reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: where you place your eyes


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rain is rain. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

a very long time ago – decades – my friend joe-z took me on the curvy, hilly route 25A on long island – east of northport – to teach me how to drive his datsun 240Z.

at the time my own car was my 1971 volkswagen superbeetle bug, so i was driving something that was quite a bit more tame than the 240Z – ok, a lot more tame than the 240Z.

his red z-car was powerful, low to the ground, with a very responsive suspension and tight steering. it was a lot to handle if you wanted to take it to its limits. i remember it as being stick shift – four on the floor – like my bug.

i was timid as we started, the curves of the road intimidating, the hills and slanted roadway a bit nerve-wracking with this much power in my hands.

but joe-z was patient and had time to spend. and, among other things, he taught me that driving into the curves – accelerating – would give me the ability to control the curves and not have the curves control me.

i can still remember driving that Z, still remember the power under me, still remember the lessons from those times driving that car in various conditions.

so i nodded during the movie the art of racing in the rain when the race car driver character denny said, “no one knows what curves life will throw at you, but if the driver has the courage to create his own conditions, then the rain is simply rain.”

25A’s curves are simply curves. its hills are simply hills. and the road right in front of you is what exists.

in this time of my life, i am finding that courage is the thing that counts. the unpredictability of life can be mind-boggling and sometimes shattering – in so many ways – and accelerating around the curves may well be the only difference between succumbing or having some sort of control.

on these particularly rainy days, we can see that rain is most definitely rain. it can overwhelm the land, communities, spirits.

standing up to the fear of any of that while adapting best as one can may not diminish the rain’s potential impact – we cannot underplay the rain’s havoc-wreaking. but presence, resilience and placing your eyes where you want to go – like the race car driver in the movie – can help survive the conditions.

we can learn from each other – lessons that generalize over spectrums of life: shift our weight in the saddle, press into the turning waterski, sustain-pedal with some reserve, taste food before salting.

rain can simply be rain.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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the portholes. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

there was this knot-hole in this tree on this trail. i used to stop there each time we hiked – to gaze through it…stand and take in what i could see through the tiny porthole in the woods. always, it was a reminder of the fluidity of time, of ever-present change, of nothing standing still.

the porthole i found in the milwaukee art museum – through one of barbara hepworth’s sculptural pieces – had the same impact on me. bending down, i focused only on what i could see through that porthole. on a different day, at a different time of day, in a different month or season, never static. even minutes from my peeking-through, the wind picked up and the lake’s surface roiled a bit and all from before was erased.

late-late on sunday nights – into the wee hours – we stay awake to listen and watch our son livestream mixes from a club in chicago. he was away for a couple weeks and we missed these late dj nights. they are our porthole – our tree-knot-hole – into what he is creating, producing, learning, feeling. every midnight-hour-sunday we see the changes in the new seasons of his work, his growth, his zeal, his poise at tech controls that evoke curves of mood, layers of sound, textures of music we may not have accessed otherwise. we see his joy.

it’s the same reason i took my first snowboard lesson. at that time, it was a porthole view into our daughter’s life – a peeking window that allowed us to feel the smallest smidge of her professional work. watching her fly down mountains, picking up speed and agility and ever-more skill through our tree-knot-hole on the sidelines and touching her joy-magic with our own feet on a snowboard on a hill.

we can assume things about others. humans do it all the time. broad sweeping generalizations about people and peoples – different because of race or color or gender identity or ethnicity or country of origin or age or disability or socioeconomic status or politics or religion or whatever the prejudice-de-jour might be. we glance over at “them” and form opinions; we claim to be “open and affirming” yet we slam closed the porthole that might give us a true look into their life. we scrub away the transparency of truth and apply the balm of our agenda – totally missing perspective, the possibility of commonality, the gift of community, the connectedness of us all as a species attempting to just keep on keeping on.

were we – perhaps – to notice, to step forward and take a closer look, to shield ourselves from inevitable human failings of assumption and instead to breathe deeply and gaze – we might have a view into the sameness of us all, the things that unite us, the things we need honor and hold in high regard….that we are all one under the sun. that while we cannot walk in another’s shoes, we might learn by looking through any and every tree-knot-hole we can find. that new eyes, new focus may also mean new learnings and new appreciation and new grace. that we should stop and peer through portholes whenever we can. there’s no time to waste.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY