Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

The documentary (based on the book) “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” by Jared Diamond, professor of geology and physiology at UCLA, chronicles an interdisciplinary attempt by Diamond to explain why Eurasian civilizations have survived and conquered other civilizations, while at the same time maintaining that this dominance is not due to any intellectual, moral, or genetic superiority. Diamond began to explore this dilemma after being impacted by a conversation with Yali, a politician in New Guinea, who asked: “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”

Why do we have so much cargo?

As I’m getting older, I’m beginning to understand that I don’t need as much of the “cargo” I’ve carried with me as I once did. I find that I want to have objects that are beautiful to me, and that I can enjoy when I happen to glance at them. But I don’t want as much of that “stuff” around me as I once had.

And as I’m getting older, I also understand that much of the cargo I’ve carried is not just the external cargo, the “things” I’ve accumulated, although they are, for sure, part of what I carry. I am beginning to understand that most of the cargo has been my own internal cargo – feelings, thoughts, and ways of being that no longer serve me, and have not served me for a long, long time.

Robert Bly writes of carrying a huge sack on our backs. For most of our lives, we carry a sack of others’ expectations, and thoughts, and judgments on our back. As we go through our lives, the sack gets bigger and bigger, and as we go through our lives, we are more and more weighed down by that huge sack of expectations, experiences, memories, and unforgiven things in our lives.

Most of us are so busy working and doing important things in the world – and getting credit for doing that important work – that we do not reflect on what is driving us, what is burdening us, what is really behind all the activity and the work and the importance.

What a burden that is!
“Are you carrying, Heavy burdens?, and you don’t know what to do
Are you sad? And disponded, wondering how you’ll make it through
Is your heart heavy, laiden? With many, many cares
Why not do, like many others, Oh
Take it to the lord in prayer… ” words and music by Dr. Charles Hayes

I am certain that people of all places and in all times have been burdened by what they are carrying on their backs. As I reflect during this time of my life, I have come to see that some of what I carry with me belongs to someone else! So I’ve been carrying not only my own cargo, but the cargo of others, perhaps the cargo of others from many generations back!

Part of the wisdom of life, it seems, is to let go of that cargo, that heavy load of expectations and others’ dreams for us, of shame and guilt over what we have not done, but about who we are. How do we let go?

I think of “letting go” as the real work of life. We all carry too much “cargo,” to be sure, and it weighs us down, makes today’s problems seem bigger than they are, fogs up the beauty of who we really are – shining bits of light, here to shine our beauty into the world.

What cargo are you carrying with you today? Can you let go?
What cargo can you take from that long, dirt-covered sack you are dragging, take a look at it, and leave it here, now?
Can I join you in this work, this work of letting go?

As I’ve grown older, and as I am more in touch what is within me, rather than what is outside of me, my idea of “what beauty is” has changed.

Let me try to explain. I was surprised several years ago when I took an online “values inventory.”  I wanted to answer the questions as honestly as I could, as close to what I really think are my values, not the values I think I “should” have.  When I tallied up the results of the values survey, “beauty” was number 1 for me.

As a child, I used to love to make some beauty in my room.  I’d carefully rearrange the small bottles of cologne I had somehow found – maybe old bottles of my mother’s from her mirrored vanity – onto a mirrored, gilt-edged vanity tray I must have gotten as a gift, along with a few other pretty, small items, on the tall, mahogany-colored veneer dresser that was mine.  First I’d dust the dresser, then I’d cover it with the cotton doily with a ruffle that was mine, and with an eye to beauty, I’d move my treasures around.

I remember as a teenager having the house to myself one day.  For some reason, my mother was gone.  I spent the afternoon cleaning the living room, dusting the furniture, rearranging a few things, straightening up messy places.  Then I took a trip to the covered farmer’s market on the corner of 28th and Center, where I found a lovely bouquet of peonies, which I arranged to grace the top of the television set.  Finally, I sat down to enjoy my work.  I was surprised – maybe even disappointed – when my mother came home later, obviously noticed what I’d done, and didn’t say a word.

I still love to arrange small spaces in a way that appeals to my own sense of beauty.  A friend once commented that I would make a great window-dresser in a department store.  For awhile, I fantasized about a life I would never have, an artist’s life in New York City, making up the windows of some huge department store.

When I was in Paris and in Florence, I noticed the windows of small shops and boutiques.  Sometimes I stopped at a window to simply enjoy the elegant beauty arranged by some careful European.

Beauty is a high value of mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t long for justice, that I don’t pray for food and shelter for all people, or that I don’t mourn losses with friends and even foes.  All of those things are true for me, as well.  Maybe having “beauty” as a value is a way toward economic justice, a path toward equality, a marker on the way to reconciliation and peace.

At the very least, I do think beauty in its myriad, abundant forms is an element of justice and truth and equality – and hope.

What Beauty Is, is changing for me, and that’s the purpose of this writing.  Beauty is a walk.  Beauty is my husband’s eyes, the shape of his face.  Beauty is the sound of early Sunday morning, while the city wakes up, slowly.  Beauty is the sound of a train moving quickly to its destination in the distance, the sound having arrived because of a certain wind.  Beauty is the trees across from my window, dancing in the wind.  Beauty is a wind-less day, complete stillness.  Beauty is reading a poem that takes my breath away.  Beauty is an afternoon with humidity in the air in the Bay Area, which drifts me back to my younger years on the nostalgia it brings.  Beauty is the city streets, anytime.  Beauty is the variety of people I pass on a walk around Oakland, each one of them beautiful, too.  Beauty is children’s eyelashes.  Beauty is a deeply wrinkled dark face.  Beauty is the little dog from my neighborhood, running to greet me.  Beauty is breath, and sight, and hearing.  Beauty is listening to a Gospel song, and dancing to it.  Beauty is laughing, gales and gales of laughter.  Beauty is sadness and happiness and goodness and mercy, all rolled into one.  Beauty is the tall apartment buildings rimming Lake Merritt.  Beauty is the skyline of the City from the top of the Oakland hills.  Beauty is the sound of rain after too many seasons of drought.

