Answer #7- Acknowledge the Darkness

So I thought I'd take on a light topic for Friday. Yeah, maybe it's not a good idea. I should leave the discussion of Good and Evil to greater minds than mine, like Niezsche and Jung and Kierkegaard and Homer Simpson. But I do think it is important to know we have darkness in us, and that there is darkness everywhere in the world. The truly good person, not just a "nice" person, knows this and recognizes this and then makes a choice, knowing that we all have a bit of 'creepy' inside us. Sometimes in our dreams we are seeing and doing things that shock us in our waking life, and make us grateful for that morning alarm clock (Aauurgh, I was a pansexual zombie! And my teeth were falling out! And I had bad hair! Where did that come from?) Jung calls all those uncomfortable, unacceptable feeling we have our "Shadow". If we deny the Shadow it only grows stronger.

If we acknowledge it then we have power over it. (Remember the weeping televangelist in the news a few years ago who went on and on about the evils of sex and then was found in a motel with a hooker? Textbook case.) I think I really dumbed down Carl Jung there but I only have a limited space (or attention span). Nonetheless, darkness is an interesting topic for artists and actors Who doesn't relish dressing up as a psychopathic villain or femme fatale and just pretending to be evil? Oh, maybe that's me....... again.......Catharsis in action. But it makes me wonder, do real psychopaths have a Shadow, and is that shadow an angel?
And if we don't have a dark side then why are we so attracted to shows like Dexter, or Breaking Bad, or even the interminable CSI series? In Dexter we are literally rooting for a stone cold killer, but one with a code, at least. Now there's a guy who struggles with his Shadow, and then sort of lets it win. In the fantasy world we have the hero and the arch-nemesis: Sherlock and Moriarty, Batman and the Joker, Superman and Zod, Buffy and, well, lots of vampires , with the implication that they are really two sides of the same coin (again with the Shadow).

Even the gospel of Mark sends Jesus into the desert for 40 days for a chat with Satan. What else is this but a conversation with the dark side, and a final decision to never let it have power over him?
Most of my artwork tends to be sunny with a side of cute, sometimes mysterious or abstract, sometimes just slapdash and incoherent. But here are a series of abstract images I created for a small art journal called Noir. (and yes I love Film Noir and Noir fiction from the 40's, pitch black and dialogue dripping with acid).
  The first image acknowledges the death of a friend in 2005, and a brief note I wrote in my journal about it. Art with a back story is still hard for me, hence the safety of the abstract. One day I will do something to express the loss of a student of mine who was murdered in 2004. But not yet.

Answer #6- Be A Friend

I don't know how much more I can say on this topic because it is so obvious. Being a friend sounds more true than 'having friends', which sounds more acquisitive and passive rather than pro-active. It's not always easy. People are complicated and annoying and unpredictable and full of weird quirks and messy problems and irritating habits. Or am I just talking about me? Probably. Even as a high-functioning introvert who needs her alone time, dammit, I still need my friends near and far. And more so as I get older. I treasure the ones I have nurtured and kept, even those I lost touch with and rediscovered. Thank you e-mail and Facebook.
  Even if you despair of humankind or just hate people in general, you still need friends. Probably more so. True friendship usually surprises you or sneaks up on you, and when you look back you can't even remember the moment you first met because it seems you've always known each other.
Here is a rogues' gallery of some of my friends. If I left someone out they either hate having their photo taken (Lynda!) or I haven't seen them in awhile and don't have a recent photo (Jan, Irene). Or I have never actually met them in person (Judy). Or, like at an Academy Awards thank you speech I am so flustered I left out someone (who might never speak to me again). I hope not.

 In order:
Kathy (2004)
Julie (2000)
Danny (1978)
Donna (1967)  (Where are you, Donna? I have Googled you everywhere.)
Luke (1973)
Jeri and Toni (2010)
Lyn and Donniece (2010)
Deb (2011)
Suzanne and Galina (2003)
Kate (2011)

J

And that's not even counting my Facebook friends, my book club friends, my quilting friends, my artist friends, my dancer friends, my Yoga friends and my former students. Wow. How lucky I am.

