What Can Our Dreams Tell Us? Part II

Yesterday, on his birthday, Robin told me this dream:

"We were in the shed, cleaning it...organizing things, or looking for something.  A glass carafe from a coffeemaker was sitting in a cardboard box with some papers and garbage.  It caught my eye.  As I was thinking about bringing it into the house, it exploded."

I asked Robin to go back into his dream, become the carafe, and finish these sentences:

• Never refer to me as...
• I need...
• I want...

As the carafe, he said,

• Never refer to me as an unused coffee pot.
• I need grounds!
• I want someone to clean this mess up. 

and, "What are you thinking?" I asked the now-shattered, former coffee pot.  "Life sucks," he said.

The message of the dream was clear:  We need grounds, a reason, a purpose.  And, I guess, nobody's going to clean the mess up, except us, and that sucks.

(See September 7, 2011 for What Do Dreams Tell Us? Part I.)

Can Poetry Change Lives?

Yes, of course poetry changes lives - or maybe puts into words the changes that we are experiencing.  Or both.  Here's a poem I first read as I was turning 20 in 1972.  It's worth revisiting at any age:


Revolutionary Letter #1
                                               by Diane di Prima


I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines


This is the first poem in the book, Revolutionary Letters, by Diane di Prima, published in the Pocket Poets series by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books.

Di Prima’s letters deal with what to do if attacked by teargas and how to dress for a demonstration. Letter #9, for example, begins, "advocating/the overthrow of government is a crime/overthrowing it is something else/altogether."

Letter #1 sets the tone for the letters that follow. It begins with a sudden realization that "the stakes are myself." All we have is our selves, our bodies, our lives. If this is all I have, the poem tells me, I had better be careful how I play and what I risk.

In the last few lines of the poem, we are taken from the spinning roulette wheel to a GO board, and it is "my move."  GO is a meditative game where you win by slowly and patiently surrounding the opponent.  Each player places a stone on a point where the lines intersect, gradually enclosing territory.

In the GO board of the poem, however, we move stealthily, "stepping always (we hope) between the lines."  In other words, we may be on a GO board where all moves are made ON the lines – but we will live by our own rules, looking always from different perspectives, and slithering -- unobtrusively, smoothly, gliding and sliding -- across the landscape of our lives.

Is There a Quarter-Life Crisis? (Revisited)

Here are some signs that you might be experiencing a quarter-life crisis:

1. A love relationship doesn't solve the problem of having to also have a life.
2. Your parents want you to pay rent.
3. Whatever you studied in any school didn't seem to include what you really need to know.
4. You begin to wonder if anyone knows it.
5. You investigate various spiritual paths and mentors.  These help briefly, then you move on.
6. You discover that following your dreams is harder than you first thought it would be, especially if you also want to be independent, make your own rules, and eat.

And you justifiably believe that you have not contributed in any way to your problems.  You've done EVERYTHING you were supposed to do:  grew up, went to school, graduated from college, and looked for a job.  Since you haven't contributed to your problems, you do not believe your own actions will solve them.

Is the quarter-life crisis different from the mid-life crisis?

Yes.  If you experience the quarter-life crisis, you might fight with everyone who has helped you and be angry at the system they seem to have created.  The quarter-life crisis lasts until you find a place where you can more or less function, a "club," let's say, willing to have you as a member.  This "club" can be a company, job, spouse, religion, band, cause, political party, or purpose.  Within this club, you begin to flourish as a person.  You get opportunities and take on responsibilities.  You discover and develop more of your strengths, abilities, and interests.  You grow into your life.

At mid-life, you might begin to feel that the job, spouse, or religion that took you in during your quarter-life crisis spoke to only one part of you.  The secret or hidden life that you've suppressed so that you will fit into the club now needs expression.

The quarter-life crisis involves finding your place in the world.  The mid-life crisis involves expressing your most authentic self.

Is there also a three-quarter life crisis?  I don't know yet.
Can there be a zero-crisis life?  I don't think so.
Are these crises bad?  No, they are good and necessary -- but difficult.

What Does Heaven Look Like?

     I was waiting in the checkout line in our local supermarket, a neighbourhood No Frills, just before xmas.  The neighbourhood is a colourful combination of gentrified Victorian homes and city housing projects.  The supermarket was packed and the lineups were long.  A pair of men were conversing in Spanish when one of them said to me in English, "Is this the end of the line?"
     I nodded and said, "Now how would you say 'end of the line' in Spanish?"
     "Al final de la línea," he said, "the end of the line."
     That's just like in French, said the woman in line ahead of me.  "La fin de la ligne."
     "Конец строки," said a boy falling in behind the two men.  "Russian," he added.
     A woman with groceries and two children in her shopping cart joined the line saying,
"ي نهاية السطر  -- the end of the line, Arabic."
     "Lots of different languages," I said.
     "That's what heaven will be like," said the woman ahead of me.

