Looking for a Guru

I'm being mappish lately. I just read chapter 3 Finding our Own True Nature in Pema's The Wisdom of No Escape...and as pansy as the chapter sounds...its just chock full of wisdom. I can make fun of myself in the process. Oh I can hardly wait.

But first, I need some advice - so I will let the wisdom of the web be my guru. Perhaps this is equivalent to allowing Gollum be the guide...(And verily...I shan't return to the 10 rules again)
Okay I'll get on with it...

So whats the etiquitte about linking to another blog? Are you supposed to do what I did to Litany and ask if it was okay? You know sort of like being the nervous gittery dude who asks his potential father-in-law permission or blessing to wed is daughter (barf)...or is it custom to go ahead and make the link and hope that it doesnt offend the authour? I find virtue in being nice. I am wishy washy that way.

So, my stream of self consciousness asks...is Karma Fool wondering if he's next...or would Kato, the only bachelor I admit to reading, mind being linked to a housewife with serious psychological baggage? What about Robin Diane...is she up in arms that I have included her with the likes of Litany and Dooce? I suppose the worst case scenario would be that no one really cares.

ALERT: (Flashing lights, sirens) I am officially linked! (just a second... can't type...doing ...snoopy dance.....). And the Award goes to...Conversations!!!

I was going to ask the blogoddess Dooce for her blessing to wed our sites in webbed bliss...but she gets over 300 comments a day and frankly...well...I'm way too chicken shit of sounding like a complete dolt. I mean, my nerdy request would stick out, so painfully...I just can't go there. So Dooce...if you are out there and you find my link to your blog offensive...I'll do the right thing...promise.

And finally - some opinion please. And I mean it. That is...if I didnt want to know I wouldnt ask...is the Pema stuff too much? Boring? Irrelavent? (Insert your own judgement here). Curious. I feel that my content can be shaped by my environment...I'll whore my blog out - why not!?

And thanks for the Advice Karma Fool regarding my current literary fantasy...you know reading to my strung-out-on-sugar trinity. The thought I could be breeding bookhaters is one which I contemplated. Thanks for your angle - advice appreciated.

Uh, what else. Oh I need to include this...

Someone abandoned a toddler bike on our lawn about a week ago. Owen has dragged it closer to the house and was fiddling with the little plastic horn attached...until I noticed he was PEEING in the horn. What is it with men and their urine? Is there really a primal fascination for making yellow happyfaces in the snow?

my desire to lock them in a closet

I had this romantic idealized fantasy of introducing "literature" early to my kids. I used to love storytime when I was a kid. I discovered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Chronicles of Narnia, Harriet the Spy, How to Eat Fried Worms , Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang by a very dedicated teacher who would read to us everyday. As soon as the Clear Blue Easy revealed the + sign in pink and urine, I started planning on which novels I was going to read to my kids and they were going to sit cross legged at my feet and listen with rapt fascination.

You may have aleady guessed that it hasn't quite worked out that way.

So I decided to quit waiting and take matters into my own hands. Since this is my fantasy, I decided that there was no better time than the present than to refine my oral narration skills and each evening I read a chapter from "the Magicians Nephew". Owen and Harry could not be more disinterested. Harry does these quasi- headstands on the couch while his feet peddle furiously. Owen bounces on the other cushion despite incessant reminders that jumping is forbitten. Meanwhile, Aidan graced the room with his megawail - an overture composed of languid waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. He begins with gusto, yet once he realizes that he decrescendos, he musters his gumption and commences another refrain. I managed to read chapter six last night, while precariously concealing my desire to lock them in a closet and demand that they pray to Jesus.

This was my fantasy afterall. When constructing these fantasies I conveniently omit the bits of reality. Life is like that sometimes

Its Darwinian

Owen (7)



Harry (5)



Aidan 2 1/2



Sometimes their cuteness does not cancel out the marathon whining, fighting, and excrement issues. But sometimes it does. Its darwinian

I am gleaming with resentment

I've decided to keep the pagan celebration despite being a Buddhist. I've dropped all reference to torture and resurrection. Too violent for the kiddies.

I may rethink this: The pagan rabbit references that is: More specificially: The focus on high content sugar treats.

The kids are on hour twelve of their sugar high. Harry, my basement pee-er is now begging for a band-aid to cover his scab, in an incessant whine...which compares to Chinese Water toture. Owen the 7 year old was punished today for pissing in the basement. Are kids like animals? Once the scent is there it is impossible to resist remarking the same territory?

This four day weekend is going to kill me. I'd rather be working.

So I turned to The Wisdom of No Escape for my daily inspiration. Actually, my cynical side is chastizing me for being too wishy washy and attempting to convince me that meditation and parenting have very little to do with one another. Then the wiser side of me, who is much like an 80 year old woman (which I assure you takes over when I start driving), assures me that it will do me some good...even if it causes my Blog to slip into mediocraty. The aspect of my ego which is not involved in self loathing - has delusions of grandeur and would like to feel that her quirkiness/humour/thoughts are unique and amusing. After spending a great deal of time surfing the blogosphere, it seems that many of us wish to promote ourselves as quirky/cheeky/cynical. So I continue to run about average. As you can see, me and my baggage need the quintessential vacation from the vacation.

And there is a very angry and frustrated me that thinks...what the hell does Pema Chodron know about the shit involved in raising three boys...and might I remind her of the 12 hour sugar high. Thats it. Next year they are getting homemade candy made with Splenda. And don't cite me for child abuse...that is only a mild threat. My anger is getting ahead of me. I really do not want to attack Pema. I mean, I don't think that I could live down publically criticizing a Buddhist nun. I'd rather choose another claim to fame thank-you very much.

