Van Attachment -- Kelly

I have a complicated relationship with my eight-year-old minivan. Every time I see her I see myself.

She's silver-grey, like an overcast sky or a rock road. Perfect camouflage, her color renders her invisible. Her body's not what it used to be, either, missing a big piece of trim and sporting hail stone pockmarks. There's that scrape from the misjudged turn, another from the Starbucks drive-through, yet another from a tree. I won't catalogue the dents, but they're noticeable and plural. One sliding door is broken and the other is recalcitrant and the repair costs are way too high for such luxuries.

For a long time I took pride in my van. She was very fancy when brand new, and among the cars of Oregon she gleamed. When we moved to Texas and I found myself invisible in the carpool line between a Hummer and a Porsche, I felt superior to the materialists who somehow needed a fancy carapace. I wasn't like that, you see. I was perfectly happy with my utilitarian, reliable transportation (and my Birkenstocks and jeans, but that's another story....or is it?). My van rendered me anonymous in a new community, free to observe the landscape, able to move stealthily through the new environment.

Her inside began to resemble her outside. Old French fries, kid meal toys, multiple water bottles in various stages of consumption, a gaggle of empty coffee cups, school papers, books, receipts....they all piled up between my ever less frequent trips to the car wash. I took a perverse pride in this, too. She was lived-in. I could always find something to drink. And why bother cleaning her out only to have her fill up again in a week?

But slowly I began to resent her. She was certainly not the car I'd planned to be driving when I was 50. And when four of five women in my core group of friends bought lovely new vehicles in an 18 month period I found myself with a raging case of new car fever. I had grand thoughts. I researched comfort, foreign and domestic. The van was an embarrassment, an old aunt who'd "let herself go." But a new car wasn't in the budget. As The Man reminded me, she was paid for, ran well, and had a long shelf life. I began to think of her as The Van that Would Never Die. And now that I've just paid for a major service and a new timing belt, I know she's - unfortunately - perfectly healthy.

Some of you know about my stumbling attempts at meditation and Buddhism. I understand that attachment leads to suffering. And this is certainly true when it comes to my van. The perverse pride I took in her ordinariness and invisibility was merely a cover for insecurity in a new environment and led me into disorder. The resentment I feel toward her serves no purpose other than to make me feel bad and desire something for which I have no need.

So I'm trying to break my attachment to my van and to treat her mindfully. I cleaned everything out and visited the car wash. I'm making sure that both Young Girl and I take out everything we put in and leave only minimal supplies (soccer ball, lap desk, notebook paper) inside. I would not say that I'm taking pride in my clean van or feeling particularly noble about my efforts. I'm simply trying to make my van part of my practice.

So far, so good.

For a wonderful look at practice in everyday life, whatever your faith tradition, pick up a copy of Karen Maezen Miller's new book "hand wash cold: care instructions for an ordinary life."

Jargon Riff Two -- Kelly

I suspect the reason I'm so miffed about jargon right now is my need - with so much serious illness and upheaval in my life - to pare things down to the bone.

I've always been fond of sparse, precise prose. "Be precise," I say, over and over and over again, to my writing students. In fact, my own precision hang-up is the number one driver of my on-going writer's block.

Sigh.

So imagine my miffed-ness when I looked up at coffee shop television (blessedly muted) and saw the following bullet point:

Fear of Risk Aversion

Just what does that mean? Am I supposed to be afraid of "risk aversion" or am I supposed to be averse to "fear of risk"?

Literally, both form a kind of emotional double negative and connote bravery in the face of risk.

When I googled the phrase, however, I found the following quote:

Can GM overcome the fear of risk aversion so many American consumers have about its brand, regardless of the actual reliability and competitiveness of its cars and trucks? That's a hard question to answer, and one only the consumer, over time, will be able to answer.

This poses another interpretation, in which "fear of risk" modifies "aversion" (i.e. What kind of aversion? The kind that fears risk, of course!). Such sloppy modification drives me nuts.