Are Stories Necessary?

The stories that move us, touch us, and change us are necessary.  It may not even be character, plot, or setting that makes a story necessary, but the telling of it, the shape of the narrative, the voice of the teller, the way an idea or feeling from a story starts to dwell in the reader inspiring more ideas and feelings.

Stories give shape and detail to memory.  And, when we lose our memories, we still need stories, maybe more than ever.

In the early stages of her dementia, my mother-in-law became obsessed with her watch.  When we visited, she'd hold her watch up and peer at it from different angles.  Then she'd shake it, insist it was broken, and ask the time.  I'd tell her the time.  She'd be quiet for 30 seconds and then begin to look at her watch again and fret over it and demand to know the time.

"What time is it?  It's broken?  Do you see the time?

 1:15.  1:18.  1:20...

My husband and her caregiver were frustrated and impatient.  They wanted to distract her, to take the watch away, to do something else, but it only agitated her more, so we sat.

1:22.  1:23.  1:26.

"What time is it?  It's broken?  Do you see the time?

1:31

"Oh," she said.  "Now's the hard part."

"What do you mean?"

"It has to climb up the other side."

As her life became increasingly reduced - she still needed stories.  She saw in the youth of the hour, the early minutes, the big hand skipped easily down the right side of the watch face.  Life was good.  But then came the climb up through the 6, 7, and 8 of the hour, as if they were the later decades of life, the hard part.  I understood her story - an ancient one.  The wheel of fortune turns. 

Stories are necessary.

Why Do I Have More to Say To Some People Than To Others?

Have you noticed how with some people you can talk and talk?  They talk, you talk, they add something, you seque onto another topic.  You laugh, they laugh, and with them you are funnier, smarter, deeper, and more interesting.  In fact they build on your joke and reincorporate it into other jokes until it's unrecognizable to anyone else as a joke -- but the two of you can't stop laughing.  Life is good.  The time is up and you are still talking and hope to see each other again soon.

Then there are others.  And you want to get closer, but they talk, you talk, and then maybe there's nothing more to say.  You laugh, they laugh, and then there's nothing more to laugh at.  The joke doesn't grow into a private joke.  Everyone gets it.

There are many reasons for this phenomenon -- shared history, the intelligence of the speakers, your respective knowledge and interests, their love for you, your love for them, sufficient time for conversation and giggling, and a motivation to be in the conversation.  And yet with some people all those things might exist and the conversation still seems to falter and stumble into the weather, dinner, health, concrete problems with and without solutions.  What's with that?

I've come to believe that the quality of each party's listening is the determining factor in whether we have more or less to say to one another.  Can this magical listening be taught?  Is it a question of different minds organizing themselves differently or is it an inate capacity of some minds -- to ask the next question, to care about the answer?

Things Seemed Fine. What Happened?

Post-traumatic stress (PTS) is real.  I know that.  A reader asked me to expand on my recent post (Is Hockey Necessary?) where I mention panic attacks and PTS.  So I shall.

I'm not an expert, but here is how I see it:  When you are dealing with a crisis, you don't have much chance to breathe.  If you are dealing with an ongoing crisis, you may be out of breath for a while.  In my case, I freed myself from a stressful and abusive situation with an emotionally unstable partner.  Partners like these are easy to find, but hard to lose.  They're the sidewalk gum of romance.

When I began to breathe the air of freedom, it was exhilarating.  Life was difficult and I had a lot to learn, but I was eager to learn.  I could relax.  I knew I was starting my life over and it was wonderful.  Then the panic attacks started.  All the stress I had repressed for five years was seeping to the surface without asking permission.

Before this time, I had occasionally experienced panic attacks while driving over long, high bridges.  Bridge phobia is not unusual, but I began to have panic attacks driving anywhere.  City driving was mostly okay; highway driving was unpredictable.  The symptoms would happen unexpectedly and included breathlessness, nausea, shaking, fast heartbeat, inability to speak or think clearly, detachment from reality, and maybe voices or hallucinations.