Sorry Pema. a momentary lapse of reason there.

"Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted and insprired way. One of the major obstacles to what is traditionally called enlightenment is resentment, feeling cheated, holding a grudge about who you are, where you are, what you are. This is why we talk so much about making friends with ourselves, because for some reason or other we don't feel that kind of satisfaction in a full and complete way."(p. 6)

Now I recoil in embarassement. My rant was composed last night, but now in the early morning sun I sit with my coffee and internet...and think geeze..I am radiating resentment. I flicker and buzz with resentment. I am gleaming with resentment..even sticky with it. Being left alone for weeks with the awesome responsibilty of being "together" and "on" and "100%" for my flock is at times, exasperating. Yet at the same time I feel the compulsion to expect that of myself. What is the alternative? I suppose I could say to Aidan, "leave me alone for the next hour, I need a breather" and I would be honest. But since he is 2 1/2, he'd most likely collapse in a kicking and screaming rage if his demands for attention were not met swiftly. I feel a great deal of tension -between this responsibility and the need to admit that I cannot be consistently perfect or present.

Okay, I think I can only point to the issue. Things are not going to get solved today. I'm okay with that...figuring that out on top of the housework, laundry (oh god the laundry), dishes, the kids, the meals...well you get the picture.

(Picture of me and my neurosis hand in hand skipping to the kitchen to start the dishes...there is sunshine, birds twittering hither and thither gliding gentling over me with ribbons in their beaks...small rodents with flowers peek cheerfully at me, placing small paws over their snouts and giggling...)

the guilt loop

When I said I wanted to reflect a bit on parenting and loving-kindness (maitri), I was hesitant. There are moments when I really would like the option of running away or offering the kids to the first taker. We're inundated with messages about how to love our kids. To love them is to buy the Sunny-D juice, get the right car, the best medicine when they are sick and take them to Sylvain Learning Centre when their grades slip. Sometimes the weight of serving my kids, being there when they need me, and giving them space to grow, being firm yet soft, being loving yet consistent...immobilizes me. There isn't anything wrong with the messages we are inundated with. Healthy food, exercise, not too much TV are all good for kids. But I think an inherent result is guilt. Parenting involves much of it. Some might suggest that this is a normal consequence of becoming a parent. I have to wonder.

Take for instance Harry. He's 5. Yesterday my 8 year old neice and nephew informed me that he was peeing in the basement. When I went to investigate I discovered that he urinated down the basement floor drain. I was not all that concerned about this, since urine doesn't damage concrete floors. So, I filled a bucket with steaming water and poured it down the drain. Well...the stench that eminated from that drain nearly knocked me over. The foul stink of the piss of a thousand men hit me with enough force to cause me to wretch. Trust me - I have touched and been doused with every form of bodily fluid. I've been changing diapers for the past seven years, and mopped up my fair share of vomit, and we won't forget the blood, snot, tears, spit and puss I have encountered from time to time. I am pretty hardened to the biology of our humanness. So, don't assume I am a pansy about these things...when I say something smelled bad...I mean that is was an utter abomination to my olfactory system. As I was reeling in this state, I concluded that he had been pissing down this drain for some time. Washing the pipe with water was creating the problem (since I had not smelled this prior to adding the water). I brought Harry down to the drain and made him take a deep breath...twice. I was not sure how else I was going to insist that he should never do this again.

Now my point is to find Maitri in this situation. It's not a cute story you can scrapbook or share with your colleagues. I enjoyed finding the right words to describe the reek eminating from my basement drain. It has not diminished my irk towards Harry. I am not holding a drudge...but I feel what I feel. Disgust (at the smell), and alot of guilt...for not knowing this was happening for lord knows how long, guilt for his lack of supervsion, guilt because he thought this was okay, and therefore is my fault since I somewhere forgot to teach him that lesson, guilt for making him smell the drain, and guilt for not punishing him enough...the guilt loop.

enter Pema Chodron:

"But loving-kindness - maitri- towards ourselves doesnt mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means the we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. Its about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. Thats the ground, that's what we study, that's what we come to know with tremendous curiousity and interest." (p. 4)

This comes to me with great deal of comfort. No matter how loudly I announce that I don't want to listen to the media and the parenting manuals - somewhere I have learned, and taught myself, that our cultural ideals about mothering are achievable perfections. Part of the story is the social moral "bad parenting means your kid will grow up to be a (criminal) (rapist) (spouce abuser) (addict)(serial killer)(genocidal tyrant)." We've answered the great problems of evil right back to lack of or bad parenting.

So, going back to Pema, I want to find a place where I can be honest with my responses and reactions, and say - "they are what they are". Maybe I can turn this guilt into a sign...I feel guilt and say "Hey...I am railing against a cultural ideal again". Read Pema's paragraph again, and replace "mediation" and "practice" with "parenting".

wow.

May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness

After giving the matter some thought, I've decided that it's okay to bring a compass. Its portable, and I can toss it aside at any time I feel that it is directing me, and not the other way around.

So, I've decided to focus some of my parenting discussing around Pema Chodron's The Wisdom of No Escape. The title seems so apropos to being a mom...doesn't it?

I think I need a preamble

I am slightly nervous of becoming fluffy and vacuous. Afterall, the topic of this book is about Loving Kindness. I'll be brave and tackle the topic with humour and crassness. (Hand over my heart: "I so solemly swear...") I'll try my very best to be wry. See, the one thing that I actually like about my writing is those occasional one-liners that make me laugh. I imagine that it is a good thing since it is not all that often that I find elements about myself worth keeping. Self loathing is the name on my baggage. Its much cheaper than a Louis Vuitton.

