To thine own self be true

(previously posted on October 3, 2012)

The “movement” had degenerated into spontaneous assaults and the occasional flare-up in the city core. At the time I was living in a high-rise with a friend, having moved downtown from the country.

One afternoon we were looking out across the street at the office tower, which was heavily glassed-in on the bottom floor, when a fight broke out on the sidewalk. A fashion store display-window got smashed as the violence moved down the street. “Let’s go down to see what’s happening,” I said to my friend.

When we got to the scene, we were swept into the tower by the milling crowd and ended up jammed into the lobby. Two beleaguered policeman in blue shirts with no apparent weapons held the crowd at bay. “No one’s going anywhere,”they ordered. But just then, some individuals in the crowd pushed into the adjoining walkway which led to the inner mall.

I seized the moment to run into the fashion store and the display-window area, which had a glass revolving door that spun beside the window that had been broken in the earlier scuffle. The door had been aligned with the broken part of the window to keep people on the street side from entering the store. I pushed on the door, it spun open and I fell onto the glass still on the pavement below outside. Then I picked myself up and merged quickly in the crowd outside. The policeman, who had followed me once he realized I had escaped the throng inside, looked out of the broken window, then gave up the chase.

For some time after, I stood in the safety of the crowd still gathering outside the tower, watching what would happen next. For what seemed days, the remaining imprisoned crowd inside was controlled by added guards, who made sure that none of them got away. In the meantime, my friend’s health had suddenly worsened and he was kept in a bed on the second floor. He had been too slow to respond when I told him to come with me when I had made my escape, but I was determined to spring him now.

I don’t quite remember how I infiltrated the captured group of innocent spectators, but when I got to his bedside, I told him to follow me. Again, I went through the revolving-door window, which still hadn’t been repaired, with him this time. We returned safely to the building across the street, went up in that tower, then looked down below as in the beginning. A small river now curled in the street away from our building down the street due west for several blocks as far as the eye could see.

Down the river floated a number of rafts. On the first distinguishable raft, I saw a gaunt, bony-looking man wearing a black three-pointed colonial hat. Beyond that, an agitated crowd of humanity clung for life to another raft, far off, closer to the horizon.

On the film that was the scene I had been watching, I took a marking pen and imperfectly scrawled in red words below each of the two previous images: “the original American dream”, then “the new American dream”. The millionaire businessman-government official who controlled the city came and stood beside me, and smiled his gloated agreement with the second image and its caption. “Yes, that’s me. That’s who I really am. Does it get any better than that?” he asked rhetorically.

But he became clearly upset as I tried to scratch the second caption onto the same unfolding piece of film which also held the second image. His hand tried to interfere with my writing hand as I struggled to finish recording the caption. To his embarrassed dismay, I persevered until–at last–I had finished my writing…

I dwell in possibility. –Emily Dickinson

Everything hinges upon our realizing the essentially transitory possibilities. –Viktor Frankl

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities–always see them, for they are always there. –Norman Vincent Peale

The impossible can always be broken down into possibilities –Unknown

Nothing is sure, everything is possible. –Margaret Drabble

The authentic possibilities are singing everywhere around us. –Richard Davies

There are always flowers for those who want to see them. –Henri Matisse

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow larger. –Eden Phillipotts

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door-
Red-is the Fire’s common tint-
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame’s conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil’s even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs-within-
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge-

-Emily Dickinson

…………………………..

ps/ My Stroll of Poets workshop, “Writing Emily”, will be offered this fall.

to escape the misery of Edmonton winter…

(The Inn at Laurel Point on the tip of the harbour)

(myriad tulips at Butchart Garden)

(a Tally-ho carriage ride through the back streets of old Victoria)

(the Japanese garden behind the aforementioned hotel)

(sauntering the Emily Carr Gallery at the Greater Victoria Art Gallery)

(seriously deep in afternoon tea at the Empress by a window looking out on the harbor)

(table accoutrements at Emily Carr House)

(the amazing miniature-land museum adjacent to the Empress)

(Emily Carr statue near Empress Hotel: with her pet monkey and dog)

“I dwell in Possibility.”–Emily Dickinson, #657

“We make ourselves up as we go.”–Kate Green

Periodically, along the way in our lives, we become temporarily, sometimes permanently, aware of missing pieces. These moments of awareness of things and people missing in our lives haunts us from time to time, alternating teasing and frustrating us in our daily lives.

When we are young, we first become conscious of missing pieces that we desire, these being typically external. On a basic level, we may lack healthy food, clean air or water. Perhaps we are born into a lower economic level with none of the toys and possessions that some of our friends have. Or that we may find ourselves in a single-parent situation, wondering why we don’t have a mother’s or father’s presence to complete our sense of what a family ought to be. As always with missing pieces, we believe that our lives will somehow be better if we have the particular absent thing or person.

Later in school, we may find ourselves wishing we could be or do better in certain school subjects or in athletics. Perhaps we long to be the star of the school play, the valedictorian, and so forth. For many teens, however, the main goal is an inner one of belonging, social acceptability, respect, and having friends outside of family. Unfortunately, those kids that are shy, handicapped, different, or from a very different culture may find themselves ‘on the outside’ of many of the social situations and approvals they long for, which, in turn, may become the missing pieces of their formative years.

In adulthood, the missing pieces might be such things as having a place to live independent of one’s parents, owning one’s own house, being married, having babies, raising a family of one’s own, or having a good-paying job with ample opportunities for both career advancement and job satisfaction. It is important to recognize that, by this stage in life, adult missing pieces often have to do with autonomy, relationships, success, and achievement.

Eventually, by mid-life, concerns tend to become more ‘inner’ once again. With age and aging, people typically become more aware of matters of the heart and soul that satisfy and sustain us in the midst of an oft-corresponding decline in mind, physical powers, and a lesser emphasis on materialism. It is at this stage that many become aware that there is more to life than making money, ambition, performance, and success in its more obvious external forms.

The missing pieces we ultimately crave then are usually about being understood, accepted, and appreciated for who and what we are. They are also about giving, loving, and sacrificing for others and those values and things we consider to be more personally meaningful and, obviously, deeply satisfying.

Life usually becomes more interesting and fun when we address our missing pieces. This process itself can lift us out of the worst depressions and doldrums. Acting on missing pieces usually requires boldness and confidence that one is doing something that is right and best for oneself (and perhaps others). Choice is not enough, though; one can, of course, simply wallow in mere desire and longing. The courage to be true to ourselves and to actualize ourselves is inevitably an individual transcendence of self, mere facts, and the limits of whatever contexts. What is required, ultimately, is a will to action, personal fulfillment, and self-completion.

“If it is to be, it is up to me.”–Shirley Hutton

……………………….

Missing pieces–o where to begin commentwise? The obvious ones tend to be external for most people much of the time. One wakes up in the early morning and realizes one is hungry and eats breakfast. Sometimes there is an element of conscious choice about even that, as in the thought “I haven’t had pancakes in a while.” or “What I’d really like is a kiwi to go with my toast.”, etc.

Or one is on holiday and sees a truly unique object that one would like to own, which one realizes is perhaps a ‘missing piece’, objectwise in one’s life. And thus likewise, we fill in our contexts, our home environments, with the various furnishings, decorations, knick-knacks, and apparel which constitute what we believe to be desirables, in and of themselves missing pieces. (This will be discussed in more detail in an upcoming piece on preferred images/imagery.)

But I think most of us would recognize larger missing pieces that have to do with certain people. A single may be well aware of having no child. An older orphaned adult may feel the absence of both parents. And, more commonly, an individual may feel the absence of a significant other and an intimate relationship with that missing piece, a missed or missing person.

Missing pieces, then, go well beyond external things or environments. They announce themselves to our consciousness and inner selves. Our inner beings may profoundly feel the lack of a significant connection in which one is known to another as well as deeply knows another.

True, it gets soiled
now and then
and after fall
with snow.

Eventually ice,
then waiting for
beak-pecked memory.

Spring’s first robin–
full, the mirror bath
catches eyes alike,
revives new stock.

So someone
refills it–it is,
after all, expected.

I take the jug
and pour libations
to my aery brethren.

Honoured by their
short feathery stays,
voyeur to their dips.

Yes, I could do
nothing,
but it’s not mine
to choose.

(“To keep a lamp burning we
have to keep putting oil in it.”
-Mother Teresa)

(a song not found on the above recommended album)

(with apologies to Kenny Rogers)

On a warm September mornin’ on a couch in a staffroom
I met up with a teacher, we were both too tired to speak.
So we took turns a-starin’ out the window at a school bus
Till boredom overtook us and she began to speak.

She said “Son, I’ve made a life out of readin’ student papers
And knowin’ what their marks were by the way the dot their i’s.
So if you don’t mind my sayin’, I can see you’re out of essays.
For a taste of your coffee, I’ll give you some advice.”

So I handed her my coffee and she drank down my last swallow.
Then she bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the room got deathly quiet and her face lost all expression.
She said, “If you’re gonna teach a class, boy, you gotta learn to teach ’em right.”

Chorus:
“You got to know when to pass ’em, know when to fail ’em
Know when to phone in sick, know when to lie.
You never mark your papers when you’re sittin’ in the staffroom.
There’ll be time enough for bridge and lunch when the markin’s done.”

“Every teacher knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ when reports are due and markin’ on a curve
For every A’s a winner and every F’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to win 649.”

And when she finished speakin’, she turned back toward the window,
Crushed out her cigarette and wandered off to class.
And somewhere in the hallway, the marker she expired.
But in her final words I found a gem that I could keep.

Chorus: repeats

(Laurence Olivier in his most challenging role as Othello)

“All the world’s a stage,/And all the men and women merely players:/They have their exits and their entrances;/And one man in his time plays many parts.”–William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Shakespeare was right, of course, and many of his characters are very much conscious of the roles they themselves play whether it be Hamlet, Macbeth, Iago, Petruchio, or Prospero. It is no wonder that these and his other characters have remained thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and intriguing to millions globally through the centuries.

