The Greening of Boulder

Rain has been more plentiful than usual this May in Boulder and I’m reveling in the sight of unusually lush green foothills and trails.

We walk from South Boulder up to Chautauqua, down to Pearl Street for a writing session at Bookend Cafe, then home in the pouring rain, and we’re happy. Our walk is in a parallel universe with the massive 10K Bolder Boulder footrace also occurring in town today but we walk alongside many of those who've completed the race as we make our way home in the downpour.

It was also May when we first arrived in Boulder in 1977, with every belonging we had packed in a tan square back VW (two guitars, a tent and cook stove, our clothes, and a remarkable number of books). For the first few nights we pitched out tent along the creek at the Wagon Wheel Campground in Four Mile Canyon outside town.

That year the weather was mild and very dry. Colorado’s arid climate and the muted sage green and gray of the Flatirons were a radical change from the emerald green forests of maple, sycamore and oak in southern Indiana. We were luckier than we knew, since May in Boulder can be quite rainy; some years, late season snowstorms cruelly weigh down and break the flowering fruit tree branches. It is only after many years here, some during severe drought, that we fully appreciate the precious rain when it comes. So it’s been raining all Memorial Day weekend in Boulder and I’ve been falling into grateful sleep each night to the steady, gentle patter on our roof.

Up in Chautauqua the sage was abundant--we each picked and crushed a leaf; the delicious scent filled me with peace and joy. When it’s been raining this long it seems as though all the green plants come out of hibernation and suddenly it looks a lot like Ireland without quite so many pubs.

Also in Chautauqua Park is a small circular flower garden with four pebbly paths leading up to an oblong sign that proclaims, in multiple languages: May Peace Prevail on Earth. As I’m reading the sign and saying my own little prayer, a woman drives by, leans out the window with a smile and calls out “Peace for all the world!” I do feel peace in my souI right here, right now in Boulder.

Mother's Day 2009

I was well and truly pampered on Mother's Day with homemade quiche, biscuits with "Bonne Maman" French strawberry preserves, coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Not to mention two homemade Mother's Day cards and a pedicure after brunch. So tonight I write about what it's meant to me to have the privilege to be a mom.

From the minute they're born, children are a revelation, opening your eyes to the real magnitude of what your own parents did for you, as well as what you yourself are capable of accomplishing. Parenting is exhausting, exhilarating, glorious, frustrating, terrifying and joyous. It demands constant judgment calls large and small, with no way to fully prepare for it ahead of time--it's the ultimate in on-the-job training. Here are the top 10 things I've learned as a mom, and I'm still learning:

10. If you really want children--if the bio clock is ticking and you're in a reasonably good place--try and find a way to have them. So many times I've been so very glad I did.
9. Expect the unexpected. No matter how many books you read, this universal experience ends up being highly unique, and is full of surprises.
8. Read to your young children every day, and make sure you find time to simply be with them and play.
7. Especially when they're teens, keep the lines of communication open. Don't sweat the small stuff--save your energy for the big battles that truly affect their health and well being.
6. Listen carefully--have real, two-way conversations with your kids. You'll learn a lot.
5. Set limits and stand by those limits; it is a terrible lie to lead your children to believe that the world will give them everything they demand.
4. Give them much more time and love than things and money.
3. Showing them how to live works better than telling them how to live. They can see a phony a mile away.
2. Believe in them, so that they can believe in themselves and fly on their own.
1. And the number one thing I've learned: Let go. From the moment they are born, you're loving them fiercely and yet letting them go a little at a time--leaving them with the babysitter who is hardly beyond childhood herself, sending them to kindergarten, handing them the car keys, moving them into the college dorm and crying on the way home. Let them go; let them live their own lives and make their own mistakes. As young adults they don't need your unsolicited advice--mind your own business and one day you might find they consider you their friends.

There is no more important decision or life's work than to bring children into the world--and no decision in my life I've been more positive was right. I'm grateful every single day for my kids. Happy Mother's Day.

To Boldly Go

We walk over to CU’s East Campus Research Park along Innovation Drive, noticing the inspirational quotations embedded in the sidewalk. For the first time I see that one of these is a quote I hadn’t spotted before:

“To boldly go where no man has gone before…” – James T. Kirk

Many questions arise, not the least of which is “will future generations realize that James T. Kirk is a fictional character (he is, right?) played by an actor named William Shatner? Who later in life ended up as a cocky senior partner in a Boston law firm ironically continuing to boldly go where no man has gone before?"

And another question: how do we know these are places no man has gone before? It can only be because women, having already been to these places and confirmed that there were indeed no men there nor had there ever been, have obligingly shared that information with the men. But we always knew women were good communicators. What the heck do you think Uhura’s job was on the starship Enterprise? She was the beautiful black communications officer; the men on board were at a loss to communicate with all those non-human sentient life forms without her help, as she flipped switches on some giant switchboard-like panel and fiddled with that pre-Bluetooth device in her ear that always seemed to be screeching painfully. It was Uhura who kept saying to Captain Kirk, “Yes, captain, I can confirm that this is yet another place where men have yet to boldly go! But you go now, boy.”

Speaking of communication, I still long for those wonderful devices from Star Trek that translated language automatically. If I could have one tool at work that I don’t currently have that would be it, since there are days, my friend (and I assure you that you are my friend of you are still reading this) when there’s a world of confusion and wasted time around miscommunication, misunderstandings, impedance mismatches and confused priorities that would be aided by such a device.