So, if I suddenly slip into the abyss of sappiness...please kick me in the head. It will do me some good. After all, Chogyam Trungpa said "In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness".

Second point to my preamble: This book was developed during a Dathun at Gampo Abbey. A Dathun is a month long meditation retreat, where participants spend a significant amount of time in sitting meditation and the remainder of the time in "Noble Silence". Functional speaking is allowed during certain points of the day, while absolute silence is observed during others. All meals are eaten Oryoki style - which is highly ritualized eating. Its enchanting to watch, and apparently frustrating to learn. You can see what I mean in the film "Enlightenment Guaranteed". In all...its a very intense experience.

This brings me to the topic of meditation.

Its a shame that we (in the west, or of Judeo-Christian slantings) have such a misconception of this practice. I think we confuse it with a spiritual practice - like prayer. In fact, its only spiritual insofar as Buddhist scholars say so. Its more like a tool. Its amazingly simple - breathe, focus on that, when the barrage of cerebral diarreah hits you, note it and go back to breathing. That's really all there is to it. Throughout my practice, I notice that its both relaxing and challenging. I would compare it more to jogging or running- doing it can be hard, yet the results are worth it and the more you do it, the better you get. Sometimes it is all I can do but sit on that cushion and avoid the screaming in my skull...HOW MUCH MORE TIME HAVE I GOT TO ENDURE THIS? It has helped improve my concentration, reading and my confidence. Really.
Here is the catch...I need time...with relatively few distractions.


When I am the only parent to three boys under the age of seven...its a feat to discover this free and unbroken period of time. They wake at 6:30, and its go go go go go go go until 8:00PM.If I am not tending to their whim and need, I am hosting craft corner or storyhour...or the fetid bath. There are few quiet moments, and if there is, I immediately start investigating. So, after they are tucked in and sweetly unconscious...I sit. And then, usually I open my eyes and its 4:30am. I could sit here and beat myself up over not making time for meditation, or not giving it a priority. I could wake up at 5am...but what the hell...meditation is supposed to be helpful...not torture.

Its becoming very clear why Siddartha left his wife and child to go figure it all out....who can discern the truth of all things when your two year old is in crisis over his sticky fingers, your seven year old is making sculptures with the household footwear and the five year old has been typing "XXX" into Google? (incidentally this was unintentional and random...but bound to happen eventually)

This single parenting business is for the birds. I want my 15 minutes of free time back please!

Oh yeah...Pema to follow...I promise.

Can I at least take a compass?

I am having an existential crisis here. I think it relates back to rule No. 1 - No Theme to Your Blog.

I argued quite convincingly that having no theme was my theme. I am starting to second guess myself. I am like that.

My inner nag: should I write more about my kids? Reflect more on teaching? Detail more of my daily routine? I think I'd like to do some more thinking, writing, blabbing, ranting about my views on Buddhism and mothering. And then I hesitate. Really. Then I fear I'll become too sappy or granola. If there is anything that I am not is a organic food vegan, birkenstock, homebirthing, homeschooling salt of the earth, breastfeeding until graduation hippy mama. Perhaps these hippy-mamas exist only in my imagination. They judge me for drinking coke and allowing my kids to eat chicken nuggets three nights in a row.

At this very moment, my 2 year old is in his room screaming as if Armageddon is upon him. I checked on him - he's pissed but no sign of the four horsemen. Do I feel like going up and snuggling with him while he falls asleep? Hell no.

So here I go again....thinking I should be doing something - and not doing it, and creating some elaborate plot line around all the atrocious excuses why I am not. I am so complicated.

I've come full circle - life without a map.

"Maps are easy to manipulate. You can move boundaries on them. You can use them to represent as real things that are not real".

Can I at least take a compass?

The Vatican and Hollywood = Shameless

Don't you just love it when the Church makes a big deal out of the silliest of things?

For instance, a follow-up story on a eccumenical broo-ha-ha last week:
The Catholic Church Gets their Vestments in a Flap over the DaVinci Code.

The real conspiracy is that Dan Brown has shamelessly borrowed any originality and creative research from a much earlier tome Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982). Cleverly written under the guise of research, they include clandestine interviews, archival research in the Biblioteque Nationale, a Dossier Secret and sensational conjectures about Jesus's extracurricular activities. Sure, any academic would turn up their noses and claim there is some inherent methodological flaw. They would have some authoritative complaint: Academics are far too safe to embrace this bit of creative history.

Did the Vatican get their chastity belts in a knot over Holy Blood, Holy Grail? Probably. They must have dismissed it with an air of condescention. According to Wikipedia, Holy Blood Holy Grail authours Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln are more offended by Dan Brown's gratioutious borrowing than the Vatican is over the book's scandalous claims.

More Conspiracy: the Church has granted Dan Brown's screenplay Blockbuster status. Could it be anything less? All that free publicity cannot be mere accident. Utter the words "Catholic Church" and "condemns" in the same sentence and you have guaranteed its place in the "Movies that Catholics Hate Hall of Fame." It will proudly sit beside The Exorcist, The Last Temptation of Christ and SpongeBob the Movie. The Church must be getting kickbacks.

