The forgotten joys of being
It's raining. Again. Now, I've reframed it in my mindset to represent my precious regeneration. Just as the spongy forest floor drinks in tiny droplets, I know that alone time is healing time. It’s processing time. Time to move the billions of bits of information that flood the internal horizon of my mind each day. On this day, I’m living a true existential moment. A few decades earlier in my sentient life, I dreaded rainy days at the cottage. My sunny days meant exploring and running free with the glow on my skin and the wind at my back. Rainy days are not easy days for a kid with ADHD. My grandma knew this and invited me to help her in the food preparation for the midday and evening meals. We called them dinner, an East Coast influence on my Midwest culture. In Minnesota, we call it supper. There was lunch and then there was supper.
I’m sitting here in almost silence. The infrequent pattern of dropping rain rolls down the leaves to create a cup that falls off and splatters on the tin roof, and the concrete decking or the vinyl cover on our gas grill. The silence can be deafening up here in the northern woods. 800,000 acres of forest to be exact. This place was set aside by the government for preservation. For whom and for what is questionable, but for now, in my little window of life, I understand the significance of it. It brings a soft and easy reprieve to balance the non-stop chatter, pressure, and movement of the modern world. The modern world. It brings opportunity and physical comfort, medical healing, and innovation. It also brings an uneasy feeling, you know, the feeling of knowing you want to get off the ride, but you don’t know how to ask. The merry-go-round of life that keeps you moving at a dizzying pace. This place is the opposite. This place makes me believe again.
My legs are stretched out under a tattered cotton quilt that has a faint aroma of mothballs and laundry detergent. Once the rain subsides, I'll take it out and hang it on the line for the sun to penetrate the fibers. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. I pause and question, am I letting the sun penetrate my fibers? The tissue that strings my body together? All I know is that I’m insanely cozy right now, gazing at my fireplace and sipping on jasmine tea that I bought loose from the international tea store on the Disneyland Compound in Anaheim California. Jasmine, the flower, the fragrance, and the girl. It's taken me 56 years to understand myself. What makes me feel safe, what inspires me; asking what I should do with my (one and only) precious life.
I can see a lone spider from the corner of my eye. It’s a spinning spider, the kind that put on a fantastic show. I've sprayed lemon and peppermint oil all over the place, just like a witch doctor, and all but the strongest insects have fallen back. Like the military, they know how to retreat. But not this one, I named him Ralph Lauren. He’s elegant. Calling up creativity requires absolutes. Absolute comfort, clarity, and focus. To disappear into the squishy realm of mind valleys and pinging thoughts. I know this from being an artist, and I've heard that it’s the same zone for athletes, musicians, and scientists too. That is the ability to ‘disappear’ into the place where the sculptor pulls the word into reality.
My legs are bent, pulled up against my chest to form a makeshift ‘human’ desk. My knees. Yes, my knees, not surprisingly, are the perfect height to support my notebook for writing. Behind my back, I have gathered three of the best bed pillows to help me forget my aging spine. My tea is no longer hot. It's delicious and reminds me to forgive. The words come in a blink. “Be Kind to Her” I’ve been sitting here all morning, soaking in the sounds of the woods. I hear chipmunks fighting over the peanut shells left by the bonfire, I hear the dull, rhythmic thumping of the Spruce Grouse as it signals its mate. I ask myself, did the indigenous people learn the drum beat from this bird or did the bird learn it from the people? I can also hear a throaty bird with a high-pitched whistle marking its tree. Probably a whippoorwill. The Loons chime in too, never over each other, always taking their turn to pierce the thick cool air. Be Nice to Her. Not, Be Kind to Her. The book, a self-help manual will be called, “Be Nice to Her. Like the most outrageous special effects ever created by Marvel, I’m suddenly twisted and bent, fluid and frightened as I double back on the deep crevice in my mind. It's called the female memory. Everyone starts female, so all people, no matter how they see themselves, start female. There's something very comforting about that knowledge. It helps me remember that kindness is within every one of our cells. Dormant.
Be Nice to Her are the words that come to my mind when I think back on my life. The people who gave me life and the culture of my family and my community. They agreed to the terms. They told me who, what, when where, and whys of how to exist. So much of this story wasn’t nice to her. From the music to the clothing to the popular culture of my childhood, it did not feel nice. Rather, I knew that things were conditional. Friendships, relationships, and even down to the way my teachers treated me. It had to do with pleasing them. I knew. please them, and they are nice to you.
Suddenly, I realize I am hot. Whoops, the setting on the gas fireplace is set way too high. I have no choice but to peel back the layers of cotton quilts, roll my stiff legs to the left, and swing my feet to the warm wooden floor. Gratitude. Thoughts of gratitude are easy to control now. Like a bowler who has mastered the physicality; the width of the lanes, the velocity and direction of the ball, I too have mastered my thoughts to default to gratitude. Honestly, what choice did I have? To do anything less than that would be like waving a huge checkered welcome flag to disease and disappointment. The cells know. You cannot trick the cells. They eavesdrop on everything. Being nice to her requires quiet faith. Move your limbs. Quiet your mind. Redirect your thoughts back to now. Right now.
