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Posts Tagged ‘television’

  1. Zen in a Body

    May 15, 2021 by Diane

    Image by Ralf Designs from Pixabay 

    All this sheltering-in-place has made some of us soft and flabby. Now that we’re taking off our masks, we’re also sucking in our guts.

    It’s all those snacks we ate out of boredom or anxiety or to lift our sagging spirits. All those microwaved meals scarfed down in front of the TV because we were burned out working from home or playing teacher for our kids. It’s the lack of gym access, or lack of motivation to get off our duffs and do some squats and planks and brisk walks, that has morphed us into something doughy.

    And don’t get me started with cable news. We may have gorged on that, too, digesting angry words from talking heads who spouted their opinions over the airwaves. Poison to the brain.

    After digesting these poisons, we might have loaded up on supplements to keep us out of doctor’s offices. Pills for heart health and brain health, pills to keep our joints mobile and our hormones balanced. We may have even reached for Zen in a bottle, when all we really needed was to turn off the television and get moving.

    Others among us managed to resist the lure of treats and television, opting instead to ride a bicycle, walk the neighborhood and climb actual or metaphorical mountains. These more adventurous souls braved the Farmers’ Market, prepared their nutritionally dense food while classical music wafted over the airways, and ate their meals seated by a window with a garden view. You’ve seen these people. They radiate calm, as if lit from a candle within. Zen in a body. Maybe you’re one of them.

    I strive to be like that. While my landlady chows down in front of the television watching her angry television shows and I’m in the kitchen preparing my dinner, I strive hard to remain calm. Sometimes I succeed. I hum uplifting tunes to drown out the angry voices. Or I quietly close the door between the rooms.

    Other times, I find my blood pressure rising, my heart rate accelerating, my stomach muscles clenching and I’m chopping my vegetables a little too harshly, banging the pots and pans a little too loudly. When she cranks up the volume on the divisive rhetoric, I find myself trumpeting my own opinions from the peanut gallery.

    I can choose not to be in the kitchen. In my own room in my cottage I can eat muesli and fruit from my Japanese bowl, drink Tulsi tea from my palm-sized cup. I can fortify my softer self with something that doesn’t require kitchen use. Bite-sized brownies, for instance. After all, my landlady has a right to her entertainment choices.

    Although, when I glance at her thirty bottles of supplements lining the counter—including the bottle of Zen—I want to offer my advice. Turn off the TV.

    Instead, I retreat to my cottage to eat in peace. I tune into soothing music rather than the news. I make an effort to start the day with a meditation and end the day with inspirational texts, and in between, walk in nature. If I succeed fifty percent of the time, I try not to scold myself for the other fifty. I can’t change my landlady’s behavior to suit my comfort levels. All I can do is try to be an example of what I’d like to see reflected in other people. 

    You may have seen the bumper-sticker version of Gandhi’s quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

    What Gandhi actually said is: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” 

    I can let my anger fuel me into trying to change my corner of the world. Or I can be the candle burning brightly. To preserve my health and sanity, I choose to be the candle, to start by changing the world within. 


  2. Squirrels in the Doohickey

    March 12, 2017 by Diane

    A subscriber to this blog encouraged her fellow bloggers to repost the first piece they ever posted. (Yeah, you, Sarah Brentyn.) So without further ado, here is my first ever post, from way back in April of 2013. And for those of you who’ve followed this blog since its inception, you deserve a medal. (Yeah, you, auntie Joan.)

    old-fashioned-tv

    It all started with the radio.

    We were doing fine, dwelling in the same living space, enjoying the same music. A little country, a little classical, a whole lot of evening jazz. We were relaxing to Beethoven and cooling off to Chris Botti and singing along with Blake Shelton and then, when I wandered over to the Big Band station, the radio turned itself off. A little Artie Shaw or Benny Goodman….click. Every time.

    The TV got wind of this. The TV decided to do its own brand of censoring.

    When I first hooked up the television I had a smorgasbord of stations. I was hooked. It saw that I was hooked. It knew that I could be spending my time on more productive endeavors, like rewriting my novel. So it started eliminating the stations one by one until I was left with one station.

    One station that aired the original Star Trek series and the old Dick Van Dyke show.

    Night after night I watched Bones and Spock and Kirk “…boldly go where no man has gone before,” and then I watched Dick come home from the office in his suit and tie, tumble over the hassock and get the wind knocked out of him.

    I checked the connections.

    I jiggled the cord.

    I called the people who are dedicated to fixing these problems, and a man wearing a hard hat drove up in a white van.

    He strapped on his tool belt.

    He clanked through the neighbors’ back yard.

    He clattered up the telephone pole.

    Twenty minutes later he was unstrapping his tool belt, flinging it into the back of the van and telling me I’ve got squirrels in the doohickey.

    “They’re building condos up there,” he said. “Sharpening their teeth on the wires. AT and T will want to replace all those wires running to the house. You can spring this on your landlady now,” he said, “or wait.”