Regardless of how old one is once one enters adulthood, one can begin to realize the truth and relevance of Shakespeare`s statement and fundamental view about life as a play. We do, in fact, learn, play and acquire many roles through our childhoods and coming of age. We are constantly trying out new roles and giving performances in the many ways we act and behave.

As preschoolers, we are curious, trying out many things “to see how they work”, “to see what will happen, “to see how others will respond”. Thus, when children have crying fits, they may be attempting any or a combination of the above three goals. As they begin to develop a sense of self, they try out and play many roles and give many of their first performances. Identity, in even its earliest form of development and awareness, might be seen as an attempt of individuals to find themselves or the roles that want most to play or become.

In a family, each person finds his or her own roles and range of roles through a similar process of scenes and interactions. Of course, in school, that sense of individual development continues to grow through contact with classmates and friends. As we age, we continue to try out new roles via classroom and hallways interaction, on stages, in gyms, on fields, and through academic performance. In school, we find those subjects that interest us or don`t, and move steadily through a series of various roles and performances toward those we most want to be or aspire to–the roles and performances in adult life which will be us and provide meaning, purpose, completion, fulfillment, and satisfaction, comfort or peace.

Relationships work much the same way as we “try out” various scenes, performances, and other “actors” to see what works and what doesn`t, again acquiring a better sense, usually, of what we are still missing or still want, desire, and need by way of interactions with others. Thus, in this way, a marriage might be viewed as a play choice, or a divorce a rejection of roles and performances.

In the process, as we age, the roles and performances pile up. Some of the latter are good and “are more us”, and some are bad or inauthentic, not the roles we choose or want to play. Likewise, some roles and performances work and others don`t. In the end, it is up to us, to choose the roles we most want to be and the performances we most want to give and with or for whom–which audiences. To know those roles and performances is, in the end, to know ourselves and to become the people or identities we most wish to be in the play that is life. Beyond that step, of course, remains the final step of personal attitude toward, acceptance of, choice of, and quality of both roles and performances.

“Life`s like a play; it`s not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters.”–Seneca

…………………………….

Life has often been described as a game which suggests play and how people like to play, often pretending, assuming roles, and performing. Children do it, parents do it, friends and family do it, workers and bosses do it, entertainers do it, adults do it, and so forth. It’s just something that happens and something which people do to alter or reconfigure reality, and often to adjust to reality or control and manage it and others.

We are all playing roles in the course of our days. Husbands and wives do it, parents and children, brothers and sisters, in-laws, neighbors, teachers and students, bosses and workers. As well, when we go out into public, we assume the roles of customers and clients while others act in the role of staff and employees waiting on or serving us. If we go to a library, a librarian or librarian technician, or a volunteer wait on us. Different places, businesses, and organizations call for different roles, and behaviours appropriate to and expected in such situations and dealings.

Each of us takes on and plays roles–fathers, mothers, counsellors, advisors, and so on. Often the roles are acquired, such as the role of parent. Or the roles are necessary in order to make a living. Being a breadwinner is a common role for many people in order to support many households. Along the way, we take on many roles and may, in fact, be playing several in a given day–for example, parent, employee, customer, volunteer. Some roles we will, undoubtedly like or prefer more than others. And some roles we will not be comfortable with; they are less ‘us’ or not ‘us’.

In the course of the day, too, we are involved in many scenes. A daily log of activities might include episodes in which we wake up, eat, get ready for work, have lunch with co-workers, make supper for the family, and play a game with family members. Each day plays out much like a play or a documentary film. At various key moments in life, we will enact larger moments such as birth, graduation, learning to drive, getting our first job, getting married or divorced, or experiencing a serious illness.

As individuals, we obviously look for the roles which suit us, which we dream of playing, and we look forward to experiencing scenes such as holidays, parties, and loving and being loved. Each person’s life then is a play or series of scenes with dialogue and action. We do our best with the lives, situations, and parts we have been given or end up playing. That is where the importance of attitude (mentioned in the above meditation) comes in. We will have choices; it is, as Seneca says, the “excellence” or quality of the acting which matters most in the long run.

(Self-portrait, Saint-Remy, Aug.-Sept., 1889)

mad yet humble
tried to do it straight
neat, failed

peasants–his touchstones
lunatics, haystacks, whores
faces, chairs & shoes
(Theo helped, wrote back at least)

eating his paints, poisoned,
saw sunflowers as they really are
tried to get the yellows to go away
(they didn’t)

stayed up all night
to paint cafes and stars
walking by the river
lights & whorls overhead

then something happened:

it didn’t matter anymore
that circles never ended
like inmates in a ring
or that cypresses moved like waves

the sower walked blue fields at dusk
smoking, bandaged, completely sane

& Dr. Gachet looking tres triste
would say “you know
you really oughta get out more”
which Vincent did

the plein air experience…

& then green
lots of green truths
a colour no-one had dared before
that & the crows

then something happened:

“What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?”
–E.M. Forster