Personal Limitations

The personal limitations each one of us have to face, own and perhaps break through, can be excruciatingly difficult.

I've written about my older parents. One thing I'm learning from my relationship with them is that when you drop anger and self-righteousness you can find yourself in a  messy place. Anger, so neat and clean and often justified, is also an easy out.

Without my anger, I'm  seeing how much I disassociate within myself, how much I compartmentalize different awarenesses, making it hard for me to integrate everything.

All good stories, in some way, recount how anger, fear and disgust disconnect, while love connects. So, looking for something concrete I could do to grapple with all this-- I went to take pictures (which I love,) of two longstanding fears/hates: machines and basements.

And through the camera I think I was sorta able to make friends with what otherwise weirds me out.

I found an accidental Miro,

And an almost-elegance,

Like unearthed, unearthly jewlery.

But still, a lot of the stuff was pretty gross,

And dispiriting.

Some was funny (it would have been cheating to move things to make a better pic, but sometimes reality conspires with you.)

So, all in all, I'm slightly amazed how much grott I unthinkingly braved in search of a decent shot. Which tells me something--though I'm not quite sure what.

And in my personal life, I am grateful that circumstances have been such that I have been able to let go of anger, and have the opportunity to deal with this stuff while in an otherwise peaceful, supportive environment. I need all the love, affection, peace, vitality and support I can use in order to work out some stuff  I've never thought I could work out -- but which I now think, I might be able to resolve.

From the Haunts of my Yout: 2

From age 4 on, one constant in my life has been the beachclub. It's not a fancy club. A place with a big wooden swordfish over its entrance is never going to be chic. It is a comfortable club. For me, it's always been just right.

It has a huge pool, here semi-empty during adult swim. My first year swimming in it, I was too small to touch bottom. Here's a little girl having an early lesson in bravery. I feel for her.

There are bathhouses and cabanas and lots of boardwalk. Everything is built out of wood and covered in about 20 layers of white, grey or bright aqua paint. And after 10 days of opening, everything needs another 20 layers. 

The bathhouses are around the pool; the cabanas face the dunes with a bit of sand in front of them, which makes a great place for kids to play.

And here is my Mom reading.

Part of what I love about the ocean side is its spare beauty. When clubs or houses get too opulent they get in the way of that beauty. This club does not do that.

And of course there is the ocean. Which is the point of the whole thing. The wildest thing on earth. 

There is something about the salty spray, the cool dunk into the freedom of lessened gravity that makes me almost unspeakably happy.
                                                    



I also love beach walks. I walk eastward towards a big rock 
 along a jetty where I've been meditating since my 20s. In the pic below it's the one on the left that sticks up like a chair. For some reason its name is Philip.

Further on is the house where I learned to play poker (and much else.) I stop about there, turn around and come back, since if I go on I will run into the crowd from the next club. 

All in all a pretty simple world, but one I have affection for, will always have affection for, even though I do not live there anymore.

When you face the wide ocean, you can't ignore its sublimity. It seeps into you--the wildest, most beautiful thing on earth.  It's an outburst of joy, salty, spare and jubilant.

My next post on my garden blog is going to be about a bacteria in the soil that when breathed in, appears to heal some human afflictions.

I wonder if there is something about the sun and the sea that does the same for us.