The Paradox of Error

I use an old but simple writing submission database to track my writing submissions (and my voluminous rejections and rare acceptances). The program opens with a menu that contains an author quotation. Since I’ve used this program for years, I’ve read and saved most of the quotations a long time ago. I dig them up periodically for various purposes ranging from Facebook status updates, to e-mail signatures to writing prompts.

So, when I opened the program to record a story rejection this morning, an old quotation popped up. I don’t recall ever reading it before, but I surely  must have because the program only contains a hundred at most. Perhaps it simply didn’t resonate at other times the way it did today.

But that’s not the quotation I’m going to share with you.

HA! That’s the way sundog and jellyfish moments happen, without warning and sometimes on a big switcheroo. . .

When I copied the Keats quote in question and went to paste it into my authors’ quotation bank, I dropped it in front of another quotation that I had to have read previously, because  I copied and pasted it along with all the rest, one at a time. It must also have struck me today as being far more important than when I deposited it:

If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.

~ Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

I’m sure that Rabindranath Tagore, being the multidimensional spiritual leader he was, could expound on error and this quotation in ways that would leave us all breathless. I can’t do that, but his words struck me like lightning.

In the course of navigating through our writing and our lives, it is important to correct errors, no? It is often said that good writing comes not with the initial draft, but in the act(s) of revision. As writers, we spend a great deal of time polishing our work to the highest level that we can achieve, which is dependent upon our understanding or skill at the time. We try our best to not make mistakes.

Life is like that too – we make errors, we correct course. As we gain experience, we are able to correct course or revise more fluidly and are also able to avoid making previous errors.

However, Tagore seems to refer here to error in the context of paradox: Truth will be shut out if you shut the door to all error.

We do things wrong, we’re supposed to suffer, right?

Not always. We make a cake but forget an ingredient, or make a wrong turn on a city street, or glob the paint on the “wrong” way, or commit some sin or another. But instead of disaster, we create a new product, discover a wonderful new neighborhood, start a fabulous new painting technique, or by committing a sin – just a shameful, guilt-ridden word for error – we are liberated from some habitual tendency by gaining greater realization through the consequences of the action.

I think Tagore’s point about error as applied to the writing craft reveals this: not only are errors valuable in the sense of the learning derived from making them, but that by allowing error into our work in the most creative sense, this allows us to create deeper and better connected writing.

I suppose this topic could be handled better in a book-length discussion by a more masterful philosopher or writer, but in my nutshell exploration, I think the jist of finding truth in error in our writing life is to simply allow error to happen or to accept error when it happens.

Both writing and life flow better with less negative critique from the “internal editor”, the judgmental side of monkey mind. This is the essence of mind that perpetually chatters, that assigns black and white judgment rather than allowing the shades of gray inherent in life and creativity to show through. If we operate outside the editor mentality, then we avoid limiting possibilities and are able to look past the right or wrong binary and into the realm of paradox.

Grappling with paradox allows us to deepen our writing and get to those real nuggets of truth. This may mean allowing ourselves to write in a genre or style not embraced by the mainstream, by discovering something interesting or beautiful in work that we might first perceive as an error, or simply by patiently polishing our work by stages into something beautiful.

How many times have you written something that you felt was wonderful, only to discover that your crit group or the editor of your favorite literary magazine not only didn’t see your work in the same light, they didn’t see any light in it at all? While the input of others can be invaluable, you can’t expect them to fully understand your truth until you’ve fully revealed it in your work. (And another paradox here is that even when you get the work polished, it still won’t please all, and still be viewed as error!)

A first attempt at something rarely yields the best result, and whether you’re learning to bake the best cake in the world, painting a masterpiece, trying to find the most intriguing neighbourhood in Madrid, or working on an award-winning essay, it may take a whole lotta rounds and errors to find the jewel.

Error can bring us to the truth just as frequently as “not error” or the right stuff can. By accepting the paradox in our creative work and our lives, by embracing the shadow portions of ourselves and our work, we allow the truth and /or the greatest of relative truths to shine through.

