https://meanderings-with-trudy.simplecast.com/episodes/meander-with-sylvie-fitzgerald
Tag: meditation
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Solvitur Ambulando…It Is Solved by Walking
“Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” – Linda Hogan (Native American writer )
“‘But it isn’t easy ‘ said Pooh. ‘Poetry and hums arent things which you get, they’re things that get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.’”- A.A. Milne
If I’ve ever invited you on a walk then there is a fair chance you’re someone I love very much…family, and a handful of friends I keep close, like “a cloak, to mind (my) life.”(O’Donahue) I don’t walk, as our ancestors once did, to arrive at a particular destination, nor can I honestly say that I walk to safeguard my health, although, as a nurse, I know it to be powerful medicine, and an essential practice in the Little old lady in waiting’s handbook on how best to live a long and healthy life. For me, walking is a sacred sojourn, like writing in a journal, or sitting down for a cup of tea on a busy day to savour a last bit of cake; it is a solitary ritual, a reflective exercise, a rich, sensual, fortifying experience, that grounds me in the present moment, and reveals a deeper way of looking, illuminating a world just beyond what our sedentary eyes can capture. Walking is a portal to the natural world where time may stand still, where we may even disappear for a while, as our unconscious unfurls, and insights and creative leaps lay waiting on well-trod paths like so many flowers to be gathered, an endless bouquet of ideas and dreams waiting to be revealed and rehomed.
I have always believed a regular walking regime to be a salve for most of life’s ailments. All those feel-good neurotransmitters dormant and eager for activation. I won’t bore you with the overly marketed health benefits…well, maybe just a quick review. Just as the doctors have always preached, walking, even a little, can significantly increase your lifespan, and reduce your biological age (marginally more appealing to the chronologically disadvantaged). Walking also lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression. If that’s not enough to persuade you, there is also statistically significant evidence that walking lowers your stress level and reduces rumination and negative thinking. Wait… I mean I’m down with the stress management, but I’m kind of trauma bonded with the rumination and negative thinking, that’s half my material. Whatever…you get the idea…the health zealots are spot on, walking is good for you, body, and mind…but when has that ever been sufficient incentive to lace up, or drop the fork, if you see what I mean…again with the negative thinking and rumination. Let’s try again. Little old lady in waiting to little old lady in waiting, post-menopausal women who walk 4 hours a week have a 41% lower risk of hip fracture. I like that. That’s positive…right? I’m not sure where they get these exact numbers but I found it on my socials so it must be true.
Health considerations aside, here is what I know about walking from my own clinical trials, population of one. No matter the setting for my walk: be it the sleepy, maturely tree’d, largely childless suburb that I call home, or any of the woodland parks scattered liberally in our beautiful picture province, or possibly the sea paths that wind along the miles of coastland in our stunning port city, nestled on the Bay of Fundy, or even a streetscape in the heritage block of Canada’s oldest incorporated city; a walk out of doors is a way through the wardrobe to a bountiful sensual world, where a steady stream of eye candy and auditory enchantments remind us to embrace the wild animal within, an invitation to howl for all the little old ladies in waiting, sat at home disguised in grandma’s clothes, both figuratively, and literally some days. We are meant to move our bodies, we our built to explore on foot, our ancestors walking ten times the distances we typically cover today.
Outside, in the natural world I am routinely transported by the startling beauty of the Disneyesque birds that sing in choirs on my quiet street, their sweet sad tunes in perfect pitch; or the spiral dance of autumnal leaves twirling upward as though commanded by the invisible hand of some ancient sorceress, reciting a spell to safeguard the woodland wildlife from winter on its way. I hope she remembers to include me and mine in her magic. The animals nearby have a narrative all their own as they go about their daily errands and I nod to them when we meet: the black-sheep squirrel who lives in the tree at the front of my house, alone and happy to be so, or the family of deer who eat from my neighbours unpicked apple tree, heavy with fruit. I met, by chance, a beautiful fox not long ago, but neither of us had time to stop.
Near the sea, I always envision I am walking with my dead relatives and even imagine I can hear their whispers in the wind and on the waves. Walking in the woods, the air is perfumed with spruce and pine and something more elusive that smells like childhood and brings me back to a more innocent age, when the scariest monster I could imagine lived under my bed, not some beast who throws Gatsby themed balls, an evil, self-proclaimed king whose every soundbite is some variation of “let them eat cake.” In the woods, while I’m walking at least, the king is dead…long live all the wild beings who walk this beautiful planet in peace.