And what about that old saying "The Truth is Stranger than Fiction"? We suspend logic and go for the Virgin Birth story, the walking on water, healing of the blind and feeding the multitude. Why not continue the insanity and have Jesus marry a prostitute and hide his offspring in France? Frankly, the ressurection is far too anticlimatic. All the DaVinci Code does is water down the meticulous research set out in Holy Blood Holy Grail. Brown sticks in two characters badly portraying academics, inserts a murder here, a bad guy there and adds a car chase. Whoop di doo. Someone in the Vatican clearly has way too much time on his hands. He must have been the bedpan cleaner without a job while the Pontiff languished in the hospital...

Translate this entry: Boring Weekend.

I made an impuslive purchase yesterday. Most of the time, I take my impulsive purchase self and loose myself in the middle of the Dollarama. I unleash my spending fervour and get it out of my system in twenty dollars or less.

Yesterday I found myself in a hardware store with the vacume cleaners.

I found a whole new level of entertainment and excitement. Who knew that living mapless would lead me here.

I bought A Steam cleaner. What adventures I lead! The thrills! The chills! The RUSH! When I said I wanted a steamier evening...who knew what I really meant! Now this is not your ordinary run of the mill carpet/upholstery cleaner. Mine is designed to clean appliances, bathrooms, hardwood and cushioned floors - Anything that will withstand a blast of steam. I just set the feminist movement back 50 years. All morning I was on my hands and knees giggling with delight as I blasted years of grime from all sorts of corners and crevices. Might I reiterate "giggle with delight". Think: very bad horror movie... I move with the steaming wand from one room to another...the sharp refrains of a violin underscore the tension, my eyes are slightly glazed, with a hint of paranoia. And in my field of vision I focus, camera pans in closer, closer...to a seemingly empty corner in the kitchen...tight focus... an image from an electron microscope of bacteria multiplying furiously...she blasts the empty corner, squeezing the steam wand with both hands,
"die you filth!"...

I must be having a reaction to my antibiotics...they compell me to get rid of all the germs on the outside too.

Translate this entry: Boring Weekend.

A Perfect Storm

The Saga of my lovely complexion continues...

To be honest, I am quite tired of talking about my face. I've been telling the same story over ad infinitum. The irony is that I want more people to ask, since I am also quite tired of feeling like the elephant man. Yeah, that burqa sure would come in handy.

I did mention the allergy, its Night of the Living Dead like reaction, and the bacteria that decided to have a party on my wasteland of a face. Well that bacteria happened to invite their hardcore friends, the Streptococcocals. Oh yeah. And did they ever rock the house. I realized that I was starting to swell in very weird places: the top half of my forehead for instance. Half red and swollen and the other half seemingly normal. Then I noticed that behind both ears became swollen and painful. And then these weird welts developed on my scalp. That's not mentioning my mustache of impetigo, which also stretched down one side of my check. When I make reference to Night of the Living Dead, I am not exaggerating...all that much. Impetigo. This was a taboo illnesses when I was a kid. I am being punished for "Corpse Porn"...I just know it.

I was very freaked out. After a series of panic attacks, I was sent to the ER by my sister and mother, who figured that I either needed some antibiotics or some valium...or both.

The ER waiting room was my worst nightmare. It was full of people, (as every ER is these days) I had that moment of ultimate paranoia. There was a split second when all eyes locked on my rotting skin. (Enter burqa fantasy). People had been waiting there since 3:00 in the afternoon (I arrived shortly after 8). When I was called in at 9:30, I was rather surprised to find out that my chart was prioritized. That meant I was sick! Who knew!?

Within minutes I was hooked up to an IV having antibiotics pumped right into my bloodstream.
There was no valium, just two more trips to the ER for the treatment. And thats two more doctors, plus my family doctor whom I have had to rehash the same old story. The saline lock stuck in my hand for those two days at least allowed me to wave my hand and have attention drawn away from the mess below my nose. The Saline lock makes changing diapers a whole new experience.

Since then, I've needed to deal with this persistent paranoia that people recoil in horror and disgust at the sight of my Make-up experiment gone horribly awry. I avoid eye contact at all time...oh the vanity karma I am reaping!! I did have the pleasure to placing an emergency phone call to my husband, who is stuck somewhere in the middle of the desert in Texas. Yes, if he cannot be here to help in the biggest health crisis I've had since childbirth...well he can damn well feel guilty about it.

So...that's my sorry story. I'm now on to antibiotics in pill form. Progress! Healing is slow and steady. The speed of healing is directly proportional to the number of times I need to be in public. I have been to the pharmacy every day this week, not to mention the hours spent in waiting rooms, and all those damn people who are EVERYWHERE. If I wore a bandana over my nose do you suppose I'd make others feel nervous? (More about their possessions than their health I suppose) "Stick em up! Or I'll wipe myself on you!"

(Allergy to makeup) X (2 days with a sore throat and body aches) = A perfect Storm.

Stay Tuned Folks

Oh, I have so much to tell. I've been very ill, requiring IV drugs and such. I should have added "to be continued" to the end of my "burqa" ramble. My story took a bit of a turn for the worse...oh much worse. Thankfully I am slowly on the mend. Due to the saline lock stuck in my hand...typing isn't all that fun.

So, hopefully I have whetted any whistles...

This is way too synchronic...CBC radio featured a show on maps yesterday

I wish I had a Burqa

Read this first. (Why reinvent the wheel. I've already explained my situation.)

This is as blunt as I get folks: I want to wear a burqa. Yeah, just like these. (And this is worth peeking at too).Yet I say this with hesitation. In the "West", it's an object of oppression and mysogyny and regarded as the absolute pinnacle of patriarchy and backwardness.