In this regard, jellyfish can be sundogs, and sundogs can be jellyfish. If we don’t make errors and simply reject (or run from, or punish) error and live in the black and white world of conceptual thought, the binary thinking that makes error wrong and “not error” right, then it’s a lot harder to bask in the light of truth. We might not even understand what the full spectrum of truth is in any given situation until we make errors and grapple with them.

Truth is best revealed in prose and poetry, song and music, image and film when an artist has allowed the work to take wrong corners, to miss ingredients, or to accept unorthodox elements. When we seek to  control life with pre-conceived recipes for success or control our creative work with a list of rules, we are rewarded with limited understanding and limited results. Rule-bound thinking results in partial right or “not error”, but not the full-blooded, hearty truth.

Rules are usually applicable, especially in the context of non-negotiables like the Ten Commandants or watertight grammar rules, but the paradox of negotiating error and “not error” is the process that leads to deeper understanding, to truth. Accepting error is an inclusive process, related to the exhortation in my last blog entry to not quitting, to “just keep going.”

I make no claim to have any great grasp of Truth with a capital T, but we all have our own relative truth. This is what we strive to present in our writing, those words that come from the heart. Truth is the arrow released by our best work and it plunges into the soul of the observer. Allow yourself some error - to play with error, to celebrate it, even -  to allow truth to shine from your work.

As for the Keats quote, I guess that’s a story for next time!

Just Keep Going

*Deep sigh*

As if there aren’t already enough jellyfish to go around, a big one plopped right on Japan’s doorstep. Life is like that – whether by karmic design or happenstance, not so good things pop up without warning. In Japan’s case, we have the foreknowledge that the nation of islands sits upon major seismic faults and historically has been subject to large quakes and tsunamis, but this is little comfort to the hurting people who must deal with the horrific consequences of the tsunami and the nuclear aftermath. My heart goes out to them . . . may all beings be happy and free of suffering!

Life is always like this and there’s not much we can do to avoid the not so good times. We must deal with them head on, one day at a time – or in the case of these dire, catastrophic events, an hour at a time, maybe even a minute or two, doing whatever we must to respond in appropriate and sensible ways.

The writing life is often just a microcosm within the macrocosm of our larger lives. We doodle along, mostly having good or perhaps mediocre writing days, in the sense that we make reasonably steady progress with our projects. Sometimes we feel the bumps of occasional dissatisfaction with our daily word count or the quality of our writing. Or maybe we’re dying to start something new but haven’t the foggiest notion where to go with the first blank page. Sometimes we even hit a wall and say that we have writers block. Writers have natural ups and downs – some swear they’re affected by moon phases or planetary alignments, others simply by what is happening in their personal lives at a particular moment.

Other writers seem to be able to produce a particular word count at a particular level of quality no matter what is happening around them. In fact, both the jellyfish days and the sundog days may stimulate this type of writer to fits of creativity. I admire an artist who can use both the dark and the light sides of life to stimulate their work. This is probably a sign of true equanimity, the ability to be okay no matter what. For aren’t we really okay even when things aren’t very okay?

I suspect that the process of being able to write or create art no matter the circumstances of our lives is probably more than a gift. It’s a process that can be cultivated by anyone, in the same way that years of meditation practice or contemplation allow the practitioner to achieve emotional equanimity and stability in their practice.

My Buddhist teacher Garchen Rinpoche says equanimity is possible because the mind can be either like water or like ice. In either case, the element is the same – H2O – but ice is locked up tight, of course, and water is fluid. Our minds either grasp and cling to our experiences as good or bad or we simply accept them as they arrive and respond in the most appropriate ways we can, seeing them simply as experiences.

I think we can apply this concept to our writing as well. Our minds are responsible for our creative flow. We can conceptualize, agonize, and become over-judgmental of our work. Some writers call this listening to the inner critic or the inner editor. This line of thought locks the creative process up. These negative thoughts are always with us, but compare them to clouds momentarily sailing along a clear blue sky. Let them pass without taking a ride on them.