Saunter, stroll, scuttle, scale or stride, I walk faithfully, alone, into the halcyon summer breeze of fresh cut grass and full strength sunny days, or the warm spring rain that bursts gardens into bloom, or my favourite, the crisp autumnal harvest days scented with chimney smoke and alight with golden interior tapestries of life, the window frames of our neighbours homes in the gloaming, or out into the first snowfall of winter, a crampon crawl up and down frozen streets, footfalls in virgin snow where I spy the tracks of smaller species, freshly awoken from a winter’s sleep. Garlanded in cap and scarf, mittened, earmuffed, and balaclava’d, I’m adrift, a snowman flying through the air…la la la la la laaaaa.
Outside, enveloped by ancient all-knowing trees, or surrounded by heritage architecture older than three little old ladies in waiting counted together, or stood at the thin space adjacent to the sea, there is a clarity of mind to be discovered that cannot be found in a book, or sat safely by the fireside, nor even under the tutelage of a wise seer. There is a reverie known to the solitary walker (Rousseau), an enlightenment, an illumination, a flow of insights around every corner we turn. One foot in front of the other, there is space to think and puzzle and solve all the vexations visited upon us. Walking costs us nothing but time, no special gear required, only the capacity to listen to the resounding truth of our own intuition, a voice inside that speaks louder in silence, in the quiet found out of doors.
A walkers’ trail is alive with imagery that invokes tangential lines of poetry and philosophical enquiry. There is a hum when we walk…a higher frequency, a quiver of ideas and creative sparks. “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” (Oliver) “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” (Elliot) And if while walking we by chance fall awake for a moment, to know this life is only a dream, how do we stay awake long enough to remember we are dreaming? (Wittgenstein). Walking is a whirlwind dance of ideas, a flow, an unconscious current in a deep primordial sea. And the story we rehearse inside ourselves, making up the parts we can’t quite recall, is a conversation I am happy to host most every day.
I like to walk at a slower pace now, not quite the crawl my geriatric dog prefers, stopping to sniff every few feet, but I’m more interested in exercise for my mind and the quieting or distilling of my thoughts, than I am in exercising my body or protecting my cardiovascular health or even promoting longevity…still, perhaps aging backwards is something to aspire to.
For me walking is a meditation, “with every step, I arrive.” (Thich Nhat Hahn) I practice slowing down, I come awake and allow time to stretch out before me, like clotheslines where birds gossip with their friends and freshly laundered linens flap their wings. I see winter bared branches with captured notes and receipts, escaped from recycled bins, adrift in the wind like so many clues. I listen to the sound of my own footsteps and then deeper still to my breath, and my own heartbeat, and the hum that hangs over everything, the sound of the universe, I suspect, like an hourglass set close to a microphone recording the ever-escaping sands of time.
I have found many treasures on my walks: old coins and worry stones, sea glass and driftwood art, lost letters and grocery lists, emblems of lives lived next to our own, and reminders that we are, none of us, alone. I have heard the voices of lost loved ones and remembered the thoughts and images of versions of myself long since lost with them. Walking I have found the answers to problems, big and small, I’ve found perspective, and gratitude, an abiding peace, and a strong feeling of connection with something greater than myself, something capable of conjuring the unspeakable beauty that is all around us, best viewed by foot, moving at your own pace, walking alone, in the natural world.
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The Art of Happiness
“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.” – Jane Austen
“Letting go takes a lot of courage. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly” – Thich Nhat Hahn
Happiness is a slippery state of being, an elusive, inconstant companion. Like a feckless lover or an indifferent cat, it’s never near at hand when you need it most. It’s approach is often unheralded, it’s visit, never long enough, it resists all enticements to stay. It cannot be captured…it will not be held…we cannot keep it. It is as impermanent as an ice cream on a hot summer afternoon, as fleeting as a first kiss, or a glass of fine wine, it lingers briefly, and disappears into the realm of memory. The art of happiness sits haplessly in the space between our first world sense of entitlement, and our readiness to cultivate a sense of wonder, that magnifies the trace elements of happiness drawn from everyday dealings. Little things like the dog’s yawn, the carol of the wind in the trees, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, or the uncalled-for-kindness of a stranger can, with practice, conjure a sensation of peace, an ‘invisible cloak’ of contentment, protection against the certain storms of life. There are glimmers everywhere if we learn to spy them, and they can sustain us, even on our darkest days, if we apprentice in the art of happiness.