At one time I believed I had recovered sufficiently to drive several family members home to Hamilton from an event in Toronto.  A heavy rainstorm began and so did my panic attack.  I started driving very slowly hoping to make it to the next exit.  My mother kept saying, "What's going on?  What's the matter?"  Me:  "Nothing, I'm fine," as I went slower ... and ... slower and finally pulled onto the shoulder unable to drive any further.  My mother was the only other driver in the car, and she had just had cataract surgery.  She said she would drive, and we changed seats.  She turned at the next exit, seeing badly out of one eye, and we took a back road to Hamilton.

She kept asking, "Do you want to take over now?"  I'm still listening to the other voices, but I manage to say, "No!! You're doing great."

That's how bad it can be.  There's was no way I could get back behind the wheel.

A few years later, a friend with NLP training, taught me how to stop the panic attacks.  I learned to focus on a memory of personal empowerment as soon as the panic attack began.  I was able to cure myself.  I also learned to avoid bad relationships (see July 28 blog).  All that happened 20 years ago.  I've been building bridges for a long while now, and even crossing them.

What's Your Flag?

     I was on my bike and stopped at a light when another cyclist behind me said, "What's your flag?"  During the last World Cup, I put a flag on the back of my bike to celebrate Africa's participation.
     I said, "Cameroon."
     "Oh," said the cyclist as he took off ahead of me.  "I love those coconut cookies."



     This got me thinking about nation states.  No world problem (the environment, terrorism, infectious diseases, computer crime) can be solved by national governments.  Here are the questions from a WorldCitizen website:

• Does the nation-state still play a significant role in global relations?
• Has it lost its power and influence in a globalized society?
• Is it an out-dated concept that needs to be replaced?

Posters answer, yes, yes, and yes.

• and ask, how do we get from where we are to where we need to be?
       I have a feeling that the Occupy Wall Street Movement - that by October 15 will involve at least 650 locations - is related to a global need to work together towards more fairness. 
        Read their one demand.
  
  
  I applaud their demands and their list of grievances.  They seem to be modelling themselves after the women who met in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 with a list of demands and a list of grievances.  It took 150 years, but most of the demands of early feminists have now been met by western democracies.

Is Hockey Necessary?

A few years back I was teaching conflict management skills to a class of apprentice plumbers.  Mike, one of the students started shaking his head, his eyes wild.  He put his head down on his desk briefly, then stood up and ran from the class.

Later, I saw him sitting in his van in the parking lot.  He apologized for leaving and explained that he'd had a panic attack in the middle of class.  He couldn't leave the campus yet, he said.  He was still feeling shaky.  He was worried it might be affecting his work.  He was seeing a doctor for it, taking pills - but he was still getting two or three panic attacks every week.

"I used to play hockey after work four or five nights a week," he said.  "After my wife had our first baby, I cut it down to twice a week.  After we had our second baby, I stopped playing hockey altogether.  That was four months ago.  Then the panic attacks started."

I knew about panic attacks.  I'd had several years of them when my post-traumatic stress kicked in, but this didn't sound trauma-related.

"Sounds like maybe you should play hockey." I said.

What Should I Believe? (Part 2)

My friend C. continues to add to his "What I Believe" list.  There are at least 92 items on it.  Here is one of my favourites:  "It is not the water’s fault for failing to mix with the oil, nor is it the oil’s fault for failing to mix with the water. They just don’t mix."

I recently opened one of my notebooks from the 1990s and, in the back under the heading Lessons Learned, I found some of my beliefs, including

1. Sometimes the antidote is to stop taking the poison.
2. Since people often marry their lovers, be careful who you sleep with.
3. Expect from people approximately what they can deliver (but treat them the way you want them to behave).
4. Avoid arguments during meals - it's bad for digestion.

At the bottom of the list was this one:

"Think about what you throw on in the morning - you might end up wearing it all day." 

I don't remember what led to me learning that lesson -- but it sounds bad.

Are You an Open Book?

I asked this question to a friend at lunch recently -- not a close friend, but a longstanding and deeply admired one.

"An open book?  Absolutely not," he said.  "Closed up and held shut with an elastic band."

I already knew the answer, but I wanted to open the question, pry around the edges of the lid, see what would happen.

He made some excuses, like life is so long and full and he's so old -- but you can have a very full book and leave it open.  Being an open book doesn't mean that you need to say much - you will, however, reveal if someone asks.  He must have sensed my interest in knowing more because, just before leaving, he said cryptically, "Some of it has been published in other formats."

Am I an open book?  I think mostly.  But no one reads much anymore.
Are you an open book?

Have You Had Any Good Dates?