We can choose to allow our creativity to flow moment to moment without restraint. The particular result of our daily – or whatever unit – writing may be either good or not so good, but our focus should be on the meditative aspect of it – the process itself, the flow of contemplation that leads us deeper into understanding, that allows us to shape our thoughts on paper. The process is all good, whether or not a particular session is serene / productive or mired in mishap.

Rinpoche always says just keep going. Good session – just keep going. Bad session – just keep going. Acceptance? Just keep going. Rejection? Just keep going . . .

Peering from the Rabbit Hole

Today I’m taking stock of my original mission for this blog, which is short and sweet – to reflect upon the “sundry digressions of the writing life”. I’m sort of doing it, though I’d much rather kick back on my blog and share more fun stuff about writers and writing.

But life happens and I’m going with my gut. I guess I’d classify my small collection of blog entries thus far as rants more than essays.

So be it. At least I’m writing even if I’m not talking about the mechanics or the fun part, publishing and reading. This type of op-ed writing isn’t as interesting as writing fiction and poetry or even creative nonfiction, and it’s fairly new to me. In the past I haven’t piped up much on paper or in pixels, save for one long feature, a few exasperated letters to editors, short local color pieces, and a handful of nature essays.

As I’ve probably said before, I don’t care much for daily journaling and my writing about the “real” world is usually reserved for musing about nature, which seems far more real and precious to me than man’s constructs. But these days, I suddenly find myself inclined to write on reams of trees and across universes of cyberspace about human beings and human doings. These are extraordinary times that call not only for extraordinary measures but extraordinary words as well.

Sheesh.

Unless you’ve been in a coma lately, you’ve noticed that daily headlines and news clips on most any subject vary from the peculiar to the jaw-dropping bizarre. As a connoisseur of novels of all genres and an emerging fiction writer myself, I really couldn’t make some of this stuff up.

But it’s happening. It’s here.

While the Middle East struggles to embrace a more progressive way of life, the USA and the Western world are embracing – well, what are we doing?

I just received an e-mail geared to politically progressive folk about the useless, reactionary bills being supported by the party who allegedly wants to cut spending and restore the constitution. I can imagine this party probably sends out a similar list of bills supported by the party who allegedly will subvert the constitution and turn the USA into a socialist state.

Some of this is just noise that will recede, but popping some of these legislative wheelies is certainly a waste of time when we don’t have much time to waste. Many of these issues have gone under the microscope before. Existing legislation and the U.S. Constitution as we know it has withstood the test of time and served citizens well.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, in other words. Some of the noisy issues are really about a system we hopefully might fix if we don’t continue to ignore it – the petroleum technology vs. renewable energy boondoggle that underlies much of the current suffering on our trip down “da Nile.” Way down. But that’s another story.

You wonder if a lot of this noise isn’t just a cynical show put on by pretend legislators to assure us they’re working. As I saw some fairly anonymous person on an energy/economy web site declare recently: “we have a two-party system, the career politicians and us. They win every election.”

Or maybe these clowns are cosmic actors holding up a mirror to us in some great galactic passion play, and guess what, we’re not a pretty sight, either. It’s not easy to embrace the paradox, but rest assured, we live in one.

There are definitely some legislative attempts at “improving” the quality of life for citizens that make one truly pause, though. Within weeks of the assassination of a federal judge and the assassination attempt upon a congresswoman in Tucson,  some “conservative” Arizona legislators sought to test the limits of the  14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution with a state bill calling for required gun ownership. Why? How much further into a tasteless and bizarre rabbit hole must Arizona fall? And this is just one of many illogical actions spreading across our fair land.

Worse, the face of evil shows itself once again in international financial markets – especially those based in London and New York – where cynical speculation on commodities more often than not drives food prices higher, creating more suffering and unrest for the average world citizen.