Answer #5- Make 'em Laugh

"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it. "
Groucho Marx

It dawned on me recently that I would rather make people laugh than make them think. I don't know what that says about me but both of those are pretty hard tasks anyway. Preston Sturgess, one of the great film directors of the 1930's realized, and often emphasized this in his films. While the country struggled through the misery of the Great Depression he felt it an honored task to make funny movies to keep people uplifted. Laughing in the face of adversity is not making light of the situation but it certainly lightens the load of the situation. A good laugh releases anxiety and tension and fear. Laughing literally helps you live longer, although not in the face of an oncoming truck. (bada bing)

 My Dad was always one for a joke. usually the same joke, over and over again. He had an LP record album of classic Yiddish humour called "You Don't Have to Be Jewish" that he played until the grooves wore off (for those under the age of 40 who have never seen a vinyl record grooves are the.....oh, you get the idea). He then proceeded to repeat every gag on that record at any opportunity, having not quite mastered the technique of leaving them wanting more. But at least I grew up laughing (and crying, and screaming, and sulking). My parents even took the whole family to see Some Like It Hot at the drive-in when I was 11 years old (that's OK, I saw Psycho when I was nine) and I thought it was hilarious. I somehow got the whole set-up of the humour and most of the punchlines. I also got an earful of Mom complaining about that see-through dress Marilyn Monroe wore.

I also grew up guffawing over Cary Grant's great double takes in Arsenic and Old Lace, Rosalind Russell 's Auntie Mame and her questionable child-rearing, the Marx Brother's mayhem, the Three Stooges eye-gouging, and James Stewart talking to an invisible rabbit. From the slapstick to the dry-as-bone, from Monty Python to The Blues Brothers, I can pretty much find something that tickles my mind and convulses those diaphragm muscles.
   Just as with people who can't appreciate beauty, I always feel there is a part of the soul that is malnourished in people who do not have a sense of humour. It doesn't have to be MY sense of humour. I don't think my husband understands my Eddie Izzard fixation. I, on the other hand, have never understood the appeal of Adam Sandler. And this may sound like heresy but I don't think the movie, Bridesmaids, was that funny. I think I chuckled about twice. Maybe it's a generational thing. I though bodily functions were funny when I was about four.
 So, let's get dangerous here. I think the problem with religious Fundamentalists is that they have no sense of humour. They are so black and white they miss the subtle shades of grey. And shades of pink and mauve and taupe and chartreuse and cerulean..........And humour is all about shading. It's about observing the foibles of humanity and not exactly judging, but rather using it as a springboard to satirize, mock, parody, and comment on.

 I also think Jesus was a funny guy. I think people often miss that when they assume he spoke in pious tones and always had a freshly laundered robe and shiny hair full of God highlights. Take for example this scene: the rich, privileged kid comes up to Jesus and asks in all sincerity how to get into heaven. Jesus already has this pampered pup figured out but he tells him to sell all he has to the poor then come and follow him just to see how he reacts. I think he's actually teasing him. Awkward pause from the kid as this sinks in. In modern times that kid would be pondering giving up his pick up truck, his iPod, his laptop, his gym membership, his giant screen TV, his trip to Cabos, his bar tabs....etc. Jesus didn't really judge that boy. I think he was testing him, knowing he was asking something nearly impossible: wandering around with a bunch of hairy, unbathed men from town to town, getting fed free meals, and talking about how the Kingdom of Heaven is inside you, even if the Romans come to kill you. And then Jesus delivers his punchline to his apostles "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (yes, those Sunday School lessons paid off. I didn't even have to look that up). Rather than picturing him delivering it somberly with a faint choir of angels in the background, picture him saying that with a bit of mirth (thanks, Donniece!) and with a twinkle in his eye, because picturing a large, unhappy camel shoved by his ass through a needle's eye is actually an amusing image. I hope he got a good chuckle at least from his crowd. I often think Jesus did some eye-rolling  when his disciples failed to grasp the meaning of some of his parables, but that's just me.
I have no idea how to end THIS blog either. I like to make people laugh but I am the world's worst joke teller. I rely instead on my razor sharp wit and biting sarcasm. Of which that last sentence is an example......
So let's just fall back on some more images beginning with the master of the double and sometimes triple take, Cary Grant, followed by a small sampling of various kinds of funny. Enjoy. Laugh a little:

                                               Edgar Allen Bro

A special thank you to Pinterest.com and whoever invented Memes.

Answer #4- Be Astounded By Beauty

Astounded! That sounds a bit dramatic. But if you are not astounded and had your socks knocked off then maybe it's not true beauty. Maybe it's just pretty or pleasant or appealing or charming. True beauty is not soothing. It can be violent and disturbing and unsettling. It can reduce you to tears or make you struggle for breath or words. It can take you out of yourself and into something so large and vast it can be terrifying and blissful all at once. Sounds a bit scary, eh?

