Daily Decisions

Betwixt and Between

eajenkins — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:11:12 +0000

Today I stood in my kitchen at 6:26 p.m. and suddenly pondered the fact that it was 11:26 p.m. in my sister’s house in Northamptonshire, where I hope she was tucked up for the night, and 3:26 p.m. in my daughter’s workplace in Oregon. It was a moment of large and unreasonable loneliness. So I went outside with our little dog, Muffin, to play, looked up to a twilight sky of Parrish blue, pink, and bouncy white and was just as instantaneously and unreasonably made whole again. Sometimes, it’s our inward light that centers us and sometimes, the light around us holds us steady.

Through New Eyes

eajenkins — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:46:54 +0000

Today, Leopold is one day old, which is pretty new.

It’s all new to him.

Stand in the Place Where You Are

eajenkins — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:31:03 +0000

Today, I’m thankful that we did not have a major hurricane in Central Florida so far this year and did not have to use our bad weather days, so here I am on Thanksgiving Break with time to eat breakfast and take a Monday morning walk with my honey. Since Ray’s work schedule at present is noon to 8:30 p.m. and my work schedule is 7:30 a.m. to whenever, this is a rare treat for a weekday.

On the radio now, there’s a conversation about America and the “far east”, at Meeting yesterday, our conversation centered on the “Occupiers”, at work there’s much ado about our new evaluation scheme, in the neighborhood, a focus on parking and safe traffic patterns, at home a laundry list (literally) of things to do; off I could go in so many directions. Movement, movement, movement.

First, let me occupy myself. Not with a thousand occupations, but with full presence and attention: heart – beating, nose, stuffy, but still breathing in, guts – settled, feet – comfy, vision – as clear as it’s going to be and resting secure on the bridge of my nose again, hands and arms – available, back – unbroken, teeth – mostly present. Here I am as a stone at the center of a ripple effect, sinking and sending out at the same time; immersed and dynamic, becoming more me and less me simultaneously.

It is interesting that both light and weight hold importance in Quaker considerations. We have the light within. We hold folks and situations in the light. Yet, we have also attended to our weighty members for discernment and clearness. Lamps and stones are both helpful for a good habitation.

Recently, teaching the skill of composure to students, it’s come to me to clarify for them that they are a governor, “You are the governor of the state of Ann or Bianca or Carla or Dwayne.” They get it. I am the governor of the state of Elizabeth. This is not to say that there will not be natural disasters, high winds, floods, droughts, and fire, the earth shaking beneath our feet, great waves of sorrow sweeping all before them. Nor, that there will be no attacks from disturbed, discontented neighboring states. But what will we have done to be prepared, to create equity, to live sustainably, to store resources for hard times, including a treasure house of bright memories to get us through winters and wants? And how will we answer the inevitable queries of life? With revenge or with truth? With desperation or with determination to continue the hard work of being in love no matter how unlikely a place to be that seems in the circumstances?

Let no one occupy me, but my perfect, comfort-able self.

Missing One Arm

eajenkins — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 02:19:43 +0000

Today, we went for breakfast with the noisiest bunch of people I’ve ever heard – a restaurant full of “Race for the Cure” ladies and their hubbies and buddies. Some were sporting brilliant hot pink and magenta brassieres atop their T shirts. They’d just completed their early Saturday footwork and were filling up on pancakes and the happiness of being alive and together. For now, at least, everyone was “in the pink.”

