IN A PICKLE

When I’m worked up and stressed out, my angst usually arises out of sense that I’ve got to “get it right.” Almost always, there’s something that appears to have gone off the rails — maybe a minor thing, or sometimes something colossal, often several things at the same time. No matter the scale or complexity, it’s my job to set it all right.

I know I’m not alone in having this is as one of my fundamental orientations towards the world: WHAT’S WRONG. It’s what we’re here for. We’ve grown accustomed to relating to our lives like a perpetual series of problems to be solved.

If we can figure out the problem(s), deduce the solution(s), and rise to the occasion(s) in just the right way, at just the right time, with the right balance of force and compassion, appropriate boundaries and heroic responsibility, with both generosity and self-care, urgency and patience, with creativity, strength, and flexibility, then maybe — just maybe — we’ll earn a breath of peaceful satisfaction before the next thing goes wrong.

It’s a narrow needle we’re trying to thread. And a lot of us conscientious folk have internalized also the idea that if we’re not intentionally being a part of the solution, then by default we’re a part of the problem. So, by gum, we’d best get solving. Pronto! Before we make it any worse…

I don’t know about you, but this leaves me feeling like I’m always in a pickle, one way or another. In a daze, a predicament, a tizzy, a bind, a stew, a rut.

Most of these expressions lean towards the negative. All these things we’re in, these states we’re in, kind of suck. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’m struck that even to be “in a fix” doesn’t mean we’re making things better; rather the opposite of that. And even our strategies are problematic — we get ourselves in a hurry, in a rush, in a panic. Like that’s gonna help.

I guess “in a nutshell” isn’t bad, unless you’re like me and you tend to go on and on and overthink and overstate things, making them more complicated than they need to be. Then that concise and tidy nutshell looks like something I’m rarely in — one more failing.

Why don’t we ever describe ourselves as in a peace, in a joy, in a wholeness?

I might from time to time find myself in “my happy place,” but that seems a little exclusive — being that it’s just mine, and also that the phrase implies that there’s only one of them. Likewise with “in the zone” and “in the flow” — it sounds like a singular state. Lucky for us when we find our way to it, but it’s rare and elevated. And also temporary. A pickle or rut seems a lot more likely and more sustainable most of the time.

Robert Bly wrote a poem that speaks to me. It includes these lines:

Think in ways you’ve never thought before. 
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message 
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard, 
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

I really like this because my first thought, typically, when the phone rings, is more like: “Oh god, what now?”

So… I’m going to try to think a little differently.

One way is: instead of approaching life as an obstacle course of the jams I’m perpetually in, I’m going to practice finding myself in a wonder, in a jubilance, in a vitality. And practice recognizing each of these as one of many such abundant delights all around us, into which we can step or dance or stumble without even trying.

That’s a difference, too. Rather than conceiving of THE solution as a straight and narrow tightrope, a nearly-impossible balance, maybe we could practice the idea that, actually, it can be really easy. Bringing our whole hearts and authentic selves out to play and care and celebrate and grieve with each other is the most natural thing in the world, and it’s always exactly what’s called for. To be in a mellow, in a laughter, in a music, in a togetherness.

Of course there are problems to be solved. And suffering to be eased, hardship to be addressed, feelings to process, difficulties to be puzzled out. AND — maybe we can never really get it “wrong” if we’re simply doing our best to approach it all with open minds and gentle hearts. Together.

I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, at 10:00am, at q-Staff Theatre. With the divine Patty Stephens. XO, Drew