Getting Zen with Ma Joad

/ Michelle at The Green Study / Leave a comment
Book cover from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Becoming a reader once again has been one of my great joys in the last month. Health issues impacted my cognition and for months I could neither read nor write for more than moments at a time. I’ve gone deep into some back catalogues to compensate for wordless months. At the moment I’m reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. As I travel west with Tom Joad’s family, Steinbeck’s gritty descriptions of life during the Great Depression are captivating. I feel the dust in my throat.

I am transfixed by the function of the women, especially the family matriarch, “Ma” Joad, who is never given a first name. It is easy to be confused about whose narrative this story is, because initially it centers on Tom, her son. It isn’t until the end that one recognizes the through line. Ma Joad carries not only her family, but the story to the end. Her constancy is her character.

Any person in a caregiving role can see themselves in Ma Joad. She sets the emotional tone for her family and feels that burden considerably, often repressing her own grief and anxieties. She is, in some ways, a storyteller, providing the narrative tone for anything that befalls her family. They look to her reactions for framing and perspective. Determining the narrative is a powerful role, but it balances between providing solid ground for those who need it, without overriding the narrative perspectives of others.

Caregivers spend most of their energy anticipating needs, whether it be material or emotional. When we are exhorted to be in the moment, so often this is the perspective of someone who is not responsible for the care of others. The reality is yes, sometimes, really be where you’re at and notice what is happening, but caring for others is most often not a spontaneous occurrence. Meals cannot be provided if grocery lists on not created. Clean, dry clothes are not available if doing laundry is not planned. The spontaneous acts are themselves often conscientious decisions to stop and listen to someone, to give a compliment, be kind in the moment an opportunity arises, despite the very long “to-do” list begging for attention.

Watercolor painting of red-roofed houses with vineyards surrounding them.

When I read the conversation between Ma Joad and her son, Al, Ma’s philosophy becomes clear. She is both Zen and pragmatic, gentle and hard. She is the consummate caregiving storyteller.

“Ma, you scared a goin’? You scared a goin’ to a new place?”

Her eyes grew thoughtful and soft. “A little,” she said. “only it ain’t like scared so much. I’m jus’ a settin’ here waitin’. When somepin happen that I got to do somepin–I’ll do it.”

“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. It’s too much — livin’ too many lives. Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one. If I go ahead on all of ’em, it’s too much. You got to live ahead ’cause you’re so young, but — it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me. An’ it’s jus’ how soon they gonna wanta eat some more pork bones.” Her face tightened. “That’s all I can do. I can’t do no more. All the rest’d get upset if I done any more’n that. They all depen’ on me jus’ thinkin’ about that.”

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

Laundry basket full of bright-colored clothes.

The circumstances Ma Joad and her family were living under are more dire than what most of us experience in modern life. Still, as I make my grocery list, throw in a load of laundry (thank goodness for modern appliances), plan for meals for the week sans pork bones, I’m as present as I can be because I’m jus’ thinkin’ about that.

Order Must Not Prevail

/ Michelle at The Green Study / 3 Comments
Gray silhouettes of people protesting against a red background.

The negative public discourse currently around student campus protests makes me think of how we fail as adults. Order must prevail the President says. Yet we watched adults storm the Capitol building when an election didn’t go the way they wanted. Adults in this country are regressing to the point of public temper tantrums and violent sedition. Loudmouth adults are attacking young idealists on social media. Other adults in power are doing even more damage by legally restricting health care choices or valuing their guns over children’s lives. We have oldies in the current mainstream media denigrating young people’s right to peaceable assembly. I would like to know what they were doing in the 60s, because it seems that the generational amnesia is strong.

Blue book cover of Fritz Peters Finistere, print in yellow and dark blue with waves curling along the bottom.