Ladies, we have it made in "the west": we have choice. We have equal rights, we have democracy. Indeed, these are ideologies (not to be confused with "freedoms") that I take for granted. The very fact that I sit here, typing on this computer, having devoured a McDonald's Happy Meal, in my grey twill pants, as my dishwasher hums in the background is testament to the feminist movement's success. I have an education and a drivers licence. I can fuck any man I want, and the only consequence would be a divorce after exausting months of couples therapy.

How lucky I am to be born a woman. How fortunate I am to live in Canada in the 21st Century. I could pound the keyboard inexaustibly and mourn the treatment of my sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan, weep for all single mothers who live in povery, and grieve for every child bride and prostitute. I am blessed.

So when I say I want to wear a burqa, I won't forget that it weilds more control and power than the pill or a diaphragm ever could. However, if I could choose, I'd choose the burqa. The veil is a mysogynistic item of oppression infsofar as woman are forced to wear it. If they are not forced directly, there is an ever present and systemic fear that leaves no other option ...that my sisters is a travesty. Equally, it is just as horrible to feel forced to run around half naked, to feel so much systemic pressure and fear that there is little choice but to run around half naked.

Lets back up here a little. This all refers back to me remember. Recall yesterday's preamble:

• I have a cold and a bad allergic reaction to some make-up I bought this week. My face is puffy, red, hot and bumpy. Yay me.

My face is a travesty of modern pharmacology and cosmetology. I started an acne regimine 2 months ago - finally sick of the shame and humiliation of having perpetual prepubescent skin, I decided to try something drastic. Anyway, read my Accutane journal - it says it all. Last week I could look in the mirror and not want to smash it into shards. So, as a treat, I splurged on a new expensive brand of liquid foundation.

Boy, I regret that little act of self gratification. Maybe its because my skin is vulnerable (although nothing bothered it before) but I had the mother of all allergic reactions- swollen, red even hives. That was the first day. On the second, it burned, and on the third, today, it was tight and scaly and tons of breakouts and painful. I don't know where they came from. Apparently the bacteria seen my experiment gone awry and decided it was time to party. This morning I had to get in front of a classroom of students with some semblance of togetherness and authority...yeah....right. Thats when the burqa would have come in real handy.

Do you know what cover-up looks like on freaked out skin like mine? Really bad. Its like Donald Trump's hair. No matter how hard he tries...the problem becomes all the more obvious. I felt like a walking exclaimation point. Now, I am not so naive as to think that if I dawned the burqa that all would be dandy and fine. But collectively...if we chose the burqa...we could start a whole new revolution.

First, if the middle east realized that this was a growing American fashion trend, it may not be so desireable. This might be a real suck-ass answer. Maybe its really condescending. I don't mean it. Okay, if we chose the burqa there would be no more bad hair days, or bad skin days, or feeling fat 'cos I am having my period days, or I couldn't decide what to wear days. If we could chose the burqa no one could tell if you were too fat or too thin, if you had a tan or too many freckles. You wouldnt even need to shave your legs! Think about all the potential benefits!!!
Here's a radical thought - burqa's for men. No more avoiding the lustful glance of a sweaty asshole with a scuzzstache. Or no more pretty boy with the perfect little tight ass in those faded Tommy's. Imagine a society making the choice to wear their burqa or not - a colourful parade down summer streets of freeflowing silk prints or a heavy woolen tartans in the winter...what UTOPIA. I want that choice godamit. I want a green one and a black one, one made of indian cotton and another of polar fleece when its extra chilly. And I want someone to ask "What's up Heather, why the Burqa today?" and I could answer "because I just didnt feel like getting out of my jammies."

I hope I did not insult the plight of the afghan women in one bad literary swoop. Not my intention. I'm lustily dreaming of curling up in my burqa and not having to wonder what people are thinking about my scary science experiment of a face.

On Being a Refugee

Everyday Stuff: Hubby just left for another three weeks. (Taking a deep breath...trying not to let the weight of all that responsibility squish me). I have a cold and a bad allergic reaction to some make-up I bought this week. My face is puffy, red, hot and bumpy. Yay me.

So I haven't really written much about being a Buddhist. I'd rather do it than talk about it. How did I come to make that decision, you ask? I sat with it for at least 15 years. I started reading about it in high school, and thought about it a great deal since. I continued to read and take Univeristy courses in Asian religions, but my training in Anthropology helped me become very aware of colonialism and the superficial (and sometimes destructive) appropriation of culture and identity. I sort of backed off the "wanting to become" a buddhist at that point. If anyone asked me "And what religion are YOU?" (especially when I did graduate work in Religion and Culture), I'd usually retort that I was not religious but a philosophical Buddhist. Then people would screw their eyes up, which meant "What the hell kinda answer is THAT?" . Buddhism inherently involves practice (meditation). I preferred alcohol and other hallucinogenics.

I defined myself this way for quite a long time. When I started lecturing on Buddhism, I became aware of a slight shift. I noticed, that during my lectures on Judaism or Christiantity - I was speaking as an outsider looking in. When I'd discuss Buddhism, it was from, I noticed, the inside speaking out. It was not intentional, but rather something I was doing, and later observed.

During one semester a few years ago, I facilitated an exploration of the Tibetan Book of the Deadwith a great deal of exuberance and enthusiasm, when my father died suddenly. I was sitting with him in the hospital moments after his death. I was alone and I found myself explaining to him what he was about to experience and what paths he should take. Oh, the irony I am thinking: the Tibetan Book of the Dead is in essence, a tour guide of the afterlife. It's a map of the period between death and rebirth. In this transitional period (space) called a bardo, the "consciousness" has a number of opportunities to realize that all visions and experiences are not "out there" but reflections of the mind and ego.

