Honor

     Honor.  Family honor.  Physical honor.  Personal honor.  Honor.
     Mere mention of the word "honor" elicits a call to have good posture--to stand at attention.  To limit our understanding of "honor" does a grave disservice to the word--to everyone involved in Honor's Service.
     I confess, I am guilty of affirming that limited definition.  Yet, recent events and life stages bring honor into question.
     Family crests.  Monuments.  Physical stature.
     None of these words engenders a spirit of forgiveness.  Yet, forgiveness is perquisite.
     Personal honor, and family honor are intertwined.  My counsel of a young man struggling to find his way in the world surprised me.
     How many of us, who are adults, yearned for something our parents did not give us?  Usually, that something is not material, although it well may be.  The form of something is not important.  The revelation of forgiveness is.
    My necessary forgiveness regarded questions that only I could answer by my own life experience.  Why did my peers not understand my disabilities?  Why did they bully me?  How could I stop it?  Those are impossible questions for anyone to answer satisfactorily.
     By nature, I am very hesitant to assert my views--however urgent I feel they are needed--face to face.  I am a coward--a coward's face.  Yet, I feel emboldened by the written word.  Writing allows the reader to absorb my words "in the structure of time," as the young man I speak of might say.
     I am learning to appreciate a different dimension--physical honor.  Never have I heard others mention it.
     Physical honor.  Graceful aging calls us to it.  As babies, we are born with a set of physical capabilities.  Whatever that set may be, it is our starting point.  We take no notice of what those capabilities are.  Why should we?  We have known no other way of living than with that particular set.  We learn our limits by testing them.  All-nighters, weight-lifting--childbirth, perhaps.  Depending on our life circumstances, aging alters that set.  Our permission is NOT required.
     I was born with the set of capabilities, which were described in part as being cerebral palsy, and epilepsy.  That was my starting point.  Seen as having limits, just as any other child, I tested them--believe me, I tested them.  Just ask my therapists.
     I did not understand my limits.  Aging has changed those limits.  Age forty.  Morning stiffness.  Age forty-five. Painful hips.  Strained walking.
     Each new limit called me to respond.  Before I could accept the somethings that were given to me--to my aging body--I had to take a very different action.  To my left hip, and my right ankle, I needed to forgive  them for the service they could not give to me.  I needed to forgive myself for yearning--for demanding--that  my left hip and right ankle could give me no more.
   Cognition of my body parts' service to me was and remains essential.  Acknowledgment.  I abused my body, such that some of my body parts are wearing out.  Vigilance.  Ever I must re-cognize  my body's service.  Ever, I must acknowledge--confess--to any abuse I may be inflicting on my body for selfish reasons--for vanity.
     A brace.  An electric wheelchair--Zoomer.  Forgiveness of my parents for being human--forgiveness by my temperamental child self.
    My counsel to the young man was a question.  Have you ever considered that you need to forgive your parents for not giving you what you yearned for-for what they could not give you?  Have you ever considered honoring what they have given you?  Have you considered honoring that they have given is everything that they know to give you?
    Honor.  Standing at attention?  No, not physically.  Honor.  Attending to the gifts that have been given.  Forgiving what has not been--what could not be--given to you by your parents?
    Honor.  Family honor.  Physical honor.  Personal honor.  Honor.

This Mermaid

An hour's time, this mermaid swims,

No laps counted, 

Just an hour's time.

On her back she turns,

With eyes gaze upward to the white-lit beams.

Arms are raised--airborne--with a student's hands.

Shoulders rotate,

Biceps are built, not with bulk,
But with the sinews of this swimmer's strokes.

Forearms forge,

As oars they row,  

Feet flutter--ankles in unison cycle--

Through the pristine pool's waters.

From one end to the other,

This mermaid endeavors.

No laps counted,

Just one hour's time,

This mermaid swims.

A Convergence of Ages--Family Ages

     This weekend three generations spanning sixty years converged.  An evening gathering.  I sat, and listened as an aunt, and a daughter.  Though old enough to be so, I am not a mother.  My daughter's eyes were clarified.  No one may defy age forever.  My head knows this truth.  My daughter's eyes saw what the youngest in our gathering did not see--did not want to see or hear of his elders.
     Though I have been blessed with a strong bond with my nephews, life circumstances do not give me the vehicle necessary to convey the importance of working.  I am a poor example to my nephews of the commitment to the less glamorous parts of life--the substance of the working life.  Rarely am I speechless.  Rarely am I at a loss for how to communicate what needs to be said in a gentle, but diplomatic manner.
    I recognize the fallacy of the question, "What do you want to do when you grow up?"  Yet, there must be some such question that is not laden with condescension, and implications of disrespect.  What is the question?  I believe myself to be an open-minded person, who strives to avoid the pitfalls of being judgmental.  Yet, I am frightened by the cluelessness I am witnessing.  Is what I am experiencing just my time for what all "older generations" of youth experience?
    I guess if I am questioning what the proper question of those younger than I, then I should hardly expect to have any answers.  So, I ponder.

Perfection's Exhaustion

    Were you to ask me in younger days, I would have proclaimed myself to be an idealist.  I had principles that were contrary to the norm.  I was a fool enough to believe that I could conquer the norm with my enthusiasm.  To some degree, I did.  Yet, life's realities had other designs on me.
    I fought losing idealism as a compromise in my beliefs--a wholly unacceptable compromise.  I fought being a realist--a pragmatist.  That was an evil option I was determined to avoid at all costs.  I did not recognize what the nature or magnitude of those costs might be.

    This week I have spoke with a number of people, whom I think of as pragmatists--realists--reminded me of those two extremes.   Today reminded me to reevaluate how I understand myself.  

     Today's cold is having the unexpected effect of clarifying my misconception--of who the realists are, and who the idealists are.  One is not better than the other.  It is a balance between those two extremes that comes the closest to offering any modicum of fulfillment.  

     My friends express an idealism that I don't know how to reconcile.  Life is not perfect.  Seeking to find just the right life path to live one's principles does not guarantee a "happy"--a fulfilling life.  My friends are not alone in wanting to find that perfect life--that life without compromise.

     Being idealistic is exhausting.  It is not to say the investment should never be made.  Quite to the contrary.  Being idealistic is pragmatism's antidote.  Idealism is a vaccine protecting a person from being infected with cynicism.

     But, pragmatism is not the enemy--not idealism's antagonist.  I go to bed tonight exhausted by the idealist's demand for the perfect life's path.  I know no perfect pursuit, which is free of compromise.
     Is it possible that what we view as living a compromised life is in truth our perfection, rather than a pristine pursuit of an idyllic life to which we should aspire?