Whatsoever We Do

I wish I could say the memory stuff was over. At 62, I’ve learned so much about myself and the world I inhabit. But, a simple thing like having a tooth pulled brings back memories that I barely touched 30 years ago. “This isn’t supposed to happen,” I say to myself. But, there’s no suppose to about it. 

People, men, do terrible things to one another, their wives, and their children. It is an unfortunate fact. The acts have ripple effects through generations. Why can’t nations, communities, races get along?  It’s because we have meanness to the smallest among us—our children, our women. Until we wrap our arms around this and its causes, we are doomed to generational acts of atrocities. Others have said it more eloquently than I can. Whatsoever we do to the least of us, we do to us all. (Paraphrased, of course.)

I know my father and mother were childhood abuse survivors. It does not take a leap of imagination to think their mothers and fathers were as well and the generations before them. The pain and agony doesn’t have a chance of improving if the injury in the home doesn’t cease. 

I know I am an outlier in so many ways. It is the outliers who represent the greatest need for change.  We are the canaries in the coal mine for change.  I will pass on like all who struggled with this before me.  Our ills, destruction of our environment, an opioid crisis, gender and racial oppression, war, poverty, and all the rest, will continue.  Over five hundred children separated at the Mexican border with the United States from beloved parents will muddle through their lives.  Some will find their parents.  Many will not.  The resulting pain of varying kinds will continue because we do not fundamentally understand that our children are our future.  Their nurturing and education will guide them in governance and leadership, how they treat us as seniors, and how they act as stewards of the earth we have given them.  There is no opt out of the consequences of our actions.  They have profound ripples—always.

I don’t know what it will take to resolve this set of memories for me.  I don’t know how many sleepless nights or how much searing emotional pain it will take.  I am clear that it shouldn’t need to happen because the acts themselves shouldn’t have happened.  Of course, I blame my father for his actions.  I blame my mother for her complicity and inaction.  I blame a system that allows a murderer to walk free.  What I don’t blame is myself.  This is a profound shift for me over the years.  It’s not my fault and I won’t take it out on myself.  This, then, is my act of stopping the generational harm.

I don’t have the answer.  I feel myself standing on a precipice or at a corner waiting for someone to explain.  Waiting for the “That explains everything!”  It will never come.  It couldn’t possibly come because nothing could explain it all. Still, I find myself standing, hoping, wishing, or praying that someone or something would come along and explain, “This is why it all happened.”  And I can utter the words, “That explains everything!”

The question is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

There’s no answer. Whether we believe in a higher power or the vagaries of nature. There’s no answer that makes sense. We can never see a picture big enough where this seems like a good plan. It just hurts. It always will. Whatever the bad thing is, it just hurts. 

Maybe I don’t have to plumb the depths of who he murdered, why he murdered, or how I felt being a part of it. There’s no explanation that makes sense. It just happened. It forever hurt me to participate in it. There’s no explanation. I know what I know. That maybe good enough. I may be healthy enough to understand that bad things happen. It’s the way of the world. If we could change that, it wouldn’t be our world. 

My best advice:  Stop hurting the children, at least purposefully.  That’s how they learn to treat others. No one breaks out of the cycle. Life throws enough at us without compounding the damage. We can only minimize the harm of our passing through.

L’Chaim. 

Joceile

10.23.20

[Picture of me and my daughter, 1989.  I’m holding her and my beloved Bullwinkle balloon moose whose life was short lived.]

Lesbian Word Search

We never know how our acts will effect others. Oregon Historical Society found a Lesbian Word Search puzzle I made in 1981 for Matrix: Olympia’s Lesbian/Feminist Magazine and requested permission to print it. I was 23 when I made it. It has been found and celebrated by others. Periodically, an internet search reveals its discovery.

In this concrete artifact, I can see a bit of my reverberation in the world. We all have this ripple effect in how we treat and educate others. No, we don’t have a typed puzzle come back at us from 40 years ago. We have to take it on faith that our imprint on those we’ve touched is just as strong and concrete as a typed puzzle finding internet life.

Remember this when deciding how to treat yourself and others. Remember this during those cold, dark nights of winter. We all make a difference every day. What we do matters—always.

https://www.ohs.org/research-and-library/oregon-historical-quarterly/oregonscape/oregonscape-fall-2017.cfm

The Tree Beside Me

These trying times and my aging cause me to ponder my significance in the world. I know we all struggle with this. I’ve avoided this thinking because I’ve worked hard to claim my right to be on the planet. I don’t want to ignore my achievement.  Now approaching 63, I find myself teasing out an answer I can be at peace with. 

I have a loving heart, a caring soul, and a curious intellect. So, where do I fit?  I love nature, animals, and taking a dead end road to see where it goes. I do work that I love with passion and honest empathy.  I read.  I love.  I support what matters to me.  How do I evaluate my importance and contribution when humankind is making a mess of our planet?  What will the world know of my passing?

I’m not the first nor the last to contemplate this.  I strive to make my sphere of influence better.  I contribute to the greater good in the ways I can.  But, how do I measure myself against a natural world that is far greater with infinite complexity and a humbling penchant for doing what it does best—the rise and fall of all things great and small?  I must find peace in my place.

Am I the hunted or the hunter?  How do I square with the fact that I am both?  Up and down the line, all things from the amoeba to the grisly and the mosquito to the whale live in this reality.  None are greater nor more important than the very smallest.  Chutzpah doesn’t alter reality.  I will pass on like everything and everyone before me.  I’m okay with this.  I showed up.  I bloomed.  Others enjoyed my presence as have I.  Another will take my place.  We are as unique as snowflakes and just as transitory.

I love trees.  They are fastened to the ground in a way I am not.  They listen to the earth in a way I cannot.  Most trees have longer lives than I will.  A few with stunning longevity such as the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine have lived over 4,000 years.  Gastrotrichs, a marine microorganism, live just three days.  Compared to a Bristlecone Pine, I am a Gastrotrich.

I can’t be greater than all there is around me.  Nor do I want to think I am greater.  I watch the blooms of spring turn into the fallen leaves of autumn.  I am part of this earth.  To embrace the riches of nature, I must also admit my place.

The world is full of contradictions.  I understand the limits of my importance and influence.  A flower’s beauty and purpose is not diminished by its temporal existence.  Thus, I’m no more important to the history of the world than the tree I’m standing beside.  Humans would do well to remain mindful of this.  For what we do to trees is ultimately done to us.  This is not an excuse to do nothing.  It is a recognition and an easing of the struggle to know my place.  I will fight for what is right to my last breath.  I would do well to make as great a mark as a noble tree.

L’Chaim.

Joceile

10.8.20

[Picture of a 20 year old me standing next to a tree with Mt. Rainier in the background in Ft. Steilacoom, Washington in 1978.]