First lesson – kill all expectation of happiness. It’s Buddhism 101, the first noble truth, ‘Life is suffering.’ Happiness is not our baseline or our birthright. We don’t deserve it, and we can’t earn it. We are not on some episode of Friends with a laugh track running every 30 seconds. Chandler Bing died of drug use disorder, and Rachel’s husband left her for Angelina Jolie. We’re in the ‘real’ people, and to quote the venerable Monty Python, ‘Life’s a piece of shit…just remember it.’ (It works better if you sing it). My kids would say that that’s a bit dark or defeatist, but I’m with Schopenhauer and the Pessimists, you need a sense of humour to get through the tragicomedy we call life, and ‘the safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.’
Buddha’s second noble truth is that we’re the problem…we are the root of all our suffering…we build our own hell. The art of happiness is to desire less…stop trying to make the world conform to our preferred narrative…that way lies madness. Relax…we control nothing… and anyway, sometimes bad news is good news in disguise, if we wait long enough. It is a mighty thing to slay your expectations and lay yourself open to your share of frustrations, disappointments, and loss. My mother always told me that ‘acceptance is liberation.’ She was a very wise woman, a gift earned from enduring her measured cup of sorrows.
William James wrote ‘We need to stop deciding how we want things to be and then getting ourselves upset when things don’t turn out that way.” Easier said than done Willie, especially when you discover the last piece of cake gone, or the poop your geriatric dog deposits on the dining room floor every night. Still, I say give it a try next time you’re provoked by an uncapped toothpaste, a Sunday driver when you’re running late, a rainy day when you wanted it fine. Start there and when you’re ready you can move on to little old lady sized stuff, like chronic pain, or learning about a friend’s new cancer diagnosis, or loosing someone you loved very deeply…someone you thought you could keep forever…a loss that feels like the sky’s gone out and taken all the stars away. It gets a little harder to wash down then, even with a good red.
James would say, ‘If you believe feeling bad, or working long enough will change a past or future event, then you are living on a different planet, with a different reality system.’ He’s right of course. we can’t get so mired in the shitty pieces of our story that we miss the good bits…the glimmers.
We can’t be ‘shiny, happy people’ all the time and I guess we shouldn’t even try. Don’t we need a certain measure of malcontent to get anything done? It’s only unhappiness, disappointment and disenchantment that puts our clay feet on the floor every morning, isn’t it, that fuels our pursuit of wisdom…some magic beans to make the daily grind a bit more palatable? If we were happy all the time, we’d stay at home all day and roll around in it, wouldn’t we, hedonists supping on donuts and Netflix until our brains and our bodies turned to mush. That’s Hotel California my friends…’and you can never leave.” (Again, much better if you sing it with me)
If we can’t capture happiness and keep it caged, as we might like best, then we can cultivate habits and practices that invite happiness in, offer her tea and something sweet to encourage a long and robust relationship. Gratitude is the first and best invitation to happiness that I’ve discovered. It is that great looking glass that magnifies all the beauty and riches around us, large enough for us to see all that we have been allowed to keep… legs that take us walking, minds that may still read and discuss, running water still clean enough to drink, maybe even a hand to hold. I’ll add to this the extraordinary occasion for a fine cup o’ tea and in good company. Vonnegut suggests we recite in such moments of clarity, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
We must fall in love with the beauty that is all around us. Cast our eye about ourselves each morning and count our blessings. Oscar Wilde wrote that ‘most of us are living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ We need to look for the glimmers. They’re everywhere once you start practicing: the dance of late summer leaves, the first line of a new book, or that feeling of being understood…an easy, effortless fellowship that lets us know we’re not alone.
Friendship is the second essential pillar in my study of happiness. Friends come in many shapes and sizes. They can be fictional, or four-legged, they can be blood, and people we grew up with, or choose to grow old with, but more often than not you’ll find them out roving on some adventure. They arrive unexpectedly, a happy surprise, and their company can feel like coming home after a long time away, or a gift you didn’t know to ask for, but have wanted your whole life. ‘The secret Alice, is to surround yourself with people who make your heart smile, it’s then, only then, that you’ll find wonderland.’
If you’ve not yet landed in Wonderland, then I suggest you take a break from your own troubles and concerns and look around you for a way to help others with theirs. Service is chapter 3 in the little old lady book of happiness. My brother was in love with Emily Dickinson, she was a dear friend of his. She wrote, “If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, I shall not die in vain.” I say do harm to no man and never miss an opportunity to do a kindness. Be a light for others. I love the old Indian proverb, ‘Blessed is he who plants a tree under whose shade he will never sit.’ To my mind there is no better way to cultivate your own happiness than to contribute to the happiness of others, unseen, unacknowledged and with great humility. If we’re all made of the same stuff in the great fabric of being, then watching out for a dropped stitch here and there only makes good sense…keeps us all from unravelling.