Most of all, I’m grateful to Beauty for having made Her place in my life a matter of importance to me.  I am grateful to Beauty for teaching me that She comes in many, many, many ways, and that the world would be a better place if we looked into the world, looking for Beauty.

May your day be a day filled, abundantly, richly, justly with Beauty.  And – what is Beauty to you?

Meet LiLi!

Let me introduce you to my beautiful feline friend, LiLi.  LiLi has lived with me – with us! – for over 4 years now.  She came to us at 6 weeks old, the runt of the litter.  LiLi is my third cat; she follows in the paw-steps of Schatzi and Beauty, the little black and white cat who never came out from hiding.

I learned to love cats after I married Jeff.  I guess I married Schatzi, too.  I used to say that Schatzi was ridiculous, which she was, but she was also a beautiful Maine Coon cat, small for her breed, and she was the best at napping, her back against my chest.  Schatzi was almost 20 years old the week she sat by the heat register, unable to move.  That was the week my mother was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and I swear Schatzi lived for another 10 months to be with me during that time of death and grief.

Cats are not only beautiful, wondrous creatures; cats are smart, too.  LiLi, whose picture graces this post, is really smart.  She talks!  When she comes in from outside (this is a cat who would never agree to being cooped up inside all day!), she will stand a few feet from me and talk.  Sometimes I talk in her language, and sometimes I speak English.  Either way, we are both engaged, even if her food dish is full at the time.

My theory is that LiLi is touchy about where she is touched because she was the runt of the litter, and maybe she didn’t learn enough from her mama before she was taken away.

Intuitively I know that LiLi is smarter than I can imagine, although she doesn’t make a big deal of it.  She’s just naturally intelligent, that goes without saying, it goes with the package, the package of being LiLi, cat.

I’ve learned a lot from my cats through the years.  I’ve learned that it’s fun to play, tirelessly, even when panting hard.  I’ve learned that if you wait long enough, someone will fill the dish with food.  I’ve learned that there is always something interesting to see – to growl at – right outside the window.  I’ve learned that being patient is simply a matter of being still.  I’ve learned that it’s all right to spend the whole day sleeping.  I’ve learned that it’s good to keep quiet about the fact that you are smarter than anyone else in the room.  I’ve learned that sometimes it’s necessary to put out your claws, to show that you are the boss in this situation.  I’ve learned that cuddling right up to someone’s heart is one of the best things in the world.

Having a cat has brought a whole world of mystery and beauty and dignity into my life, the life of this city-girl.

Thank you, cats of the world!

I love bubble bath!  Recently, my favorite brand – my favorite for many years! – has disappeared from store shelves, and I’m testing new brands to discover bubbles I like as much.  Sigh… another loss, another change…!

Remember blowing bubbles?  What child doesn’t love to blow bubbles?  What cat or dog doesn’t like to chase bubbles?  What adult doesn’t somehow become a child again when given the opportunity to blow bubbles?  Several years ago, I officiated at an outdoor wedding, and when the ceremony was over and guests sat to eat the wedding meal, we discovered at each plate a small plastic bottle of soap – the new marriage celebrated by hundreds of bubbles, exploding into the air!

Why “life as bubbles?”

Each moment, each precious moment of life is a bubble, if you will.  Each moment explodes into the next, each day passes quickly, and each month and year are so quickly checked off the calendar.

“Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, the troubles of the world, the troubles of the world,” the slaves in fields in America sang, to remind themselves that this life, this hard and brutal life they were given, would soon enough be over.  To them, these words inspired hope, hope in the hot sun, hope in the blistering heat, hope in the pain.

Soon, the bubbles will burst, soon enough.

***

I lived most of my life exploding bubbles.  How did I do that?  I lived in this moment by thinking and worrying about the next.  I turned over and over in my mind the coming day, the interview next week, the friends I didn’t have, the dream that would not be met.  Or I turned over and over in my mind that last conversation – what I could have said – that last decision that could go wrong, the mistakes, real or imagined, I had made.  Some of this worry was unconscious, to be sure, and sometimes these same unconscious worries come to visit again, even now.

I exploded the bubbles of this moment by living into the future or by living in the past.  That’s a drama-filled life, to be sure, because the mind writes dramas with every stroke of thought.  It does!

How could I have missed all of this?  How could I have missed all the beauty that surrounds me?  How could I have missed the crescent moon, shining in the black sky?  How did I miss the light shining through autumn leaves?  How did I miss the sweet, sweet city smell of morning?  How did I miss the sound of the wind, floating to me?  How did I miss the bubbles, floating into the air, all the colors of the rainbow reflected in their iridescence?

Now, I am grateful as often as I can be, for this shining moment.  I am grateful for this one bubble floating over my head.  I am grateful for the one smile, the simple laugh, the little bit of light that says day is coming soon.

How did I get here?  I will say this:  letting go of the drama, letting go of the wild voices of reason, letting go of the violence of the mind is not an easy job.  It’s a life’s work, and it doesn’t end.  This letting go is the hardest work, and many do not do the work.

I say to others often:  “letting go is the secret to life.”  Then, quickly, I add:  “and how do we let go????”

For a moment today, stop bursting bubbles.  Instead, take a breath.  Sense the bottoms of your feet.  See what is right in front of you.  If you feel sad, feel sad.  If you are happy, be happy.  If you are in grief, cry.

Look at the precious bubbles, these moments, floating in front of your child-like eyes!