Month: September 2019

The Wonderful Thing about You, is You’re The Only One

The Wonderful Thing About You, is You’re the Only One

By Jane Tawel

September 2019

 

I took a personality test today. Well, a pathology test they called it, which, I don’t know, sometimes in our modern era, personalities and pathologies seem sort of like the same thing. My results didn’t surprise me but I guess they sort of flummoxed the researchers (see below) and skewed the statistics, both results which definitely do fit my personality. Ha!

Here are my results:

MULTIPLE RESULTS: “You appear to have two or more equally prominent Pooh Pathologies. It is possible that you are an equal fit for all of those characters. On the other hand, it is also possible that you simply answered the questions in such a way that you ended up with tied results, even though, in reality, you do have a definite Pooh Pathology. Whether you really are an equal fit for all of these characters, or you just happened to get an equal score on all of them, we are unable to say; we are therefore also unable to give you a more personalized description. But you can consult the chart above to see which of the characters you scored the strongest on.”

Well, I could have saved everyone some time, because I really didn’t need to consult this particular chart. I have already scored myself and all my family members, years ago, on my own personal Winnie The Pooh Personality Test.

I don’t put much stock in either tests or statistics, but I had to take this silly test because any thing remotely related to brilliant worldviews, psychological delvings, and thematic explorations by great artists, like A.A. Milne, are to me, like drawing a magnet across the face of an old Wooly Willy Toy.

 

My children and I loved the “Winnie-the-Pooh” books and every single one of us had (and have) Pooh character names. I even had a Winnie the Pooh poem read at my wedding. It was called “Us Two” and my grandfather (and we could never be sure with Grandpa if he was being serious or making a joke) asked out-loud during the service why my sister was reading a poem about “poo”.

The reasons for each of my family member’s nicknames, seem obvious to me, but then, it’s my story melding with Milne’s, much as Milne melded his adult-view stories with his own son’s children’s tales. My husband, even before our wedding, has been long my own “Winnie the Pooh”. My eldest daughter, dubbed herself “Tigger” early on. We still call my second daughter,“Roo” to the point that some people think it is her birth name. When my third daughter came along, she was our own cute little, anxious sounding, “Piglet”; and my son, well, I must admit there are many days he sounds exactly like his nickname implies, as the grumpy, pessimistic “Eeyore”. As the best mate of the silly ‘ole bear and the mother-figure to my children, I have had a role with many of the same skill sets and jobs as Christopher Robin. And just like Christopher Robin, as my children have grown up and left my story to start epic tales of their own, it has been hard for me to grow-up and leave my stories with them and my best-est, most beloved playmates behind, and find another “me” to be. Maybe that is why this test failed to tell me who I am. I am not sure myself who I am yet, in this new chapter.

It is funny how all the names rather suited all of us Tawels, though I do not think any of my family members have pathologies. Tendencies though… well, it is rather flukey how the nicknames fit a bit of the person each of us is. A.A. Milne in “The Winnie-the-Pooh” stories, was definitely onto something about adults versus children. But Milne also knew that adults and children could have so much more in common, if only the adults had a bit more imagination and the children had a bit more say. Milne recognized that adults always have the same fears and foibles that children do and that children have the same abilities and wisdom that adults do. It’s just that real children, no matter how old, know how to laugh at themselves and how to admit they are wrong so they can try again. Adults, no matter how young, forget, but children know that there will always be enough if we share, and that the world needs more celebrations than it needs more money. Children know that intelligence without humility is a sure way to end up lost and rambling alone in “The Scary Woods”. Children know that being “stuffed” full, but without empathy, makes one an animal and a pretend animal, at that. Children know that if you go through life without love, the Heffalumps just might catch up to you. The great thing about Milne’s characters is that each was just a little part of the great big “whole” that we call being a complete human being. We all have a bit of Tigger and Eeyore and Christopher Robin and Pooh in us. And to play along with my Grandpa’s pun, we would all get along much better if we could just accept that everyone has Pooh.

But as Tigger said of himself, The wonderful thing about my own loved and very individual family members, Tigger and Roo, and Piglet and Pooh, and me and Eeyore, is each individualistic one of us is “the only one”. And today, although according to the test, I may not have a discernible Pooh Pathology and though I may have multiple personalities, each struggling within me and wondering which of them I’ll choose to manifest today; the wonderful thing about me is, I’m the only one.

Be the you, you are today. Not the “best” you; not the “favorite” you, not the “dream” you, just “The You” that makes this great big “Hundred Acre Forest” of a world something that needs you at the table. After all, the wonderful thing about you is, you are the only one.

Until We Fly – a poem

Until We Fly

by Jane Tawel

September, 2019

 

When we go

How slow

How fast

Nothing changes

Nothing lasts.

 

This life

like sleet, it

does not stick, it’s–

so fleeting.

 

The heat melts,

and melds with cold

The heart stays young

But body and mind grow old.

 

Death parades us

like the trained

Animals we are.

Reality, feigned us,

until–

We fly with stars.

 

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A Fair By Any Name is Still So Sweet

A Fair By Any Name is Still So Sweet

by Jane Tawel

September 2019

 

Going to the Los Angeles County Fair always gives me a giggling “superiority complex” when I compare it to the “real” fairs of the Midwest I grew up going to.

 

I will never forget the first time I took my four young kids to the L.A. Fair. They had already been to our Indiana Kosciusko County Fair by then. Our Kosciusko Co. fair is small potatoes compared to the gigantic, wondrous, and multitudinous State Fairs of the Midwestern States, but it’s still a real fair, with barns of competing 4H entries, with scores of animal and crafts barns, and a midway to rival the Mouse’s, and all that. The first time that I, with great excitement, took my young kids to the L.A. fair, I remember so clearly that we had been strolling around a while and my children were already hot, and sweaty, and cranky, and hating the whole “fun” day. And of course, my kids were kinda hating me by then for “forcing” them to go to a Fair. You aren’t laughing if you have never been a parent of young kids, and you aren’t laughing if you currently are parenting young children whom you are forcing fun things on, like going to fairs and amusement parks. BUT if you once upon a time were a parent of young kids, and you have survived them, then you are laughing with recognition at how much your kids once “hated” you for the fun things you took them to.

 

So the first time I took my four young children to the L.A. Fair, I finally walked up to and asked one of the Los Angeles Fair workers, “Where are all the animals?”

 

I was standing in what I thought was a little kiddie petting zoo area and I had been looking for the gigantic row upon row of horse and cow and sheep barns. And this young worker guy looked at me like I was crazy and pointed to the four small pens of dejected looking guinea pigs, the three pens of wilting in the heat rabbits, and the five scrawny goats and two sarcastic looking cows in a small enclosure, and he said as if speaking to a blind idiot, “They’re right there”.

 

If you have been to a “real” fair, you’ll understand my concerned amusement. 

 

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Yesterday my hubby, Raoul, and I trudged off in typical 95-degree SoCal-in-September weather, knowing what we were in for, and we still had a blast. We don’t eat the unbelievably expensive and completely always deep-fried foods (sorry all you deep-fried pickle and Snickers lovers); and we don’t ride the rides. But we love sitting in the blazing September heat and being amazed at the talent apparent in the little shows put on in cramped arenas by the jugglers and gymnasts and yesterday, by this super delightful Wild Bill Hickok Western Show. We like petting the animals that they DO have, and seeing the cow milking demonstration; and we always have to see the pig race show where the audience members get to cheer for their side’s pig as it races against other pigs — Hilarious! We enjoy strolling through the crafts barn (Although I have a sneaky suspicion that the crafts are the exact same ones every year, dust-ily displayed year after year, pretending to be newly made by young and old crafters lurking throughout our megalopolis. I think they just switch up the winning ribbons). And of course, you can’t beat a fair for people watching, although almost everywhere in Los Angeles is ripe for that.

 

All in all, a summer fair is tradition. And whenever and if ever you can, traditions are worth keeping. We missed you at the Fair, yesterday, my kiddos, but Dad and I are keeping up those traditions for you, even the ones you hated.

 

At the Fair, my husband I strolled and talked about how much we miss being with our kids, all now adults, and how slightly weird it feels to do things sometimes, just us two; things that we used to do with (and for) them. But we also confirmed that we are deeply happy to have all that we have and for our children to have all that they have, including the memories we share. And that’s the same way I feel about the silly, funny, small potatoes Los Angeles County Fair. I’m truly glad to have the fair that I have.

 

So take that, Midwestern Mega-Fairs. A Fair by any name, is still sweet.

 

Thanks for another fun day, Los Angeles County Fair! And until next year…

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What Are We So Afraid Of?

What Are We So Afraid Of?

By Jane Tawel

September 2019

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(Jane and  her son Gordon with Americans and Mexicans working together in Tijuana Mexico)

 

I am confused about what people are afraid of. I see this fear infecting the whole world, but as a life-long, card-carrying American, I have to address this fear-mongering problem that is rising in my own nation, like yeast in Egypt before the Hebrews left for the Promised Land. America as an empire has long been an example of capitalism on steroids, masquerading as “democracy” or worse, giving the lie to something certain people call “Christianity”.  It makes me tremble to observe our (and I include myself) hypocrisy and power-hungry, greedy worldview not only rampaging through the world, but in true Orwellian fashion, calling ‘darkness’, “light”, and ‘hate’, “love”.

 

The most shocking (and obliviously, hypocritically ironic) are the people who are so terrified of and who therefore, have no love for the immigrant, the sojourner, the children of different races, ethnicities, cultures, or social strata. These are the people who want in now because they need to leave their homes elsewhere (often because of something we did to their homeland in the first place). These are people who simply want to live. Ironic much, Americans? Hello, calling any immigrants out there in America? Oh, yeah, that’s right, ALL of us are here because of our immigrating ancestors, except for, of course, the Native Americans who we conveniently trounced when we first came here or the slaves we brought here in the name of “more for me”.

 

 

The very fact that we have dubbed certain people “illegal” is a true indication of our rotted value system. These immigrants are not breaking the law, they are begging us for help. If you want to look for law-breakers, though, you don’t have to look to our borders. The entitled oligarchy here does tend to break the laws with impunity and not be penalized; and many of them work very little for the enormous amounts they are paid compared to what their employees are paid. And yet, there are those of us who fearfully brand things like equity and fairness, justice and mercy, and ‘doing unto others as we want done to us’, as “socialism”. Brand someone who is not like me as “illegal”, and it has the added bonus of making everything I do, as “legal” by default.  This is true for those who “serve” us in our government as well as the real people running this country– the 15% of people running mega-companies or the independently wealthy individuals and those who own 86% of this “Republic’s” wealth. If Americans are so up in arms about law breaking, so fearful of others who are not like the “average Jane or John Doe”, then they need look no further than our own beloved institutions and leaders of government, religion, industry, and social entertainment.

 

Historically this has been true of every Empire, I am afraid, and yet, all these years I have lived here and I am still always a bit taken aback when America, which was to be the “shining city on a hill”, proves to be no different. This is what I mean when I ask what values do people think poor immigrants are not catching on to? Perhaps you know different ones than I do? But any recent immigrants that I know of are hard workers, good students who often put themselves through school while holding down jobs; they are people who care for their children, parents, often even grandparents while doing jobs no one else wants to do; they are creative, grateful people who are bringing good things to our nation. Compare them to the “legal” citizens’ whose kids got into colleges by deceit and lies. Compare them to the “legal” immigrants who send their money and jobs to other parts of the world to increase their wealth, while fleecing our citizens. Compare them to our leaders who have no care at all for the health of our own grandparents and children. Compare them to the “legal” citizens who are now almost daily shooting up our citizenry with their freedom to buy weapons of mass destruction. Compare them to people who spend my tax dollars as elected officials and increase their own wealth while in office, not mine. Compare them to pastors or priests or spokespeople for any religion such as Christianity who make millions of dollars a year in God’s name and have the nerve to say their religion is being persecuted. Are those the values some folks are so anxious that our immigrants are supposed to want and have? We are picking at the specks in the eyes of the “other”, while the planks that are blinding us to our own truth, are growing at the same rate that we are deforesting the world.

 

So, I honestly have no idea, I really don’t understand what in the world people are talking about when they want somehow to “go back” to something they think America (or maybe your nation? Or maybe the whole world?)  once was.  It wasn’t; and it isn’t; and it never will be, unless that is we own-up and make it so. I’m not being argumentative, I just don’t get it. What is wrong in this country is what wise people and philosophies and holy books have tried to tell us has been wrong since the beginning of humans’ inhabitation of the earth. What is messed up in me, in you, in us is what is messed up in America. Every one and every place have always eventually gotten broken and messed up, unless and until goodness and truth and right values are either restored and rebuilt or else these things eventually die out so much that the soul of the person or the soul of the place dies along with them. But for God’s sake, or if you’d rather, for America’s sake, just because it is broken, doesn’t mean we don’t have the responsibility to actually try and fix it. But something broken can never be fixed by trying to go back to an imagined Past. It is only by embracing the Future and the hard task of living into the unknown that we can even survive let alone thrive. It is only by accepting what we have been given (not earned) for Today, with  a heart and mind filled with gratitude, grace, and love, that we can mend the brokenness within and without, and together can build something worth keeping, worth treasuring, worth sharing.

 

We have not risen to the clarion call of our ancestors, whomever we might consider them to be. What we really have done is sunk and hunkered down into the values of false pride, self-entitlement, and overarching greed. We are all a result of America’s worship of capitalism or “manna”, in the name of nationalism (selfishness). And all of what we are so anxious to hang on to for ourselves are not valuables based on the moral high-ground of some belief system, but are the result of our true values, which are nothing to do with democracy or justice or freedom, and definitely not anything at all to do with goodness or love or God or Christianity or any such ideal.

 

If you want to spiritualize, which I obviously always tend towards, we “must be born again”. That means, at a minimum, that we must humble ourselves and become like little babies, not in a selfish way, but in an innocent, anticipatory way. As newborn “citizens of the world”, we would have to accept that we each and as a whole have a gigantic amount still to learn. Being born again would mean that just like a newborn baby, I can not differentiate between colors. As a baby, I don’t care what color you are or language you speak, or how old or calloused your hands are when they hold me, or what you believe in as long as it includes a belief in love, or what you eat for dinner, as long as I too, am fed. As a baby, I am not afraid of tomorrow, because today, it is enough to be alive.  And like a baby, I need you; and I have an innate, as yet unformed idea that you probably need me, too.

 

Tragically, our current identity in America has nothing to do with any ethical values that supposedly this nation or our supposedly major religion of choice were “founded on”. And although historically and factually it is highly debatable that either were in fact truly founded on these grand ideals and sacrificial selfless morals, there are still just so many truly good people trying to do good things, that if we can all just stop being afraid of the wrong things, there is great hope. We can still hope that more of us will actually want things like justice for all; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; all people viewed as equals; and just some straight-up real love of others in need. These are still very, very, very good ideals to strive for, both as individuals and as a nation. Don’t we want more people coming here who want to share those values with us?

 

Immigration, legal and otherwise, is a red herring in our national myth. I keep looking for those people who claim that America is the new Israel (God forbid if you actually read the Tanakh), or Christ’s Kingdom on earth (God forbid if you actually read the Gospel). But our actions speak lies louder than our words speak truth. So, feel free to espouse the values of self-first, that is very American. Feel free to espouse the values of I don’t want to share, that is very First World.  Go ahead and gripe and complain about what the people in power are doing or not doing if they are not on your team and go ahead and support the ones on your team no matter how much they lie and steal from you and the world at large.  Go ahead if you want and say, “I just don’t want any more people coming here”, fine, at least that is honest, although indefensible as a good ethical stance. But for the love of God, don’t claim that these ideas have anything to do with either American ideals or Christian values.

 

Real values and honestly earned virtues are hard things. A life of value does not come easily and will not stay, if it is not pruned and weeded. Fear is the antithesis of ethical living. And yet, as the greatest humans have always known, a life of true value without fear is also paradoxically very simple. “Love God as He Is and Love all others in the same way you love yourself.” “Pray humbly for your daily bread and let it be enough until tomorrow.”  “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” “Love conquers all.”

 

Remember we all come from the same dust, and we all yearn for the same eternity.

 

It takes so much misguided effort to somehow do the mind -gymnastics or spiritual -voodoo necessary to say or think that we who are currently on top of the heap and who lead today in this nation, in these halls of justice, in these religious temples, in these mansions, and conglomerates of industry, deserve what we have while those who want in, do not. Many of us have of course come about our station by sincere virtue but none of us is here through something uniquely “value-able” to America. America is so obviously struggling with our worship of the false idol of capitalism. For people to continue to try to convince me that the issue of immigration specifically, but also the other important ethical issues of our times, are about claiming our superior ethics or morality or values, or God forbid, to somehow think that self-serving ideals or fearful hoarding of resources can be anything at all to do with democracy or Christianity, well… I am confused and I just don’t get it. But I am not confused about how afraid that makes me.

 

Blessed will be those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

 

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“The fears” by giltay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

 

In Nature — A Poem

 

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In Nature

By Jane Tawel

September 2019

 

 

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In figs and pears

You oft appear,

And like the rose,

You rose

Despite the thorns.

 

 

What all I lack

In yon lilacs,

I find the glory;

As morning glories

Seek the same

Of the sun.

 

 

I too find rest,

Forever blessed

In The Son.

In bird and song

And honey bee throng

Like sparrows tended

By Your strong hand,

In sky and earth

In seas and land

You reign, You reign, You reign. . .

 

 

And like the rain

You fall on all

To grow the good

Among the weeds.

In winter mulch

Alive, all, much,

New life.

First, we die

Then rise to bloom.

Temporal as a weed,

But as The Rose of Sharon,

In death with You,  Eternal.

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