If we can stay with the knitting analogy for a minute, then I suggest that the fourth practice in this little old lady’s guide to a happiness, is to keep to your knitting every day. The work we choose to do is key to practicing good happiness hygiene. If you love your work, then every day is a delight and you’ll be a success, no matter the weight of your wallet. That’s not to say you won’t have to find some job to keep you in beer and bread and a roof over your head. But you must never let those necessary hours detract from your real work, the work you recognize as your own. And if you haven’t yet found this work then, to quote Ms. Dickenson once more, you must be ‘out with lanterns, looking for yourself.’
John Muir the great naturalist counsels that ‘nothing dollerable is safe.’ That’s the way, he implies, to Thoreau’s ‘life of quiet desperation.’ I say be curious, go adventuring, stretch yourself beyond your imagined limits, investigate, take yourself away, let yourself go quiet. Your work will find you…artist, teacher, carer, baker, candlestick maker…it matters not. Trust only that which speaks to your soul, that engages you wholly, that causes you to lose time and that you can’t wait to get back to again each day on rising. ‘It’s foolish for people to want to be happy,’ wrote Georgia O’keeffe, ‘our interests are the most important thing in life.’ ‘Happiness,’ she said, ‘is only temporary, but our interests are continuous.’
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, happiness lives principally in the present moment. We need to slow down and stay grounded here in the now, and as the Stoics suggest, ‘do every act of our lives as though it was the very last act of our lives.’ All the greats say the same. To quote my favourite Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hahn, we must ‘drink our tea reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world revolves.’ ‘Eternal life’ wrote Wittgenstein, ‘belongs to those who live in the moment.’ But the poets say it best, To see a world in a blade of grass…heaven in a wildflower.’ It’s that moment when the musician understands that he is not only the strings of the instrument he plays on, but also the music that fills the room and touches the heart strings of everyone who hears. There can be no higher experience of happiness to my mind then being fully present and awake to your surroundings.
If you asked me the raw ingredients of my own happiness, I would quote Tolstoy, ‘Rest, nature, books, music, such is my idea of happiness.’ I also try to practice what my brother taught me… to live in a state of radical amazement. E. B. White urged us to ‘always be on the lookout for wonder.’ So, I get up each morning and try to look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. The art of happiness lies in extracting it from commonplace things and as a little old lady in waiting, I’ll give the last word to that old sage, Socrates, ‘Let’s enjoy ourselves,’ now, ‘It’s later than we think.’
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In Conversation with Margo Beckwith-Byrne
At the grand dame age of 65, Margo Beckwith-Byrne self-identifies as a ‘little old lady’ proper, although her trim, athletic figure and sporty lifestyle are characteristic of a much younger woman. An avid tennis and pickleball player, Margo is a spitfire that punches well above her fighting weight in any given scenario. She is confidant and decisive, and a natural born manager of men. On the personality tests that assign an animal archetype I’d guess Margo is more at home in the shark tank than the petting zoo. She is spirited, and salty, and strong…she’s had to be strong. Widowed at 42 when her husband went out for a swim on a family vacation and never came back in, she became a single working mom overnight, her kids were then 2,5 and 7.
Equipped with a B.Ed. in Home Economics, Margo taught for two years in Labrador City before transferring her skills to work more in keeping with her natural aptitudes and temperament. She became a boss. With the mind of an engineer, and an innate understanding of process and efficiency, Margo started her career in business, first at the Saint John General Hospital, where she very quickly assumed a supervisor role, and later in HR, first at Fundy Cable and later at Labatt Breweries, as an HR Manager. Her last job was as Senior Vice President at Wyndham. She was downsized at 54, which today she describes as a gift, one she did not recognize at the time. An astute businesswoman and investor, Margo never worked another day, and is a poster girl for how to retire well.
About a year ago, Margo visited the ER with what she describes as stomach discomfort and was eventually diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. Since then, she has undergone surgery, and chemotherapy which she says is “the most miserable thing you could ever do.’ Margo tells me she is lucky because the cancer she has, MSI-H, is rare and responsive to her current immunotherapy. Her cancer-versary is July 31st. She shares that the hashtag for colorectal cancer is ‘KFG…Keep fucking going.’
Margo speaks with the clear-cut, resolute voice of a woman who has found her truth, and in the process of documenting her wisdom, I caught myself re-evaluating a little of my own inner engineering. I am grateful for what she shared with me on a sunny afternoon, at her beautiful home that overlooks the sea.
Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less?
I was born a Saint Johner and I grew up wanting to leave. I had children, and then I wanted to come back. I went to school first at St. FX and then finished at UNB Fredericton … I really liked sewing, I liked making clothes, I didn’t like cooking so much, but I ended up with a B.Ed. in Home Economics and after that I knew very quickly that I didn’t want to teach. What was important to me at a young age was financial stability and so I spent the rest of my life trying to achieve that. There were lots of twists and turns but ultimately, I spent my whole life believing that happiness and contentment lay in things outside of me, and now I realize I was wrong. Not everybody is afforded the knowledge that it’s not the external circumstances but rather the internal…because maybe they don’t achieve as many of their material goals, and I was very lucky to acquire mine, only to find out it doesn’t work. Some people still think it’s that car they’re saving for that will bring you happiness… I know it’s not that.
What is the best thing about getting older?
I know it’s cliché, but it’s not giving a fuck about the good opinion of others. Hands down… the best. Fuck you all!
What is the worst thing about getting older?
Your body breaking down. Not being able to physically do the things that you used to be able to do.
If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?
Let me flesh it out this way. I wish when I was young, I had had a better sense for how good I really looked. I spent a lot of time in my youth wrecking vacations, get-togethers, events, thinking about my weight. I resent that time now. The focus growing up in my house and with friends was often about, ‘Are you fat or are you skinny.’ And the thing is, when I look back at my life, I was never fat, but it’s all relative. Your appearance was more important than any kind of achievement. I still have high school friends who’ll ask, ‘is she fat or skinny’. I was like 125 poinds and I would be obsessed with my weight. Recently when I had to weigh in for chemo, the nurse said, ‘that’s great you haven’t lost any weight,’ and my natural thought is well fuck, and I’ve been exercising my ass off. I guess I’m answering the question in reverse, but I’d like to go back and tell my younger self that no matter what you weigh or how you look, you’re still beautiful. They say youth is wasted on the young.
But what do I wish I could retain, to answer your original question, my memory… I wish I didn’t have to write everything down to remember it. But I guess the flip side of that is I can be humbled now because fuck…I can’t remember anything. Some days even with the ball in my hand, I can’t remember who’s serving.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?
Oh my god… again it’s going to sound so cliché but, happiness is an inside job. It has nothing to do with your external circumstances. I’ll give you an example, someone came to my house and looked out at my view and said, ‘oh my god you must be the happiest person in the world to be able to look at this every day,’ and I looked at them and went, ‘are you out of your fucking mind?’ because ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ I don’t strive for happiness…happiness is relative and the word is overused. I strive for peace and contentment, and I recognize that it’s a moment-to-moment thing, and the minute I move past where I’m at, to the future or to the past, I lose the present, and that does me no service, nor is it of service to the people around me.
The other interesting thing that I’ve learned, and I’m going to try and not come off all Christian when I say this, but so many things in my life I have orchestrated, worked hard towards, and wanted so badly, that achieving the result was all I cared about, with the belief that if I achieved that result I would be happy. Things would be good…I’ll finally have what I wanted. But the things that have brought me the most joy in my life, were unexpected things that I did not orchestrate. So, I’m gonna say it two different ways… now, I don’t try to determine how the day will unfold… I let the Holy Spirit do it, or to be more universal, I let the universe decide because to quote the Desiderata, “No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
Do you have a favourite quote?
“The great way (life) is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” (Seng-ts’an, the 3rd Chinese patriarch of Zen)
Or Michael Singer, who I love, his take on it is “Life is not difficult for those who prefer everything.”
Let things come and let them pass through. It’s resistance, our free will to resist, to hold onto all that stuff, that’s what affects us and causes pain.
Do you have a favourite word?
Oh, you know I have a favourite word, ‘Fuck.’ It’s so versatile, it is the most versatile word on the planet, and I like it even more that it’s harsh and it’s disapproved of.
Describe your perfect day.
You know I thought about this, I thought about this long and hard, and I don’t have one, and I’ll tell you why. My mother said something to me years ago and I never really understood, but I do now. She said, ‘I am only as happy as my unhappiest child’ and I thought about that and thought, oh my god, she’s right, and no matter how I try to separate myself from the lives of my children in a ‘they’re on their own journey…it’s not my journey…they need to experience whatever they experience and the universe is there to teach them,’ it’s a lifelong lesson for me. But if you want to know what I love doing everyday- it’s playing a racquet sport and knitting. I think for me it’s like working a Rubix cube or something…it’s a puzzle. When I’m playing tennis, every game is fresh and different and challenging. When I’m knitting, I can’t knit the same thing over and over again because I’d be bored out of my mind. I like a challenge, and I like to keep my hands busy. Also, I guess I better say this in case my kids read this, I love spending time with my grandchildren…preferably without their parents around.