    I opted to wait.

    Because I knew, I knew it had nothing to do with the wires; it had to do with the fact that my radio and TV were in cahoots. They were trying to control me.

    Okay…this is dysfunctional thinking. This is the kind of logic Bones might manufacture. Luckily, I had a Spock-like rational self who pointed out that the sensible thing to do was replace the radio and deal with the faulty wiring. Luckier still, I had a wise self, a Zen-like Captain Kirk, who suggested that the radio and TV were doing me a favor. They were telling me to spend less time tuning into them, and more time tuning into myself.

    So I did the mindful thing.

    I turned off the television.

    I pulled out the meditation bench.

    I settled down and straightened up and focused on my breathing and two minutes later I was channel-surfing in my head, my thoughts scampering around like squirrels in a doohickey, and I found myself wondering, what’s next? Will the blender regurgitate my breakfast smoothie? Will the vacuum cleaner suck up my faux fur slippers?

    It could happen.


  3. The Day I Said Yes to Everything

    March 5, 2017 by Diane

    Saturday morning started like any other; the radio popped on to classical music, forty-five minutes later I rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, meditated, ate my breakfast bowl of oats and granola and ground flax seeds and sliced bananas and strawberries topped with oat milk…

    I won’t bore you with the details.

    The only difference between this Saturday and any other is that I pledged to say “yes” to everything.

    Everything?

    Everything.

    While preparing lunch in the kitchen…

    “The outside lamp isn’t working,” my landlady said, suddenly appearing at the end of the counter. “It might be the timer. I think it needs to be reset. Would you—?”

    “Yes! Right now!” I put down the knife.

    “Maybe I could stand over your shoulder and read the instructions out loud.”

    “Yes! Fantastic idea!”

    “I need my glasses.”

    “Yes!”

    “And a flashlight.”

    “Yes! Take your time. I’ll wait!”

    While eating lunch…

    I turned on the television. Two men were talking about turf grass.

    “Yes! I’ll watch this show!”

    They stood on a swath of lawn facing each other wearing nondescript clothes. In fact, both men were nondescript; if I had to pick them out of a line-up, and all ten men were wearing the same beige pants and aviator sunglasses, I wouldn’t be able to single out those two. But there they stood, face to face at a golf club, discussing turf grass.

    “What are the different types of grasses?” said the interviewer, the man on the left.

    The man on the right answered in the most monotonous tone allowable by law: “You’ve got your Fescues and you’ve got your Bermudas and you’ve got your Zoysia and you’ve got your Kentucky Bluegrass and you’ve got your St. Augustine…”

    The remote sat next to my hand. I could have changed the station. Due to the minuscule size of my cottage, I could have reached over and turned the television off. But I was transfixed. Two men discussing turf grass was so compelling, I lost all awareness of the food I was shoveling into my mouth.

    “We should get our clubs and test this grass,” the interviewer said, and both men strode purposefully toward the camera.

    The next shot, they were facing each other, on another swath of lawn, without their clubs.

    “Which grasses are best for homeowners?” said the man on the left.

    “You’ve got your Fescues and you’ve got your Bermudas,” on and on the man on the right droned. “For shade, you’ll want your St. Augustine.” His voice never rose or dipped. “In the south, you’ll want…” on and on, and I don’t know if it was the unfortunate way his pants were pleated, or how he stood with his right leg in front of his left, but he appeared to be—how can I phrase this delicately—extremely passionate about turf grass. It was hard not to notice his passion. It distracted me from the fascinating conversation, until the interviewer suggested that they get their clubs and try out the grass, and both men strode purposefully toward the camera.

    The next shot, they were facing each other, on another swath, discussing bugs. “How do you know which pests you have on your lawn?” said the man on the left.

    I won’t bore you with the details.

    But I will share this trick: You squirt dish soap into a bucket of warm water, and pour it onto the spots where you see pest damage. In one to five minutes, the bugs will surface.

    And this is where the action really picked up. Both men squatted onto their heels, and examined the turf.

    It was mole crickets.

    A whole show about turf grass! I sighed, watching the credits roll.

    While deciding what to do next…

    I had an hour to spare before meeting up with a friend. We’d made plans to catch “Murder She Said,” an Agatha Christie movie at the retro theater. I looked forward to the outing, although I doubted it could top the show about turf grass. With sixty minutes of free time, I faced a dilemma: should I work on my short story, or exercise?

    “Yes! I’ll do both!”

    I had wrenched my back earlier after reprogramming my landlady’s timer as she fumbled through the directions in the dim hallway, and on Saturdays I normally lift weights, but with those sore back muscles…

    “Yes! I’ll lift weights!”

    I bent over to fish the weights out from under the bed, and the muscles in my lower back went into spasm. I couldn’t move.

    Lying on the floor contemplating the ceiling, I decided it might be a good idea to stop saying “yes” to everything.

    To which I immediately said, “Yes!”