Earlier this month, Tyler fell. And fell. And fell. “I’ll never learn to ride a bike,” he said dejectedly. We have been trying to teach him to ride a bike periodically over the last TWO YEARS. He was actually getting worse. It was clear that his fear of falling made him more cautious, more discouraged (and frankly, more jaded, like an adult). “You can do this!” I kept telling him, to which he’d roll his eyes and scoff. Jory thought Ty needed training wheels. I decided Ty needed peer pressure. Nothing like a friend to help you through a challenge. His bike-riding 6-year old friend Johannes brought over his little bike, one that was actually too small for both of them. Johannes showed Tyler how to go down hills by balancing his body weight and not pedaling. By the end of the week, Tyler’s confidence had soared stratospherically. Tyler fell until he didn’t need to anymore. He could ride the bike, pedals and all. It was a huge victory of expansion: both for his body and for his mind. “The mystery, strangely enough” Deepak Chopra writes, “is how we manage to restrict the unbounded potential of our own minds.” I am reading Chopra’s Life After Death which I found in my mother’s library. (Amherst friends: Professor Thurman liked it so much he wrote one of the endorsements for it on the back). In this mélange of physics, metaphysics, Indian, Buddhist, Christian spirituality, and documented experiences, Chopra at one point makes a list of qualities of the mind that come either under “expansion” or “contraction” with the belief that we are either expanding or contracting. With the universe uniformly expanding in all directions, it would seem that we are made to ever-expand (and that does seem to be the case with our midsections in middle age). However, as we all know, one huge force makes us need and want to contract: LOSS. Loss of memory, mobility, balance, agility. Loss of loved ones and friends. Loss of finances, employment, security. And with all of that, comes loss of confidence, hope, dreams. In addition, mental illness: anxiety and depression wreak absolute havoc on our best intentions. According to Chopra, “Crave security” is contraction, while “Comfortable with Uncertainty” is expansion. Easier said than done. We’re going into our sixth month of unemployment for Jory. Hard to breath into expansion when circumstances feel so stifling it’s hard to breathe at all sometimes. And yet. As with Tyler, we must train the qualities of our overworked, fearful, anxious minds. What’s the alternative? I mean: what else can we do? Lillie Grace modeled a perfect way to expand despite her fears. She was rattled last week because she wanted to be part of her school’s Mock Trial. It’s a state-wide conference down in Las Cruces this year, wherein 7th graders have a court case to crack. But the catch was that only four of the six students vying for the prosecution would be selected for the team. She had to audition for the team on a zoom call that day. She had just had surgery the day before: the six titanium screws had come out of her knee. While this is a huge (literal) step forward in the long term, in the short term, she was back on crutches, pain meds, and restricted movement. She therefore was feeling constricted and inadequate, like she could never be chosen on a prosecution team. After moaning and procrastinating, she came to me for help. She understands that we need to find pillars of expansion when we can’t support ourselves. Life is crushing, and sometimes we need someone else to hold our hand and guide us. I first reminded Lil the odds were over 50% that she would get a spot on the team, so she had a realistic chance. We sat together and she read me the case line by line. She honed her questions as we discussed the case. She would have to think of the follow ups on the spot. So, we agreed that if she didn’t make the team, we’d find another opportunity for her. She came back after the hour-zoom call elated. She had just been appointed Lead Prosecutor, and will be going down to Las Cruces for an overnight in early November. With this expansion, the discouragement and pain of her knee seemed to lesson. Not that it always works like this. Lexi joined her volleyball team, practiced daily on and off the court, with a coach, with her parents, with her friends, and still never made a serve over the net. Yet with the end of volleyball season, rather than join her basketball team, she is going to join a club volleyball team to get extra support. Next year, when her serve sizzles, it will mean all the more to her. The question I ask myself every morning now is: how can I cultivate a mindset of expansion today? And if I’m stuck, whom can I call? According to Chopra, choosing expansion paradoxically means less focus on material things, more focus on experiences (physically bigger does not mean emotionally healthier)!! Choosing expanion means choosing less conformity, more individualism. Expansion is less ego-driven, more altruistic. It means less denial, more self-knowledge. Despite all the losses we encounter, we are meant to keep expanding. All of us. None of us learned to ride a bike alone. So when did we stop asking for help? The way is not always easy. The how is seldom obvious. But the alternative is simply contracting.
