Saturday morning. I am cooking up a ton of fresh vegetables––
a midwestern ratatouille of tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant--and corn––
cooking on the stove before the day becomes unbearably swampy.
When the veg are done sautéing, I put the pan outside to cool off, so the whole apartment doesn't heat up for too long.
The temps aren't too bad––in the 80s––but the humidity is right up there. (91% at this moment--but that's because it's raining.)
Botanists say we feel the corn sweating!
In August the huge crops pump so much moisture into the air, even the cities feel the effects. Most of the crop is field corn--for animals and corn syrup, but the corn for eating fresh is so sweet and tender right now, I ate it raw off the cob for breakfast.
ABOVE: Cooking Nicoise salad for dinner in my backyard the other evening. Though the salad is French in name, I felt very Sicilian---fitting for what would have been my auntie's 100th birthday.
And they harvest tuna in Sicily too.
Vintage photo of Sicilian tuna fisherman--those arms! That cigarette!
BELOW: K's birthday-eve dinner. The wrought-iron table & chairs belong to the upstairs neighbors. They almost never sit out though and have said I should use it anytime.
Books displays from the past week.
A bunch of books in French came in. I especially love the soft pink Penguin cover.
Native-themed books mostly sold right away:
BELOW: I'd wondered if our city newspaper from Sept. 12, 2001, would sell (for $2.49).
It did.
Or, it wasn't there the next day, anyway...
Shoplifting is rampant at the store. It used to bother me a lot;
now I more or less accept it.
Mostly, if anything, it bothers me as a management issue:
though we ask shoppers to check their bags behind the counter, often no one walks the floor to keep an eye on things. It's an honor system.
Most people do line up to pay for things. But it seems sort of optional.
My pet peeve is cleaning up empty DVD cases, torn open boxes... “Take the packaging!” I want to say, but I suppose it's a matter of making it less bulky to slip into clothes.
At least with books, they have to take the entire object--no packaging! And I have a fondness, too, for anyone who wants books––even if they don't pay for them.
But the store doesn't make much money, and we workers earn minimum wage, no benefits, so it'd be nice if that income didn't walk out the door...
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I think stealing may be (?) something of a social norm in the US now, as we have been forced to see that our business and political leaders (et al.) lie, steal, and cheat.
For my generation, that was evident in Vietnam, Watergate . . . then Enron, etc. And Bill Clinton... Man, he looks far worse in retrospect.
What is it like to grow up in the 21st century, shaped by 9/11?
And the exposure of child rape in the Catholic Church, and #metoo, and, and, and... The Big Orange Lie.
Of course bad things always existed, but they weren't on constant display like now, Lit Up On Your Own Screen for Your Viewing Pleasure.
What are society's moral standards?
I don't even know.
Of course everyone steals?
Maybe.
But you don't have to accept that.
I don't have to.
When the larger culture frays and leaders lead you to quicksand, I think maybe it's like Antigone, or the fictional Article 15 of Congo's constitution:
Figure it out yourself.
I feel that way--that it's between me and me.
Last month I was so mad at Big Boss doing something grossly unfair, I felt like stealing from the store--to right the balance emotionally. I had to talk myself down!
You don't want to be that person.
I don't. It's not about me & BB, or me & the larger culture, or me & some Spiritual Being.
It's about me & me, who does of course intersect with all those other things.
Keep the Balloon Afloat.
Writing about this sounds so serious, but really, it could be frolicsome!
Like
keeping a balloon that's inflated with air (not helium) from touching the
floor. If it does touch the floor, that's okay--it will not explode, it
will bounce.
But the idea is to keep it afloat.
With that lightness, I can say that I want to play out the rest of my life inching toward being the best person I can be--
keeping myself buoyant enough that I don't fall to the floor and drift in a corner to wither like a dusty old balloon--or, not until I have to.
(I don't mean physically, primarily, though that too.)
This feels like a grandiose thing to say, but isn't it a natural desire?
I am not claiming to be an Olympian.
Don't we all want that, to inch toward being our own best self?
Or, . . . not?
(Do you?)
What does "best" even mean, and how do we practice that?
No solid answers; I'm musing here...
I'm thinking that for me, it's a matter of noodling along in centimeters, not taking giant leaps forward.
It's more like harm reduction than like aiming for sainthood or Bodhisattava status.
(Ha! No.)
'Do No Harm' or the easier-sounding 'reduce the harm you do' actually takes a lot of self-awareness.
I mean simple but not easy stuff like not snapping at coworkers when I’m hungry and they are annoying. (I DO need to eat; they ARE annoying.)
I'd say it's mostly about continuing to LEARN & Practice to see with the eye’s light touch.
This donated Olympus Infinity camera will not help, despite its name:
I like the idea of practicing Unconditional Positive Regard* toward self and others:
"Positive" here doesn't mean judging as Good,
it means seeing clearly, plain paying attention to What is there. (Not what is not there, the "negative".)
"I see you, I see me, as we are."
It's not pretending everything is fine!
It might mean, "I see that you are doing something evil."
Or, that I am doing something harmful.
And it's not pretending you don't care. The balloon game is: you DO care, but with love not judgment. You don’t slam the balloon or tie it up.
. . . And, then what?
Well, there's the art of it, isn't it?
Figuring that out.
My summer of Doing Nothing is feeling pretty helpful for me, though the effects of not-doing are kinda hard to gauge.
Of course I do plenty--I'm writing this, for instance-- but compared to many people around me, it looks like nothing.
My sister, for instance, who is retired, stays so busy with volunteer, social, athletic, travel, and cultural activities, she almost seems frenetic to me.
She suggested doing something with me, but... "I can't make plans till the end of August."
Gee. I'm free today.
Also, I have to deal with feeling Unimportant.
I am not getting all the lovely dopamine/endorphine hits of social praise--especially since getting off social media and then coming back to blogging with comments OFF.
(I know dopamine/endorphine hormones are different but I don't remember which does what.
But, you know--some activities like looking at the phone are like giving a lab rat a hit of sugar. When maybe what the lab rat wants is to play on the jungle gym.)
The rain is supposed to lighten up, and I will go to the library to pick up a DVD of Ram Dass I'd put on hold:
Becoming Nobody.
There's a balloon!
___________________________
* Unconditional Positive Regard is a phrase from psychologist Carl Rogers--I read it in a book by Gabor Maté, MD, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction (2008).
This book was super helpful to me, working around a lot of people who struggle with or are destroyed by addictions to heavy substances-- and by society's treatment.
And I deal with my own (less destructive than fentanyl) 'hungry ghosts' and unskillful responses to life.
Maté writes about working as a doctor at the Portland Hotel for people who are addicts, in Vancouver's skid row district:
