrals. I have issues with the way that I'm considered a non-compliant patient because I ask questions, I research their suggestions, and I make my own decisions. I have issues with the way I'm labeled "phobic" because I choose not to medicate myself 'just in case' I develop other problems.

I have issues with the fact that every day, and now at least twice a day, I'm required to engaged in self-mutilation - blood sacrifices on the altar of the priesthood of medicine - that is called "blood sugar testing". I have issues that I now know how to inject drugs into my system. I've been bullied into becoming an insulin junkie. I have issues that I, too often, buy into the belief that I just didn't try hard enough ... and it's my fault.

I know ... there are other ways of looking at this situation. I see those too.

I was diagnosed with diabetes almost 20 years ago - and I have tried and rejected some of the medications on the market because of their side effects ... or simply rejected many them because of their main effects! I can accept the possibility that after all these years, my body is simply no longer able to use the simple medication that I've used in the past to control my blood sugar. I can accept the possibility that now I've entered the menopause years, my body needs assistance for homeostasis. I have complicating factors with lupus and severe anemia. I'm growing older, and I'm fine with that.

And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful that, since I'm well below the poverty line for the US of A, I get my medication for $30 instead of $170. I'm grateful that insulin exists as a treatment for this imbalance and that it will probably extend my life and its quality. I'm grateful that the technology is moving along quickly and I don't need a syringe, but can use a pen that allow me to try, ever so hard, to pretend that it isn't a syringe. And, depending on how it goes, I might even find that I'm grateful for my Machiavellian doctor.

Crossing Over

Two years ago today I crossed over from Wyoming into Montana on my westward journey. Here's what I wrote:

There was a moment when I came 'round a bend and there in front of me were mountains - the real thing - snow capped and distant - so that they almost seemed like a dream at first. I had the sense that we were checking each other out. The expansiveness of South Dakota is immense, but I immediately felt as if I were already part of it as I passed through. These mountains today ... I felt like they were considering me ... "who do you think you are, young lady, to enter on our turf?".

And then, as the sun began to sink toward the western horizon, I crossed over into Montana, the landscape changed once again, and I felt at home. I sped through the shifting of the light and I saw the dark gathering behind me. It was moving faster than I was, and it spread its arms to surround me from behind, catching up with my back windows ... my driver's window ... and still I sped on ... toward the still golden horizon, toward Billings, toward my last night on the road.

It was one of the most glorious and deeply peaceful sunsets I've ever experienced.

I can remember it clearly even now. I can remember that sense of mystery and possibility that accompanied me on my travels across the country.

It hardly seems like two years could have flown by. And yet, I also feel that I've packed more experience in these past two years than in the preceeding twenty. As if I moved from a quietly flowing stream that opened, unexpectedly, into some pretty intense rapids.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

My dad was born on October 13 1935 in Bronx, New York. His mother, Rose, was the daughter of immigrants from Sicily and his father, also Lawrence Howard, was the son of coal miners in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky.

Unfortunately, I never knew any of them well, though I did love each of them dearly.

My grandmother was a short, bustling, round woman - I remember her smiles, her food, her carved Chinese jewelry box. My grandfather was a tall, slender, quiet man - I remember his smiles, his pipe, the smell of whiskey (or bourbon?), and some of his stories.


When I was a child, I believed my dad was the smartest person I knew. He taught me to love the search for knowledge and understanding. He tried to teach me to stand up for myself, but that was less successful.

When I was a child, I believed my dad could do anything, and he was patient enough to let me work beside him with carpentry, masonry, even some electrical work. He let me tinker, take things apart, and helped me to put them back together. He could throw a ball so high into the sky that it disappeared - and he knew the coolest trick of making it seem like his index finger could split in half. When I had nightmares, I would creep into my parents bedroom to the protection of his presence. There was never a doubt in my mind that he loved me.

As I grew older, I saw more of the man and less of the dad. I saw his flaws clearly, and I understood that he was not the best of men. I saw the he moved through life according to his own set of values - and while they were not consistent with societal norms ... or mine - they were consistent with his own. I respected his consistency, if not his actions and choices. As I became a young woman with a life and family of my own, his choices shifted him onto a path that rarely brought us together. It was a loss for both of us.

In August of 2006 he called to say that the doctor had found cancer in his lung. They did surgery in September to try to stop the spread - but it was too late. Or, the surgery itself had spread the disease. It was small cell carcinoma and quickly spread through his body.

