llbwritesto.me

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Wisdom

On Civil War, Windows, and Underground Parking Garages

By

Dear      ,

This morning I read about the Civil War—and the excavation of the Boston Common to build an underground parking garage. Those two go together because the Common is the site of a monument that remembers a regiment from, yes, the Civil War.

For the past few days I have been thinking about war of a certain kind. The trampling of tenderness. I venture to call this abuse.

When you grow up like I did, under the roof of an abusive person, you learn the signs, but still—it is hard to keep your heart intact. At the window, you watch for his return, and you wonder…today, will my heart survive? You learn, from having put your heart out there and watching someone delight in the steady march and tread over it—this is a critical question, this one about your heart.

When they excavated the Common to build the garage, apparently they propped up the monument. Remembrance was atilt. In the article I read this morning, in which a poem is shared that says, “Their monument sticks like a fishbone/in the city’s throat,” I’m not sure what question the poet was asking in his poem. (All good poems, in my opinion, ask a question in their way.) If it had been my poem, I think I would pose: Can we survive if we forget this?—it hurts our hearts to hate.

I am convinced that there are (at least) three ways people may move into the world when they live through abuse. There are choices, and it’s not clear to me how we make them. It seems that either we ourselves become a trampler, or we learn to keep our hearts hidden (even in what are safer contexts, later on), or we decipher the secret, somehow, of how to keep our hearts intact and share them wisely.

Recently, I guided my daughters through a difficult conversation. In this micro-moment of civil war, there were choices arising every few minutes. Trample? Hide? Truly, they wanted neither, but they were in need of tools to guide them in this vulnerable and delicate tussle of their hearts. Afterwards, they joked that I had performed the service of conflict resolution. It was amusing, to all of us. But it is not how I picture what happened.

When children, then young adults, are not given the tools of communication navigation, especially to guide them through tender moments where their hearts are exposed, they can grow up to be abusers, or elaborate manipulators. I call this heat without light. Apparently, this is possible. To have heat without light. But I don’t mean to get literal on this count. What I do mean is that the heart is always firing, desiring. And, in the absence of knowing how to handle that fire, we get all heat and no light.

There were times, when my girls were young, that I did not know how to handle the fire. My heart was hurting, or tired. Maybe I said something meanly off-the-cuff to one of them. On rare occasion, I yelled. Either way, the moment asked of me this: repair. It occurred to me one day that it wasn’t good enough to simply apologize to one girl, had the other been there to witness the treading. On that day, I made a decision: I would always apologize to both girls if they’d both been in the room. Because, this too is true—not only does it hurt our hearts to hate…it hurts our hearts to see others hatefully mistreated. The hearts of two girls were therefore in need of being attended to: the one who had suffered, and the one who had witnessed the suffering.

Though I see no problem with conflict itself (it’s simply an invitation to have a difficult conversation), I believe that civil wars and raging fires—of many kinds—are avoidable. I am not sure they are avoidable when they’re agitated by those who are ahead of us in age and authority, those who aim to generate heat but no light.

Still, I remember those days at the window. And the choices they presented my heart over time—trample, hide, or learn?

Wherever you are today, Dear——, whatever window you are looking through, your heart firing within you, I wish you the power to choose the latter. I, for one, promise to stand beside you—to learn, and invite the light.

As Always,

L.L.

Ailing Bees, Energy, and Missing The New Yorker

By

Dear      ,

I’m wondering. Do you know what a skep is? I did not know until Alexander Langlands told me.

He wanted to make one for the bees.

I wanted to go hear Rachel Aviv yesterday and tell you about it here and maybe in an exclusive on Patreon. Rachel has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2013. I have never been a staff writer at The New Yorker, and I had questions for her.

I did not have questions about skeps or bees, but this is the beauty of reading—it expands. And I know you know this about reading, but I just wanted to say it, because it’s sort of like something else I know you know—listening can expand your world in ways you hadn’t expected. This is why, when Alexander Langlands was talking about bees and skeps, though I didn’t have questions about either of these things, I thought maybe I’d take the time to listen.

Okay, technically, reading is not listening, and I promise I have also been listening in the ordinary way. So last night I went to Rachel’s house—not Rachel Aviv, mind you, but a dear friend who’s been letting me park in her driveway so I can stop getting $30 parking tickets (due to the car disaster, I vowed not to park the remaining car in the driveway until the wayward maple could be trimmed, and The Town has refused to listen to my pleas for a street parking exception due to extenuating circumstances, and it feels very sad not to be listened to and to feel alone and uncared for by The Town, but Rachel graciously let me park in her driveway, and so last night we had tea, and I listened.)

The skep, first made as early as the 8th century (mid medieval times) is fashioned of willow or hazel, or from straw that’s been twisted and bound by cane. It looks like a 60’s up-do you might expect to see on one of the B52s. Just add bees, and you’ve got honey.

If you listen to Rachel, you’ve got honey, too. Maybe if you listen to anyone at all, you’ve got it. There is something strangely magical (or, at least surreal) about concentrating on the voice of someone and listening with every part of your being, not just to the words, but to the sounds, to the person, and the way they are moving and the look on their face.