For over a week now, I’ve been wearing my wounded glasses. On October 18th, their right”arm” fell off in the midst of teaching evening class. My effort later to zap the arm back on with china glue (it had worked once before) was a dismal failure, earning me only scathing looks at the opticians and rendering my trusty eye-wear irreparable. The prescription was eight months overdue for replacement, so new, though less fancy, glasses have been ordered. Apparently, this takes a while since they are trifocals. It’s hard to describe the off-kilter nature of the last 10 or so days. I have to go on wearing my old glasses, hooked over one ear and with an obvious glue patch, because I need them for driving and maneuvering through daily life. Without them my age is suddenly and shockingly apparent. One of the five-year-olds I know, typically a giver of spontaneous hugs as I walk by, backed away when she saw me glassesless and, though still smiling, raised her hands as if to fend off this much less shiny me. A notable moment arrived when the broken glasses flew off my nose in the middle of an already abominable skills check to recertify as a CPR instructor. I got by with a little help from my friends, as the song says, but lopsided Liz was really struggling and wondering whether her competence had dropped to the floor along with the slender golden wire that held her vision in place. Order and symmetry will be restored in a few days. I have to remember this is just a magic feather and keep flying along regardless. If such a thin loss is so decentering, imagine the shift for those who have truly lost an arm.

Write 1,000 times – “I will not feel sorry for myself. I will not feel sorry for myself. I will not feel sorry for myself. I will not…” and be glad you can.

Closer to Home

eajenkins — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:49:10 +0000

Today, my daughter is in the same time zone as me, instead of the usual three hours west. Most of my life, over forty years now, like many others on the planet, I’ve lived with loved ones across an ocean or a continent or both, measuring distance as much by time as by miles. There’s all my folks at Greenwich Mean Time, the New Englanders, like me, on Eastern Standard Time, my Mountain Time son and daughter-in-law, and, most days, my daughter on Pacific Time. It’s a great spread out village so much wider across than the straggling single mile of fields, farms, cottages, and semi-detached homes of my childhood.

It makes a difference to have your ten minutes to seven be the same as your kin’s ten minutes to seven. When the United States military put out the urban planning contract that brought my daughter to the eastern seaboard, it’s pretty unlikely they thought that one of the kinder consequences would be facilitating a conversation between a mum who lives in Florida and a daughter who lives in Oregon. So lovely to talk before my day has drained out, to be able to have a brief ordinary weeknight chat.

Right now, it’s 8:19 p.m. here and 4:19 a.m. in Afghanistan. If my daughter were there, an engineer, say, instead of an architect, I’d have to allow an eight and a half hour difference; not so easy. I understand those who are occupying Wall Street and the space across from our local Chamber of Commerce and so forth, but I’m more troubled that we are still occupying other people’s countries. So, for me, the sooner the occupants of Pennsylvania Avenue see their way clear to bring our sons and daughters home to their native time zones the better for all concerned.

Taking a Breather

eajenkins — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:04:26 +0000

Today is a “teacher non-workday.” Of course, that’s a joke; there’s a long list of tasks awaiting a teacher in this wonderful interstice, which is neither a work day, nor a weekend day, nor even a holiday. It is a very welcome breather. I plan to go to the wellness expo at our workplace to get some free medical check ups and a free flu shot in hopes that will contribute to being able to work through the winter. In the afternoon, I plan to take Muffin for her first visit to our kind vet and check a couple of diet and bug protection questions for her. With a couple of family health care issues taken care of, I can clean house, run more errands, get the car its badly needed service, accomplish all sorts of worthy and useful things that have been on hold during the time since school reopened and while we have been being with Beverly and the family for the past several weekends.

It feels strange not to be dashing about to drive east as soon as it is not a work day. I wonder if and when we will take the journey through Bithlo and Christmas and across the marshes again. Will we ever ride the pontoon boats that we always said we must ride one day, when it’s not buggy? Will we have the dark drive home with music playing and all the reflections of being together spinning in our heads or quiet chats about life that rarely happen in the daily back and forth of going in different directions?

More than anything else, I feel a slowing of pace having been beside Beverly’s side. What, when all is said and done, is the rush? Where is the fire? So what, if… But I do not want to lose passion. How do we keep and carry a flame within, while breathing deeply and gratefully with each and every step? If I can bring that to work and bring it home again, I might be a little closer to where I want to be.