But this version, posing perception against reality, offers a lesson far removed from current economic crises.

What is depression (both economic and personal) if not fear of risk? Of change? What is it if not paralysis of courage?

I want to be clear: I do not see depression as cowardice or even as something that can be alleviated by a change in perception; neurotransmitters don't respond to will, after all. Clinical depression is a medical issue, and it's not what I'm about in this post.

A "fear of risk" aversion - just like "process management" - keeps us from living fully and authentically.

Here's hoping all of us can put such aversion aside and stride out into the messy chaos of life.

Jargon Riff -- Kelly

I'm doing my best, these worrisome days, just to be: enjoy what the day brings, and be mindful of my good fortune.

And thank the universe that I'm not part of the jargon-filled world that surrounds me.

My understanding of the need to sit with my life crystallized this week when, making my daily drive past various plants and office buildings, I happened to glimpse - literally - the writing on the wall.

EMERSON

PROCESS MANAGEMENT

"Wait," I thought, "How do you manage a process? Why would you want to? Isn't 'process management' an oxymoron?"

A little googling alerted me to the "true" meaning of that word duo (PM even has its own international journal), and I slapped right up against what I miss the least from my days in university administration: jargon. I flashed back to those horrid meetings - program evaluation, task forces, assessment reports, and mission statement creation. I can feel my pulse rate increasing as I type those words.

As a writer, I was constantly frustrated with the clunky diction and obfuscation such gatherings generated. I'd take my pen in hand and eviscerate cumbersome paragraphs, peeling them down to their essence; sometimes I'd prevail, but often others clung to catchphrases or worried that a pared down version didn't sound "smart enough." Insert graphic of me virtually banging my head against the wall. Why couldn't we just stop and go back to our work with students? Back to true process, which tended to manage itself on its own timetable?

But back to the present.

What are our lives if not process? What are our days if not process?

All around, I see pain and difficulty as people try to manage their process down to the last tiny detail and attempt to control events and individuals.

Granted, some planning is necessary. But isn't the joy of life to be found in its unfolding? Its unfolding, not our attempts to shape circumstances to fit our needs.

Every time I drive by that building, proudly broadcasting its commitment to total control, I pledge to remind myself to let go. To just be.

Stepping away can be the best process management tool I know.

Dropped Stiches -- Kelly

This is supposed to the post in which I wax rhapsodic on the joys of knitting. I’m supposed to tell you that nothing has ever brought me out of my head and into the moment like the hypnotic rhythm of looping and pulling. I’m supposed to tell you how I’ve abandoned my perfectionism, my inner critic, and learned to love each stitch, even the dropped ones.

That was all true.

For a bit.

I spent several days knitting and unraveling. Knitting and unraveling. Knitting and unraveling.

Binding off.

Gathering courage to purl, and discovering it wasn’t difficult at all.

Unraveling.

Starting again.

Unraveling.

I completed two little rectangles my daughter called “knitties” and took to bed each night.

I was totally relaxed. Peaceful and Mindful.

Then I noticed I was actually producing something and that it actually looked like knitting done by a knitter.

So I choked.

The minute my project began to have the potential to become a scarf, a sweater, a doll blanket, the minute the process disappeared, the joy went away.

I began to tense, to worry that I would make a mistake many rows into the project, a mistake so egregious I would have to abandon the entire thing, beautiful yarn and all.

This is, of course, pertinent to both meditation and writing.

Today I had a long talk, about knitting and writing, with a wise young woman. She posed a wonderful question.

“Have you ever set out to fail?” she asked.

“Well, I knew when I started knitting that I would make mistakes. Other than that, honestly, I’ve never done it consciously but unconsciously is another story altogether.”

And there you have it: fear of failure and fear of success in a nutshell.

I resolve today no longer to fear either with my writing.

I resolve today to be gentle with myself.

I resolve today to write to explore rather than to control.

For that last, we have editors.