As if the jellyfish situations caused by a soaring world population, peak oil (some would say plateau oil), diminishing fresh water resources, and climate chaos are not enough. It’s as if these cynical players are saying “let’s just drive another nail into the coffin of a less fortunate nation, a less fortunate tribe, a less fortunate family, a less fortunate child so that we may continue to flourish.”

Fortunately for the fortunate and unfortunate alike, there are courageous people seeking solutions to these and many other problems. Many brave souls are on the ground shining light into dark corners so that the rest of us may see the wizard behind Oz and find our way home.

These folk range from scientists and mathematicians crunching numbers and formulas to everyday people experimenting with sustainable living, to writers, artists, musicians, and visionaries who explore the inner and outer boundaries of what it means to be a five-fingered being. These people are the sundogs that pop out of the dankest fog and shine.

This leads me to the conclusion that our politicians can’t do this. Jesus won’t save us either. Neither will Buddha, Mohammed nor any of the sky beings swoop down to offer us an operating manual or pull us from the rabbit hole. They’ve already kinda done that. Now it’s up to us, the sundogs and the seadogs, what Buddhists call bodhisattvas – no matter what religion we practice – to invent the new paradigm. We ARE the leaders, the healers, the deciders. More paradox.

I just learned about seadogs a few days ago from the wonderful A.Word.A.Day e-mail sponsored by Wordsmith.org. Seadogs are defined as “a faint rainbow-like formation seen in foggy conditions; also called mistbow, fogbow, and white rainbow”. We’ve all seen these and I would simply have called them sundogs. Now I know better and I’m intrigued by both terms, combining as they do all the positive attributes of man’s best tail-wagging, hand-licking friend and the wondrous-on-many-levels attributes of sunlight. Of course, seadogs are also veteran sailors and we are these as well. Like I said, we live in a multidimensional world of paradox.

Who doesn’t look up in awe at a rainbow or understand at gut level the symbolism of the phenomena? Or resonate somehow with the image of a careworn sailor or a lighthouse keeper valiantly keeping the faith?

I can only hope the world will be graced with many stray sundogs and seadogs nosing about, if only to light the faint trail that continues onward and upward. From what I see, climbing out of the rabbit hole will be a mind-bending toughie.

But there’s hope. Hope lives inside us and manifests when we stay connected and do our best work, whatever that may be. “Best work” as in “be the change you want to see in the world.”

I have a feeling that the best change isn’t made via legislation or even on the streets in revolution, but in our own hearts and minds.

Let’s get busy, seadogs!



Groping Redux

In part, I was inspired to start my blog after my first encounter with TSA in November 2010. I was so furious after my first patdown at Los Angeles International Airport that I immediately whipped my laptop out and spent the next two hours at the gate writing about it. I submitted the piece to a newspaper for publication, but newspapers and journals these days are full of the sound and the fury of people disgusted by having their bodies - including their "junk" - patted down in the name of safety.

So I thought I'd give the old journal entry the light of day here. It's interesting to note that on my return trip from Africa, I was groped not only once but TWICE, first in Amsterdam and then in Nashville, TN. In Amersterdam on my way to Nairobi, there were very, very few people stopped for a scan and none at my gate that I saw getting patted down. On my return trip, however, everyone without exception was being scanned to enter my Delta flight to Memphis, and I was again a magnet for the full kaboodle. Watch out for those lady bumps, they might explode!

The danger in all this is that we begin to accept the unacceptable when it becomes routine and normal. Another step down a slippery slope.

I have no problem with the responsibility of government and air carriers to keep us safe. What I object to is the reactionary (and questionable) practice of revealing scans and patting travelers down. The Israelis, who are experts at dealing with potential terrorism, post agents and dogs in their airports. They watch behavior, which makes more sense than targeting the average tourist for a patdown, including the elderly in wheelchairs and young children. Time will show that current TSA procedures are a waste of time and money. If they're effective at all, it's only as a deterrent. Posting well-trained agents and dogs sound like better deterrents than probably unconstitutional body searches. All this may become a moot point as peak oil creeps into our lives, however. Air travel will one day  - all too soon - become a privilege of the wealthy.

