”His Good Graces”

June 30, 2020September 25, 2020 / Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

Are there “bad” graces? I understand there are bad sides, temperaments, natures, but not graces. Grace is a beautiful word, in the singular or plural. I like to think of grace as an intensely wise and serene humility. A balanced equanimity that keeps one hovering in the middle; not too high above nor too far below the norm. Appreciating all for all’s sake, not for an ego’s hunger to be fed. When I hear the word “grace” I envisionBotticelli’s work: “Primavera”, and the Three Graces within it.

The three Graces are sisters, dancing together and named for Pleasure, Chastity and Beauty. When I visualize the Three Graces, I see women bathed in a surreal light, dancing in the arms of one another, clothed (barely) in diaphanous gowns. It’s a calming image for me and one that recalls Florence / Firenze and the first time I saw the work in the Uffizi. Breathtaking, beautiful, colorful and his good Graces dancing in the Springtime between Mars (March) blowing away the clouds of winter, and Venus (April) hearkening the light and rebirth of Spring.

I love seasonal change and feel most alive at the start of a new season. I love pondering the weather that it will bring and the changes that can or cannot be imagined. It’s challenging to see seasonal change in Texas. I’ve lived here for six years, but the subtlety of seasonal change here is is almost invisible.

The year kind of unfolds slowly and being outside doesn’t help determine if it’s Spring or Fall. Summer is easy: think three digit temperatures. There is no Winter. I have to work harder at figuring it out, if I was interested in figuring it out. I’m not.

I’d rather dance with the good Graces, without caring about anything more than dancing. Maybe this is graceful wisdom: to know that dancing is sometimes the only way to break the earthly bonds that tie us to too much detritus, and instead let us move with nature and our souls to experience a higher state of mind. Dancing with the Graces, moving to invisible music, watching the seasons proceed and proceed again.

gracwes

Working Age Adults

June 12, 2020June 12, 2020 / Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

This is an odd adjective to be paired with “adult”. I can think of an exception to the rule of it: I was working when I was fourteen, not an adult but a holder of a social security card. What are the parameters for “working age”? Maybe it’s a typo and should read “working “ages” adults, because in many cases it does.

Especially now in these coronary-inducing COVID-19 times. Health care workers (first responders) are tributed with thanks and accolades for the time and expertise they’re supplying in caring for patients during this bizarre time. I can’t fathom the depths of their strength that they reach into every day in order to report to their jobs. Or what they think on their commute: Will I catch it today? Was my husband’s cough last night something I need to watch more closely? Am I going to be a stand-in family member to comfort someone who’ll pass over this day or night?

Each unanswered question carries the weight of anxiety that can’t be easily lifted or carried for too long. But they do bear it and it ages them physically and mentally and emotionally. It makes me worry about them and their families. On a daily basis, they are providing care for the health of tens of thousands. They are an extremely critical component in how this nation proceeds forward amidst this health crisis.

When we’re over it or through it, enough to go back to normal, will their efforts go unrewarded? It was they, not hedge fund managers or NFL Quarterbacks, or Hip Hop artists or cosmetic surgeons who had to keep showing up in increased numbers to care for the sick and the dying. Shouldn’t their compensation reflect the criticality of what they bring to their jobs?

Sadly, I think it won’t. The general public will go back to spending hundreds of dollars on sports shirts and concert tickets, but would most likely balk at a proposal to double health care workers’ salaries. Yet another lesson in questionable priorities that we as a Nation will collectively not have learned.

L.G.B.T.Q. Couples

June 1, 2020 / Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

I can group under one of those letters, but the subject of the group bores me. I don’t know if it’s because I never felt I needed a group umbrella under which I could live a validated life. I’ve faced discrimination many times as a woman in the professional workplace, but never was it related to being an “L” (or a “G”; I’m confused about the letters in this group and never know if I’m saying the letters in the right order or if I’ve left off a letter…).

When I first was coupled as an “L”, it was with a “B”, who was mostly an “L”, but was ending an extramarital affair with a man. This had me wrapped around the axle. I was not surprised about my proclivity toward being and “L” given that I only had heartbreakingly strong crushes on women. I wasn’t even thinking sex, it was the companionship, sense of humor, shared experiences and safety I felt with them. And later, yes, the sex, too.

My first relationship was longterm and it existed before I even had a vocabulary to call it what it was or how it should be identified. It ended sadly, with both of us to blame. Toward the end of this, I had a short “You’re Cheatin’ Heart” type of an affair that I spent more time trying to get out of than I was in it. I consider it a bad “gap” year in “L” couplehood.

Then, I met my now wife; the best coupling. All of the longings of my lifelong crushes wrapped up in a spunky, sassy, hilarious, comforting and quite handsome “L” with blue eyes in which I could swim for days. Getting married to her was the best day of my life. Many “Ls” were in attendance, as well as non-“Ls”.

On balance I think the labels and alphabet soups are irrelevant. The only “L” that means anything to me is love.