There is such a fine line between dreaming and pushing the dream. As someone whose mind is roaring and running from the moment my lids open to the instant when my brain coaxes them to stay closed, I do a fine amount of talking in my head. No, not of the Sybilaphile kind–at least not yet–but rather a wishing and wondering, dashing and retreating dance. “What will the afternoon hold?”, I wonder while running through the days list in my head…and automatically, ideas are attached to each item until it effectively becomes a Wish List.
I remember telling my “Uncle” Tom (who is related to me only because he has known me “before you were born”) at the brass bold age of thirty that I had it all planned out. I was going to keep working “one hundred percent” on my career for this many years, meet the man of my dreams at such age while following up by hopefully having one child (only) within the next few years. How sure of myself I was! He looked at me calmly and said, “Life doesn’t work like that, Heather.”
How right he was. The unpredictability of life has often left me delighted, offering something beyond what my pirouetting imagination could have served on a silver platter but it has also left me in tears of utter disillusionment. And yet I keep needing to learn it on levels little and big.
Buddhism reminds us that expectations can only lead to disappointment. So when is “looking forward to something” different than trying to make a moment other than what it is? I want things to be exactly how I hoped but of course that happens so rarely. This note is a little reminder to myself to just be present and push away the smokey clouds that pollute with their noise of braying to be heard. Just breathe. For there is nothing but peace in our heart rising and falling and cool air splaying over our lips with each exhale to know that all is well. All is well.
Everything is fine and dandy, I just caught myself in the act as storm clouds have gathered before going to see Melody Gardot in concert, my little dress put aside for something more reasonable and whining on the verge of escaping. I wondered if anyone else does the same…
I will be back to the wedding festivities on Friday.
Dear David, thanks for your note – I actually taught at The Ellis School (K-12) in Pittsburgh where Annie attended from 6th grade on; although I joined the faculty a good deal after Annie, she was one of our most famous girls and consequently well remembered by the senior staff.
Were you at Hollins, George?……Lee Smith lives two doors up the road fromme in Hillsborough.
I've spent half my life surrounded by smart folks (mostly women, of course) from Hollins. Did you know Richard Dillard? He's one of those men who seems to have been married to half the women I knew in my twenties and early thirties(I know….a grotesque exaggeration…but some men in Literature/Writing departments do get around, to say the least. I should add that whatever went on at Hollins is as NOTHING compared to what still goes on at Breadloaf every Summer….but I gather you're in a position to already know this).
and, yes, Annie (no one calls her "Anne",once they actually know her)Lamott is a wonder….and not scared a bit of a single thing in this world (and she has been through a LOT before becoming what she is now). She's also very-very funny, I think. When I don't know what to give someone for his/her birthday, I always give them one of Annie's books.
—david terry
http://www.davidterryart.com
Hello, George. And thank you sharing your trick because I think that I can put it to good use! I had really only thought about how expectations about future events can get messy for me, I hadn't begun to consider how the past can also tie reverse loops around my ankles too. But I have been trying in the past few years to not have such a fixed idea about "I was this and now I am that"–or actually Life has knocked the stuffing out of me enough to not hold on too tightly to such ideas–but of course it is all still there, rolling around lopsidedly like the fake dice from Roman times that Remi photographed the other day. Can you believe it? Those sneaky Romans, they stuck a little metal bearing on one of the inside walls of the dice to make it roll a certain way.
And yes, I have heard of Anne Lamott as well but have not read her either so I have TWO new authors to discover, always a gift. I am currently (finally) reading "Flight Behaviour" by Barbara Kingslover and am really enjoying it when I can sit in front of the fan long enough to cool my brain so that the words actually go in…
Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead,
xo
H
Dear Heather, love your writing and your music selection and the inspiring comments. I taught at the school Annie Dillard attended, you will love reading her, and yes she's intense. My other favorite is Anne Lamott, who's Annie Dillard but a little rougher and tougher around the edges.
Much as I hate to admit it, my expectations nearly always get me into trouble, mostly because they're tangled up with my attachment to so many old ideas about what I think I deserve, what I'm afraid I'm going to get anyway, what has happened in the past, old scores, old hurts, old disappointments, old decisions and old choices and old familiar heartache and resentments. It's a wonder sometimes anything new gets in at all. Such a nuisance! Now I don't even really try to get rid of the old, I just tell myself to set it aside. It's a trick. 'Yes, yes,' I say, 'how true that all is. How brave you were back then, and how heavy the burden has been ever since. Now let's just set all of it aside for the moment and make space for a new experience. Just for today.' XXXXX
My dear David, I was going to write "you can't possibly understand what that means to me" but it is you writing, so you do. Or you wouldn't have sent it otherwise. While I have heard of Annie Dillard, I have never read any of her work, including that stunning (at least it stunned me) quote. My goodness. You see, when I was a theatre actress, I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Something that I was not only good at but that could have an impact, even if in the smallest of ways. So when I chose to walk away from that to make a life with Remi, it shook the world under my feet–so much so that it has taken years to stop looking around to continually check the horizon. If you think that I am getting anywhere near something…useful…with this blog, well then that is encouraging…thank you. I'll take that dose of hope and send back gratitude and friendship.
xo
H
PS. I like being called "Miss" as Lord knows nobody is still calling me "Mademoiselle"…
Hey Miss Heather (and, yes, in my stuffy, mothballed, old-fashioned, all-too Southern world, you're still a "Miss"…until Mister Britches follw La Contessa's suggestion and works up the nerve to pop the question…and that's ASSUMING that you might say "yes" to the proposal)…..?
You should know this quotation from Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek". Read the book if you haven't already done so. It's one of what I refer to as my "bibles"…..and has been so for many folks since it was published in the mid-seventies:
"All my life I had been a bell, which I never knew until the moment I was lifted and struck."
Your writings/photography/blog often remind me of this talisman-saying of mine (I've loved it since I first read the book, at age sixteen….a gift from my otherwise strict (but VERY smart and VERY funny) grandmother.
You should stick that Dillard quotation in your back pocket and keep it for the seemingly dark days. I've done the same for myself for over thirty years.
And, yes…Dillard's writings and poetry remind me of Yeat's phrase "A terrible beauty is born" (the best writers/bloggers/poets do tend to remind one of the finest of the other ones, don't they?).
Amusingly enough?….Herve and I live in Hillsborough, North Carolina (all too regularly referred to as "The best little literary town in the South"). you can't throw a rock without hitting an author on any of our six, 18th century, intersecting streets.
Annie Dillard actually lived in our tiny-town for a while (I think her husband had a teaching gig at Chapel Hill). A friend of mine (who's a justly renowned, if quiet, photographer) lived next door. I asked her what it was like to live next to Annie, and she said "Oh, she's wonderful….but I would start to go out to get the mail, see her there in the yard, and wonder 'Am I UP to this?'…..".
Annie is, to say the least and not-surprisingly (if you've read a scrap of her writings or poetry), INTENSE (if, of course, wonderful…in the original sense of the word).
Meeting Annie at the mailbox would be like running into Jeremiah, Job, Linnaeus (sp?), and Melville….all encapsulated in one woman.
In any case…..do remember: "All my life I had been a bell, which I never knew until the moment I was lifted and struck".
The quotation suits you & your own work, I think.
—-david terry
http://www.davidterryart.com