Here's the original piece:

11/29/2010 Scanning is NOT an Option

It’s early. Way too early. Why do I never get enough sleep before I travel?
I feel like a warmed-over, stale cuppa something by the time I reach LAX, check my luggage, and head for my Delta gate at 6:51 a.m. for a 9:05 flight. A good thing to be in place ahead of time. Not a good thing if you don’t enjoy dragging yourself out of bed before dawn to crawl into a cold airport shuttle, and then to a long wait on a hard plastic seat.

Oh, but let’s backtrack a bit.

I knew my day wasn’t going well when the TSA security agent standing on the way, far side of the metal detectors took a good, long look at me in the security line. One of those eyeballs on sticks kind of looks.

At first I think it‘s because I carry my laptop in a backpack – ooh, ooh, the big, black, suicide-bomber backpack. Or maybe it's because my handbag looks too heavy because I have a full water bottle in it. The ozone level is so high around the City of Angels that I always feel thirsty. I yank it out and suck the water down in one long pull as I walk past a recycling bin before dumping my shoes, carry-on, and laptop onto the conveyor.

The guy keeps his eyes glued on me. When it’s finally my turn to walk through the metal detector, he channels me into no-man’s land between two scanners, slick as you please.

“Female assist on 4A, female assist on 4 A,” he says into his walkie-talkie with a bit of self-importance.

Female assist? It dawns on my sleep-deprived, senior mind: Don’t you get patted down only if you refuse a scan? If I was the jaw-dropping type, mine would have hit the floor.

Now I know what farm animals in the slaughter line feel like. Myth #1 - you choose a patdown if you refuse a scan. I hadn’t refused anything yet.

Never mind recent news reports in which people say they didn’t see anyone get scanned or groped on their trip through America’s airports. At LAX the process is so quick and unobtrusive that most people behind you don’t even notice, unless your female assist doesn’t turn up in a hot flash.

Besides, myth # 2 is that you’re holding up the line. Actually, you’re channeled in-between lines into a quadrangle between two scanners. Then, naturally self-conscious that you hit the unlucky jackpot, you twist, turn, and gaze around, wondering if TSA is going to watch your handbag with cash, credit cards, and passport, your plucked laptop, or your carry-on bag, since your stuff just went through security without you.

Why the heck does the male TSA agent call for female assistance about 10 times? How long can this ordeal last?

I figure it doesn’t hurt to throw a small, polite fit.

“I want a scan,” I say, when the young female agent finally appears from wherever she was probably been patting down someone else. An elderly woman in a wheelchair is waiting behind me, though she was there first.

When my female assist agent finally rushes up, I insist on going ahead because my belongings are hanging out on the end of the conveyor belt where other, luckier, and less karmically bereft passengers are collecting their gear.

“Why are you patting me down?”

“You walked through the metal detector and into holding. We can’t scan you now, you’ll have to go through the line. Besides, these –” the agent waved her blue-gloved hands at the scanners, aren’t working.”

“But WHY am I being patted down?”

“You’re wearing a skirt and jacket.”

I look down at my long, form-fitting knit skirt and short jacket. The outfit is so tight I could barely conceal a band-aid. I may as well have been wearing a bikini, like the highly-publicized young lady who went through an LAX metal detector a couple of days before. I wore the get-up from LAX to London last fall. When you’re traveling for over 30 hours (my kids and I had to ride the Tube and later the Arriva trains to southwest Wales), you really don’t want to wear jeans or anything that binds, because you’ll feel every little seam and bump.

“And?”

“That’s a point we look for.”

“And all these people,” I wave my hand at the line of people collecting their shoes and gear from the bins ahead of me, all decked out in baggy jeans or tight jeans topped with heavy sweaters, generously cut long-sleeve collared shirts, and sometimes tight or baggy layers of knit shirts and sweaters. Some even wore bulky winter coats, scarves, and gloves, “just sail on through and yet they could more easily conceal things than me?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We pick people out at random.”

By type of clothing, at random. Hmm.