I recently wrote about my last worst date.  People have been writing and asking, "Have you had any good dates?"

Indeed I have.

Long before the internet, I answered his print ad which began, "Available, Bearded, Charismatic, Dynamic, Energetic" and continued alphabetically all the way to zed.  For the letter "p" he said, "Professorish," which made him sound employed.  His ad also said, "Children welcome," and I had one of those.  If nothing else, the ad told me he had a big vocabulary.  As for all the other self-descriptions, I would soon find out if he was lying or merely hallucinating.

I suggested the Sultan's Tent in Toronto where I knew we would sit close together on low cushions.  A week later, there he was at the entrance to the Sultan's Tent - bearded, as promised, and enthusiastic.  We made our way in.

We sat at low, candle-lit tables, chatting, and watching the belly dancer who approached our table continuously trying to distract my date and make him dance with her.  Luckily, he was focussed on me and our tableful of Middle-Eastern appetizers.  I had dated another professor who was Buddhist and vegan.  I was always hungry around him  This one would not leave me hungry.

Just before the end of our meal, an attractive, fully-clothed woman came over to our table and said, "I want to speak to my professor."  We looked twice and realized it was the belly dancer.  She was a computer science student and had been in a class taught by my date.  It seemed he really was a professor.

Are Plants Safe?

There are no stupid questions, they say.  I try to remember this, since I am asked many questions.  I know that the question gives me information about the mind and life experience of the asker.  For example, a seemingly bright engineering student once asked me, "Why do Jews boycott Christmas?"

(I explained that in Judaism there are holidays for non-human birthdays, such as Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the trees, and Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of creation, but that the religion doesn't normally commemorate human birthdays.)

I had a tenant some years ago, a medical student at McMaster University.  She had an undergraduate degree - probably in the sciences, probably in biology.  It was late fall and I told her I'd be moving some of the flowering outdoor plants into the house.  She asked, "Is it safe?"

At first I thought this was a very stupid question.  Was she so disconnected from nature that she imagined houseplants might kill us?

Yet, she probably DID have a science degree and would soon be a doctor - and there was that time a few years back when trees were taking out celebrity skiers.  She might have feared the mutant killer geraniums, or merely figured that plants had a reason to be angry.

What Is Your Heartbreak Recovery Time?

Long ago, in a province far away, I had a big passion for a philosophy teaching assistant, Charles Z, at Simon Fraser University where I was an undergrad.  He was Jewish, from NYC, and only slightly older than me, someone I thought I could actually introduce to my mother.  My relationship with Chuck lasted one month.  Then he dropped me to date one of his students.
 
It seemed that the lights didn't come on in my life again for 12 months, so I deduced that, for a first major heartbreak, there's a 1:12 ratio for length of relationship to recovery time.

As one becomes more experienced in heartbreak, the ratio may be inverted.  For example, after a mature 12-year relationship, it might take only one year to recover.  Of course, if your heart is broken daily during most of those 12 years, then the recovery is immediate (except for the post-traumatic stress).

How long was your first recovery?  Did you ever recover?  Is there any correlation at all between relationship length and first heartbreak?  What do you think?

Have You Had One Big Passion?

My friend, Sergio, teaches drama in Brazil.  He sent me this quote:

“I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has never been in a play. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture."
— Tom Stoppard

How scary and challenging is that -- especially for those of us who have learned to love selectively and self-protectively?  I figure if you've had at least one big, crazy, wrong-headed passion in your life (that doesn't end in broken glass or broken bones) then you can say it's been a good run.

I'd even say that "crazy" and "wrong-headed" are not a requirement for the Tom Stoppard love effort - but when you've had at least one "riot in the heart," it helps you appreciate the many other ways of experiencing affection. 

What about you?  Has it been a good run?

What Happened on Your Last Bad Date?

It's been about 20 years, and I think I'm finally over my last bad date.

Our first date was interesting enough for him to call me a few days later and invite me to his apartment for dinner.  He was going to cook.  I met him through an ad he placed in The Globe and Mail, "National Personals" column -- yes, that's how we found discord before eHarmony.  His parents were from Scandinavia and Brooklyn, he was named for a Norse God, and he worked on Bay Street.  He had recently experienced the end of a long relationship and did not want to rush anything with anyone.  I assumed that he placed the ad because he wanted something with someone, and he seemed enthusiastic about getting together again.

I went up to his 15th-story Toronto apartment and he greeted me cautiously.  I recall the small kitchen with an opening to the living room/dining room.  He didn't want me in the kitchen while he cooked, so after chatting briefly, I settled on the sofa.