If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?
That would be Anthony De Mello. I discovered him in 1992, after he died, in 1987. He wrote a book called Awareness. I had been reading Wayne Dyer, but De Mello took me up to a whole different level. He was a Jesuit priest who woke up one day and thought, the Catholics don’t have all the answers so he incorporated Hinduism and Buddhism and every other ‘ism’ that you could possibly imagine and was basically the first person who helped me understand that it’s all the same. All religions, at their core, they’re all the same. And I read his book a million times and gave it to as many people as I could find. When my husband, George died, De Mello was instrumental in getting me through it all. It helped me understand the cosmos on a different level.
We would talk about how he got to where he is, his whole philosophy of life, death, and everything in between. Now that he’s dead, I’d ask ‘How’s it going on the other side?’ The book, Awareness was released posthumously, it’s just snippets from talks that he had, and it gave me a whole new lease on life, a whole new way to experience joy in ways I didn’t understand before and it started me on a journey of self-awareness. I would love to know how he got there. Here is an example of a story that he told. He was a Jesuit and a professor, and he travelled extensively, and he was in a rickshaw somewhere and the guy pulling him had TB and had just pre-sold his soon to be corpse for science, for the sum of 10 dollars American. De Mello wrote that the driver was a happy man, and thought he himself, was miserable, always complaining, and so he asked the man why he was happy, and he said, ‘well, why wouldn’t I be, what’s not to be happy about?’ And for De Mello that was a beginning of understanding.
Tell me three things that bring you joy.
My grandbabies, my sports, and my kids.
Name a guilty pleasure.
Guilty…I don’t feel guilty about stuff… ever, so I can’t really think of one. Maybe lame TV, I mean I’m watching Agatha Raison right now which is really poorly done but set in the Cotswolds… so I don’t care. I like lame tv and lamer murder mysteries and I mean really lame, like Midsomer Murders lame…because I can knit and not pay attention.
Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?
I certainly do, but not in the way we experience it. Do I think that the avatar Margo goes on? No. Do I think the consciousness that is watching Margo as she goes through life, the consciousness that neither lives nor dies, continues…yes I do. When I wake up from a dream sometimes, I really have a hard time trying to figure out whether it was a dream or reality. Sometimes it feels like real life, starring the Margo avatar, the life that we think of as reality, is actually just another kind of dream. I believe that when we die, we just wake up and go ‘God, that was a rush, what was that about?’
I remember watching some three-year old’s get into a fight and I remember them being upset and thinking…that’s just kids. Well, that’s how a higher consciousness is likely looking at us and thinking oh, that will be over soon, don’t worry about it. I mean how can you possibly believe and take seriously anything happening on this planet when you know that there are billions of other galaxies and multi verses… and you’re gonna take this seriously, I mean, come on. I always thought if Merle Haggard’s mother died when he was 21 and in prison she would have died thinking she was a failure as a Mom. Ultimately, he ended up a rich, country western singer. Why worry about kids…you don’t know what their journey is gonna be.
What does life after death look like…It’s impossible to imagine. When I look up at the stars on a really clear night, I say I’m not even gonna try to figure it out. I have no frame of reference. The Buddhists have a saying, something like ‘when the Sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger, or something like that.
What would you like your eulogy to say?
I don’t want a eulogy at all. I’m not interested in the traditional experience of death. I am not arrogant enough to think that anything I say or do will matter anymore than it did when my great great great great great grandmother said whatever she said. I mean the framework that humans have established, the goalposts for life… buy a house… go to school… all that stuff is just a concept that we all agreed on. It’s like money, money is only worth something because we’ve agreed that it does, and assigned it a value, but if money means nothing to me now, then you saying it has value is meaningless to me.
I never understood Jesus in the desert, when the devil comes to him and says you can have castles and all the money you want and Jesus goes, ‘yeah, no thanks, I’m good’. I never understood that. Now I get it. Because no matter what you get…a big house…a fancy car…then you’ve gotta work your ass off to keep it and worry that its gonna go away. So instead of it being something to aspire to, it’s a thing that loses its joy.