“I want a scan.”

By now, my short little fuss attracts a third agent, a young male who looks pained at my logic. Damn straight, his face agrees. He shuffles from foot to foot. “You want a scan? You’ll have to collect your things and go back into another line if you want a scan.”

The female agent looks confused. “You can’t have a scan. You don’t have a choice. Well, you could go back, but you’re here. Do you want a scan or not?”

“When’s your flight?” The male agent glances at his watch.

“9:05.” I have over two hours and my gate is visible just beyond security. But I want to put TSA through as many paces as they put me through. At least they care when I have to board my flight. I’d read about some rough treatment by TSA agents in CNN news reports. Rudeness, theft of personal belongings from privacy rooms, direct quotes from the TSA hierarchy that security was more important than missing a flight.

“Plenty of time if you want to go back.” He looked uncomfortable, as though no one had ever collected their things and started over before.

I glare at them both, just a little glare, not enough to get me into more hot water.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “A patdown only takes a few seconds.”

I snivel. “Why does the world think you only get patted down if you refuse a scan? That’s the word on the street and in news reports. “Here I stand, not refusing a scan, and you’re patting me down.”

“Ma’am,” the female said, “it’s random security.”

The second male agent nods. “What do you want?”

“I just want to get on my flight, obviously.” I look the female in the eye. “You said it was because I’m wearing a skirt. It’s long, but it isn’t exactly big and fluffy.” I sigh. “Well, go ahead.”

She brightens, and the male agent takes a step back. “Hold your arms out, please.”

I do, but I don’t like it one bit. It actually feels more threatening than when I was pulled from a line in pre-metal detector days at the Kingston, Jamaica airport to a privacy room for a much more thorough pat-down than I get here at home during a war. Since they weren’t looking for explosives in 1989, it could only have been a drug search. I was amused because why would anyone in their right mind try to smuggle anything through international customs? Your chances were probably better to stash contraband in your checked luggage. Besides, there were far more bohemian-looking people than me leaving Kingston. That time, I wore a little knit mini-dress with ankle-length leggings. Sandals. No undies. When the attractive black female agent patted me down, there was definitely nada to grope but bony me, 120 pounds dripping wet. The experience left me giggling. While she had me cornered, some smuggler probably got away bigtime. I didn’t even carry the legal allotment of Jamaican rum in my checked lugguage.

But the experience of having my more jiggly and senior 135 pounds patted down didn’t make me giggle.

For one thing, the TSA agent didn’t do the patdown as publicized. No checking anything front or back, just down from shoulders to torso to the sides of my legs, then kinda sorta up the inside of my legs, bumping with one finger for a split-second my pelvic bone, where my left junk would be if I had any. I could have hidden lots of stuff in places she didn't check.

Dozens of people continued swarming unpatted and unscanned around me, all, according to TSA, potential terrorists. I didn’t appreciate being singled out for nothing one bit.

And that’s the crux of the problem. How much energy is wasted on random searches? When does security become tyranny? How much privacy and freedom do you give up in order to be secure? How many people with contraband have TSA arrested or pulled out of flight lines since starting the porno scans and patdowns?

The only one I’ve heard of so far is the young man in San Diego who didn’t want to be nuked, and didn’t want his junk touched either. He was willing to give up a holiday to fight for YOUR rights.

But I have a heckuva lot hinging around this international trip. I guess if you want to avoid having your lady junk touched, it’s better to wear pants. If you must fly and your trip is too expensive to walk away from, expect to get nuked or groped whether you like it or not.

It doesn’t make me feel one bit safer, because there’s always a way to get around each new security measure.
The best thing about my experience? Questioning authority. If I was younger, I might have been yanked out of line for giving TSA the lip. It felt damn good to be a cranky old lady.

I question the rationality of anyon who thinks it’s okay to have their junk touched without just cause. Anyone who says x-rays and groping makes them feel secure hasn’t confronted the nature of their own impermanence. Living is risky. Everything changes. We’re all going to die and some of us will die inconveniently and tragically. Nothing will ever totally guarantee public or personal safety.

