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By Mama Paloma, 23/01/2012 22:19

He stared at the open palm of his left hand for a long time. That ten-year-old girl grasped this hand and hugely changed something inside me, but I can’t give a reasonable explanation of how such a thing could have happened. Still the two of us understood each other and accepted each other in a very natural way in every last particular–almost miraculously so. Such things don’t happen all that often in this life. For some people, they might never happen.

H. Murakami, 1Q84, p. 523-524

Five years ago, for my birthday, I bought myself a ring. I stumbled on it in a tiny jewelry shop in Lisbon. It has several thin, intertwining threads of metal, organically irregular in thickness, with a few small diamonds caught in the spaces where the threads cross. When I saw it, I immediately thought of the ways our paths and lives cross others’ all the time bringing us shining moments of connection. I asked to look at this one-of-a-kind piece and it fit me perfectly, as did the metaphor.

The other day, a friend from my teenage years popped online and said hello. Back in 1989,  in an unusual and romantic setting, we had one of those innocent, exciting Summer romances that come with sheltered adolescence and naivete. We had only been vaguely in touch the past couple of years, via FaceBook, after two decades of no contact.

He asked me if I remembered a particular day…when it started to pour while we were swimming in the harbor and we huddled together under the dock to avoid the enormous tropical raindrops which were cold compared to the warm sea water. He said he would never forget that day, that it had stayed with him all these years. “It was beautiful…,” he wrote, “…its funny how that never happens now.”

The conversation touched me and it was more than nostalgia. I happen to be reading Murakami’s latest book, which I received (in hardcover, no less) as a Christmas gift. One of the main story lines is about the pair in the quote above, the pure and unrequited love they carry throughout their lives. As my friend described his memories, his experience of that moment that so resonated with mine, it was hard not to draw a parallel with the fantastical fictional world of the novel I am reading.

It has me thinking of how, most of the time, when those diamond moments occur, we have no idea if the other person shared that experience. In those moments, for me at least, it doesn’t even register as possible that my presence, my small action, my taking the hand of another, could create and impart something they might hod dear.

Too often, I don’t even realize the value of the moment until later, when I pull it out with the leftover change of the latest journey and find, mixed in with the lint and metro stubs, a sparkling gem. These I treasure, imagining that I am the only one who carried the moment away in my pocket.

Every great once in a while, usually when a friend is up too late at night on the other side of the world, probably more than a little drunk, I get a glimpse of something like this and it makes my heart ache a little. If we could know those moments truly when they come, if we could recognize rare magic and give it its proper place, what would our lives be like?

And what price do we pay when we don’t? That thought brings to mind another Murakami piece but I’ll leave my reflections on that one for another post.

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By Mama Paloma, 16/01/2012 06:00

…but not for the same reasons of those who fought against this day being established and, later, recognized (the usual suspects–Helms, Reagan, the state of Arizona) or those who complain loudly each year–usually by attacking something about the day’s honoree.

I hardly resent recognizing the accomplishments and contributions of a smart Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. who became the ‘face’ of the non-militant U.S. black civil rights movement of the mid-1900s.

I am just sorry that we have to.

I am sorry that Dr. King and so many others have had to spend their talents and energy and, too often, give their lives to push back racist laws, one small town at a time.

I wonder what Dr. King’s life would have been like if he hadn’t been pulled into fighting for the recognition of black people as full human beings. With a mind like his, he might have accomplished amazing things. Or perhaps he would have lived out his days as Joe Pastor and liked it. Who knows? Who knows what millions of others might have been able to do or see, or experience, had their day-to-day lives not been restricted and constricted by segregation or consumed by its elimination.

I am sorry that those who sought to advocate for the right of citizens of color to sit in a cafe and order a coffee had to endure taunts and shoves and smoke being blown in their faces–and that was just in training.

I am also a bit peeved that it has to be ‘justified’ with calls for a day of service. Don’t get me wrong, I believe Dr. King, who touted service above all, would approve of people doing work to better our community on any day. I just think, Wow, Lord forbid we just have a sacred day to honor a black man…better make people work for that day off!

I am sorry that there is a day to honor one who fought for equal rights and, bizarrely, one to honor Columbus, and not a single national holiday to honor the losses and acknowledge the legacies of slavery and genocide in this country.

It wouldn’t take much to do so. We don’t even have to figure out when. For example:

March 25 is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. How about we declare that a national holiday and hold memorial services and days of dialogue?

And what about August 9– International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Am I the only one who finds it a bit embarrassing that the only visible (that I know of) recognition of this day in the US happens at the UN building? Seriously, people, can’t we take one freaking day to celebrate Native American culture and heritage and the remarkable way they have survived every effort to annihilate them? Can’t we have even a minute of national silence, perhaps with candles or a bundle of symbolic sage for the millions slaughtered or strategically exterminated in the name of manifest destiny and because they, too, were not seen as fully human?

