Blog

Posted on

Embracing Ambiguity

In my teen years, and for an embarrassingly long time after that, I thought I knew everything that didn’t have to do with math, science or actual facts. I never had a head for details, but I reckoned I had all the big questions figured out, especially on issues of right and wrong.

By the time I was twenty five, I disdained anyone who wasn’t as enlightened as I thought I was. Can you say insufferable?

That know-it-all phase is (mostly) in my past. Teaching teens helped the process of realization along. A precocious seventh grader at Masterman, (they were all precocious) mentioned a mantra repeated to him by his grandmother, which I found useful with my own granddaughter: Always certain, often wrong… Hmm.

I conceived a campaign to help my students understand the concept of metacognition: thinking about thinking. One of the big questions was: How do you know what you know? I began to ponder that question with increasing frequency. Turned out I knew a lot less than I’d thought. And I began to accept that some things are truly unknowable- especially when it comes to how people behave, and how they’re motivated.

In these days of exploding information it’s mind-boggling to consider the multitude of things we’re all absolutely sure of, aided and abetted by confirmation bias. The media provides competing and conflicting explanations for reality and truth. Welcome to the world of fake news.  Get your unassaible facts right here! Truthiness, it appears, is the best we can do.

If the truth is out there, where, exactly, does it reside? Why isn’t it clear? The impossibility of answering these questions perhaps led me to embrace the notion of ambiguity: lacking in clarity; subject to more than one interpretation; leading to confusion, chaos, even. Okay, maybe it doesn’t lead to chaos, but much of the world doesn’t tolerate it very well, wants it eliminated. We want certainty and exactitude- unless we don’t.

Who would want to purposely confuse? Those who know how to employ ambiguity to their benefit. Politicians come to mind. Double-crossers and con artists. Poets and writers manipulating words, adding a deeper level of interpretation. Lovers playing games.

But those examples are about how to sew confusion. The aspect of ambiguity I find so appealing is the sense that uncertainty can be acceptable and advantageous. I found relief in realizing how much I didn’t know, and maybe wouldn’t ever completely comprehend. If we don’t already know, won’t we be more open to ideas?

The word ambiguity is ancient. It’s derived from Latin via Old French, and has   related words/concepts in Indo-European languages such as Greek, German, Old English, Welsh, Irish and and Sanskrit. Throughout history, it seems, folks knew that things aren’t always what they seem.

I’ve read, and like to believe, that liberals are better at accepting ambiguity than conservatives. For sure, not just conservatives, but the world could benefit from embracing ambiguity.

And it’s fun to say. You can chew on it, and exercise your mouth at the same time. You start off in a position of alarm- mouth wide open, tongue back, ready to roll; then lips pucker- first a puff, then a hard pucker, lips draw back, teeth show, as cheeks pull back. Try it. Say it and then try embracing it.

 

Posted on

The Wabi Sabi of Friendship

My recent trip to England was always about friendship. I knew I could use a good dose of being surrounded by people I’ve loved, albeit from afar, for twenty-some years. I was hopeful that our bond, established while teaching in Japan, remained intact despite the time and distance.

Our friendship hadn’t been simply about the teaching – it was also about the climbing of Mount Fuji, both literally and symbolically. It was running for the last train when missing it meant finding a hotel in the city (never an option we actually considered); then, having missed the train, pooling resources for a taxi, which cost something like two hundred dollars; playing charades on the train; bicycling headlong into a rice paddy on the way home after a few beers; writing a screenplay together – but mostly, it was about bonding over a shared, life-changing experience. Funny to think how much a life can still change after forty.

An unexpected bonus came my way when I traveled to Glastonbury. A woman I once cooked with in a rock and roll bar on South Street had been living there for fifteen years. She and I had become Facebook friends, and I’d loved the photos she posted of her medieval village. I sent her a message, asking for a B&B recommendation, and suggesting we meet up for a drink. When she replied that I should stay with her, I accepted, but wondered if perhaps she had forgotten that she really didn’t like me that much back then.

Much to my delight, we connected like two links in a chain. We loved the medieval lore of the village, and the feel of being in a place unchanged in time for centuries. You could even say we shared a certain woo-wooness. We couldn’t stop finding things we had in common, and we both hope to see each other again. How often do we get to exchange a virtual friend for a real one?

I decided I just had to move to England to be with so many people I loved. My friends encouraged me. We reckoned the cheapest way would be to perpetrate a fraudulent marriage, and plans were made, albeit under the influence of a tiny bit of wine.

