Food Stamps 

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

My first real paying job was a check-out girl in a small supermarket in Massachusetts.I was painfully shy, 15 years old and petrified of making a mistake. “Scanning” was about two decades away in the future. We had cash registers with melmac greasy number keys  and a huge key to enter each item priced. I always hit it harder than necessary; I liked the feeling of power and that finality of the register advancing the paper tape, ready for the next action.

I became confident and proficient at my job and was one of the top cashiers in the store, even without looking at the keys. I also bagged my own groceries with the precision of a 7 year old working on a Lego starship: cold items with cold; produce with apples on the bottom and parsley on the top; a Jenga-like construction of boxes (rice, cereal, jello). I took pride in packing well, not making the bags too heavy and ensuring that the customer would arrive home with her eggs intact.

On one of my shifts, Jackie, who was also a cashier at the store, got off early and was checking out a few items before going home. She came though my aisle with a few items, bread, milk, spaghettios and a carton of Newports. I rang her through and as I entered the carton of butts, the manager drifted over to my register not unlike a hunter who was tracking his prey. He was the manager and co-owner of the store. Pot bellied, bald, black teeth from the pipe he constantly smoked, half shaven, and a lisp so pronounced that you’d get sprayed if you were within 7 feet of him.

He pounces up at my right and wriggles behind the cash register yelling “Did you ring up those cartons of cigaretes?!” “Yes I did.” Then he yelled for the benefit of everyone in the store “Jackie! Are you again using (lisp) food stamps (lisp) for this (lisp) carton of cigarettes? (lisp) You can’t use (lisp) food stamps (double lisp).”

“That’s against the law!”. He didn’t call the police, but he made damned sure that everyone in the store heard what he was saying. He told me to “void” the cigarette ring and total it. I did and Jackie peeled just about the entire amount of food stamps for so few groceries. The manager went out of his way to shame her and her face showed it.

Jackie gingerly pushed the carton back to me and asked for one pack of Newports. Not wanting another “void” on my shift, I didn’t ring them up until I knew that she had the money to pay. I would have rung them up myself but cigarettes could no be sold to minors, especially by minors.

Jackie searched through her ripped pleather purse, hoping to find enough coin that would complete the transaction. So, with with a ratty dollar bill and a pile of coins, she bought her pack of cigarettes. I felt miserably small in that moment. And sad for Jackie and her family who depended on her as the breadwinner 

The manager continued to glare at me and at Jackie to make sure that he didn’t lose one penny in revenue. I hated the smirk he wore as Jackie fumbled her groceries, coins and self esteem into a bag. But even though Jackie knew better than to buy cigarettes with food stamps she couldn’t help but try. Monopoly-money

Chief of Staff

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

A homonym for “staff” is “staph”, as in infection, as in sickness, as in being made to feel weak. And the Chief of this country right now is making all of us with a decent IQ and with a high EQ very sick and weak. Or maybe weary is a better word. Weary of his bald-faced lies and frightening egoism and narcissism. Whenever he opens his mouth (according to those who still listen to him; I do not.), the focus of what he says is entirely on 1. him; 2. himself; 3. what a wonderful job he’s doing in the white house; 4. castigating leaders who outperform his leadership; and 5. invecting string of non-sequiturs starved for punctuation or resolution.

The man is a farce. But one can’t laugh at him because he is responsible for the growth of illness and its resultant deaths. Although he says he’s not responsible, he’s in the number one leadership position and with that seat comes: RESPONSIBILITY. He’s responsible for ignoring or suppressing information related to the COVID-19 VIRUS coming into our country. He is a literal image of Alice falling through the tunnel on the other side of the looking glass and ending up on his bottom in the middle of the Queen of Heart’s croquet match in which he has blocked any escape himself. 

The real and quite present danger is that this nonsensicality is taking lives, costing money and unseating the social norm. And the shame of it is lost on him or has the shelf life of a dog’s thought.

But we will not forget it. We saw it coming. We saw the danger it threw at our health care system, food supply chain and economic well-being.

