Secure Your Own Air Mask

Oprah, on her last show, told listeners and viewers that everyone has a calling. She urged her audience to find it and do it. “Make a difference in your own life.” That got my attention. How many times have I heard that we are here to make a difference to others. It was drilled into me in my childhood by my mother. By her words, but mostly by her example. I believed it. I wanted it. I wanted to change the world; to make a difference in at least one someone’s world. I’m not doing it; at least not in the way I thought I needed to, saving the children and all that.

But now here's Oprah, urging me to make a difference in my own life. I have said before that among my favorite philosophers are airline attendants, with their spiels at the beginning and end of flights. My favorite bit is "Please secure you own oxygen mask before attempting to assist those around you." Don't you just love that? It is kind of what Oprah says, but she takes it a step further. We are simply no good to others if we haven't attended to our own house. When we are doing what we are passionate about, what gives us pleasure, what makes us whole and happy, we are not being selfish. That is how we will make a real difference in other people's lives, without even noticing.

It is my hope, and some of you had told me it is true, that my blog makes a difference in your life from time to time. It makes a difference in mine. I begin with a thought that pops into my head while I am working in the garden, or that I hear on the news or read in a book, and I work out what it means to me as I write. And sometimes you write back. Some of my best learning about myself comes from readers who take the time to tell me what you hear in my posts, and how it intersects with your own life. It's my favorite part of blogging. And I assume that for every one I hear from there are more who, even though you don't write, are sparked by a single line or a thought and figure something out for yourself. Securing my mask; everything else follows.

A few years ago I vowed to notice. It was a resolution for the new year. Just to open my eyes and pay attention. To the birds feeding crumbs to their young--the quivering little one opening its mouth wide in expectation; to the cloud formations and the color of the sky; to the progression of the garden into  summer--the eggplant has a bloom, the red pepper is bigger, and there are tomatoes!; to the sweet gardenia scent floating on the breeze and the evening light glowing through my church windows; to really hear what people are saying; to read favorite sentences in books over and over, sometimes out loud, letting the words roll around in my heart.

I read a book a couple weeks ago called Still Alice by Lisa Genova. It's a novel about a 50-year-old Harvard professor with early onset Alzheimers. When well into her dementia, but still lucid enough to know what was happening to her, she gave a speech to a conference of neurosurgeons. She said this:
"My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I’ll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I’ll forget it some tomorrow doesn’t mean that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.”

That's how I feel about my vow to notice. I may not remember what I noticed a year, or even a week from now. But I can remember that I paid attention. I will write it down; that way if I forget, I can read it--or someone else will read it and know.

Last week I heard an interview with a relentless backpacker on WUNC's State of Things. She said, "We pack solutions to our fears in our backpacks. If we are afraid of getting hungry, we pack too much food. If we are afraid of being cold, we pack too many clothes. If we are afraid of predators, we pack heavy sticks. And then we put on our packs, and they are too heavy to carry on our journey." Wow! We go about our lives afraid so much of the time, that we can't enjoy our days. I have been afraid that I am not doing anything to make the world a better place--to justify the space I take up on the planet and the oxygen I breathe. I am finally realizing that if I take off the backpack of guilt, and the weight of Time Running Out, and just do what I love doing for me, perhaps I am making the world a better place. And here we are, back to Oprah and the air masks.

The trick, of course, is finding what you are passionate about. It's taken me a lot of decades to figure that out; but I can see now that much of what I have done has not been wasted effort, it's just part of the process. The learning of anything is not a straight path. It's a winding, twisty trail--with false starts, hairpin turns, and detours. There is a Zen saying, "We stand in our own shadow and wonder why it’s dark. Like the bumble bee in its panic to get out of the house, fails to look for the open window." I think I have finally found my passion: writing and digging in the dirt. And it's been there all along, waiting for me to notice, and to stop being afraid. I think the garden part is metaphorical, though. My next garden may not be made of dirt and plants, it may be something all together different. I will just take off my backpack, get out of the shadow my fear casts, secure my air mask, and watch for the open window.

Summer Day

...I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
                                             -Mary Oliver