Last week I finished reading Fritz Peters’ Finistére, a coming-of-age novel about a gay teenager in late 1920s France. I was given the opportunity to read this book through Books Forward. This novel is being re-released 73 years after its original publication in 1951. Through the lens of today’s sensibilities, there are a few things that stand out, not the least of which is a relationship now defined as sexual abuse of a minor due to the age difference and power differential between two of the characters. Still, it is the main protagonist, 15-year-old Matthew, who reminds me of how idealistic and heedless we are in our early years. As an adult, it would be easy to condemn his naivete and optimism because we’ve forgotten what it is to be young, to see the world for all its possibilities, to believe that we can overcome the obstacles in front of us if we just believe and love enough.

Perhaps it is the parent in me that read this book as the failure of adults to shepherd a young person safely into the world. This is of concern to me, as my own child has begun her life as an adult. Did we give her all the lessons we should have? Did we prepare her for the cruelties and vagaries that buffet us all in life? Reading Finistére reminded me of the more important questions. Did we provide a safe haven for her to explore and be her full self? How we operate in the world is a function of the guidance we were given while young and undoubtedly of ever-shifting cultural norms. Adults often mistake imposing cruelty on the young as a way of preventing future cruelties, when all they’ve done is replicated their own upbringing. Whenever someone says “X happened, but I turned out okay”, I feel like introspection should not be far in the offing.

Reading books where the main characters are young or the genre is classified as Young Adult is as critical as reading books about other demographics. I don’t want to read about people like me (who would spend half the book complaining about random sleep injuries). I want to remember what it was like to be young, to view the world in possibilities, to love with your whole self. That being said, I have no desire to be young. I learned my lessons the hard way and I’d like to keep them.

Lamb.

Remembering the exquisite tenderness of those feelings though, is to understand the clear-eyed and fresh view of the world and to remind us that we have a responsibility to ensure that the young do not struggle alone or in vain. People so often think compassion is indulgence and work out their own bitterness on others, because they have forgotten what it was like to be a dreamer – what it was like to imagine that everything is possible. Somewhere along the way we lost that part of ourselves. It seems we still have some growing up to do.

Let’s Begin. Again.

/ Michelle at The Green Study / 24 Comments
White cherry blossom on branch in spring.

I’ve written 20 partial posts and deleted them all. My world got smaller as my health deteriorated over the last year. Cognitively, I’m playing catch up and while I can recite what my oxygen levels have been for the last week, I can’t remember a single line of poetry, except for a little Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud.

Perhaps I return here because I feel a peculiar kind of loneliness. There is an isolation borne of chronic health conditions. I feel myself tense up when someone asks How are you? So tired of focusing on my health and ongoing issues, I’ve learned to mutter I’m fine.

I’m not fine, but I’m okay. And what is going on with me is survivable, so perhaps there is no need for a dramatic re-entry into my life. You were gone?

Red robot figure fixing itself.

The tumbling down started last year when frequent hot flashes, cognitive fog, and insomnia started. Hormones, amiright? By the time I went the HRT route and got those symptoms under control, I got hit with tinnitus – a loud, high squeal at about 8000 Hz, sometimes manic cicadas, but always on. I went through some cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how to background the noise, and to learn how to sleep and work with it. Got that under control. Then got diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’ve spent the last month getting intimate with a breath robot (CPAP therapy).

If you read this and think holy shit, this person is a mess, I would swear to you that up until last year, I felt pretty okay. My chief indicators that I’m doing alright in my life have always been writing and running. If I’m doing those two things, I’m alright. They are activities layered in dust now. I finally started strength training again last week, but I’ve lost a lot of ground. And, as you can read here, my writing isn’t exactly hitting a bestselling list anytime soon.

Paper doll cutouts on a turquoise background.

Whatever image one might have of oneself, there will be a time when all will be brought into question. I’ve been humbled and demoralized. On the upside, I’ve gained greater empathy for people who suffer much more than I with isolating conditions and visible/invisible disabilities. That’s how it always goes – we don’t often feel in our bones for other people until we suffer ourselves. Humans, geesh.

For me there is only this: Begin again. And again. And again. I am adapting to the new guidelines and rules in my life that keep me sane and healthy, as most of us do. I’m going for a short run tomorrow and writing here. It’s a bit lumpy and unimpressive but life, like writing, is always a draft in revision.