February 03, 2004
Not a bad day if you meditate
Yesterday started with an avalanche. Three or four bottles of wine slipped from their gerryrigged rack in my butler's pantry and shattered all over the floor, which is tile, and upon which nothing bounces - drop a tomato and you have salsa. It's very cute though, the floor. Since there was an inch of red and white alcohol to mop, the clean up was time consuming and rife with shards. Now my butler's pantry smells like a barroom.
Two people did not show up for scheduled meetings (so I couldn't make other plans - ask me if I used my time constructively? I read a peace piece from a leader of Findhorn David Spangler- a gold star for me) He says that peace is a personal practice. Do everything in your day with the intention of creating peace. The opportunity arose immediately because .....
Then I had an auto accident, which was entirely my fault. I made a left turn in front of an oncoming car. (Isn't it a good thing this blog is anonymous and the insurance company will be left to decide who is to blame) The dad was driving his daughter's new car. She was cryng at the scene, not because she was hurt, but because of the injury to her her virgin vehicle.
I am worried because I really didn't see them comng, and I looked. I checked to see if their headlights were on and they were. He was lovely in an avuncular way, perhaps that was because I was prostrating myself on the pavement, begging forgiveness. I know I'm not supposed to do that for insurance reasons, but I can never help myself, especially when it was so clearly my fault.
I will have to go and look at my car in the daylight, but I don't think there is any damage. The daughter's car was new, and this was it's first foul, always an occasion for tears. My car currently looks like the car of someone to whom you would give wide berth. Plastic bumpers aren't good for us girls who drive by ear --- although if you heat the dents with a hairdryer, they often pop out. I just haven't hairdried my dents in awhile.
Photo note: The flower in the photo above is yucca The photo below is self explanatory.
Apropos of nothing, some comments on the "attachment void", the central concept of Gabor Mate's new book (co-written with Gordon Neufeld: called HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS: WHY PARENTS MATTER). This is all about peer culture and how it has taken kids away from their parents; but it has applications for those of us who were never properly nurtured (i.e. ME). Today I am sick as a dog with the family virus - hey, we share everything around here, even microbes! - and trying to get myself well enough to go to the launch of HOLD ON tonight. There is an abyss inside me, a mother-shaped space, a howling vacuum which I still feel when I check for e-mail and come up empty. Such yearning, unslaked, is frightful, not to mention frightening. But, ah, there's a *name* for it now - it's called an "attachment void"! Somehow, naming it helps take away some of its power. And it explains oh-so-much about my life, and my hunger for "success" as a novelist and in many other areas. You've got to name it to claim it, as the expression goes. These are miscellaneous ramblings, but I have to say that once again Gabor Mate has explored something that needs to be looked at, something with widespread social implications as well as personal application. So, it has helped me along in understanding myself as well.
I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich (soft white bread, of course) and a bowl of Campbell's tomato soup for lunch. I can almost feel my mother's hand on my forehead (which she only did when I had a raging fever). Ahhhh. . . .there is hope beyond the void. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Margaret
Posted by: Margaret Gunning at February 4, 2004 03:13 PM