Later, as I thought about what I had done, I saw how that last conversation with my dad was a defining moment. It was so spontaneous and authentic. The teachings went far deeper than I had realized. I learned of a Buddhist meditation centre in my area, and decided to go. I did not have to ignore my earlier questions of appropriation or conversion to another culture. This was a Shambhala centre. Its founder, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, left Tibet when the Dalai Lama was exiled, and eventually came to the U.S and established a new Buddhist community developed for the West. (Later its Headquarters were moved to Halifax). I felt as if this practice was offered to us, and those "cultural borrowing" question were answered with much satisfaction.

And that was that really. It took about 15 years to transition from believing in Buddhism to doing it. My "convervion" can be likened to experiencing a mysterious illness for many years - having disperate symptoms, and later coming to find out a diagnosis. There is a sense of relief and "now it all makes sense". All the pieces of the puzzle are in place and that picture makes sense.

In terms of my daily life, I guess I want to avoid being a "fundamentalist Buddhist". So, I try to drop the religion-talk and just try and live and speak from where I am in my practice. I still lose patience with my kids and get bitchy with my husband. Its all fodder, really.

Orange Pants

As promised...

This needs to be prefaced with an event that look place last October. I took refuge, which means I formalized my "conversion" to Buddhism. This is ripe for conversation, but if I start, I will take one of those "shortcuts" that end up adding an hour to the trip. It has been an interesting struggle interpreting what I have learned into my parenting. There seems to be a intraversable chasm between cushion time and being with the kids. It's been an effort to bring those two experiences together (the inseperability of samsara and nirvana?)

Before Buddhism there were parenting treatises. Like any normal mother, I read a number of "manuals" after Owen (7) was born. I read the What to Expect series, Dr. Sears, Dr. Spock, even Dr Ferber. I tended to use what worked and discard what irked and eventually found my ground and some confidence. I discovered one recurring maxim, present on all sides of the parenting continuum: "Choose your Battles Wisely". This is about Harry (5), the orange pants, choosing my battles, and trying to be a Buddhist. One last complaint: I hate war metaphors in parenting discussions!!

Over the past few months, Harry developed a fondness for a pair of Orange pants. I am a fashionista and have weilded a certain amount of stylistic control over my boys. Owen was a willing participant and has learned the Zen of coordination. His style falls somewhere between neopreppie and ruggedly casual. Meanwhile, Harry grew attached to the Orange pants. They are nice pants - a soft brushed chino, lined on the inside with grey cotton. But they are orange. Not saffron orange, or a soft yellowy orange, or hunter orange, or pumpkin or even orange orange. They have the same tone and intensity as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard. Its not a hint of orange -they bellow orange.

My initial problem with the orange pants was the lack of coordinating shirts. Moreover, Harry was becoming less and less open to new articles of clothing, and somehow developed an aversion to anything that was slightly to big, and to anything that fit. This meant he had a dwindling collection of smallish shirts, none of which "matched" the orange pants. Matching is a relative term of course. Remember, I am the mommy, and therefore I set the fashion agenda around here.

Harry attends preschool, and *I * have a reputation to uphold, right? I can't send him to school in Orange Pants with a green and red stripped top...for the fourth day in a row...what will people think? Maybe someone will think I do not love him, buy him new clothes, or think I don't do laundry...or worse...cite me for neglect. There is a silver lining to this situation. Harry never wears dirty orange pants. We are so fortunate to own 2 of the same pair (one was a gift, the other a cousin hand-me-down).

After some soul searching, I banned the orange pants to weekend wear. Thus ensued a great deal of tears and tantrums before school. I had a flash of realization "Wear the orange pants! Please!" We are on day 12 of consecutive orange pants wear. A learned a practical buddhist lesson in the four noble truths:

• Life is suffering. Indeed! It's painful for me to allow this attachment to Orange pants and its painful for Harry not to wear them.
  
• Suffering has an origin: The Orange Pants! The existential reality of those General Lee coloured chinos. I am attached to my stylistic dogmas and Harry to his pants.
  
• Suffering has an end: Mommy chills out and realizes that Orange pants are the least of her worries.
• The Way out of Suffering: The path to nirvana is contemplating, practicing, and living the lesson of the orange pants. The orange pants have Buddha-nature!
  

CSS and the dyslexic visual processor

I promise to be all over the place today.

First. I am bound and determined to create my own blog, using CSS. This is how I learn...I'm one of those hands on sorts, who finds manuals to be more frustrating than putting on pants after the boots. CSS is definatley more challenging to this dyslexic brain than HTML. I don't want to learn without a specific project in mind. I'm just a walking contradiction aren't I? Not liking manuals fits nicely into my mapless motif...yet I ultimately need a goal? Oh the incongruity!

It all starts with a picture: (I'll post a link since it takes up less space)
Image here In my visions, there are three columns beneath. You know, nothing radically out of the ordinary. Simplicity is sublime.

I am a visual learner (I have to convert complex ideas into pictures, however abstract in order to fully understand them.) It's useful some ways: I have a great memory, I'm an artsy type...I can draw and such. Sometimes it's a real disadvantage, especially when I convert my visual thinking into something linear like writing. As you can see, I go all over the place. This is part of the reason I am hesitant about being in academia - since I really have no great love for writing (teaching is another business). Anyway, much of the HTML I learned is primarily self taught, since my first reaction to looking at any form of computer code is utter panic. Really. It's almost like vertigo. If I learn it my way - I grasp the visual cues and I'm on my way.

