Listen To What You Can't Hear...

There is a tiny Chinese woman I cross paths with on the mountain, who has a decidedly grandmotherly feel to her patterns of conversation. She is 72 she tells me, and climbs the mountain…past the water tower, as often as I do, if not more.

She will chirp at me on hot days, if I am wearing a t-shirt with sleeves, that I shouldn’t be and should wear tank tops. If it is winter and I am not wearing a jacket then it is, “you should be bundled up, and not dress so simple in such cold!” she will say, while also almost audibly tsk tsking at me.

She is sprightly to say the least, carries a walking stick, sports huge and dark “Jackie O” sunglasses, and a large woven hat. Her tiny feet carry her with ease up the mountain, and I often find her walking backwards down it…”for my knees” she explains.

On some days she will impart knowledge that has a distinctly authoritarian ring to it, for instance upon hearing of the year of my birth she declared me a rat in the Chinese Zodiac, (although a quick peek with Google informs otherwise). And today upon hearing that I do not have either a husband or children she declared, with her quite charming self-defined authority and unmistakable accent…”Haaaa you live simple life, will live to be a hundred!”

I suspect that just because her “authoritative” conversation style is charming for me, a woman who sees her for 2 minutes, once or so a week… I would bet money, her kids don’t find it as charming as I do.

And then there was the young woman who ran the treadmill testing at the Doctors office, where I am now a regular.

She brought a very elderly gentleman to sit in the chair next to me to await a new cycle of testing; he was of eastern European decent with a very thick accent, if I were guessing I would say Polish. He resembled St. Nick in an uncanny way. Round and full was his belly, merrily blue were his eyes, and his hair a sparkling white…all that was missing was the long wavy beard. And of course the red suit, but he had chosen instead, a quite neutral beige and denim blue, plaid.

She sat him down and gave him very specific instructions to eat and drink the snacks she had provided.

Her voice was pitched upward of its normal range and considerably louder than, I am sure, is normal. The pattern was slow, clear, and careful as though speaking to a child of two or perhaps two and a half.

The assumption being that he couldn’t hear or perhaps was incapable of understanding her very specific direction. “Now… you must eat this,” she required, while opening a package of peanut butter crackers. “I-am-going-to-come-back-in-a-few-minutes-and-make-certain-you’ve-eaten-these.” I could feel in the air that sticky sweet mindset that is often found in “caregivers”…a combination of assumptive control; unconscious delight in that control, and a carefully crafted strategy of complete acquiescence to her plan for “helping”.

After she left, he turned to me, with his thick accent and impossibly smooth and jowly face and sighed with resignation while saying…”I am definitely not hungry”. I commiserated with him, but knew even as he did, that he would not get away with non-compliance. … Sure enough, she was back six minutes later to reassert her requirement to eat the whole package.

I share with you these two snapshots of well meaning, but somewhat manipulative ladies, not as a method by which to take them to task for their unconscious behavior patterns, but so that we may catch a glimpse, from the corner of our eye, of the mind that “knows”.

This is the mind that is sure of everything, or at the very least, absolutely, positively, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt SURE, of at least one thing.

Our resident wise one, Winnie of the Pooh, describes this type of mind as a Brain. And goes on to clarify, “Those who are clever, who have a Brain, never understand anything.”

By the time you have fully developed a Brain, gone is the feasibility of staying in touch with the Mystery. The sheer mysterious impossibility of every single thing that surrounds us….the charming polka dots of the red and black lady bug, the crackling creakiness of a croaky frog, the smell of dust being spattered by a light summer sprinkle, the feel of the soft warm fur on your small dog and her white and pink ears.

The Pooh, who’s greatest asset is staying in touch with the Mystery, was heard to say to Piglet…”Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known”.

His attempt to help Piglet to understand, How The Nothing Becomes The Something Only to Return to The Nothing Again, unnerved Piglet who sidled up from behind. “Pooh,” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw, “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

For as you see by Piglet’s response, that staring into The Nothing – is not for the weak of Heart.

To see what is real, you must give up entirely, the Brain.

It is as if, suddenly, one fine day…Brain realizes that it knows nothing, that it is nothing and in the doing of that realization, sets itself free.

And then, you come to know that “it is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”…a term Pooh is often heard to utter.

So if, “when late morning rolls around and you’re feeling a bit out of sorts, don’t worry; you’re probably a little eleven o’clockish”, and as Winnie of the Pooh would so lovingly remind you… “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things that you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

Listen to what you can’t hear, and your heart will mend and your Spirit will soar…and soon… lunch will be served…

11/27/10

Adayre R. Miller

(Pooh quotations excerpted from the work of A.A. Milne, 1882 -1956 and his iconic Winnie the Pooh series, borrowed completely out of context… but interpreted with great respect and fondness.)