I traveled down from the Berkshires to Manhattan to visit him after that surgery. The room was filled with my sisters, my brother, and my father's wife. The nurses came and went. It was busy and loud. He was trying his best to be self-contained, in-control, and fearless. I'm not a person who competes with others - for attention or anything else. I waited. Eventually, the room emptied and we were left alone, together.

On the train ride down into the city, I thought about what I could say to him. I thought about what I might want to hear from my daughter if I were in a similar condition. And so, I took his hand and said, "I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that there is peace between us. I want you to know that I'm okay and that you don't have to worry about me - my life is good and getting better." He squeezed my hand in response and that was that.

Six months later, my dad passed on. I had gone to visit him as often as I could during that time span, while dealing with my own illness. I wasn't there the morning he died, but I felt that we had made our peace in that quiet moment together.

I visited with him for Christmas that year, and gave him a diary to keep track of his thoughts and stories. I'd hoped to read it one day. I never saw it again. It was a loss for us both.

Earlier this evening, I sat with some friends and colleagues. I sipped a glass of whiskey in honor of my dad while engaging in some good conversations, and shared some laughter. I've kept my promise to him. I have a good life, it's getting better, and he still doesn't need to worry about me.

Feral Smiles

In the past week or so I've been in situations where a few different people I know have offered me a feral smile. It's a smile that says "I've got you".  Not in a fun, playful sort of way, but with a sense of power-over. I didn't like it. When I could, I spoke out - when I couldn't, I left the situation. No reason to stay. I'm learning to take better care of myself.

I remember reading some time ago about an animal, I think it was a stoat or a polecat, that kills - not for food - but for (what seems to be) enjoyment.  The smile I experienced with these people was the kind of smile that I imaged seeing on the face of a predator after catching its prey - but before killing it. Imagine their chagrin when I slipped out from under their nasty paws and strolled away.

This afternoon, I walked the sidetrails west of Tech and thought about animals that kill for enjoyment and not simply for nourishment. And how we judge them.

Just an aside (as if this whole post isn't one long series of asides ....) earlier today I taught a class for one of our professors who was otherwise engaged. The class conversation moved to a discussion about hi-tech surgery: robot who do the actual cutting, etc. while directed by a human surgeon. We were all viscerally opposed to it because, we said, computers and robots can make mistakes. I mentioned that we were "prejudiced" against the robots. The students were shocked to hear the word in the context of something non-human.

And so, with that experience fresh in my mind and ruminating (in a non-predatorial way) on the feral smile, I thought about stoats and polecats and killing. Killing for fun. And our distinctly puritan prejudice against that kind of waste of (our) resources.

We prefer our predators to be mannerly. Like an owl, wise. They're hungy, or they need to feed the owlets, so they swoop down on a little critter, kill it, and eat it. Very utilitarian.

But when a predator oversteps its bounds (according to our standards of polite predator behavior) we take action. Recently a rancher lost 120 sheep in one night to a pack of wolves. The sheep were slaughtered and left out on the range. It must have been a nightmarish experience to look over the landscape turned into wasteland and see that much death and destruction. For no apparent reason! The wolf pack was destroyed.

Unfortunately, I can compare that scene easily to other images I've seen as I research the history of white men and wolves in the American west. I can imagine the native peoples (and perhaps the wolves) with a similar sense of shock and despair when looking out over the landscape and seeing the buffalo slaughters - or the wolf and coyote slaughters - piles of animals that you could climb up like a small hillock. A waste.

Killing for fun. Killing for the pleasure of the stalk, the hunt, the kill. This is primarily a human occupation. I understand the pleasure of the stalk ... the hunt ... even the kill. But, I also buy into the utilitarian mindset. I am prejudiced against trophy hunters, against killing wolves, bears, mountain lions, eagles, and other competitor predators. I believe it should be a useful activity as well - bringing home meat for the family table ... ridding the village of a predator that gets out of hand ... or even our practice of catch and release for fish.

I like to believe that this kind of behavior is somehow fear based - I like to believe it as a kind of mercy and openness to understand the behavior of "the other". But, I know that there is a kink, a twist, something out-of-place in some people and they enjoy, not just the stalk and the hunt, but the kill. Kill comes from the German "qualen" and means: torment.

I could see the little flame of enjoyment in the eyes of my feral smilers as they anticipated some show of torment - in myself, and in the others who were part of these experiences. It was distasteful, to say the least.

Naming

It is said that if you hold the true name of a person, place, or thing then you have power over it. You can find this in different forms of shamanism as well is the best (and worst) scifi/fantasy novels and other kinds of speculative fiction.

