comparisons

Ivan Frederick got eight three years in prison, while Cathleen Miller got ten. Karl Rove got zero.

When I was intentionally unkind

I can remember only one occasion when I was intentionally mean to someone--I got very very angry, and then coldly decided to say the meanest thing I could possibly say. I wanted them to feel worse than I felt when they said something very mean to me. The difference was that their unkindness was unintentional. Astonishingly ignorant, but nevertheless unintentional.

I was pretty effective--the person cried all day, or so I heard. I'm glad that now I feel so much safer in the world than I did then, and now I have an internal place-to-stand from which I can notice my reaction and be accepting and fascinated about it.

It's totally fascinating to me that the great majority of other people feeling pain in response to my words and actions has been besides, rather than because of, my intention--that is, that generally I hadn't set out wanting them to feel pain.

What is joining?

Joining is like this: I work with 5 beautiful little children who have autism, aged 3 to 7. Some of them have behaviors which we call "isms". For instance, one of my children, N, does an ism where he paces/prances around his room holding a shirt in his hand. He waves the shirt in intricate and fascinating and repetitious patterns back and forth and up and down, and he studies the shirt and the carpet upon which he is pacing/prancing/dancing with enormous concentration and focus. While he's doing all this he vocalizes--usually sounds that we generally can't understand to be words. Sometimes N can ism for 45 minutes without a break. Sometimes for 2 hours. It used to be that he wouldn't look at anyone at all while he was doing that. Now he tends to glance over regularly while he's isming.

His parents used to use a program for helping N. called ABA. That program called for the parents to do their best to stop N from doing the ism--they would interrupt him, physically manipulate him, very insistently demand that he do what they wanted, pay attention to them, etc. etc.

Now his parents use a program called the SonRise program. I am part of the team of volunteers who works with N. When he isms, we join him. We carefully observe his behavior, and try to understand what he is getting out of it--why does he enjoy it so much--by doing it with him--sometimes on the other side of the room, and sometimes closer. We match him step for intricate step, wave of shirt for intricate wave of shirt, vocalism for vocalism. We do this with delight, as he clearly delights in it. We do it with joy and energy, because we are doing our absolute best to say to N "If you are unable to come into our world, then it is our delight and privilege to join you in your world. You rock and we want to be with you."

We are being kind to N, and in so doing, because we love him and love being with him so much--we are also being kind to ourselves. N's parents really rather disliked the ABA program they were using before, but they believed it was the best thing at that time. In finding the SonRise program, they have grown in their ability to be kind to N and kind to themselves. They and N are in the process of growing in their ability to be kind to themselves and others. I find this is a brilliant beautiful amazing delight.

I'm chainless. I don't have the power now. and my Hoorays list.

My motorcycle is chainless, and has been towed to Pablo's for repair. Woooohoooooot that nothing worse happened when the chain broke! I mean what if I had been desperately needing to accelerate at that moment in order to avoid a collision? Hooray for perfect timing of broken chains! Hooray for (barely (but honestly, who ever needs more than just enough?)) enough money to get it towed and repaired! Hooray that I get to commute on a motorcycle, which makes my day ever day (excepting on days when it's in the shop, in which case I get to make my own day in other ways (I was sorely temptly to purposely misspell "excepting" as "accepting" there)! Hooray that Jack Mason-Goodall is coming to Melbourne in something like less than 3 months! Hooray Hooray Hooray Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was touched by his noodly appendage!

More notes on Melbourne: clocks and Mt. Rainier

One thing I've noticed over the last few weeks is that there are rather a lot of big, public, analog clocks in Melbourne--on the tops of towers, outside buildings, etc., and that as far as I can tell None of them ever have anything remotely like the correct time. This seems strange and pointless to me.

Today I was driving home in the beautiful sunshiny spring afternoon, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a whitish something up above the horizon over that way. I immediately looked over fully expecting to see the lovely vaunted vaulted snowladen top of the beautiful Mount Rainier.

When it turned out to be a bit of wispy cloud, my heart jumped into my throat and my nose got all tingly in that way it does when I am about to weep. FSM I miss Seattle.

Internal basement and balcony people, and power.

Some time ago, I learned a metaphor for thinking about people who either tear one down or build one up--basement people are people who suck the life right out of one, with various toxic, draining, unkind methods-of-relating--balcony people are people who somehow channel energy, life, joy, hope, encouragement toward one with their amazing kindness, graciousness, excitement.

Today I realized in a new way that actually the reason any of those things work on me is because I have my own internal basement and balcony people, who love to pick up on the things those external basement and balcony people are saying and doing and use that as further evidence that actually they are right, I should listen to them, etc. etc.

Also noted--my internal balcony person is generally (these days) much more powerful than my internal basement person. When I say powerful, I mean something very specific. My internal balcony person is able to listen with love and without judgment. My internal basement person is pretty much composed of judgments--if he tried to listen without judgment, he would discorporate. I find that the ability to listen nonjudgmentally is astonishingly powerful.