One of my favourite quotes from when I was in leadership is, “Of a great leader they will say, we did it ourselves.” So, if I shaped anybody, or if I influenced anybody, it wasn’t because that was my intention. If they got something out of anything I ever did, power to them, but that was not my intention. I’m just doing my dance and if other people benefit by my dance, good for them, even if all they’re saying is ‘I hate that dance.” I never ever wanted to be a leader, but I certainly was someone who wanted to control things, and those are two very different things. It’s funny, every now and then my kids will say, ‘you were a good mom,’ but ten years ago when they were teenagers, they were saying something else entirely…it’s all relative, and it’s all irrelevant.
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On Pickleball – An Addiction, a Meditation, a Playground for Graybeards and Dowagers
Photo Credit – Joanie Lawrence “And though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but stong in will, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hello. I am a little old lady in waiting, and I am … addicted to Pickleball. It started innocently enough…it was between the early morning Aquacise and the Active Aging strength training class that I first spied them, the Pickleballers (contemporaries, mostly retired, not exactly sportswear models…maybe for the vintage lines), slamming the hell out of a whiffle ball with what looked like oversized ping pong paddles. I stood there transfixed, my nose to the gym windows, mesmerized by the speed of the play and the unique center court positioning, which I later came to refer to as a ‘kitchen party.’ I could hear what sounded like actual whooping and wailing, ‘ooo’s’ and ‘ahhh’s,’ yelps of triumph and elation, and grunts of exertion and defeat. It was a far cry from the mantras and abiding calm of the yoga studio, or the punishing routines practiced by the contortionists who lift and press and strain in the weight room, teeth clenched. So, when an old friend, I’ll call him ‘Dark Larry’ to protect his identity, invited me to play one day, I ‘screwed my courage to the sticking point’ and grabbed a racquet. I mean how hard could it be…right?
Half an hour later…ok…20 minutes, I was drenched in sweat and red faced from sprinting and, well… shame and mortification. I made my excuses and hobbled out. Full disclosure I’m not exactly ‘sporty spice’ unless you count reading outdoors or strolling with my geriatric dog. I couldn’t even return the ball unless it landed on my paddle by some stroke of luck, my eye-hand coordination was… shall we say, non-existent. It felt like I had a learning disability. My synapses were firing fine but, not fast enough for my body to translate into something approaching athleticism. I sucked. We got pickled…twice, which means we failed to score a single point against our opponents. They say they didn’t know it was my first time, but I’m not sure I believe them. I’ll never forgive those mean girl grannies.
Two years later, including an 8-month hiatus for a back injury and surgical repair, I’m still playing pickleball. My doctor said if I continued to play it was ‘at my peril’, given the number of injuries associated with the game, but when my surgeon, a sports enthusiast, gave me the all clear, I was back at it before the stitches melted away. Today, on a good day, I self-identify as an intermediate level player. I won’t bore you with the metrics, suffice to say, I feel like a badass when playing novices, and cannon fodder when flanked by advanced players, predators of placement, magicians who wave their hand back and forth at the kitchen line, a subtle roll of their paddle and its done; an unreturnable serve to your backhand, a ball that makes no bounce, a paced shot to your dominant shoulder that requires the reflexes of a teenager to return.
Advanced players drill more than they play, they do battle with ball propellers until they perfect each shot, while intermediates, “the middle children” of the pickleball world, mostly play each other, shrieking in satisfaction or allowing ourselves small knowing smiles of quiet delight when we land a 5.0 serve, or execute a perfect kill shot that ends a long dynamic rally. A new favourite partner with the gift of the gab, let’s call him, ‘the Winemaker’‘, always says, “that one’s going on the fridge,‘ in those prized moments of unexpected glory.
While those adrenaline fueled 10 second highs are satisfying in the extreme, I’m not convinced that’s sufficient reward to tempt a recluse like me to expend the energy required for my daily pickleball fix. We’re out there for hours most days. I like people fine, but I find them lovelier from a distance. My social battery is three times too small, a birth defect I believe. I have a decided preference for the “usual suspects” of long acquaintance, and well-trod social settings. I do like the structure of organized play, however, and the fact that very little conversation is required during play.