And we who’ve suffered at his hand’s folly will not forget.

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The Prison of Self

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

The prison self is made of the strongest bars imaginable. Inescapable save for one key the only the self holds. For many, the self is unaware that it holds the key. The prison of the self can be figurative, theoretical, or real, even. But if you’re it in, it matters not.

Some prisons are depression or addiction: immense expanses whose borders are enormous, until you run into them hard. They hit you hard and repeatedly. Sometimes, unrelentlessly.

Other prisons are smaller, but no less imposing. Self-doubt, guilt, procrastination, or greed. These incarnations are a little more manageable, in that if you try with honest effort and tenacity, you can be free of them, either temporarily or permanently.

Another sort of prison and I’d say the most confining and intimidating is the loss of faith. This is an enigmatic confinement , because first, you don’t know that you’re imprisoned and aren’t moved to do anything to escape the confinement.

What’s the route to becoming aware of your lack of freedom and escaping to a greater sense of liberty? This question has been a seminal one for the greatest thinkers throughout the ages: Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Hildegard von Bingen, Gautama Buddha, Becket, Shakespeare, Dante, Rosetti, Browning, Yeats, Cather, Bonhoefffer, Rand, Ghandi, Mohammed, Thersa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, King, Churchill, Jordan. All came up with personal hypotheses and treatises that met with acceptance or rejection or worse.

The only way to escape this prison of doubting faith is to self fashion the key with materials consisting of mercy, grace, gratitude, acceptance and intent. Getting through the locks brings one to a place of tenuous serenity that lasts only as long as one keeps “awake”. Being awake is critical to survival in these days of isolation and uncertainty and fear and lack of leadership.

By escaping this intimidation prison of self, one can also fashion approaches to flee confinements and stay open to the graceful possibilities of the present. And to keep roaming freely in the great wide world of the physical and infinite expanses of the metaphysical. And to figure out, one day at a time, as Mary Oliver encourages us, what to do with this one wonderful wild life that we’re given.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

Humor and Wisdom 

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

You don’t now what you’ve till it’s gone…or, absence makes the heart grow fonder…or you never know what you had until it’s taken away. These adages are rooted in wisdom and experience. They’re especially true regarding humor. A sense, or gift or appreciation of humor is priceless. It relieves tension, breaks the ice and encourages participation in otherwise unequal social settings. Humor carries with it descriptive monikers like “dry wit”, ‘biting”, “generous” and “quick-witted”.

It’s a universal language for me and when I encounter people without a sense of it, I’m at a loss with respect to how to relate to them. A person without a sense of humor self-identifies as one with no appreciation for the sense of humor, and they paint themselves in drab colors and they back away from the center of social interactions.

When I’m in the middle of a drab period, the lack of laughter weakens me. It’s a good alarm for me to get my personal “waste” together and climb out of the hole I may have dug for myself. Good unstoppable laughter that brings one to tears is the best of all. All of your defenses are down, and you’re all speaking the same language—a sort of emotional Esperanto.

In these past few weeks, the need for humor could not be greater. The world is turned in ward in hopes of killing the parabolic rise of COVID-19. Isolation from friends and family and travel is already starting to cause social stress fractures. Just knowing I don’t have the freedom to travel at will is depressing. There’s no humor in it. Maybe that’s because there is none to find.

So one looks for another tool to use. Wisdom is one. Wisdom is hard to really define, but you feel it and know it when you see it. For me, it’s a goal to strive for and in the striving, a journey toward enlightenment. Wisdom can also equip one with a sense of serenity; knowing what can and cannot be done in a certain situation.

I know I’m higher that most on the risk factors chart for this virus, given my immunosuppressive disease. I understand that I have to take greater precautions than others. So I observe the warnings with a healthy attitude. I’m not always 100% successful, but I do find victory in the effort.

Maybe that’s self awareness, the first step to looking up and finding wisdom. It makes me smile and maybe see a little bit of humor in my growth. And to have gratitude for another day to garner wisdom and sow some laughter.