I get the same reaction to some blogs - when I see an inundation of links. First I think, is this just for show? (It does give the air of authority doesn't it?) Do people really have time to read all this? (Then we wonder about workplace productivity). I tend to withdraw from visual chaos - and don't get into said blogs. I'm not critiquing said blogs. I think they ought to exist - I am only articulating my experience with them.

Okay, reassess...where are you going with this?

Oh yes..That's why I want a simple, straightforward aka "boring" blog. The rationale is: a) Its easy to learn and b) Its nice to look at. I'm all about form sometimes.

Look for part two later. I'm going to title it "Orange Pants". (I am now going to find a nice catchy title for this morning's ramble)

Sounds suspiciously like a map doesn't it?

Blogarama has a nice little article entitled:

The Top Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Blogging

Sounds suspiciously like a map doesn't it? Let's deconstruct...shall we?

No. 1 - No Theme to Your Blog

Well come on! I've settled on exploring life without a map. So is the themeless blog actually a theme? This may be the same as Form is emptiness, Emptiness also is form, In my favorite sutra
The Prajnaparamita

No. 2 - Unexplained Time Gaps in Your Blog

This is a blog, not The Real World. I'm inviting you into my life right? Don't I get to make the rules here? Rules make me itch. I'm living without maps here right? Besides, isn't there something alluring about being myterious? I am not sure if anyone really wants to know "I haven't been writing because all my children have virulent diarrhea and I've been mopping up foul runny shit for the past 24 hours?" Well some of you may...and after my extra long diatrible on corpse porn, I thought I'd give you guys a break on the raunch factor for a while.

No. 3 - Blogging About Your Workplace Without Permission

Okay, this is a rule I can live with. I have no intentions of discussing the soapoperaesqueness of my department - although it would be wildly entertaining. These people have families...and heck...I'm too chickenshit. I also would love to lambaste my students...but I'm quite aware that is professional suicide too. Dooce demonstrates the perils of Blogging about Work -- which I have read her comments and found nothing worth being fired over in the first place. I have a big fat institution behind me, casting a long and dark shadow. They care very deeply about their reputation and I have no intentions of fucking with that. However, if I worked for a telemarketing company...it would be no holds barred.


No. 4 - Straying Too Far From Your Blog's Theme

Sounds like map talk doesnt it? Be very afraid! I will stray thither and dither and presto! I will conform to rule #1


No. 5 - Involvement in Blogging Spam

This one is not very fun to pick apart. I think I can live with this rule. And unless I start making some cash, you will not be inundated with links for penis enlargers, diet pills and letters from Nigerian royalty. I may promote friends in the biz. Thats what friends and blogs are for...right?


No. 6 - Ignoring Comments Posted to Your Blog

Point Taken. I'm inherently self centred, so it will take a bit of effort on my behalf. I figure that I am just getting started - and my wide readership will offer me a little leeway on this matter. While we are on the topic, I did want to thank Kato and Litany for acknowledging yesterday's spew on Corpse Porn. Fundamentally I feel it's just wrong to be the only one laughing at my own jokes. So, now I am not and I can feel "normal" once again.


No. 7 - Posting Libelous Material on Your Blog

Oh here we go again. More rules. Well, most of what I intend on writing is about me. So I have every intention of offending ever fibre of my own being. I'm not interested in offending the rest of the world. Others can do a much better job than I. Do you suppose I will get in big doo-doo about being snarky with Blogarama's 10 rules? Where do we draw the line between interpretation and libel? There must be a blog about that.

No. 8 - Using Too Much Insider or Regional Talk


Isn't that what blogging is about...creating our own little "in" group? I don't suppose anyone is really going to care if I say "toque" "double double" or "eh?" If I say eh...You'll know what I mean eh? Canadian slang is so much fun! It stumps all the 'mericans.

No. 9 - Writing Way Too Much

I'm offended by Rule #9. What qualifies as too much? Too much for who? If it is not too much for me, then if logic follows, it isn't too much for people who actually want to read my stuff. This is a wider problem with the internet, in my informed and snotty opinion. Everything is in clips, snippets and something that can be easily read on a monitor without scrolling. I think the scroll factor determines "too much". If we want to move beyond banal superficiality which everyone seems to whine about in this era of globalization and technocracy, then lets collectively break rule #9 and unfetter ourselves out own self imposed oppression! I'm of the camp that thinks spewage ought to have substance.

No. 10 - Not Realizing That the Internet Has a Permanent Memory

I almost fell out of my seat after I read this one. What kind of drugs is this guy on anyway? There is enough dead-link litter on the WWW to fill a server the size of 2001's Monolith. Permanence is an illusion (see Link to the Prajnaparamita). Yet, karma is an operative energy and things will come back and haunt you.

Corpse Porn

Sometimes I come up with a witty title before writing my blog entry. Other times, I have something to write, and leave the title until I am done. Today, my title was planned well in advance. Corpse Porn. It actually sounds like a goth/punk band. If you have such a band, and are in need of a name, e-mail me and we'll talk.

Corpse Porn. This is the result of living in a four channel universe. With one being French, the other with such poor reception that it is not even worth watching (I love you CBC, but your TV signal SUCKS!) and the third being so conservative that I have actually boycotted it - I am left with one mish mash of Canadian broadcasting. Please don't take this as a form of sulking or complaining! While it was painful to lose 1000 DTV channels, I did learn to appreciate the simplicity of a one channel existence. I do miss a few choice networks -mostly the Discovery Channel franchise and National Geographic TV. I used to have similar feelings towards TLC, but it has become a glut of automobile restoration and home renovation editted in slick reality TV style.