The obstinate denial in this country galls me. Even bloody Australia has a national “Sorry Day” acknowledging the effects of colonization on the Aboriginal peoples. Geez. I know, I know, a holiday is a token and no token will adequately address or redress the enormity of these past wrongs and their effects. But even the cheesiest of holidays are touchstones…Valentine’s Day doesn’t make love real but does force us to acknowledge it’s reality.

Indeed, I am sad and angry that there has to be a Martin Luther King Jr. Day and, at the same time, grateful.

Because, much as I wish were were living the legacy of fairness and compassion and respect for human rights, we are not. We are living the legacy of slavery and are barely removed from the reality of the inhumanity of those practices. Without Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Dr. King, the Freedom Riders, Malcom X, and the countless ordinary and remarkable and anonymous people who stood up over and over again to the laws of inequality, where would we all be today?

So, today, I honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and, at the same time,  I challenge you to look our legacy straight in the eye, without blinking.

However you can. As often as you can.

See the living, breathing reality of racism and inequality that is still part our our institutions and lives every day, whether we acknowledge them or not.

Let’s own our legacy. Because, until we do, it still owns us.

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By Mama Paloma, 09/01/2012 22:19

This holiday season, I did something I haven’t done in five years. I took a holiday. Really. The full week between Christmas and New Years. Five days away from even my son. In that space, that time, I reflected and got clear about my intentions and hopes for the coming year. I made plans. Over the past year, I have been increasingly aware of the un-sustainability of my life. For the past five years, in every way, I have been sapped–financially, emotionally, psychologically, physically. My plans weren’t grand, but about setting up my life in subtly different ways, ensuring that well-being remains at the center of how we do things at Casa Paloma.

And I landed on January 2 back into a shitstorm. Too much work stuff landed all at once…good stuff, but more than I could possibly handle in that short week. My mom, goddess bless her, was facing some challenges and dramas of her own that demanded my support even as they strained our relationship. My plans–for serenity, for finding more ease, for increasing time with important people–were derailed from the start.

Or were they?

I felt like crap–overwhelmed, tired, sad–but decided to just show up and do what I had planned. I got up and did my 10 minutes of yoga each morning. I did our morning meditative reading. I ended each day at a set time, more or less, and sometimes (gasp!) left my laptop at the office. I played online scrabble and read a bit in one of the books I got for Christmas (which, the past few years would have sat on the shelf, gathering dust, as I waited for ‘the time’ to read it). I got more sleep than normal.

And, by Wednesday, I was already feeling better. By the weekend, I was chugging along, ready for anything and enjoying the ride. My experience shifted when I shifted in my experience.

I dropped more than a few balls. The thank you notes I dutifully helped my son prepare on Boxing Day? Unmailed. I haven’t had/taken/made the time to address and stamp them. The Christmas returns? The TV bracket that needs to be bought and installed? They are waiting. As are any number of things on the long list of To Dos.

But the important stuff? It’s getting done. In three days, more or less, I got a fellowship application submitted on time and without incident, coordinated another grant meeting, presented at a weekend conference, facilitated a group, and caught up with clients. I sorted out my health insurance situation (more or less). I stopped for play and ice cream with Addison, set some boundaries with mom, (not going over well…but we’ll get through it) and spent some time reaching out to friends who have been sidelined by my work and general busyness for too long.

In one of the reflection exercises, I was asked to give this year’s “word.” The first thing that came to me was “Open.” This is my resolution, my resolve. To be open to the possibilities I don’t see. Even the possibility that my life can be more than manageable, that I may savor and enjoy and still be enough.

With that, I am off to read more of that book.

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By Mama Paloma, 02/01/2012 14:21

This year is starting off with a sigh. While I want to feel inspired, motivated, optimistic, I  am actually more on the tired and discouraged side of the spectrum. I have reflected, envisioned, sought support, worked my ass off, meditated–the works–and I just seem to be stuck in this place of almost-there.

I had hoped to clear a number of things from my plate in 2011. Have some resolution (and regular, agreed-upon child support) with AJ’s dad, have my nonprofit work sustainable and compensated, have something to show for the first four decades of my life. I even planned some special things…a trip for my birthday, a mini-vacation to end the year. In spite of my best efforts, it’s all fizzled, or just failed to progress. Nothing is horrible, but nothing is great either.

I have tried so hard. I am ready for great. I need a little bit right now.

But instead, at this moment, I am sitting in my living room with a half-undressed tree that may spontaneously combust at any moment, ornament boxes piled around, suitcase unpacked, my son methodically taking receipts and such I have put in a bag for shredding out of said bag and spreading them around the rest of the mess.

I want to fight this feeling…to push through and clean up and put on a shiny smile. Today, though, it seems important somehow to sit here in it, to acknowledge the shit I  stand up to each and every day–the effort of holding at bay the chaos and the loss and the fatigue and the loneliness that lurk, waiting to wash over and swamp my little life raft. So, for this moment, I am letting it be.

I know it won’t look so bleak tomorrow. I will wake up and get up and do what needs to be done to inch my life forward. I will find meaning and inspiration and humor and joy again. But, right now, it’s all pretty pathetic and lame and sad and it’s real and it’s really OK.