Then reality set in. Yes, these folks are the dearest of friends, and were just as happy to see me as I was to see them, but they have other lives now. I would be worse off living in London for friends than I am here. Not to mention that London is one of the most expensive markets for housing, and that leaves the suburbs. This city mouse doesn’t do suburbs. Plus I’d be a criminal.

In Costa Rica, Jack and I had shared a wide circle of friends. I’d thought I had friends here in Philadelphia, but found out that either they lived too far away, or were too busy. My tiny family – my two brothers – were here, except that one of them up and moved to Oklahoma, and the other threatens daily to take off for parts unknown. So here I am, wishing I still had my husband, and wondering what I’ll have to do to make friends at my age.

I can be judgemental, and based on appearances, leap to conclusions that later turn out to have been wrong. Like Frank Sinatra, I want things my way. I have to work hard to be patient, have been known to shoot from the lip. This is not to say I’m devoid of good qualities. It’s just that I have to wonder if people meeting me for the first time would be willing to stick around to uncover the good bits if I didn’t clamp down on myself. The beauty of old friends is that they actually love us despite our faults. Or maybe it’s more complicated than that.

One of my dearest friends, Michael, induced an epiphany in me when he said, on more than one occasion, “That’s why I love you”, or “That’s what I love about you.” Was he responding to me being my best self? Not likely. He was responding to me being my unguarded, real self. The same self I try to keep hidden when I’m on my best behavior or meeting someone for the first time. On reflection, I realized that he loved me as much for my imperfections as for the things I tell myself are my best qualities. It’s the wabi sabi of friendship.

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese concept that is generally applied to art. In its simplest sense, it’s about finding beauty in imperfection. Don’t our imperfections make us who we are? And isn’t it a relief to embrace them?

Posted on

The City Mouse returns

This city mouse needed to be able to walk and bike easily to the heart of Philly. I  also needed an affordable house in a place where I felt reasonably safe. My brothers did their best to convince me to move to communities outside the city, yet within city limits, like Roxborough, Wissahickon or East Falls. No way.

Jack, my husband, had died just a few months earlier, turning my life upside down. Much as I’d loved Costa Rica and our idyllic retirement there, I couldn’t stay in our big old house in the country. A female living alone in the countryside, my neighbors let me know, was a bad idea. And since I had to move, why not chose the place where my heart lived?

On a warm October day I first approached the house. The street was devoid of humankind, save two young men sitting on the steps a few doors away. That seemed a good sign. After a primary inspection of the premises, I approached the guys and said, What do you think about an old lady like me living on this street?

 

I repeated the question at the seventh district police station two blocks away. The step-sitters said I’d be fine, and so did the police officer. It’s a neighborhood in transition, he said.

The street was silent, albeit trash-strewn, on the frigid December day when my pets, Sweetpea, Sisypuss and I arrived after a stressful flight from Costa Rica.  On the drive home, I wondered, What am earth made me think this was a good idea?  I felt cold, alone and scared.

When Spring arrived, so did the miscreants in search of crack and heroine, both of which were available right in front of my house. Despite the drugs, and the thugs who peddled them, I decided to buy the house. I was quite certain that I’d found the best house for the money in a bad neighborhood with hints of change in the air. And I was already living there.

Probably because of my teaching experience in a so-called persistently dangerous school, I wasn’t afraid of my neighbors, or the entrepreneurs who didn’t necessarily live on the street, but worked there daily, selling death.

They began to call me mom, and when I scolded them, the drug dealers and hustlers obeyed sheepishly.

Point Breeze is a community where store-front churches, Chinese take-outs, fried chicken joints, check-cashing agencies, childcare establishments and laundromats are ubiquitous. Supermarkets, not so much.

The financial and cultural divide is abysmal. Most streets around here, including mine, juxtapose houses worth half a million dollars or more alongside derelict structures, or poorly maintained homes lived in by impoverished people. Signs posted around the hood announce cash for homes, and I’m afraid many succumb to the notion of quick riches.

Nonetheless, one of the things I like the most is the diversity. The folks who live in my neighborhood are cheerful and friendly. I’ve gotten to know them from walking Sweetpea every day, and they know me. When I choose a different route for a day or two, they ask where I’ve been. More than once someone has told me she has my back, and I believe it. I hope these neighbors are not chased away in the name of gentrification.

Since I moved into my place, the street has improved. A few houses have been refurbished, and some are empty, awaiting improvement. A new place is going up next door, where a trash-strewn lot existed.

Debris is still a problem on the block, as is illegal dumping, but more and more of the neighbors are working in concert to fix those problems, and it looks like the drug dealers are becoming dinosaurs. I hope so, since I’m here for the long-haul.