I happened to rue the day I lost National Geographic television to my mother. She informed me of a series which featured the excavated remains of an ancient Chinese burial site. Archeology, forensic anthropology, DNA analysis combined? I salivated and begged for a taste. Last weekend my mother delivered my first specimen, and thus began peddling in corpse porn. This is the series Riddles of the Dead complete with a British narrator to give the program a flare of authority and authenticity. The first installment did not disappoint and titilated my fondness for mystery, history and science in one slick package - a program featuring the Spanish Flu of 1918. My feminist sensibilites were slightly irritated by incessant references to "The Spanish Lady" who "swept" the globe killing all in her path. (It sounds like an old Hammer horror featuring Rosa the Spanish maid.)

I continued to watch in rapt fasination, entranced by the frequent images of corpses in various stages of decomposition. There were boney corpses and bloated corpses, maggoty corpses and oozing corpses, corpses in the dirt and in the morgue, drawings of corpses and photos of corpses, there were dirty and clean corpses, mummified and freshly found corpses, naked and clothed corpses, murdered and naturally expired corpses - corpses, corpses, corpses. I quickly realized that this was the point of the whole series - a forum to showcase corpses in ways that TV has never dared to show. Reality TV has moved out of American's bedrooms, boardroom and garages and into the graves.

My first experience of a full frontal maggoty corpse was rather shocking. I winced. (It's a good thing that no one has yet created Smell-TV.) But like any image that gets over exposure, the shock wears off, and all seems normal again. Eyes slighly glazed over, mesmerized and hypnotized, I wondered how some of those featured on the show would feel about being a corpse porn star. Am I participating in the exploitation of the dead? Have I objectified their deadness?
With a VHS tape and a half left, I anxiously anticipate my next smutt viewing.

The Wold of Experience

I've been sitting with the conclusion that I am addicted to maps and plans. So far - I have not changed my mind and come up with another elaborate rationalization. I am beginning to think that this is what ego is designed for - to concoct new elaborate rationalizations when old ones fail.

Fatigue remains a scourge on my evening. Last night my husband did me the favor of removing my glasses as I slept on the sofa. Consciousness escaped me somewhere in the conclusion of CSI New York, as I eagerly anticipated Lost. (My new media preoccupation). Lately, it seems the space between falling asleep and waking is instantaneous. I had intentions of reading...but you know the old saying about what good intentions lead to...

Yes, I have given up on all maps, plans, instruction books, manuals and patterns. I try to resist temptation when I hear my inner map addict lament "What the hell are you going to do with yourself?" "you'll get lost in the wold of experience without a map dearie". And yes I used wold intentionally. I like the way it rolls off my tongue. Its nice to discover a tangentially appropriate opportuntity to use it.

I am getting a bit carried away here. This is why 10th grade history teachers beat the idea of having an essay outline into us...and why most university professors continue to torture our youth with this dangerously additicing task. (Its like adding heroin to Similiac I say). We all think we need maps! And see...without one, I roam all over the place. I'm talking about maps and next thing you know I am making some weird connection with infant formula.

Perhaps the result of living mapless is insanity.

Think about it.

She crumples the map and tosses it away

Well I did not have a tantrum. I'm not sure what is up with me lately - whether I am experiencing a genuine funk, or a case of the winter blues, or side effects of the medication I am taking (depression being one of them). Nonetheless, I have no desire to write, let alone to try and be cheeky and clever. After the boys go to bed, I just want to sleep. During the day I am in haze of exhaustion and general apathy. My courses do not excite me - in fact I am feeling rather negative about the whole academic thing in general.

Yep, I am in a class A funk. "Just a funk" I am convincing myself - no bleak, dark thoughts..only grey hazy desireless funkiness.

A result of this funk is that I have come to at least one conclusion. I have come to it before. Part of me is puzzled that I have returned. Anyway, this whole business of going back to graduate school continues to nag me. It dawned on me (again) - if I cannot make up my mind - then it probably means that I really do not want to do it. Lets face it, I am not busting down any doors to get there.

I thought I was creating a goal for myself. Instead, I created a ground for myself - a sense of security. That meant having some sort of plan for the future. The difference is subtle, but significant.

I realized that this is the first time that I do not have a plan laid before me, and this is perhaps why I am feeling so vulnerable and insecure. I have graduated (three times), worked abroad, got married, got my first job and experienced all the anticipation and excitement entailed in parenting. So, all those plans I made when I was in my 20's have been fulfilled. And here I stand at a threshold of sorts. I ought to feel completely liberated and free in some respect - that I am presented with endless possibilities - to strive for anything I want.

Well baby, that threshold feeling is completely terrifying to me. Terrifying. Instead of opening a door to a world like in a Downy commerical - fully of sunrises and unspoiled meadows - I instead feel that I am feing nudged out the door of an airplane. Yes...its all out there - but the next step is so horrifying and daunting.

I suppose I could continue with the metaphor - if I were to jump - it would be exhillerating, a rush, completely euphoric. I'm that wimp in the back of the plane who is just about the piss her pants.

Well blog, you are beginning to be of use to me. I am glad I am able to articulate this. I think part of me was afraid that I was not choosing graduate school because somewhere deep down I feel that I am stupid. Thats part of my negative tape loop. I acknowledge it as a way of taming it. Yet, I don't think it was the tape loop being hesitant about graduate school . I don't want to go - Forcing the idea is providing me with both a crutch and alot of grief.

So, now that I have come to that big huge conclusion...(or maybe its just the beginning of many more questions)...I'll still admit that I am completely insecure, paralyzed and even sad that I don't have the great plan in front of me anymore. I think my next plan might be to stop making plans and see what happens...