Of Trees and Idleness

"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."  - Soren Kierkegaard


It seems this blog increasingly is a defense of idleness, not that idleness needs for me to defend it. At any rate, this time of the year, in particular -- the holidays, the holy days, the black days, the dark days, the feast days, the days of light and delight -- it seems that there is a force behind us with a whip that demands busy, over-commitment. Already, with Thanksgiving behind us now, we might be in full gear to drive our lives to collapse. This is something that I am increasingly rejecting, year-by-year, because it gets in the way of my observing nature's show, the changes in my children or really being able to listen to the silent night.


It used to be that I loved the holidays because they allowed me to really be a show-off. I was one of those people who gets the cards out, who decorates the house to the nines, who throws parties, wraps every present with fancy bows, does secret Santa, decorates cookies, makes new ornaments every year, and fills advent calendars with little gifts every day and a scavenger hunt on Christmas Eve, goes to every Christmas concert, ballet and school fundraiser. I was higher than a kite on the sparkle. The holidays were a full-time job from November 1st through New Years, and then I was sick for the month of January. I determined about 15 years ago that part of the problem was that I was allergic to the mold that grows on cut Christmas trees and so I invested in a beautiful fake Douglas Fir that fooled even old timers in Oregon. It lasted for 12 years before losing enough of it's fancy needles that it needed to be replaced. But, this fake tree only allowed me to start the holiday madness sooner, and then I was still sick for the month of January due to pure exhaustion.


My children remember "that me" well enough that they're a little stung that I threw away the advent calendar last year and replaced it with cards that could be opened to pictures...it was not the same. So I found out what mattered to them. They wonder where are the parties for organized caroling? There must be a free Handel's Messiah Sing-Along that we can go to this year. The last four years have been the great reduction, and enough so that I wonder at my own former insanity. I no longer send many Christmas cards - maybe only a dozen -- if I can get to them. I don't even send personalized emails - though that was a transitional mode that loosened me from the tradition. I apologize and post a big "happy..." on the day and that is good enough. 


The residual guilt pile is melting as the years go by. It is not at all that I'm a Scrooge or a Grinch. I am not a Bah-Humbug. I love this time of year still, and I praise every one's well-being. I still love all of my friends and family, too. It's just that I love myself a little better than I used to love myself. I see that love doesn't require me to always be "The Giving Tree".


Initially, the let go began because I was, frankly, broke, and I'm still too broke to do all that I used to try to do even if I spread it out the entire year. I simply don't have much extra to give still. I try to make up for lack of cash with giving my time, either by making gifts or spending time with others, but have discovered that there actually isn't enough extra time to make up for the lack of wrapped gifts no matter the strategy. So, I have come to accept that doing my best is good enough, and that doing my best means not letting go of my personal strivings even through the holidays. This allows me to occasionally experience honest good cheer and peace on earth.


This year I will spend time reading to my kids, even though my daughter will argue that she's too old to be read to, and then I'll ask them to read to me. We'll feed the wintering Canadian geese at our little lake. We'll play board games and cards by candlelight, and share memories of those insane times and laugh. We'll have donuts for Hanukah, and gingerbread for Christmas. There will be some traditions that will come back -- the advent calendar of felt I was so happy to find is already hanging waiting to be filled with little things that surprise them. We'll cook a special meal together, and bake cookies when we have a chance. School projects will be priorities, and congratulations for a job well done may include a special treat. Christmas morning will be de-emphasized for gifts and emphasized for time with family to relax and be together with nothing looming over our heads that has to be done. And, I will continue to write first, and celebrate after. 


I look to the trees, those who hibernate, naked in the cold winds, those who are evergreen, distant palms waving over warm seas, and even those imitations made of paper and plastic and electric lights, and see their beauty is absolute stillness. I think of the thousands of Madonna's curled around their babies in paintings and frescoes and see their peace in focused attention. I remember the oil lamps of my ancestors lighting their windows as a sign of faith that goodness always underlies experience. All of these symbols are quiet and gentle, and I choose to emulate them and turn my back against the raging winds around me. Bundled up, I look up to the stars each night, earlier and earlier, and wish for love to be my guide.

Chapter Ten - Part Three - POV II

Philosophically, taking a point of view means that you've invested in a belief about a situation. It is so interesting to me to allow myself to take the time to question my stories with the idea that I ought to have a point of view about the outcome because for the last decade or so I've been working a lot with the concept of detachment. Detachment is not the same as disassociation, but it is a fine line. Detachment to me means that I accept that I don't have control over the outcome of a situation though I have intent. I'm not sure intent is strong enough to form a point of view. I think of my friends who chose the path of attorney, and how they must fight for what they believe the outcome should be, and find myself too willing to look at the other side of things.

So I return to my potential orchard site. Placed on a hill with an uplift of 8%, I admit it is dangerously facing towards the Western sun. The Western sun represents the afternoon of life. In some Eastern traditions it represents the decadence of the West, the cocoon of stuff and points of view we've built around ourselves, the illusion that we have control. In European legend the West represents a final frontier, an opportunity for new beginnings. It used to be a real place, but of course, now we have a world where there really is no West because the further we go West the sooner we reach the East. Now the West is just a symbol, an idea, a point of view.

For an orchard facing the west can be okay...if there are no winds. The winds from the West can alter the growth of trees by steady pressure. I'd say this is a definite symbol for me. The pressure of life itself is like that wind. I don't have the luxury of youth to believe that I'll eventually get to the right time in my life to get this thing planted. I can't just rip down the fields planted on the Eastern, protected slope of my life because they are filled with the crops of motherhood. So, it's going to be the Western slope. The afternoon of my life. Life is going to necessarily shape my point of view to be much more specific than it might have been earlier.

My point of view is the camera through which I peer at my story. Through that camera I open and close the aperture of my gaze until I've got a razor-sharp focus on what I actually believe about life and it's outcomes. Maybe I will end up fighting for my belief that I have no control over the outcomes except how I respond, how I accept, and how flexible I am in my move on.