I'm reading a novel about the power of holding names - the power of language. One of the characters says "... language is not a simple act of communication ... it is transformative. What you say becomes what you are, and if you say it well, and clearly, and with will, it will transform the landscape around you." He's talking about magic ... but ...

Today I'm working on my midterm paper for Rhetoric and we are asked to discuss our personal theory of communication. I wrote this before I read the words above: Communication is an interaction within an individuals or between two or more individuals which causes a change in thought, emotion, or behavior.

Language is magical and transformative. It will not necessarily create a floating light in a dark room when the electricity goes out - but it will create the light of understanding in the darkness of confusion. Any time you use language - with yourself or with others - you are creating change. Sometimes imperceptible and sometimes its enormous.

It was the magic of language that drew into reading as child. The authors I read created new worlds for me - Jules Verne taught me to love exploration by bringing me deep into the sea and deeper into the earth; Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, and the Bobbsey Twins faced dangers and solved mysteries that helped others; C.S. Lewis, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jerzy Kozinski, and Elie Wiesel asked me to look even more deeply into my self and my beliefs than I knew I could; I followed Taash and his Jesters to magical lands and stayed there with George MacDonald and JRR Tolkien.

I wanted to learn how to use language to create worlds that would give that same pleasure to others. But first, I needed to learn to hold the names of all things with both power and love. I'm still learning. And one thing I know is that when you hold the name of another - not only do you have power over them - they have power over you.

I have mixed feelings about learning the official (scientific) names of the landscapes around me - I could learn the plants and rocks and grasses and trees - but once I do - I am both expanded and limited. The power of naming is often the power of limits.

The naming that I'm learning now, the vocabulary of this profession, allows me to succeed in school and will help me if I choose to go on for a doctorate ... to teach others the mysteries of signs and symbols, of krisis and kairos, of ethos, logos, and pathos. But, I can also feel it reining in the free ranging of my mind. Good? Bad? Neither - it is what it is. I pay attention and decide when to corral my thoughts and when to allow them to run into the unknown distances.

Twilight

In little moments that I can steal, I've been re-reading Louisa May Alcott novels: Work, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, An Old Fashioned Girl. I hadn't realized how deeply her work had influenced me and my thinking. From behind her characters I see Emerson and Thoreau peeking out with subtle smiles on their faces, waving an acknowledgment of my discovery of how my young self soaked up their philosophies. Some days I feel like a character in one of her stories with my odd combination of old-fashioned and quite radical thoughts.

Last night winter blew into Butte and it lingers into this night. I decided to forego my evening stroll - the sudden jump from the 70s to the 30s was more than I wanted to deal with. Instead, I cooked up a stew with organic Montana beef and potatos from the farmers market. I settled onto the couch with a warm bowl and looked at the piles growing around me ... semiotics ... rhetoric ... wildlife management ... intercultural communication theories ... ethics. On one side of the desk is the Jesuit, Michel de Certeau writing about every day life and on the other side is the radical feminist Donna Harawy with her manifesto on companion species. Everywhere I turn, I have the opportunity to immerse myself in a different universe of thought.

What do I want to do? Drowse in front of a fire with music playing and my beloved nearby. I want to watch the flames dance and fall into a reverie that leads me into my own world.

Instead, I quietly wash up the dinner dishes and sit down to outline a chapter in one class, to fill out the outline of a paper for another class, I see a journal article on Red Riding Hood peeking out from my notebook that is hiding another article on the Greimas analysis and I want to read them both.

I do appreciate all this. I am deeply aware of what a privilege it is to be sitting in a warm apartment that I have, over the past year and more, made more beautiful for me with plants, curtains, artwork, and and more. To be faced with the choices of scholarly pursuits rather than faced with the choices of how to put a roof over my head and food on the table.

I sat talking with a professor today about the meaning of meaning and I wondered to myself - what will I be suited for when I leave this place? I have already been changed so much by the glimpses of these different worlds. I know that so much more change is on the way. In another class we talked about our culture shifting away from a belief in unstoppable progress and growth to an understanding and acceptance of our limits - as individuals as well as culturally.


I've been thinking about my own limits and learning to not just respect them, but appreciate them. I'm not yet 'old' and I'm no longer young. Approaching the twilight of life perhaps? Perhaps. It is my favorite part of the day - that time between day and night. Here in Montana, the twilight seems to last for hours the sky slowly slowly emptying of color to leave the stark shimmer of stars in the black endless skies of night.

I enjoy the borderlands - the in-between states of being - neither here nor there - always leaving... always coming home.