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

We often associate beauty with people, and there it gets a bit subjective. I might think an actor is gorgeous, someone else thinks they are funny looking. I might surprise someone by saying Ryan Gosling is boring looking and his eyes are too close together, and they might think me insane. It's also a cultural thing (check out any beauty pageant for a really narrow parameter of appeal). And an historical thing. Renaissance Madonnas can be a pasty, plain looking bunch to our eyes (except for Botticelli's dreamy ladies, IMHO). Scientists try to analyze faces by mathematical proportions, like a Golden Section of features, to see if there is an ideal beauty and only succeed in creating a bland stereotype that cannot begin to explain the elusive qualities of charisma and sex appeal. Although Queen Nefertiti certainly holds up well.

But apart from physical beauty there is that whole Other out there in the world, the beautiful around us. Usually found in Nature and Art but often in small hidden things like gestures and moments and meanings.
I'm not even going to try and expand on this conversation because it's too big. I took a graduate course in Aesthetics while in college, a whole semester of trying to define was is beautiful, and we barely scratched the surface.  What is beauty? How do we define it? Are there universal attributes? Are we all born with a sense of knowing or needing the beautiful? Humans may or may not be the only creatures that can contemplate beauty but that doesn't mean all of them do. In fact, on the flip side, many people delight in the ugly and the grotesque. It's sometimes a fine line. Hence the popularity of tattoos.
My point is that we don't often seek out beauty or let it enter our lives because we are too busy doing other things. We don't think it is important. But we sense when something is lacking in our lives.We don't foster a love of beauty in the education of our children or in the culture that surrounds us. Our cities often build ugly and cheap because the planners see the dollar signs and not the quality of life. We settle for the tacky and mundane because that is what is offered us. (My challenge should be to go to a Wal-Mart and see if I can find an object of beauty). Maybe if you're financially struggling beauty is the last thing on your mind.
Every time I watch a British police drama they always end up tracking down a criminal in a place like this:

Maybe beauty is a luxury for the rich. No. It's not. Beauty is for the senses. Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling. Most of us have most of those senses working. They came free when we were born.
And we all tend to drift towards one kind of beauty or another. My sister loves opera, especially Wagner and the Ring Cycle. The beauty of this aural/visual/emotional extravaganza that goes on forever makes her happy.

Myself, I prefer visual art and the physical and emotional beauty of dance. And the truly great dancers, like Baryshnikov, are a once in a lifetime moment when seen onstage.

And that's another reason the arts should be available to everyone. In schools and in public places, not just in museums and on stages. Without beauty our souls never fully open up, they shrivel up and withdraw, and we compensate by growing a hard, shiny surface and sealing off the depths.
I don't have a snappy ending for this blog so here are some small shots of beauty.

Falling Stars

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Ranier Maria Rilke

And here's a free tour of the art of Vincent Van Gogh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM

It's  a quickie video, not anywhere near the real thing. Not like that first moment when you round a corner of the Chicago Art Institute and there is his haunting face gazing at you, the paint so rich and inviting, your fingers itching to reach out, your heart beating a little faster, as if you are in love, and you realize 'now I am in the presence of beauty'.

Answer #3- Be in the Present

This is a tough one as we get older. Sometimes life seems overwhelming and confusing, changing faster than we can process. We barely get used to one gadget and another comes along to replace it. We gaze at faces on celebrity magazines at the grocery checkout and wonder who in the world these people are. (Don't worry, it's just a Kardashian, or someone from that Bachelor show. Not worth your bother). And we find ourselves dismissing the young and their tastes with the old "well back in my day we listened to GOOD music", etc.....My parents said the same thing to me when defending the Glenn Miller band against the onslaught of rock and roll. Sometimes it's cozier to watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show or to make your house a shrine to Seventies wood paneling. (sorry for dragging you into this, Mum), but being in the present moment means we are not living in regret or nostalgia for things that can't return, or in anxiety and fretfulness about a future event that might not occur.

OK, maybe Mr. T above had a right to be concerned.......
I used to lie awake at night worrying about all sorts of possibilities, both personal and on the earth in general. Ok, I still do that sometimes but now I can give myself the talk. Breathe in breathe out. You are lying in bed, in your house. You can hear your husband and dog breathing peacefully. The wind chimes are jangling outside. A train sounds in the distance. At this moment all is well. You can have chocolate for breakfast if you want.
Except I'm worried about that giant plastic island in the Pacific the size of Texas. Is anyone else worried about that?

A lot of it is turning into a gelatinous soup and being eaten by fish, which are then eaten by us. Just thought you'd like to know next time you toss out that plastic water bottle.
Being present in the present also means living through the not-so-nice times and just soldiering on. There is no going around pain and suffering and loss, there is just going through. Besides, most of our nostalgia for the past is based on our ability to savor the good memories and keep them alive, and to sort of gloss over the bad memories and events or actually delete them from our brains. They are inventing a drug for that, by the way, that erases your worst traumas ( see the film, 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' to decide if you would swallow that pill)
Do I want to live in the Sixties again? Sure, I was young and reasonably attractive and weighed less and had long, silky hair, and loved the Beatles, but I was also moody, isolated, neurotic, and self-absorbed.  (If you've seen the movie, The Breakfast Club, I was Ali Sheedy but with better hair and not quite so dramatic.) And then there was all that national conflict: Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, assassinations, bitter political divisions (well, some things never change).

