A MAJORITY OF ONE:

ALONE-NESS:

When I take my dog for a walk up to the lake, I'm pleased Bear doesn't talk... or even bark.  That's where I meditate--on my way, and when I get to the destination: Cranberry Lake.  I set up a chair that was pulled out of the lake many years ago, and I like to sit on it when I arrive.  The people who own property around the lake have more a right to be there than I.  But, sorry Lakers... I resent it when I'm not alone at the lake.  I'd never tell them that.  They probably would never tell me that they resent it when I invade their private space... meaning within visual or (if I were talking or whistling) distance from their presence.  I love sitting there and feeling the everlasting cool breeze that always is, almost like magic. In the winter there can be no wind anywhere, and if I cross country ski on the snow covered ice, once I get to where the inlet meets the broad lake, it's almost like the wind is guarding the privacy of the lake and trying to push away all comers.  I practically worship the wind, even the quiet breeze.  One of my best poems is about the wind.  If I ever die--as, maybe I'll not even realize it and just be transformed into invisibility--I want to be thrown to the wind... my ashes, that is.

But, home or away, when completely alone, I don't feel lonely.  A line from an old poem I wrote once reads, "I am alone, not lonely, and I travel with the breeze."  When I can get to that point of meditation, I can feel many truths, and it's about time I jotted them down.

Fortunately, when I got to the lake, there seemed to be no one around.  As I sat there I realized a peace I could get nowhere but when completely alone.  It's there where I think Inspiration is free to penetrate our minds and enter our souls, letting us know how to live this life with mindfulness of others boundaries and needs.

ANGER:

I've been very sensitive all my life, but sensitive to MYSELF.  I was thinking about that this morning... sensitivities, and how the least criticism is felt, even if it's not voiced.  This morning I began to wonder about that and why I'm so afraid of anger... or just mild criticism.  Why do I listen... even to the unspoken.  The feeling in a room with a group of people when my energy is down.  The tone in a voice at any time.  The reason I'd rather talk face to face rather than on the phone.  I need clues to fend off any enemy feelings.  Sometimes I'd rather not talk with someone if I see something that tells me they aren't happy... and possibly with me.

Being so sensitive makes me unable to deal with people with some problems unless I can be absolutely sure they don't involve myself.  Sensitive people, in the way that I am, would make the worst psychiatrists; nurses in mental hospitals; and those who have to deal with sensitive people who have become overcome with anger. But in day to day situations, I'm keen on treating others as I'd have them treat myself... judging everybody by this majority of one.

This morning I got thinking of Debra and Raymond vs Marie and Frank in the reruns we've lately watched on TVLand reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.  I realize that in a marriage like Raymond's, the couple are afraid of each others anger.  Whereas in the in-laws marriage, neither seems the least bit afraid of each other.  I was wondering if anyone can achieve that goal: of being unafraid of someone he or she loves.  And what IS that fear.  Are we afraid of abandonment?  Of the loss of their love?  Is this just me? or does everybody feel that?

I had a 30 year off and on friendship with a woman friend which was almost a love/hate relationship.  She was altogether too sensitive to herself, though, like me, she tried to treat people the way she liked to be treated... to the extent that much of what she said sounded false: like someone talking the other into liking her.  Overpraising any trait: generosity: "Oh those apples were so wonderful.  I can't thank you enough.  They were so delicious each one was like heaven just to bite into."  [I mean...REALLY?!!]  The poor woman was praising the wrong person: my husband Tom.  He can smell, see or hear a fake from a distance, so every time she opened her mouth around him, it felt to him like chalk squeaking the wrong way on a chalkboard.  She sensed the impatience; and I was so very uncomfortable being in between these bad feelings.  But, even before Tom was in the picture, I witnessed her being more sensitive to herself than towards her friends.  She borrowed my mini motorhome, which I used for going shopping etc as well as camping trips, as my first husband used the car to go back and forth to work, so she left me her Toyota.  That year of Toyota must have been a bad one, as it only caused me grief.  I didn't want to burden her with the cost of replacing the hose to the radiator which boiled over several times forcing the need while I was using it.  But when they came back from the trip, I heard endless problems they had with the motorhome, and not knowing how to unwind and wind the overhead vents, they had caused one of them to dislodge from the  gears and then flapped for the rest of their trip.  She said it like a big complaint.  I really felt offended.  I don't think they paid us anything for its use. And I think they went over a thousand miles on that trip. My ex was a lot more liberal than Tom.  He'd have had it fixed and sent them the bill.  No, he would have charged them what a trip like that would have been worth in wear and tear as well as for their convenience to use it.