I reach my hard plastic seat more morning-impaired than ever. Now that I’ll probably exhibit a mild case of PTSD every time I’m in an airport, I can take at least comfort in the fact that I made the experience as hard on TSA as TSA made it on me.

I look over at the security line. They’ve just channelled a young lady in sweater and jeans into no-man’s land. Three women in a row.

Tag, you’re it. You decide.

Oh-OH!

Just when you think you’ve reached your quota of jellyfish, life throws a few more (or a really big one) at you. But the same goes for sundogs – they just appear without reason, shining their lovely spectrum of colored light all over your eyeballs.

I was just getting beginning to feel better after the national (and my personal) malaise over the Arizona shooting tragedy. It seems like the victims didn’t die or suffer in vain, after all. There seems to truly be a lot less yelling and name-calling going on in national politics. Both legislators and citizens seem more willing to pull together now. We all have more awareness about gun control and mental health issues and how special and precious each life really is.

Two weeks later, I was settling down into a nice routine with a new experiment in my writing life: an old crit buddy and I agreed to try collaborating on some short stories. He has this incredibly fertile imagination and I have the toolbox, the literary filler, and the word-whacking polish. I’ve also nabbed an interesting telecommute job that is pushing me to use new editing skills and old.

I was zooming along early one morning, telecommuting and word-whacking, and discovered via my e-mail electric bill that my vacant home had a larger than usual fee due. Which meant pretty much one of two things – either someone had taken up residence there, which would be unusual in that people who do that usually choose McMansions and not 30-year-old trailers. That left the other diagnosis: the well pump might be running frequently due to a water leak.

I was right. The trailer is toast – very soggy toast. My writing buddy says my life reminds him of the “Perils of Pauline”. As there are all sorts of water exclusions with home insurance policies, I may not receive a thin dime for the accident. The state of my water main is a mystery, as I thought the only main was the one at the tank and pump - and because my well is shared by a neighbor, that had to be left on. Heat – well, the pipes freeze there even with the heat on.

I was crushed for a few days – who wants to lose part of an investment that is due for a fix and up for sale? I even considered moving back in later this year. But I soon recovered as there’s not a darn thing I can do about it now. The whole mystery about the water main and its unusual placement should have been solved by me before gallivanting off to slay dragons and put out fires. Old trailers aren’t worth much, though if it had been struck by lightning and burned down, I’d probably have gotten a check for a new home by now.  There’s the distinct possibility that the leak is long-term, not a by-product of the New Year’s weekend freeze, and that means I may still get that check, or some reimbursement. An engineer has made an assessment and I’m awaiting the verdict. Live and learn.

The sundogs started shining when I received a generous donation by a lovely couple who have published a New Age newsletter for many years. Avaton and Vikki of CAC in Olympia, WA rock. At the very least, if I get nothing from the insurance company, with the kind donation I’ll be able to have the soggy box pulled off the property. This is a pretty good thing. Just the thought of the donation warms my heart so much that I’ve forgotten my initial shock after the neighbors looked around the trailer.

I’d like to think that my years of donating and paying things forward have all come full circle. This is definitely a sundog moment. The writing life is like that too. Artistic endeavors aren't just about honing one’s skills. I think when you reach out to other writers and share what you learn, whether it’s through a critique group or by volunteering time to a writer’s guild, or volunteering to help children read and write in your local schools, your own writing improves in leaps and bounds. As all our lives are improved by generosity, so is our art. I suspect that all aspects of life are involved in this continuous interplay of cause and effect, that it isn’t simply our own personal efforts to succeed that make the biggest difference in our lives. It's our willingness to serve others and work with others that marks the break-out line between success and failure.

So I’ll keep muddling along, doing my do, and when I have more skills or excess resources to share, will pay them forward. I really like to see those sundogs between the jellyfish days. And I enjoy YOUR successes too.

Winter View from the Old Homestead 

Puja Robinson  © 2008