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Short Term 

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

I thought I always understood the nature of time: its fluidity, swift passage, slow unfolding. For some reason, I am gifted with a curious or even useful talent or parlour trick. If someone asks me the time (or the temperature), at any time of day or night, I can guesstimate it within 5 to 10 minutes or degrees without consulting a timepiece or looking outside. I can’t explain it. It’s freaky but does come in handy.

When I’m at the beach or upon waking, I’m as reliable as a clock and can position myself in the temporal universe after day dreaming to the sound of waves or finishing a restorative slumber (or restless night). And in the morning, I can dress accordingly, although I will double check the official temperature on one of my i-somethings just to make sure my interaction with the elements regarding dress is comfortable.

The passage of time right now is very difficult for me to maneuver. The COVID-19 virus has (or should have) put the country’s and most of the world’s inhabitants indoors, to avoid direct contact with people outside your family of those with whom you live. With that isolation order came a blank calendar, removal of appointments and rendezvous and travel that formerly provided the syncopation of the day.

When I was working, I’d relish looking at my schedule first thing in the morning and having blank blocks of time with no meetings or conference calls. It was a time to get caught up, or think, or read. I feared retirement would be a long empty block of unclaimed time.

But as I adapted to a new type of employment, (as well as a new locale to call home), my calendar started for fill in with appointments, social events, exercise, meditation, house “work”, TV binging and some premium nap time. I luxuriated in the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. And looked forward to my outside interactions.

Now, those are gone: dinner with friends, home entertaining, spontaneous movie dates, grocery and other shopping, haircuts, bodywork, facials, church and classes. I sincerely miss them all.

Yes, there’s contact via the “interwebs”,  but seeing one’s own face on the screen creates a distraction and the interactions have just a pinch of duality that that cheapens the electronic face-to-face interaction. I miss the true face-to-face conversation. The loss of it really disturbs me more than I’d imagined it would.

What underlies it all is anxiety knowing that there’s no estimate of how long it (the new normal) is going to last. My “short-term” is now undefinable except in 24 hour segments. 

My sense of the long term is undefinable. It’s like being in an Escher drawing: going up stairs that lead to more stairs with no passage to a destination point.

When that destination of the virus going away arrives, (how, I can’t fathom) it will be staggered on a sliding scale, depending on one’s comfort level with safety not being in numbers, or one’s critical need to get back to a paying job or one’s addiction to travel. 

I don’t believe my meanderings in time as I knew it pre-COVID-19 will ever be the same: carefree. I believe I’ll always be suspicious of being out of my home and coming in contact with a stubborn remnant of the virus. I’ll hug, or maybe shake hands with reservation, or maybe not.

Human interaction is going to be changed regrettably to one of distance for the long term. For the short-term it’s gone and its return will be shaky and sputtering with halting jerks and hesitation.

It will be colored with caution and longing. And framed by bittersweet comparisons to a time before all of this weirdness, when a hug or a group photo or unbridled laughter or a series of sneezes existed as its own glorious moment in time when the action was unencumbered by fear or distance or second guessing. When “being” in the present and in the presence of others was gloriously taken for granted.

 

The Lessons

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

Lessons. Sessions. Confessions. Hessians. Tensions. Scrambling up letters to make new words. “Scrambling” is a such a great word, whose arrangement of letters and sounds resemble the act of “scrambling”.  Scrambling is a good and safe word when used in concert with eggs, word games and magic tricks (which I really hate; all the willful conniving).

It is not a word to use with expectations for or of leadership. Leadership can be wise, determined, empathic, experienced, capable, heroic, but not scrambling like a crab on the beach. Leadership has to possess a strong prow with an assured course that stays despite any turbulence it encounters. 

Leadership should be designed and built for turbulence and crisis. And if it’s absent these, then it isn’t leadership. Rather, it’s a group that scrums, heads in hiding, with members moving against each other and getting nowhere. Think rugby. A gaggle of ruffians hungry for one ball and using only muscle to get it.