Right now, I’m grateful for the leftover stack of fluffy pancakes that I left in the freezer from my last stay. Nothing is more satisfying than the ease with which pancakes come to life. Plate. Microwave for 45 seconds and smooth a pat of butter back and forth. Back and forth. Until it melts. Liberally pour syrup over the stack. I used to just eat the real stuff, but I realize it's too thin for the experience to be real. No more overthinking. It's going to be Mrs. Butterworth, another fictional woman I admire. Like Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker. C’mon! These marketers know how to speak to our subconscious minds! Butter, Aunt, and Crock…who doesn’t want their Aunt to craft a meal in the crock with butter? The thick gelatinous fluid is easy to control as I pour a generous amount over my lunch. Wait. Is this my dinner? My linner?
The posters of Farrah Fawcett in a bathing suit, of Brook Shields braless in her Calvins, and the countless references to Phoebe Cate's topless scene in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. She even said, if a girl wants a career, she must be willing to strip. How did this make us teen girls feel? I remember feeling sidelined, invisible, and like an invalid voter. I remember taking my whole savings from babysitting for the month (40 @ 1.00 per hour) and spending it on a sexy shirt with an open slit in the back. My best friend bought one too. Twinning! Those shirts cost each of us 38.00 in 1982. Desperate to be seen for something, all of us modeled popular culture and tried our darndest to look sexy. I loved them all. They were beautiful after all. Beauty trumps all.
The satisfaction of those three fluffy pancakes is immense. I can hear the internal clown scolding me for not eating any veggies. I quickly commandeered the internal thoughts. Lasso them and respond, yes, but now I won't overeat because I DID get me some satisfaction. Who said we had to eat all those things from the food pyramid in the exact portions outlined? Oh. Wait. Big Agra. Big business. This obsession with what to eat, and what not to eat. It was everywhere. What Florine said was gospel. Hey Florine, are you a scientist? Oh, yeah. Big business. Big Profits. Be. Nice.
The book will outline the ten essential steps I took to completely re-engineer my life. Step one was to shut out all other opinions. This one step of courage will hold 90% of the likelihood of whether you take charge of your life. Yes. You will have to first learn to unravel the bad mixed tape of your youth. The weird and conflicting lyrics of Hot Child in the City (come on down to my place woman) Wait! Is she a woman or a child? And then there was Into the Night (she's just 16 years old, leave her alone they say) a creepy older guy trying to get a teen girl away from her parents. Step one is learning how to stop your first thought. Redirect. New thought. Alert! damning thought intrusion! Halt. Ask, could the opposite be true?
I hear car doors slamming in the distance. I hear the low mumble of a man calling his dog. I've grown so accustomed to solitude that I must consider other humans for the first time in many days. Sometimes, I wish I could flit away under cover the way the forest birds and creatures do. Camouflaged. So much pressure to be human. Look both ways, soften the RBF, smile, and say it right. Don’t bark. Lower your pitch lest they think you're crazy. Woman. To be a female means to take those millions of bits of hourly information and channel them the proper way. It means to not only watch your back but watch your front. Watch your future and inspect your past. Not. Nice.
After you reject everything, you know about the world, including your own opinions and feelings, it's only then that you are ready to begin anew. You’ll say goodbye to religion and to every other group activity that keeps you behind the double lines. If life is a highway, you're about to go off-road. Say goodbye to the titles first — Daughter, Mother, Sister, Wife. Say goodbye to statuses, educational designations, career positions, neighborhoods, sports affiliations, affinities, and proclivities to material things. A car, no matter the price, is an object with four wheels. Nothing more. Wipe the preferences clean and begin to act like Switzerland. You are now a neutral slate to feel your presence, hear your breath, and dream your dreams.
The old radio starts becoming fuzzy and faded as I hear what sounds like jazz music. The local radio station has jumped the radio wires to the Canadian Public radio station that is playing American Jazz from the 1940’s. I stand up. I can feel the needles cascading down the backs of my legs like I just took a nap on a bed of pins. The people who arrived a little while ago are all tucked into the cabin next door. The rain will not stop. This kind of beauty requires a lot of moisture. My mind is tired — time for a new activity. I know! I don my full-body rain slicker, grab the clear domed umbrella, and head out into the woods. My woods. The 1.19 acres that I pay the National Forest Service to keep my mid-century cottage on. Yes, my camera is getting wet. I don’t care. The pictures I plan to take will be amazing. I have a piece of paper towel in my pocket to wipe off the screen between captures. The jewels appear in this kind of weather, like multi-colored gems on a beach, these spongy souls reach for oxygen on moist days. They are the mushrooms of a Northern rainforest.