The window in the living room looked south over the city, the CN Tower in the distance.  The sofa was surrounded by overflowing bookshelves.  A racing bike was in one corner with other sports gear.  On the living room wall, opposite the kitchen were two doors, one to the bathroom and one to his bedroom, both closed.  While I wanted more intimacy, it seemed he now wanted less.  He wanted to concentrate on his swordfish.

I was cold, so I looked around for a blanket.  Not seeing one, I opened the door to his room and grabbed one from his bed.

A few minutes later, he noticed I was reading on the sofa under a blanket.

     "Where'd you get that?"
     "From the bedroom."
     "You went into my bedroom?"
     "I was cold.  I couldn't find a blanket."
     "You went into my bedroom!!  You're not f**king allowed in my bedroom!!"

After that exchange, I couldn't get to the elevator fast enough.  I never tasted the swordfish, and eschewed that unkind cut of fish for the next 20 years.

-- until a couple of weeks ago when my current husband, ignored my anti-swordfish stance and grilled some swordfish steaks.  They were delicious.  I was finally over my last worst date.

Is the Universe Indifferent? Part 1

Is the universe indifferent, or does it participate benevolently or malevolently in our lives?  I've asked this question already in a variety of ways (see July 29, August 11, August 30 posts).  I've encountered many people who received messages from the universe that changed their lives.  My mother, for example.  After ten years of widowhood, my mother received a proposal of marriage from Berko Devor.  She was deeply conflicted about remarrying and what that would mean to her life.  Walking home from the synagogue one Shabbat morning, she was turning the question of marriage over and over in her head.  She looked up and saw D E V O spray painted in giant letters on a wall.  DEVO must stand for Devor.  Clearly it was a message from God.  They were married soon after and had a wonderful relationship.

Was it a coincidence that the month my mother was wondering about marriage, the punk-rock band, Devo, released their album Freedom of Choice?  - or an intervention?

How Can I Stop a Train Wreck?

I've been asked this numerous times by friends and relatives concerned about their loved ones.

My friend, R., in Halifax told me that he spent his summers during university working on the cross-Canada train.  One year there was a bad train crash.  Keeping his mind clear and focussed, he rushed to the front where the collision had occurred, got people to safety, and even rescued their luggage.

I was in a train crash a few years back.  Buses were sent from Toronto to rescue us, but workcrews had to first build a wooden pathway across a wetlands to the highway.  I sat in the passenger car for hours singing train songs to the fearful travellers.

Sometimes we can see a train wreck about to happen.  We know there's a large obstacle ahead, or the bridge has collapsed.  Maybe there's an oncoming train.  We don't know exactly when it will happen, but it will, and it will be sad.  There they are, on the journey of a lifetime, left lying by the side of the tracks.

Mostly, we can't stop a train wreck - only the train can do that - but if they let us, we might be able to get them to safety and store their luggage, or hold their hand and sing to them, until they hop on their next train.

What Do You Remember from Your Schooldays? Part I

We certainly learn a great deal in our 15-20 years of schooling, but how many specific moments do we remember?

Back in the late 80s, just this time of year, I was getting ready to teach the first class of the semester to 40 electrical engineering students at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario.  I was watching my round, red kitchen wall clock -- but the hour hand had slipped and it was later than I thought.  By the time I showed up for class, the students had left.  This was not going to help build a relationship of trust.

I held my first class with them two days later.  I apologized for my earlier absence and promised it wouldn't happen again.  I then pulled out the old clock and a hammer, and smashed the clock into tiny pieces in front of them.


Many years later, I ran into one of my former students.  He said, "Hey, I know you.  You're the teacher that smashed the clock."  Then, "Yeah, that's about all I remember from my college days."

What do you remember?

Is It OK to Be Wrong?

"No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong."

This quote by François de La Rochefoucauld showed up in my quote-of-the-day email from goodreads.com.  It reminded me of the stress I endured living with someone who could not admit he was wrong -- and how everything changed when he finally learned to say, "You were right and I was wrong."  He says it all the time now.  So do I.

When you say, "You were right and I was wrong," the conflict is over.  If you don't say it, the conflict -- which might have been trivial -- stays alive taking up precious mental real estate.  So if it is obvious that you were wrong, learn to say the seven magic words.  Need a lesson?  Click here for a nine-second video of a man admitting he was wrong.

Having ended one conflict, we can move on to the new disagreements that are waiting for us just beyond the next cup of coffee.