So no, I don't want to go back in time, even to the time when my children were little and adorable and I loved being Mommy.

Look at those faces...:-)  Sigh. Wait, I'm drifting into the past. That's OK. I am also in the present typing at my computer. And that asteroid hasn't hit earth yet. But come on. We need to do something about that plastic island.

Answer #2- Be Interested

I almost said 'be interesting' but I think that if you are interested first then you become interesting. Otherwise you're just a pompous windbag who likes the sound of your own voice. (If you got an image of someone in your head just now it's not my fault.)

As Dorothy Parker once said: "Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity." (and if you don't know who Dorothy Parker is, well then, the curious mind wants to know, and how can you not bother to know anything these days with Google and other search engines at your fingertips)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dorothy_Parker

I know I harped on this topic a few months/blogs ago, but gosh and gee whiz, learning should be fun. And if that got snuffed out along the way maybe we're teaching children wrong. Or should that be wrongly? (Mind whirring, flashback to 5th grade English, adverb describing how, modifying action verb 'teaching'....uh yeah, I'll stick by that.)

Anyway, rather than be an 'insufferable know-it-all" (please say that in Alan Rickman's voice) I present a quickie course in being interested, courtesy of the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. Or technically, from the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I give you Sherlock Holmes' Five Principles of Deduction. To make your experience more pleasant I have accompanied them by my most recent project-in-process, Stones From the River:

1) Nothing is Insignificant.

2) Notice What You See

3) Beware the Deceptiveness of the Ordinary

4) The bizarre is not necessarily mysterious

Ha! just seeing if you were paying attention. Yes, it's a real fish head, and yes my daughter brought it home from United one day to do a painting for an art class.

5) Presume Nothing

Every day is the first day of school. Lots of stuff to still learn. 
What is String Theory? Where did the word 'flummoxed' come from? Why do male Hassidic Jews wear ringlets? Did dinosaurs really have feathers? Why do leaves change colours in Autumn? Can thinking about time travel too much cause a migraine? When I click on a website is it magic fairy dust that makes it appear?  (aha, a clue.....the game is afoot)
http://www.sherlockholmesonline.org/

Answer #1- Don't Whine

Yes, we all love a good whine (and wine) with friends. Keep it up, it's cheap therapy. But then we all know those people who suck the feel-good right out of a room the moment they walk in. Bitch moan bitch moan, waaaa! I don't want to be that person. I don't care if the air conditioner broke down or my back hurts or my manicure only lasted two days, lets slap that cheerful face on and sing something from Rodgers and Hammerstein. There are so many people in the world who carry on through grief and heartache and depression and illness with dignity and courage, and since I know quite a few of them I will shut up about my petty complaints.
I would like to extend that to the national level too because we are a nation of whiners. Oh the gas at the pump went up two cents, oh back in the good old days blah blah blah, oh THOSE people stole our country, oh lets sue the bastards, oh  the government.......fill in blank here. Try living in Syria for a day and then see what you think.
Let me tell you about the ladies and men who come to my Yoga classes, and especially the ones who come to Seated Yoga. The latter group are mainly my age and up, all the way to the late 80's. They've raised children, fought illness, had surgeries, had things replaced and removed, lost parents, children, spouses, and dealt with lots of aches and pains and all the miserable crap that happens with aging. Yet they show up to my classes week after week and push themselves through exercise and stretching. When we do hand weights some can barely lift a one pound weight but you can see the determination. They are showing they still have the fight in them.

Look at this sweet lady. Her husband wheels her in on her walker seat because she is so frail and weak. She's had a stroke and she recently took a bad fall, but she shows up still, and even when something is hard she keeps that smile on her face. Mona helps me put things in perspective because when I am in pain I am grumpy and self-pitying and I don't like being around people. But putting on a smile, even a forced one can take ten years off, or at least lift up all those facial muscles that are tending to slide down into the neck. (not whining, just observing.....painfully).

I love this photo here from the movie, "Zorba the Greek", (1964) not just because it's a great film and two great actors, Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates, are dancing together, but because it happens at the end of the film after EVERYTHING has gone wrong. The Full Catastrophe, as Zorba labels it. All plans smashed, money lost, the two women they both liked are dead, so what the hell....... let's just dance on the beach.