Permission To Be Empty Headed

As some of you may have noticed I did not post a blog last week. A friend shot me an email: “No Monday blog! Are you all right?” I was /am all right, but for the first time since I began the blog almost two years ago, nothing would jell in my mind. Nothing!

And it wasn’t my preoccupation with the World Series. I couldn’t care less about baseball. The Final Four (basketball) and World Cup soccer, yes. Baseball? No.

Nor was it my dismay over the Republican debate—who ARE these people? Nor was it the candidates’ subsequent petulant attack on the media for “unfair” questions that were asked. As peevish as it all seemed to me, I do think the journalists seemed more interested in pursuing ratings than soliciting information for the voting public.

Then, too, I have been in thrall to the most beautiful autumn weather I have experienced ever, stopping during my walk to photograph yellow-leafed trees filled with golden light and firing those pictures off to friends in the UK who, without deciduous trees, are deprived of our captivating Fall Magic.

As I searched my brain for clear blog ideas, all I could find was a blurry muddle, soupy gray foggy stuff that refused to take any shape.

What is this? This has never happened! No blog? Enter remorse and guilt.

Walking in the park on Sunday with my creative, television- producing, Emmy-award-winning, youngest son, I confessed. “I don’t have a blog to post tomorrow. First time ever.” I kicked at a pile of leaves on the path.

“Mom,” he said, “that can happen to anyone. It happens to me sometimes. You are open to inspiration—that’s the main thing-- but sometimes—hopefully not too often—it just doesn’t come. You have a right to be uninspired.”

“A right to be uninspired!” The words rang like victory chimes in my head. “Thank you!”

Of course: “A right to be uninspired.” Just like the right to feel tired and need a nap, or the right to want to be alone for awhile, or to say no when people expect and want you to say yes.  Or the right to change your mind when a commitment you made turns out to not be what you hoped and planned for. The right to be distracted by upcoming eye surgery to remove the cataracts that cause you to squint at your computer.

 And perhaps most significant of all, the right to be human and find yourself for a time in a soft, autumnal kind of muddle, just walking along, taking pictures of trees, the warm sun on your face, feeling drifty and purposeless.

I write so often about self- compassion. Time to pour some all over myself. Meanwhile thank you so much for expecting and looking for Life Opening Up. It appears that occasionally Life Takes A Rest. 

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A Perfect Tree

Be Careful What You Wish For

Be careful what you wish for.  You might get it.  So much more to be revealed.

As of now we can begin to blame the Republicans instead of the Democrats for everything that goes wrong, including ebola. Ebola is on the list these days, along with ISIS and Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine/ Israel. Correct?

It no longer matters to me which party we blame. Cynicism has turned me as crusty as the rust on a junk-piled fender.

What does matter to me is the inability of both political parties to compromise in order to solve problems.

Don’t they know what we all know? No one gets it all! Not ever.

There is a technique, tried and true, in conjoint therapy, in which the disagreeing husband and wife have to take turns expressing the other’s point of view with sufficient detail and feeling until each person is convinced that the other completely understands his or her viewpoint and the reasons behind it.

Following that exercise of having to wear “the other’s moccasins” it is quite astonishing how quickly a creative compromise can be achieved.

Of course, unlike politicians, the husband and wife in therapy are not running for election every time they open their mouths. Besides, it would appear that for a politician to publically compromise with an other-side-of-the-aisle opposing view would be tantamount to having a raging case of impetigo on your face. No one would want to come near you.

Exerting leadership is also totally suspect.

Friends and I have been discussing Ken Burns’ recent outstanding film, The Roosevelts. Even long- time, ardent republican friends have expressed admiration for former President Roosevelt’s courage and ability to lead, to put himself on the line for what he believed was right—re elected or not. Has that kind of leadership disappeared along with the 1940s hair slick, Brylcreem? “A little dab will do ya!” (So the slogan went.)

It’s no “little dab” of leadership that we need.  Instead, right now our country-- the world-- needs political leadership with the heart and stamina of Seabiscuit, driven by the creative wisdom of the best minds of our nation.

I wish I had more hope.