A Labor Day Special.
That's labor, as in work, as in giving birth.
We're making some changes under this roof, ones that have been a long time coming and require us to alter our habits and ways of thinking. You wouldn't know this by observing our daily doings, which appear normal, but we can tell because of one very particular soul phenomenon: As soon as anyone sets real change in motion, the most mundane tasks can become overflowing vessels bearing tests and tear-soaked blessings.
Like last Thursday for instance. I had spent a good part of the previous ten days trying to do what I had imagined as a simple click-click task: uploading the website I had put together for the Greek. But oy, the glitches. The total lack of interface. The mysterious disconnections. The imagined two clicks exploded into replacing the operating system, additional software, plus hours of tech support madness with no less than five suppliers.
Have I mentioned yet that am a computer idiot? There was one point - this was after a week of doinking around - where a very helpful fellow - I think it was Bryant. Or was is David? Not Lisa. Or Tina. Stephen?? - was having me type in code language. I was dutifully inputting exactly what he said: umbrella typhoon independence lute ... and after a while, as I was marveling that this computer code incorporated words like lute and typhoon, it turned out that he was giving me the words to indicate their first letters - u-t-i-l; but me, I'm just typing in the whole dang thing. Talk about clueless!
Under the best of circumstances, I have a hard time understanding what techs are talking about, but this was a situation where even the techs were stumped, and too many l-o-n-g calls ended with their saying, "Gee, I am totally stumped. I really don't know how to make this work." The customer support calls had gone on for about five days by the time the sun rose on Thursday. Thursday was the worst. Twelve straight hours at the computer, where I forgot to drink water. Or eat. My stomach was in knots. Seven different long tech calls, and all hit the deadest of ends. If every tech says there's nothing left to be done, then I've got a web address I can't use, a design I can't upload, I'm paying for a host I can't access, I've installed expensive software that isn't doing what it's supposed to do ...and ...and ...well, I was feeling more than a little bit nuts. More to the point, a tap root had penetrated my deepest, darkest feelings of uncontrollable personal failure - and I... Was... In... It, baby.
Earlier in the week, I had told the Greek that we should treat the launching of his website as something to be celebrated and that surely all the problems would be resolved by the end of the week. As the sun was going down on Thursday - and I was at the absolute nadir of my frustration, despair, plus body pain from sitting in a certain way too long, the Greek came bounding in the door cheerfully bearing a small flourless chocolate cake for our celebration. Whereupon I burst into boo-hoo-hoo-hooooooo....
"It's okay, it's okay," he comforted. "I'll just put it in the refer and we'll have it later."
Later, I'm thinking - yeah, much later, in some distant future when my hair is grey and the stale, probably moldy cake tastes more like the inside of the refrigerator than its cake self. Nothing to celebrate here, people, nothing to celebrate here.
Meanwhile, the Greek was enduring his own test. A long-time friend had hired him to craft various metal pieces - an archway, a tricky custom copper water fountain, and some other things. It was a challenging assignment that pushed the material to its limits. When the Greek made out his invoice, he only billed for half the hours on the fountain, giving his pal a bit of a break. Incredibly, even with this, the friend balked at the total and after two long weeks of dead silence, proposed paying less than half the amount on the bill. Worse - and I mean waaaaay worse - he commented, "I think you charged me your (insert rich man's name here) rate" - as if the Greek (a) has so little honor that he would hike his price for people with money, and (b) would then stick an old friend with the despicable higher rate. Or was it that the friend does business this way and assumes everyone else does as well? In which case, ewwwwww.
How could it be that for all these years this supposed friend had held so little respect for or recognition of the Greek's artful & highly skilled work, and - ouch - so little grasp of his integrity? This rang the bell of the Greek's deepest grief in life - the people he counts as close allies - brothers, even - who turn out to undervalue him.
This is not something he imagines or projects on others. I've watched this pattern unfold five times now. And I say that wifely thing that makes men crazy, "There's a pattern here. Take it as a gift. Consider the possibility that if you valued yourself fully, you wouldn't attract these bad behaviors. Work with the deeper unconscious truth of it."
Likewise, I have a scrapbook in my psyche pasted with lovely projects that for reasons utterly bewildering never launched. And on that Thursday, all the bewildered techs in all the world had conspired to smack me in the face with those black pages. Luckily, I had kept just enough of my wits to treat this familiar as "an opportunity for healing" (Bleeeeaaaaggghhhh!) - so I did a lot of deep breathing, told myself an alternate story, got a good night's sleep, and sat back down at the computer Friday morning. The night before, every single tech had told me there was nothing more we could do. I called bright and early to let them know there surely was, we just hadn't found it yet...
By Friday afternoon, we had downloaded the bridge to success. Thirty minutes later, the Greek arrived home. He'd had a frank talk with his old friend. It had not been satisfying. It had even been sad. But my husband's face was glowing with energy and strength - he looked positively beautiful as he spoke. He was feeling his true worth. It was better than cake.
So that's how it goes. You say you want to make positive change. You set it in motion. You commit. And junk starts to bubble up. Stuff that says, "Well okay then, here's this... and remember this?" And all of it is a gift even though it comes bearing sadness and stupidity. Most of the time, we recoil at the hurt. But if you can just keep your wits about you...
I think about this a lot as I watch the sad and stupid people screaming against health reform* ... or just Glenn Beck being Glenn Beck. They - just like the personal demons that rise for an individual - are the excruciating expressions of broken parts of our collective whole, rising to reveal their natures... their "offness" at a time of change. If enough of us can stay conscious, recognize them for what they are, and work with deeper truths, we'll get where we need to go.
So instead of despairing, know this: Any time you make change, the crazy (unhealthy) comes up for review. It's just how change happens.
* I'm not talking about the ones with intelligent, informed concerns. I welcome them. I'm talking about the hysterical, gun-toting types who suck up all the TV news time.