But just like faith without works is dead (thank you, James), so, too is muscle without a brain. As is leadership without character and experience. Leadership like we see on display daily in the White House and parts of Congress. The country’s ship of state has become unseaworthy at a very inopportune time.

While the nation writhes under the strain of an unprecedented epidemic, there is no succor to be found nor action by this government for the suffering and out of work and the exhausted. No relief or future aid plan in sight. Instead, “pop-ups” around the world are working piecemeal to develop solutions to address the lack of medical equipment, procedures for not allowing the dying to die alone and ways to contain the virus with a vaccine.

The United States in crises past exhibited strong and fearless leadership for the world.The US provided support, guidance and ingenuity to tackle the challenges facing humankind for centuries. And now, we have to show only a blathering administration that disregards medical information and scientific fact, reason and empathic humility. 

Instead of uniting and leading the country and the world out of this miasma, the “President” of the United States seems only interested in TV coverage and ratings. That’s where his energy goes, while the cities of the country wither away with disease and desperation. He’s the dunce overseeing the emergent dystopia.

Many, at least 3 million more people that voted against and not for him in 2016, thought his skill set to be insufficient to take the sacred Oath of Office of President of the United States. Those misgivings have now proven to be valid given his lack of commandeering the talents and resources of OUR government to handle the problem.

He demonstrates time and again that he’s gained no mastery of his job as a public servant (yes, he IS a servant to the public, not chairman of a for-profit board). He’s shown time and again that he has no useful instinct or talent to navigate this COVID-19 risis. And without navigation, either an internal compass or external sextant or radar, our Nation is rudderless and lost at sea under his sorry command. foggy departure3

Don’t Go Overboard

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

Don’t go overboard. Don’t forget to write. Don’t stress out. Don’t stay up too late. These commands have an authoritative ring, but on further examination, they’re also loving expressions of care and concern. A reference to “overboard” first brings to mind a boat or ship. I also link it strongly to my youth and early adult life as a warning to not max out Nana’s charge plate at Filene’s and also as a compliment on one’s successful hosting of a social event.  And these many years later, I still associate the “overboard” term with caution and congratulations.

It’s also framing a new definition for me, one that might go back to its original of “man overboard” and SOS requiring immediate attention. When that was yelled out shipboard, all came to the rescue, save for the pilot and first mate. A unified effort was made to save the soul who went overboard and to bring him back to safety.

Today, the whole world seems to be going overboard. The COVID-19 virus is upending communities, routines, food supply, family time, election campaigning, medical service, and so on.

Thankfully and gratefully, there are those on deck to help the ones who are drowning in these sea changes. However, travel plans, wedding plans, plans to give birth, plans to go (back) to school…are all held in limbo, because this insidious health crisis has no readily identifiable source and no concrete endpoint.

And so we distance and lose physical touch with most of the world. And we’re left to ponder, in our isolation, things that six months ago were unthinkable: closure of cities, borders, shops, churches… Now we’re all tenuously hanging on to one another by the thin string of the wireless network.

And thank God for it, because it’s a tremendously helpful way to keep in touch, to order necessities and non-essential feel-good items. The deliveries break up the day. And give a slight break to our collective isolation, as oxymoronic as that may sound.

My worry is for those who live alone and have no routine, little intellectual curiously, are bereft of pets, hobbies or spiritual life. For them, the days are long and empty and have no end in sight.

Maybe this is a reset button for civilization to live up to its name and become more civil with one another. We have to create new life lines for those among us who’ve lost their “sea-legs” and find themselves slipping to the edge of the deck, in danger of going overboard. In saving them, we also strengthen ourselves.

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Political Crisis Too

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In this sentence fragment, what would be the next word I’d use to finish it? Political Crisis Too large to comprehend? Too obscene to merit news coverage? Too regrettable to have happened given the easier course that might have been taken? And changing “too” to “two” would be a gross under-calculation by an order of magnitude going back to November 2016.

