The story of me

Once upon a time, whilst I was marooned in L.A. trying to live the
Hollywood dream, I spied a young boy sitting on a bench who looked exactly like the kid I'd have had, if I had bothered to have any kids. From my grungy seat on a passing city bus, quickly took in these specifics: he had black curly hair, yellowish-brown skin tone, large dark eyes. His full lips parted in a smile to reveal two bucked front teeth. Even though my bus took less than 30 seconds to pass him, I had the distinct feeling that he looked right at me.

The image of that little boy (whom I've dubbed "Ivan") has stayed with me
for twenty years. His presence in my memory is the ready response to my
question of whether or not I should have had kids. If I had had a boy,
somehow I know he would have looked like Ivan. Two weeks ago, when I met my six year old half sister, I encountered the corresponding feminine
answer. If I'd had a girl, I imagine she'd have looked very much like
Georgia.

Georgia, a late-in-life child begotten by my biological father, shares my
oval face, my gap-toothed smile, my nose and chin. Her brown eyes are her mothers as is her dark wavy hair and light skin tone. However, like Ivan, I get a spooky feeling when I look at her, as if life is winking at me,
letting me know that even in the wake of my willful non-procreation,
biological determinism--the continuance of my paternal blood line--will
'ere rule the day.

When 42 year old me met my almost 7 year old sister I was fairly
flabbergasted...but I was somewhat prepared for it since I had seen
pictures of her. I was totally unprepared however for the shock of seeing
my father...suprisingly not because we have had so little contact over the
last 25 years...but because of who he has aged into. I've watched my
mother age gracefully and admired her way of advancing into her later
years, clear-eyed and playful...but we don't closely resemble each other.
My father on the other hand, had the stronger gene pool and I am his
progeny him right down to the scowls we both unconsciously sport. To see
him at 70, is to see myself, is to see my paternal grandmother all commixed into one.

His spirit is also more than familiar to me. Even at 70, he's a broody human caught deep in the throes of life's passions; overfull of wishes and dreams he's not yet reached. From my vantage point, it would be rather easy for me to morph into such a person thirty years hence, to be someone who wears unrequited dreams on her sleeves. I will have to work very hard to avoid being as deeply regretful as I perceived him to be. It was, at the very least, a stark reminder of where I came from and where I might be going.

100 things about me. (60-63)

60. I have decided not to have children this lifetime...but I must acknowledge that having other people's children in my life and participating in the raising a child profoundly transformed me, surprisingly...for the better.

61. As a result of the experiences of ( #60), I have forgiven my mother. Actually, I've determined that there was nothing to forgive her for in the first place. She loved me and raised me, doing the best she could during some of the worst parts of her life. She also did her best during some of the greatest parts of her life. She's my mother, she's a mother and as such is to be treasured and congratulated for living through it without killing my sister and me or herself. Sorry Mom for not getting it until recently.

62. I believe that everyone has to capacity to be racist, myself included. I know I'm more classist than racist now that I have grown older and acquired more possessions. Also, since I've moved to a highly urban environment, my intolerance has become more overt. I'm working on trying to recognize and correct these tendencies before I am completely corrupted. I don't intend the fix to return me to the extreme bleeding heart liberal ways of my twenties...instead, when I encounter social problems, I'd like to be part of a fair and practical human solution, not to capitulate based on guilt.

63. Today, and almost every day since I've formally entered the "real" working world, deep down, I've wanted to walk into my boss's office, thank her/him for the opportunity to work with him/her and then quit. The pattern began at five. The scene: I had my first day at school and was finishing my very first home work ...the assignment was to color, within the lines, a traffic cop standing next to some traffic lights. As I traced the outline of the police jacket with a dark blue crayola, fat hot tears began to fall from my eyes. My grandmother, walking into the room impatiently noted my meltdown.

"What's the matter?", she asked.
I had a hard time putting into words my awakening to the fact that life is a series of more or less complex variations on that initial, inane task. That it was all going to be about doing some thing or the other, day after day. Instead I just said, "I want my mother", which wasn't completely true...or false. What I wanted was a return to an unfettered, unshackled existence. A womb-like place of creative potency rather than pointless rote didacticism. I still long for it.

And here's my tiny, little breakthrough, it's the thing about me. Remaining soley in a place of possibility is about as easy as staying womb-bound...quite literally it's not sustainable. Necrosis sets in. We have to be born or paradoxically we die. I have to DO or I die a little each day. So, I haven't quit the job. I'm not above it or any other mundane job of living. But being tasked to participate in the mundane is not a sentence---it's a process. It does not preclude the pursuit of invention. Being grounded in the physical realities of life provides a launching point for living the rest of it...not a terminus for settling down to grin and bear it.

( 1-59)

New now

So I'm my partner and I are driving into work this morning. She catches me looking into the distance at the lake and the trees with their adolescent leaves. The sky is bright, shiny blue. The light popping off the water
hits me right in the eye. A gust of wind shakes the car a little as we
round the corner.

"What are you thinking?"
"I was thinking it'd be nice to have a sabbatical right about now."

My mind had drifted back to a period more than ten years hence when I had taken an extended mental health vacation. The first week of it, I spent
crying and heavily medicated. By the end my month long reprieve, I was
sleeping better than I had in years and writing every day. I figured out
I loved cooking and liked taking brisk walks by the bay. For the first
time in my life, I felt like I could completely actualize every passionate
thought in my head.

This morning seemed a great moment in time to pick up where I'd left off over a decade ago.

"How much vacation do you get a month?", she asked. "Right now, with your
seniority and your buying an extra week, it's about 6 weeks a year?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"And that doesn't include official holidays....rounding up, that'd be about
another two weeks, right?"
"Yes"
"Plus, you work an alternate schedule that gives you a day off every other
Friday, true?"
"OK, yes, but..."
"So, that works out to another five weeks, am I on track here?"
I sighed. "Yup."

"So, you're bitching about wanting a sabbatical and you currently have 13
weeks off a year, which I think is roughly the equivalent of 3 months?
Most people in the working world are only lucky enough to get 2 or 3 weeks
for the ENTIRE YEAR. So what you've got, the time off you've access
to...isn't that kind of like a sabbatical, but one that you could take
advantage of almost every year?"

And so it is.

What this tells me is, I don't really want a sabbatical.

I want a new life.

~~~~~
Thank you to Alcuin Bramerton for the wonderful koan comment to my last
entry. Here's a link to another of his Norfolk koan that speaks volumes to
me today.