Patterns

The comfort in patterns is universal. Routine tasks nowadays take on an oversized importance. A psychology person might say that by doing the same thing the same way every time we obtain the satisfaction of predictability. What the heck is more important than that now? Whether it’s the way we brush our teeth, add milk to coffee, sanitize the door knobs, dry our hair or butter our toast, we gain some control or at least the illusion of it. The expected outcome is mostly assured. I say mostly because there are intervening moments which may upset our expectations: as in running out of butter or spilling milk.

These are the small and brief patterns of everyday existence. They are the comforting routines. Any disruption or alteration adds to the frustration and stress that we already feel. Who would have guessed that the direction of the bathroom tissue roll could be so crucial to mental health? Edgy is what we are. See if you don’t recognize some recent repetitive behavior patterns:

Order on line, order more on line – listen for the delivery truck (if you are suburban) - eat more snack food – eat more cookies, not as a snack – rearrange the furniture – rearrange the rugs – bake – tidy up the storage spaces - leave the tv on all day – clean up contact lists on your phone – organize your streaming schedule – order take away as a special occasion – eat more cookies – appreciate pasta.

The point of all this is that these are patterns of the whole and that they are part of our modern living now. If you recognize some of these tendencies then you are not alone and there is some comfort in that by itself. “Human, all too human” as Fred Nietzsche would have said and did say. Maybe he wasn’t referring to too many doughnuts but you get the idea.

The pattern may occur in the task or in its timing. You might like to do certain things at a certain time of day or in a certain sequence. You check the mail and then rub down the door knobs. You might as well as long as you are standing there with the sanitizer close at hand (remember that I counselled that strategy to put some near each entry). Chaos is not our friend even though the philosophers declare that it is the nature of the universe. Who gives a fig about that speculation? Some of us are down in the dirty bog of daily mud wrestling. Ivory tower intellectualizing has a place but not so much in the every day existence of most people. As with most emotions there are degrees of desperation. It is good to remember that most of us in this favored land are not suffering what those in the Sahel may be enduring.

Which reminds me to mention that this period of strain is what we have been training for all our lives. All that schooling and socialization and good will we have exchanged is the well spring from which we draw power to endure adversity. Patterns help us deflect the short-term disappointment but it is our molded character which will see us through. Can I get an Amen to that?  Sit with your loved ones at table or at computer and share a laugh. Those are still remedial routines in the long term.

I owe you many hugs,

Celeste

Another Day

Another day! Or as my Wallace says, “Another chance to get it right!” Some of us don’t get up in the morning and that is not from sheer lassitude. It may be because the night shift does not allow it. For those who do get up, whether with the rising sun or not, the traditional English greeting of “Good Morning”, abbreviated to “Morning” or its lazier version “Mornin’” is heard in that early time all across the world. As a matter of interest, you may be intrigued by how other languages speak this simple greeting. In Lithuania: “Labas Rytas”; in Italy: “Buongiorno”; in Holland: “Goedmorgen”; in Hawai: “Aloha Kakahiaka”; in Sweden: “God Morgon”; in Uzbekistan: “Xayrlitong”; in Scotland: “Maidam Mhath” and in Wales: “Bora Da”. I leave the pronunciation to the expert speakers. This short list illustrates a couple of things. First, the Welsh are not revenging themselves on the English in all their phrases and second, it is universally accepted as a greeting of good will, a beginning. The word “Hello” is also universal but it carries a neutral connotation. It does not express the hint of bonhomie conveyed by “Good Morning”. A song in the movie “Singing in the Rain” may be an apotheosis of that sentiment.

I think about things like that. In solar sequence around the world these murmurs occur each day in every language in a common ritual. Almost all of us are stimulated to this address whether encouraged by temple bells, a partner stirring, bird song, the blasted alarm clock or the even more hated leaf blower. Sirens have lately become a more common provocation. I like to think of them as help on the way rather than as a shout that something terrible has happened. In any case a greeting is forthcoming.

Where sunny days are the rule, the charm of sunrise may not be so welcoming. When it is 115° F by nine o’clock in the morning day after day, the experience of a sunrise may be completely different than that in a garden above the sea from a redwood deck beneath a wisteria pergola in California. It is pretty easy to embrace a yogic attitude to that. Sometimes a cloudy day is a relief where the sun shines so unrelentingly. Can excessive vitamin D be a threat? UV rays are a different story.

Try to describe a sunrise. There are so many. Some are definitely memorable and they often include another person, on a mountaintop, in a tent, down on the dock, from the bedroom, from a plane or shipboard. Something about the new day promotes a momentary and genial lapse into cordiality. The colors in the clouds may be fiery or fierce, a mist may obscure definition or the foreground outline may be dramatic. When all is said and done, sunrise is a feeling. What it says is I am here. The breathing life we are living is worthy of shared acknowledgement. It’s a privilege to exchange greetings on the occasion. Sign language or gesture suffices. To say “Good Morning” is a celebration of something so ordinary that we can forget how meaningful and symbolic it is. It contains all we are. Together we can try to get it right.