Archive for the ‘Remembrance’ Category
Life, Prayers, Friends, Frustration, and Futility
I know I haven’t blogged in a bit, but the last few weeks around Chez Caffrey have been hectic, to say the least. I’ve been hip-deep in one edit, chin-deep in another (don’t ask), have nearly completed a third edit, restarted a fourth edit…and carved out a bit of fiction writing time for myself, too. (Not as much as I wanted. Not as much as I would’ve liked. But some.)
And, of course, I have had all the usual Real Life Issues (TM) to deal with, too.
Sometimes, I feel utterly frustrated. I want to be able to do more. I only have so much energy; it’s a finite amount, and some days it seems like it’s trickling away without my notice. There’s only twenty-four hours in a day, and it seems like I need at least twenty-six to get everything “normal” done (I know; define normal). That’s before writing, of course, so if you add in writing, along with music composition (which has taken a back seat the last few weeks as well), I’d probably need at least thirty-two hours in a day to do everything I feel I must do.
Which, of course, is flat-out impossible.
Because of the recent “sadiversary” observance (which I’ve discussed elsewhere here at my blog), too, I have been reminded of how much faith my late husband Michael had in me. He believed my writing, my music, and my music composition all mattered. He wanted me to succeed, to thrive, to be happy, and to be creative (not necessarily in that order).
I wonder, sometimes, how much I’ve managed to do in this regard. Life gets in the way. There isn’t enough of me, and there are way too many different things that must needs doing, stat…then add in the fact that a couple of my friends are in major distress right now, plus another one is watching his spouse die by inches and can’t do anything except be by her side as she no longer recognizes him…well.
Frankly, I have felt extremely frustrated over it all. I have wondered if life is just a futile thing, because there are so many things I can’t do and so many things I wish I could do (such as restore my friend’s wife to health). I believe we, as human beings, are striving toward something — empathy, creativity, passion, purpose, maybe all of it? — and yet we face so much frustration along the way.
Is it worth it?
I think so, or I wouldn’t be here now, blogging about it. I believe life is not only is worth it, but it matters so much, so intrinsically, that it’s nearly impossible to plumb the depths of just how much it matters.
That said, there are moments where I wish I could do a whole lot more than I am. There are moments where I wish, just for one moment, I could hear my husband Michael tell me that yes, what I’ve done makes sense, and yes, what I’m doing makes sense, too, and yes, what matters is that I’ve given it my best effort.
As I’ve always done. Yes.
He knew that, about me. And he knew that about life, too.
Some say that life is all about the journey. I think that’s only part of it. Yes, we journey along, and yes, we learn things on our own journeys, too. But it’s also about figuring out what’s important to you, and how to go about doing those things while pulled in seemingly a million different directions.
So. I’ve felt frustrated, and wondered if life matters, and thought about futility for the past week-plus. (Yes, some of this would’ve come up because of the “sadiversary” observance. But I think much of the rest has come about due to my friends’ various struggles, and my wishes that I could ease their burdens in some way as it doesn’t seem like I’ve been able to do a lick of good in any regard.)
What do you do when you feel frustrated? What do you do when you think everything is just futile, or pointless, or just not worth it?
I know what I do is go on. I put one foot in front of the other, do my best not to fall, and just keep going. Even if the direction doesn’t seem right, and even if sometimes I need a course correction or two, I just keep on keepin’ on.
But before I go, I would like to ask a favor. Please, if you have energy to spare this week, pray for my friends. Pray because they are good people who need good things to happen rather than the bad things that have accumulated over the past few months (months that have seemed like decades, at least to me). Pray because no one deserves to feel so terrible for so long. Pray because human beings should care about one another.
I’ve never asked this before, and I may never ask it again. But I need to ask it now, as way too many of the people I find meaningful and wonderful in my life are struggling. I can’t do much to help other than listen, which of course I’ve done…and pray, which I have been doing for a while. My prayers, however, do not seem to be anywhere near enough to positively affect the outcome.
That’s why I chose to blog today and to discuss all this difficult stuff. I want to help my friends, dammit; I want, somehow, to give comfort to them, and the feeling that their lives aren’t hopeless or meaningless or worthless.
Does anyone else feel this way? If so, tell me in the comments. Please.
You Must First Try Before You Can Do
I know Yoda said, long ago, that “there is no try,” but I disagree.
When you’re learning something new, you can’t help but try to figure out exactly how this new thing will work. For example, if you’re learning a new fingering for the clarinet (the altissimo register, or highest notes, can require some unusual fingerings), you try the new fingering out. You see if it works by itself, then you add in other notes around it to see if it works in context with the music. Then, finally, you try that fingering after playing in a lower octave (composers often write urgent things in piercing registers, or at least we can; lower registers are more about steadiness, sometimes, or at least about a rich sonority as the notes are easier to play), and make sure it works no matter what register you’d been playing in beforehand.
So, when you’re learning something new, you try it out.
Here’s another example. When you go buy a new car, you try it out. You see if it seems like something that will work well for you; you see if it’s comfortable, easy to manage, has enough room to carry your groceries or other important items on occasion, and you envision yourself in the car even as you’re taking it for a test-drive. All of the various amenities it has, or doesn’t have, don’t matter as much as what I’ve just mentioned. What does matter is how the car feels as you test-drive it — in other words, how it feels as you try the car, and put it through its paces.
Even in our personal lives, there is an example.
When I was younger, before I married for the first time, I had no idea of what I was getting into. Yes, I’d taken or at least sat in on a “Marriage and Family” course, I’d tutored some kids in high school who took similar classes also, and I thought I had a good grasp of what marriage entails.
I was wrong.
Why was I wrong? Well, I was envisioning only myself, plus the perfect husband for me, who would do everything right, all the time, without prompting, without me ever saying anything to him because he’d know everything before I mentioned it.
(Do you know how unreasonable and unrealistic this is? I didn’t, not at age twenty or thereabouts.)
See, I expected that anyone I was attracted to would be the same as myself, at least in one way. That way was regarding making the commitment to be with each other every single day. That meant that every day was a new one, where we built on what we already had while adding even more to the edifice…I know discussing a marriage like you’re building a house is an inexact metaphor, to say the least, but it’s the best I can come up with even with my additional experiences.
How did I get those additional experiences? I tried various things. I learned different, disparate things about myself along the way. And by the time I met my late husband Michael, I knew exactly what I wanted out of myself and exactly what I wanted and needed from him. I knew he could provide it, too, because he not only said the right words. He backed them up with the right actions.
(Perhaps that’s not a surprise, as Michael was a Zen Buddhist. They believe in Right Action as one of their tenets, I seem to recall. But I digress.)
I could do, by that time. But the reason I could do was because I’d tried and failed so many other times.
Here’s a final example. Musicians are told to practice often, including major and minor scales, scales in thirds (these are small jumps, for the nonmusicians in the audience; for the musicians, think C-E D-F E-G, etc.), sometimes even scales in sixths, to make playing any sort of music far easier from the technical standpoint. If we get the technique down, we can concentrate instead on other things, such as breath control (for wind musicians, this is essential!), blending with the others in the group, intonation (you don’t want to be sharp when everyone else is flat, or vice-versa, though it’s easier for people to hear “sharp” rather than “flat” for some reason), and actually making music rather than just playing a bunch of shiny little notes.
(I have nothing against shiny little notes. I use quite a lot of them as a composer. Moving on…)
What I’m saying is this: Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid of trying multiple times before you can do something, much less do that same something well.
Persist. Keep trying. Keep motivating yourself as best you can, because it’s not likely anyone else is going to do so…and start believing that the best, in some ways, might just be yet to be.
Only then can you proceed from mostly trying, to mostly doing.
Actress Kirstie Alley dies at 71
It’s taken me a day since I heard about actress Kirstie Alley’s passing to figure out what I wanted to say.
Alley was almost an icon, in some senses. Whether it was weight loss, taking on tough challenges later in life (she was on Dancing with the Stars in 2011, when she was 59 going on 60), discussing difficult subjects (she once asked a reporter from my best recollection, “Are you a chubby chaser? Shouldn’t you be?”), or being outspoken in nearly every aspect of life, Alley was an American original in the best of senses.