It All Stacks Up Over Time

eajenkins — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:15:35 +0000

Today, I came home from work, did dog and cat duty, opened the door to the corner room to set up work clothes for tomorrow, and stopped to stare at sixteen stacks of books massed like city blocks in the center of the room. While I was working, Ray was hefting nineteenth century novels, the metaphysical poets, Richard Wilbur, Geoffrey Chaucer, “1,000 Years of Drawing”, and “Indian Miniatures” into tiny towers of love. Now, the bookcase is emptied and readied to be moved to our newly shiny front room; my birthday bookcase, a final gift from my father, become an unexpected gift from my husband.

I think of the many times we could have lost all patience with each other and this day would never have happened this way.

Bats or Brooms?

eajenkins — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:36:07 +0000

Today, as usual, I cleaned the cat-litter box, changed the cat’s water, gave her new food, took the dog out, cleaned up after her, made coffee and toast, did the laundry, cleaned the old nails off the window sills in the front rooms, moved the pictures off the dining room walls ready for the painters, made a doctor appointment for the odd spots on my arm, paid the utility bill by e-check, talked to my nephew on Skype. I’ll go make us lunch in a few minutes, then do the dishes, and carry on with more blessed ordinariness. More than once, students, friends, family members have asked me, “What do I do now?”, after a significant loss or upending in their own lives. I say, “Whatever needs to be done next.” As soon as you’re able, wash the dishes, let the dog out, write to a friend, send a check, and if you can actually be useful and not just in the way, show up, and help.

Thanks and encouragement to all the people who are cleaning up after the breaking and burning in my homeland. Revolution does not consist of a rampage, nor even a change of Government, but of a change of heart and our governance of ourselves.

Imagine

eajenkins — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:09:56 +0000

Today, we are in Georgia for a birthday celebration – Ray’s older brother, Tom. It is always a pleasure to be at his home, which is spacious, full of light, comfortable, perfectly maintained, and quiet. From the kitchen window, you can see deer emerge from the fringe of woods. Goldfinches roller coaster across the street as we step out the front door.

In early childhood, the 1950s, Ray and Tom lived in Morrisania, the South Bronx; a different time and a different landscape.

August 6th is Tom’s birthday; it is also the anniversary of the first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. This evening, I’ll be holding in the light everyone participating in the Interfaith Prayer Service at Orlando Quakers Meeting House. The purpose of the service is to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The journey from the world we have now to a world committed to ending the use of nuclear weapons seems foolish from a temporal perspective. As my brother-in-law says, “The genie is out of the bottle.” Still, there is a larger perspective. When John Woolman “felt a weight on (his) mind” and spoke to slave-owning Friends two hundred and fifty years ago, few could imagine their lives and estates without the institution of slavery. Woolman could not only imagine such a change in circumstances, but could also imagine the “burdensome” consequences of failing to make such a change. In 2011, we continue this journey, but once unimaginable changes have been made.

As we school our children and ourselves, we do well to consider how education within classrooms, at home, in spiritual centers, and through public communication can go beyond memetics to encourage imagination, discernment, and wisdom.

On his second southern journey, Woolman wrote “…men are wont to take hold of weak arguments to support a cause which is unreasonable.” We can justify just about anything. Can we then walk upright?

Happy Birthday, Tom!

Temps Perdu

eajenkins — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:22:23 +0000

Today, the truth was revealed. Our old carpet was taken up and taken off in a red pick up truck; goodbye, 1989. Under the deep aqua pile, now mostly a stained and weary grey, under the foam underlay, there extended the original 1930 pine floors, with cavalier paint and Spackle splash all over, remarkably little termite damage, a shameful amount of cat harm along the perimeters, an odd patch of ugly repair at the front door and a strange pale patch in the middle of the archway between living room and dining room. But, considering all the mistakes, neglect, and the weight of time, there is something very salvageable here.

We have been walking on a fragment of forest.

So many are worried about repaying our debt, but repaying our debt is an illusion. The best we can hope for is a profound acknowledgement of the cost of our presence here, an open request for forgiveness, then daily truth and reconciliation.