Anyhow... there was time and again where she chastised me for doing something when I wasn't meaning to criticize or in any way to hurt her.  My most embarrassing hurt was when she insisted on heaping so many books for me to review I could hardly carry the bag of hard covers from her apartment  of which was practically wall to wall books.  She was thinking that perhaps  my book club would like to read some of those best sellers in the future.  It would have taken me years to read through all those books, so I thought nothing of loaning them out to my book club members without asking her first.  When I told her what I had done, so I could get the books back to her sooner, otherwise, it would take me over a year to read them all, she said, "Oh, I wish you asked me first.  I never would have wanted that.  I have lost more books by having people borrow them and then forget to get them back to me.  I wish you hadn't done that.  You should have asked me first, and I never would have said 'yes,' as I consider those books like dear friends.  Can you please get them back? Please don't ever do that again.  I can't believe you'd do that."

(Dear friends, my foot!  How did she consider ME?)  I don't think she knew how wounded I felt.  And then embarrassed when I called one after the other and rounded up all her books and took every damn one of them back... having reviewed not a one of them myself.  Then when I gave them back I had to listen to her explain over and over how she hadn't expected me to do that and why she wanted me to get them back and how she would never do that to anyone else, and how she has lost books to a loan and sometimes to someone she thought she could count on.

Like with so many criticisms in my life, I also never forgave her for that reprimand.  I piled on that reprimand with others so it would be another thing I do. Or did. I NEVER FORGET.
I hope I've changed.  But so far I can remember just about every reprimand I've gotten in my lifetime, whether from my mother, a teacher, a friend, my husbands, or even a stranger.  Like when another car beeps at me...  Even that.

What happens within is the ANGER like I felt at my long term friend with whom I'd borrowed books.

It's been difficult for me to feel that ANYONE is my best friend... even my husband Tom, as he, more like Debra in Everybody Loves Raymond, gets angry with me in the same way as Debra gets angry with Ray.  And like Ray, I cow-tow to that anger and try not to make the error ever again.

A CURE?

But why should I fear and feel anger so.  It is an automatic thing... that feeling in my chest like a small hand grenade has exploded within.  Anger being described as "he exploded at me" is a good description, but it is a reaction within.  Maybe it was anger that detonated it, but that anger feels so strong that if I didn't turn it inward, I'd probably feel like killing someone... usually the person who detonated it.  It must have always been there... a sensitive spot, like some dogs that if you do something that threatens their sensitive spot, they snap... only I snap at myself.  It's like biting one's tongue when you feel like yelling back when you feel yelled at even if it is said in an ominously soft voice.  Sometimes that is even worse.  If someone shouts at you, you feel it's okay to shout back.

The big difference with my anger at Tom is that he is the ONLY person in my lifetime with whom I've been able to really express my anger ... shouting angry... swearing and gesturing-ly angry... red-faced and almost completely out of control ANGRY and argumentively angry.  But that "almost" that keeps my feelings from expressing themselves in a physical way are the saving grace of letting the anger out.  What if a person hasn't that 'brake' inside them?  Thank God it's there.  Getting the anger out seems to keep us from remembering the hurt in the first place.  I'd forget the reason in most cases.  I remember some that were classic, but mostly I forget the reason we fought in the first place.  I found out through Tom that fighting it out, as long as we don't physically pound on each other... which we don't... makes the resentment and memory and disappear, and a healing forgiveness set in.  I guess if I ever feel so very angry with a friend, and could get them to fight it out with words with me, and cool down, and ask forgiveness later, that maybe I could go through life without a resentment that I'd file away to take out and feel over and over again later, like it was a lesson in life.  A lesson that mostly makes me feel more comfortable being a hermit if I don't forgive and forget.


It seems as if I've made a bit of progress today.  I only hope that Tom forgives and forgets.