tuesdays with morrie

yesterday i finished a quick-to-read book called tuesdays with morrie. i recommend it. it's easily finished in a day or two and has significant insights about living and dying. it's simple and important at the same time. i don't know if that makes sense.

how to describe the story? first off, it's a true story written by mitch albom, published in 1997. mitch returns to visit his favorite professor, morrie schwartz, who he hasn't been in contact with since he graduated 16 years before. the catch is, he comes back because he hears a snippet of an interview with morrie on TV: morrie is dying of lou gehrig's disease. (fyi: the advance money from the book ended up helping pay for morrie's immense medical bills.) after student and teacher reunite, they spend tuesdays together talking about the important life topics (the world, feeling sorry for oneself, death, family, emotions, aging, money, love, etc.) while morrie's body and physical abilities steadily decrease with each visit and his dependency on others to perform the most basic and intimate tasks for his body increases.

it's a good book. don't just trust me on this one; i suggest giving it a try. it's under 200 pages, but goes so quickly that it feels like its under 100 pages. i dog-eared so many of the pages with quotes i wanted to share. below are some of them; maybe soon enough you'll get to read them in context of the whole story. i'm sure you can find this book at the public library.

morrie: "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it" (42).

how many cultural items or experiences can i name off the top of my head that contribute to my unhappiness in my body or in my life? a lot. how many of them do i consciously try not to buy into? a lot. this is hard work to do, definitely. i feel like i'm always tensing against some value that doesn't meld comfortably with me--trying to do it another way, searching for a better way to serve my own desires, to align those personal changing desires with what's beneficial to others, to the environment, to all the other lives struggling for the same continuity and comfort (though perhaps in differing manifestations) in their lives. is this impossible work to attempt?

mitch: "Morrie, true to these words, had developed his own culture--long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to his music in the Harvard Square church. He started a project called Greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted no time in front of TV sitcoms or 'Movies of the Week.' He had created a cocoon of human activities--conversation, interaction, affection--and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl" (42-3).

and i hope we all do this to some degree, don't you? we create our own culture, some closer to the mainstream, some further away, but nonetheless forging from the constant input we get for something that feels right.

morrie: "So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things.The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning" (43).

and maybe these ideas are where my constant searching, my curiosity and questioning and fears, my experiments with life styles and food styles come from. my inability to find a fulfilling career. my traveling. my moving from city to city, state to state. trying to find a place to volunteer, whether for a day or two (xmas time in sarasota), a few months at renaissance house (while i was in bisbee), or even for my own family (helping my dad sort through all the stuff he has collected over the years that has overtaken his living space... and, unfortunately, his life.) these small efforts.

and all the friends that have added to my life: some have disappeared from the center and even the periphery, but they are not any less meaningful in my growing. from these relationships, short term and long term connections, i am trying to create something purposeful. aren't most of us? out of what i can learn from friends, from books, from documentaries, from strangers, from my feelings toward all these experiences each day--the trivial moments, the shocking ones or tedious, the quiet, the disturbing, the scary or overflowing moments, i'm trying to devote myself to the meaningful. and it's confusing. it sure is.

i try something for a while (vegetarian, vegan, raw? ballet or yoga? preschool level or college? editing? writing? studying? food politics? environmental politics? feminism?); i incorporate some of it and leave some of it. in the beginning when i'm just starting to learn about an unfamiliar philosophy that intrigues me, i follow it strictly to see how it works for me. and then, after a while of processing and practicing the conceptual, i become more flexible, letting in some ideas, letting go of some. and, of course, through all of this, my family and friends are wondering what new pathways (physical or philosophical) sassy is now following. it's just a giant mess to try to make sense of. so, i guess, in reading this book, it is comforting to read how others are also going through life on these crazy-lined paths... as they search.

all of this amounts to the following quote, basically what this last year of my life (retirement) has been about.

morrie: "We're so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks--we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?" (64-5).

in my last month of retirement as i begin to search for a job, i'm trying to keep this in the forefront, to hold on to the memory of what i want, what is missing, and, of course, what it is that i have in this wonderful life of mine right now: the seemingly positive and the seemingly negative. it's easy to forget to stand back and reflect on how i'm living. even in retirement, life gains speed, to-do lists build up, procrastination occurs, my body feels crappy on certain days--the everyday activities and routines are overwhelming: they depress me or comfort me; bore me or excite me--nonetheless, life (working or retired) usually lulls me into the invisibility of nonreflection. frequent consideration for how i am living, loving, contributing is a difficult experience to sustain. i aim for it, though, i know even as i write it, i will continually slip back under the thick sleeve of those "trillions of little acts" i'm involved with "just to keep going."