Pickleball has its own vernacular: we speak of drives, and drops, the dink, the lob and my new favourite reset strategy, the drive-drop. There is the infamous kitchen, or non-volley zone, the seat of power in pickleball, much like the center quad in a game of chess. She who reaches the kitchen first controls the play, it is where all kill shots (overhead slams or smashes that end a rally) are born. There is the postage stamp at each corner of the court where all good serves hope to land. Then there are the basic strategies like serve and stay, the deep return, the third shot drop, or the party pieces like ATP, the Ernie, the Houdini, and of course things to avoid, the double hit, the double bounce the foot faults, the net balls and the lets (rallies that must be replayed for any reason). We won’t even start in on the unique scoring articulation that includes the score and server position, to be announced before each serve. It takes a moment to master, and in the end, no one can remember who is serving anyway, let alone the score. As a friend said only last week, “Sometimes I’m holding the ball and I still don’t know who is serving.” I usually defer to the youngest player on court, rather than waste precious play time arguing with peers in the early stages of cognitive decline…no one wins those debates.
Once you’ve learned the basics, and the lingo, then the task is to learn the players. The lefties who encroach on the center court shots from the right, the lobbers who take advantage of the mobility compromised, the ball hogs, the blind men whose line calls are questionable at best, the players who like to call their opponents’ line calls, your basic complainers, and whiners, the cheaters and liars, those prone to unsolicited advice, those who intentionally misrepresent the score to their advantage a second before serving, the unkind casual remarkers, passive aggressive mind fuckers….and those are just my friends. Just kidding…I adore my squad…truly. There are vexations of course, any pickleball club is a microcosm of society at large, complete with social miscreants, but for the most part the community, at the intermediate rec level at least, is honourable, inviting, observant of established etiquette, and focused on good solid play. You win some, you lose some, and most everyone lands a shining moment, even if it never ‘makes the fridge.‘
While I’ve met some amazing people playing pickleball, artists, musicians, landscape designers, neuro-surgeons, businessmen, accountants, IT types (all mostly retired); and acknowledge that for many the soft, social side of pickleball, ‘a place where everyone knows your name‘ is a big draw, I can honestly say that for an introvert like me (masquerading as an ambivert because it sounds cooler), the sweaty social petri dish of court society is most definitely not the source or even a triggering factor of my pickleball addiction.
So, what is the allure? If it’s not the thrill of blood sport, or the social networking, what exactly is driving my pickleball predilection? Why do I routinely leave the house, against my better judgement most days, to play a sport that I am only arguably competent in, flailing about with quick furtive movements that can’t be considered optimal exercise for my crumbling spine, and osteoarthritic joints, and that often overwhelms my inner agoraphobic (I mean…I could be home, reading)?
Something is driving my need to hit that perforated, neon yellow, plastic chew toy of a ball, and I think it has more to do with my relationship to the ball itself than to any of the dear friends I count myself lucky to have met on the courts. When the ball is in play I am hyper focused, almost as though I was encapsulated in a speed game of Atari pong. My brain likes the readiness position, awaiting the ball’s rapid-fire approach and the subsequent response signal it sends to my unruly body to return the volley. It likes to look for openings for ball placement and opportunities to dink or lob or drive as it draws me to the kitchen as if by a magnetic force. While my brain is engaged and my body, the recalcitrant slave to its unreasonable demands, I experience a heightened sense of relaxation. At play I am immersed in a thought-less slumber, I’m cocooned in an unconscious whiskeyesque oblivion. I go animal. Playing pickleball is a reprieve from the constant flow of thoughts that plague the modern mind. It is a meditation, a place to rest from the narrative that has no end in the curious mind of this little old lady in waiting. This emptying of cerebral space to all but the most basic objective, to hit the fast-moving ball, coupled with the therapeutic endorphin ride that accompanies the exacting physical exertion, and the dopamine high of a well played point, I believe that is the root of my pickleball addiction.
You understand that win or lose, novice, intermediate or advanced, I’m still an introvert sloshing through a sweaty- peopled mosh pit to play pickleball. Why do I do it? I do it for the dopamine. Don’t get me wrong, I love to win, but win or lose, the best games for me are those that are over in a flash, equally matched or playing slightly above your natural abilities, surrounded by the ‘usual suspects’, the squad that invite you out to play each day, the partner that taps your paddle after a missed shot in a show of support, the victories, the defeats, relentless humanity in all its splendour. In the early morning hours, I tentatively open my car door in the crowded car park of the pickleball courts and am assailed by a chorus of laughter and comradery coming from a cohort who have worked hard all their lives, old enough to have earned their place in the playground, and still young enough to understand the importance of play. It is a beautiful sound, uncommon and contagious, and sweet enough to cast a reciprocating smile on the face of even the most determined introvert.
Author’s Note:
This blog post is dedicated to my very first pickleball friend who I’ll call ‘Spreadsheet girl’. We started this crazy game together, and she is currently out with an injury. I hope I’ll see her soon.
Little Old Lady … in Waiting 