I first saw Alley in STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan. She played Lieutenant Saavik, who was Spock’s mentee and almost his foster daughter. Saavik was half-Vulcan, half-Romulan, so she had more emotions than most Vulcans, yet she’d grown up more in the Vulcan way and did her best to follow logic rather than give in to her emotional side. The body language of Saavik was quite different than any other character Alley played later on; it was fluid in the lower body but restrained in the upper body. (She’d said this is how she viewed Leonard Nimoy’s performance as Spock, so she was emulating that the best she could as far as body language went.) This “mirroring” made it clear, without speaking, that she was deeply attached to her mentor, Spock.
Later, Alley was in Cheers, one of the longest running comedies ever on the “small screen” (aka television). She played the difficult and demanding Rebecca in such a way that you kind of liked her even though Rebecca threw out verbal jabs as easily as she served up a drink to the bar’s regulars. She won an Emmy for that performance.
In everything she did, Alley was memorable. Quotable.
Alley’s dance partner from Dancing, Maksim Chmerikovskiy, left an emotional tribute to Alley on Instagram. He said, in part, “You were one of the most unique people I have ever met and easily one of the brightest moments of my personal and professional life.” He wished her “the most peaceful rest,” and said he loved her and wished he’d spoken to her more often.
People who have huge hearts and spirits like Alley should be celebrated (which is exactly what Maksim C. did, above). They are unafraid to be themselves. They are unafraid of censure, because they know for the most part it’s meaningless and won’t matter in the end. They are more interested in self-improvement and being good to others than they are about anything else except their work, where they usually excel…and they are people who live full lives because they know that’s the only way to be true to themselves.
Alley’s life, especially after age fifty, seemed more like Auntie Mame (from the 1958 movie) than anything else. She was eccentric, outspoken, interesting, funny, yet had her vulnerable side as well. She was exactly the type of woman that I, in my midlife, hope to become someday.
May her memory always be a blessing.
Opposites Attract: The Jerry Falwell and Larry Flint Friendship
Folks, I’ve been thinking a great deal about friendship. Must we always be just like our friends? (You know I’m going to say no.) Can’t we appreciate different things in different people? (I would assuredly hope so.) And have other people managed to find common ground despite their differences?
Too many people get caught up in their “tribes” of folks who say they believe every single thing down to the last jot and tittle as themselves. They don’t challenge themselves, or their assumptions; they aren’t strong enough, perhaps, or maybe they just see no need.
Yet Larry Flynt — the famous owner of Hustler magazine (a men’s magazine that, shall we say, specialized in raunchiness rather than photographic artistry) — and Jerry Falwell, the famous Protestant minister, ended up friends after fighting like cats and dogs for years due to their obvious differences. (To say that Falwell did not approve of pornography, much less graphic porn like Hustler, is a severe understatement.)
How did they become friends?
Well, there’s a story behind that, and it goes like this: After Jerry Falwell lost a big lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, he went to Flynt and said, “I believe God wants us to be friends. Goodness knows we’ve tried everything else.” (This is my best paraphrase from several things I’ve read over the years.)
Flynt had some God-fearing friends, such as Ruth Carter Stapleton (former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s sister), and had converted, at least for a short time, to Christianity in the 1970s. (I think he made it about a year before he again proclaimed he was an atheist.) He respected them despite their differences. But no one, not him and probably not Falwell, would’ve believed that these two wildly disparate personalities would become friends.
Why? Well, to put it mildly, most people do not become friends after they lose such a high-profile lawsuit. (Or any lawsuit.)
Yet Falwell extended Christian charity to Flynt, and Flynt responded. Flynt once said (again, from my best paraphrase), “We had almost nothing in common, yet he was a great friend.”
These two were unafraid to discuss their differences, too. They knew in many ways they were diametrically opposed. Yet…they also had some things in common, such as beliefs in integrity and fair dealing. They also believed people should honestly confront themselves, plus both believed in the rights of people with disabilities to fair treatment and understanding. They also were both, adamantly, against the death penalty, and Flynt backed it up when the gunman who paralyzed him was on death row as Flynt asked for the death penalty not to be applied.
In writing circles, we have a few other “opposite attracts” friendships, including the professional collaboration and long friendship between David Weber and the late Eric Flint. I know from my own knowledge of reading various posts by both men at Baen’s Bar (find it by going to baen.com and look for the link) that both men were intelligent, spirited, and tough but fair when discussing their various differences. (The respect between the two men was never in doubt.) What they had in common was personal integrity, honesty, commitment, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to work together to write excellent fiction.
My late husband Michael was a major admirer of David Weber, years ago. He had all the Honor Harrington books, plus the Bahzell books, and several other ones. (I can’t remember all the names now, but I’d probably recognize the various covers.) Michael, like myself, believed in traditional small-l liberal values and tended to vote for centrist candidates. (This was quite right-wing for San Francisco, he proudly used to say. I think Michael loved being contrary. But I digress.)
See, it is possible to respect and admire someone no matter what providing people are of good will and no malice. Flint and Weber worked together, were great friends, and appreciated each other. And the oddest couple of all, Flynt and Falwell, certainly became great friends and appreciated each other.
Knowing of these friendships makes me believe that people in general can, still, become friends with folks who seemingly have nothing in common.
So, when you abhor the state of the world — and truly, there are very difficult things going on all over the place, including a ton of stupidity — remember this:
It is possible to be friends with someone of a different political party. It is possible to become friends with someone of a different gender or sexual expression. It is possible to become friends with someone who worships differently than yourself…and it definitely is possible to be friends even if all of these things are present, providing we are people of goodwill and do as much listening as we do talking.
(That’s hard for me, but I’m working on it.)
Anyway, what “opposites attract” friendship have you wondered about? Tell me about it in the comments!
Halloween Musings
Folks, as I write this, it’s two days until Halloween. Three days until All Soul’s Day. And the official Day of the Dead ceremonies go from October 31 to November 2, 2022.
As this is a time where we’re not quite to winter, yet it’s colder more days than not, there’s an awful lot of personal reflection going on. (I don’t think I’m alone in this.) What have we done this year? What would our loved ones on the Other Side be proud of, and maybe not-so-proud of?
When I was young, I was like everyone else. I wore cute costumes (I think I went one year as a pink fairy; Mom and Grandma helped me make a “wand” with aluminum foil that looked a bit like a Star of David), went out to get Halloween candy, and possibly went to a few minor parties. (They were all very tame parties. A “lock-in” at the local Aladdin’s Castle, a place to play a ton of video games, was one of them. Another was at a good male friend’s house; I knew he was gay, but we didn’t talk about it then, and I had a huge crush on him anyway.)
As I got older, I read a great deal about the significance of Halloween. It started out as Hallowe’en — as in, the evening before All Soul’s Day. (All Hallow’s Eve got contracted to Hallowe’en.) It was a Christian religious observance that happened around the same time as Pagan Samhain (“Sow’en” is the pronunciation), and it’s possible — I think likely — that the early Christian church kept the day and most of its rituals in order to help people convert without having to “convert” people by taking up arms against them.
Of course, Samhain this year is on October 31. (Many years, it coincides. But not always, to the best of my recollection.) It is celebrated from dusk to the dawn of November 1. It is thought by many, particularly those in the NeoPagan community, that Samhain is when the veils between this world and the next are the thinnest. (Note the similarity with the Day of the Dead celebrations. I’m sure it’s not accidental.)
For me, as a NeoPagan, what I do is very similar to what I did as a Catholic, earlier in life: I light a candle, and think about my loved ones. I have several that I think about in addition to my beloved husband, Michael…I think a lot about Grandma, great-grandma on my father’s side (called “Aiti”), my uncle Carl and aunt Laurice, my best friend Jeff Wilson, my good friend Larry (dead for over thirty years, now, via suicide, but not forgotten), and more.
If I can find it, I will buy a Mountain Dew (diet, even though that’s not what my husband drank; he drank the regular stuff, thank you very many, and he preferred Code Red or the orange Livewire if he could find them), and sip it slowly. (I don’t know what foods would appeal that much to any of my relatives or to Jeff, but I know for a fact that Mountain Dew and a few specific candy bars and such are what Michael would like, if he could taste them through me.)
But most of all, it’s about reflection. What have I done? What can I still do? Would my loved ones approve of what I’ve done or what I’ve at least tried to do?
So, yeah. It’s not all about the candy and the costume parties for me. Not anymore.
What are you planning to do this year for your Halloween/Samhain/Day of the Dead festivities? Let me know in the comments…and if it’s that you’re going to a costume party, that’s good (so long as I don’t have to go!)
Barb Caffrey's Blog 