1 Comment
Last month, tragically, an Amherst classmate of mine lost his 15 year-old son. It has haunted me, especially with a 13-year old under my roof. I can’t imagine anything more painful than burying a child. As a writer, I imagine a lot – and nothing trumps this. On his facebook page, this friend wrote, “I’m a dad. That’s all I ever wanted to be. The rest is just gravy.” Of course, when we were in college, I never guessed all he ever wanted to be was a dad, and he probably didn’t either. He was incredibly goofy (he still is), but I get it. When you grasp who your child is for the first time, you experience a paradigm shift. You realize that “parent” is the most fulfilling identity you’ll have, second only to “self”. His comment has stayed with me: “The rest is just gravy.” Do we spend too much time focusing on the gravy, at the expense of what’s really important? This drove me down a rabbit hole to write down what is really important. 1) Health (physical, mental, spiritual, because without it….) 2) Close knit loving Family and Friends, a circle that expands over time 3) Money (because, as I’m still discovering, without it…the stress, the stress!!). 4) Meaningful Pursuit – one that uses your talent, that makes a difference, that adds to others’ lives All the rest – while some of it is very important – I think could really just be gravy. Did I miss anything? And I hear you, gravy is important – who wants a life of plain vanilla ice cream with no sauce? It just seems that in this age of social media with the excessive need to post everything you do online, the gravy can drown out the fundamentals. With a teen and tween under my roof, I am aware of how heavy the Kurse of the Kardashians lies on this generation. The urge to be famous and therefore validated, to be (literally) “liked” is a tsunami of gravy that drowns out real connection and vulnerability. We are told we don’t matter unless we’re “somebody”. We have “failed” unless we “make it”. It's hard to cultivate self-love in an over-processed culture. We bury our very selves in the pursuit of gravy. In researching my friend Janine’s family history for her book, one of her cousins nailed the essentials, and early in his life. For starters, Janine’s mother is actually first cousins with these three brothers. Yet this is the kind of family whereby Janine herself became like a first-cousin to them, and their families have stayed close, for generations! Jean Claude created a publishing company, on which he made a tremendous profit, when he sold it at the age of 40. With some of that money, he bought a vineyard in Provence (right?!?!). Because family meant everything to him, Jean Claude began an annual tradition wherein his brothers and their families, and “cousine” Janine and her family would make an annual pilgrimage to the vineyard for Bastille Day, celebrating the week together. Every year they would roast a lamb on their last day together, bask in the Provencal sun, and of course, drink Jean Claude’s wine. They would laugh, and celebrate whatever kind of year they had lived, and toast to family in the warmth of the beautiful French countryside. After selling his publishing company, Jean Claude also became a writer himself, upon discovering his Jewish ancestors were the money stewards for the popes in Avignon. When he passed, the family was devastated. A pretty solid life. Another solid life is that of my favorite English teacher, whom I was lucky to have for three years. Yesterday I learned he died on my daughter’s 13th birthday. Thanks to Dr. Jon Kite, I am a writer. (Though he was too humble to go by “Dr”, despite the fact that his Ph.D. was from Stanford). Mr. Kite’s passing has deeply affected me, as I realize that the grownups who knew me when I was a kid are vanishing. Sans Kite, Paris is forever emptier. The last time I saw him was the last time I was in Paris. I took a bunch of high school kids to France in 2006, and Kite joined me in a Brasserie. We reminisced late into the night. Mr. Kite’s love of humor and literature and teaching and drinking and smoking made him a joyful curmudgeon, a paradox he fully embraced. The myriad of tributes that are pouring out on our high school FB page show what a legend he was, how many lives he affected by showing up and sharing his passion, in his case, for great writing. The rest I do believe is all Gravy |
AuthorSteph: friend, writer, wife, mother, sister, daughter, lover of life, and of chocolate. Archives
October 2024
Categories
All
|