Rachel Aviv looks kind of intense, while at the same time looking almost medieval (not that the two need be mutually exclusive). Maybe it was the particular photograph and the way her hair and the neckline of her blouse reminded me of watching the show Merlin. She looked like Gwendolyn, but with fair skin and fair locks and maybe blue eyes, though it can be hard to tell eye-color in a black-and-white photo.

It was snowing in the morning yesterday; regardless, I still thought I’d go see Aviv. The day unfolded with more snow and more snow, and then the sun made a late appearance, the roads cleared, and all seemed well with the world. I could have gone.

Alexander Langlands, when I listened to him, told me something I hadn’t known about bee-keeping. Many of the big keepers kind of forget about the “keeping” part. They feed the bees sugar water, which is a sub-par form of energy. It makes the bees sick over time (I’ve been meaning to say, Dear———, sugar will make you sick over time, too), but it means the keepers can take all the honey they want and push the bees to keep working.

I’ve been working really hard lately. Well, I work hard all the time. But lately I’ve been working even harder, to meet some increased demands in my personal and business life. So, after Monday, I was still tired yesterday. My car was at Rachel’s. I did not have energy to go hear Aviv and ask my questions under the gaze of her intense eyes. I am sure I would have enjoyed listening to her, because I’m learning that there’s honey to be found in the act of creating an extra-special keeping-space for someone else’s words.

But.

There is a way in which we can run our lives that is like living on sugar water. And I thought of Langland’s last statement regarding skeps, and keeping, and bees… “The craeft in beekeeping is not in the meddling of the bee’s affairs but in the preparation of their home.”

In my home, there is actually not even one copy of The New Yorker, though I think it is such a cool magazine because it’s been around for a very long time and even Dr. Seuss had a friend there, once upon a time. I thought about this. I thought about the skep I needed, in order to keep writing to you. It did not include going to see Rachel Aviv—at least not yesterday.

What do I wish for you, then? A skep of your own. With the heartiness of a honeyed life. No sugar water. Because I want you to be healthy for as long as you call the 21st century your home.

As Always,

L.L.

Survivors, Salmon, and Energy

By

Dear      ,

Did you know I’m a survivor? I am.

It’s a long story. No need to go into that here. It’s been written about elsewhere, and so maybe you already know.

To survive, you need to know how to fight. There is a place for resistance. The salmon know this! Oh, how they fight their way upstream, for the sake of survival. They would rather die fighting than die floating in a frictionless place.

You could say I am a very good salmon. I would rather die fighting than floating. (You make the T-shirt, I’ll wear it. Deal?)

What has come less naturally to me is learning to move with the currents. To discern what calls for resistance and persistence, and what calls for letting go.

Yesterday, I saw a body at the side of the road.

In all my years (and at this point, they haven’t been few), I have never seen a body at the side of the road. In fact, besides at the occasional funeral, I have not seen a body anywhere at all. Not on a beach. Not on a woodland trail. Not in my back yard. Nowhere.

Remember the thundersnow? Just a few days after the windstorm, the thundersnow took down even more trees. Many of the roads around here are unpassable. Visibility is less than it could be. Pavements are slippery. People feel out of sorts.

Is that what happened? Did a driver, lost and confused and out of sorts due to one more detour, come whipping around that curve and, in the low visibility, hit a person, who became a body on the side of the road?

I don’t know.

There were a few cars ahead of mine, approaching that bend where the body lay. Likewise, there were a few cars sitting at the rise of the hill, coming from the opposite direction. People were out of their vehicles. The sun was setting, the shadows were long, the world of pines and snow and winding roads was hushed.

I saw someone reach down to touch the body. Maybe to see if life still pulsed. I saw several people gently placing coats, one coat after another, over the motionless form. One person seemed to be on his phone. The look on his face was “911.”

Part of me, the curious part, the horrified part, the I-must-know-if-he-(she? they?)-survive part wanted to stay and continue to watch the story unfold. Part of me wanted to console. But there were many people already on the scene.

I turned the car around. In my rear-view mirror, I saw red lights. Sirens called: life is at stake, life is at stake, life is at stake!

Then my daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat in a deep silence, and I made our way home, with many detours along the way. We went three towns over, being lost on the winding back roads. We followed the setting sun. We moved with the currents, feeling our way. We were each, I know, hoping the body would be more than a body as darkness came. We were hoping for a survivor.

Though our talk was muted, I noted that it was so remarkable that the people at the side of the road had not tried to move the person. (You can hurt a person irreversibly if you move him when he’s badly injured. Well-meaning people trying to help someone who is physically broken have caused more harm than good by the force of movement at the wrong moment. I’m sure you know this. But I’m not sure my daughter did. I wanted to find the smallest way to console her: smart people had been discerning.)

When to fight? When to float? When to resist? When to move with the currents, and when to move against them?

This is the work of wisdom.

Sitting here, looking out the windows towards a sky filled with quiet sun, after a week of detours and traveling unknown roads, I know what I want more than ever: I want you to survive. And thrive.

So, if you are floating, and that is not going to help you survive, I wish you the option of a necessary fight. Or, if you are fighting, and that is causing you or others more harm than good, I wish you the will to move with the currents. Whatever physics you need today, I want it to be yours.

As Always,

L.L.