Spring Snow in Boulder

Mist shouds the Flatirons after a spring rain turned to snow last night in Boulder. Earth, plants, trees soak up the moisture thirstily--it has been so dry for so long in Colorado and the previous 18 inches of snow a little over a week ago had pretty much melted. I'm always grateful for snow and rain after memories of one terrible summer of drought when we used "gray water" collected from the bathtub after showers to water the flowers and watched our lawn die. Water is one of the essential life forces and should never be taken for granted. Water is gentle, yet strong.

"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong." - Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

Thinking

Are you thinking of telephones
And managers and where you have to be at noon
You are living a reality
I left years ago, it quite nearly killed me
In the long run, it will make you cry
Make you crazy, old before your time…

Stephen Stills

We visit the Boulder Shambhala Meditation Center to attend the “Beginner’s Class.” This center for Buddhist studies was started in the 70’s by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and we are fortunate to have it in our hometown.

Sitting with our bottoms firmly planted on the red meditation cushions with the yellow squares in the middle along with the other beginners, we are instructed to focus on the breath, in and out, and when a thought intervenes to lightly touch it and acknowledge it as “thinking,” then bring the focus back to our breathing again and again.

Easier said than done, as endless neurotic thoughts invade my consciousness about work people at work failures at work and elsewhere various aches pains tickles and twitches as well as what I will have for lunch and whether barbecued ribs would be a bad thing from the Buddhist point of view and also what nice posture the younger people sitting in the front rows have compared to my own crookedness oops that is a judgment and they told me I shouldn’t judge (hah!)…

It is extraordinary how difficult it is to focus only on my breathing for any length of time at all, and to lightly let go of each thought as a feather would lightly touch a bubble. We also try walking meditation at one point, where we focus on our feet rather than breath and walk slowly in a circle around our meditation cushions. I nearly lose my balance and fall during this exercise as though I have suddenly forgotten how to walk.

Still, the respite from constant thought is a worthy experience to seek, and I will continue to practice.

Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Meditation on Cleaning House

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

Zen Proverb

Today I cleaned house. It’s something I have been lucky enough not to have to do in a long time, given the division of labor we usually live under in my household. It took me three hours to scrub two bathrooms, clean a kitchen, and dust and vaccum a family room, living room, hallway and bedroom. I got a pretty good workout and my body is sore.

I took the opportunity to meditate on this simple set of activities. One thing for sure about cleaning a house—you can tell you’re making progress, and you can look around once you’re done and revel in a certain satisfaction that your mission has for the most part been accomplished. Perhaps after all there exist a few things over which you have a modicum of control and there’s something comforting in that.

I noticed where my mind went while housecleaning today—a mild resentment at having to do these chores normally done by somebody else who is too sick to do them right now, and then the gentle reminder to myself of how many times these chores have been done on my behalf over many years with perhaps not enough real appreciation on my part. I noticed: the satisfaction in scrubbing the kitchen floor and repeatedly rinsing the dirty water down the drain; the incredible mess a corner poinsetta makes as it sheds some of its lower leaves onto the living room carpet; the pervasiveness of cat hair in unexpected corners. I tried to be present all through the process, and that made it seem like a new experience somehow, rather than drudgery. Have you ever tried noticing each and every sensation as you do something very routine? It can be quite a revelation.

Be Not Afraid

Over the past many weeks I’ve had a severe case of blogger’s block which I am now working to overcome One Word at a Time. During this period I’ve been immobilized by an emotion that actually kept me from eating it was so bad (hardly anything can keep me from eating, more’s the pity). I even was losing weight for awhile. The emotion causing the loss of appetite was creating quite a hellish situation for me, with constant stomach twinges, depression, and more.

I got some time off from work over the Christmas break, and was able to gain enough perspective to realize that the emotion freezing me in my tracks was fear. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of the death of my loved ones, fear that people I respect will not respect me back, fear that am not worthy, fear of writing a blog that was boring or full of bullsh*t.

I’ve since been spending a lot of time analyzing this fear, how it lessened with a change of scene and routine, how focusing on the present moment can reduce fear, and how amazing it is to be trapped in your mind without the ability to step back and see how it is churning in unhealthy ways. Fear can keep you from enjoying life, from taking risks, from loving, from blogging. (My rule about my blog, for better or for worse, is that it cannot be personal day-to-day drivel and whining, but instead has to share something that might actually be useful or interesting to multiple other people. Normally this rule has not kept me silent, but clearly recently it has.)

Winston Churchill said: “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

So, here are my top 10 ways to stop being afraid:

10. Recognize that it is fear you’re feeling, and then try to articulate what it is that you fear.
9. Delve into the fear; take it to its ridiculous extreme. See the distortions and exaggerations in the fear.
8. Exposure yourself at every opportunity to the thing or activity you fear. Immersion in the fear will cause it eventually to lessen (especially good with things like fear of flying, fear of spiders, fear of public speaking).
7. Focus on what is happening right now this minute; be here and now. Look around - is there anything here and now that you fear?
6. Help somebody else with something. It is harder to be afraid when you are focused on helping somebody else.
5. Breathe.
4. Talk to somebody about your fear. When you start saying things out loud sometimes they are less scary.
3. If you have a cat, see if the cat will sit in your lap (they are finicky little things so good luck) and then pet the cat. It is hard to be as afraid when you are petting a cat. Full disclosure: Emily the cat is in my lap right now.
2. Get moving. Take a walk in the sunshine. Work out the fear.
1. Draw on spirit, if you have a spiritual focus. Consider the connectedness of all humans and how many of them are feeling much worse fear and anguish right now than you could possibly be feeling. Be grateful for everything you do have, as you breathe in the fear of all humans, and breathe out the hope that all may experience inner peace.

Do you have fear-bashing techniques I haven’t listed? Feel free to comment.