The then President-elect hadn’t taken the oath of office yet, but had already engaged in activities creating crises that if not illegal, were certainly against the rules and regulations of an orderly transition of government. For an example, only two weeks after the election, the Government Ethics Office which serves as a partner and “parameter setter” during transitions of power, had lost all contact with the President-elect’s Transition Team. The Transition Team and its President-elect was sending envoys all over the globe to do…? This supplanted the then incumbent Administration’s ability to conduct its foreign policy.

The transition between Administrations and the details and regulations governing them are seen as arcane procedures hardly noticed by the general public. It’s the “making sausage” part of accomplishing the government’s service.

Since its inception, the United States government has gone through, as stated by Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address: “The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution…” The transfers have gone smoothly, with a few occasional pranks, such as when incoming staff of George W. Bush arrived in the West Wing to find all of the “W” keys removed from computer keyboards. 

The 45th President’s transition was unlike any other, with all sorts of agents storming into cabinet-level departments and running policy. Instead of the transition being likened to picking up the needle from a record mid-song and placing it on another song, the current Administration scratched the needle across all of the vinyl and didn’t even select a song. And with each disregard for policy and protocol, the new Administration all but ensured that crisis would be the way of governing.

And now it’s the new normal, this defensive, unapologetic and at times, vengeful public policy management. One might be inclined to ask: “Is this management style partly responsible for the current crisis related to COVID-19”? The responses would be subjective, depending on whether you’re an elephant, donkey, green blade of grass, or liberated free thinker. But the underlying undeniable fact in common is that this is a crisis, with no obvious end in sight.

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Puts Into Focus

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

In times like now, when the world is muddy, unclear and uncertain, the clarity of the heart and mind, those tools used for musing and thinking take a back seat to focussing on day-to-day “normal” tasks and events. Everything is out of kilter. I feel like a tennis ball: back and forth between highs and lows, good news and bad, and laughter and sympathy. The slightest bit of news I hear has me going up or down, depending on the message. I am thirsty for good news and defensive against the bad.

Today, the bad news for me is the increase of COVID-19 cases, the distress of friends and family who are usually upbeat, the closing of Austin, a city I’ve come to love because of its caring for community, and personal physical back  pain. 

Some of these, I can try to alleviate with meditation, conversation or prescription drugs. Others seem too scary to even try to think about. The “good” today is my preparation for and my anticipation of joining together with my group of adults for a theology/philosophical/bible/social justice discussion group; getting a shoe delivery, and donating to Conspirare, a singing chorale that presents beautiful music and is directed by a man who knows the deep need of people in crisis. And the stock market inched up little.

This good news works in concert with the bad. They don’t cancel other out, rather they show a unified picture of the world, warts and all.  I liken it to setting the focus on a pair of binoculars. There are two lenses that have to work together in order to provide a unified picture. However, to achieve that view, one has to focus each lens separately. I like this analogy because it shows that both right and left lenses have to be considered before the whole comes into focus. Holding both sides as one for a clear focus. Maybe this is seeing in a non-dual perspective: the unified whole that’s been broken into several parts. 

It takes effort to hold both and then to use them as one. And it can be subjective: one person’s focus may be another’s blur. Here’s to hard-earned clarity in being present and awake. And putting it all together in focus and in love.  

Referring To

/ Carla M. Burzyk / 1 Comment

What? There could be myriad items on a referral list, assuming one might use such a list as a keepsake of conversation points. So much to talk about these days. These corona virus, lack of human empathy, warming planet, gender inequality, cruelty to animals, shortage of life supplies, failure of central leadership, social distancing, preservative-laden food, apathetical attitudes about truth, disdain of facts and science ridden days.

Pick one, any one and I’d wager that a few minutes’ discussion would raise the blood pressure of even the most serene and “awoke” person. I don’t consider myself close to membership in that group, but I do some pondering on occasion.

This morning while walking in the neighborhood with my family, I thought: “What if this is the end of days?” And I envisioned the world emptying itself of life, not with bang as a bookend to its beginning, but with a winnowing out, a slow recession back into the cosmic ectoplasm with not so much as a whimper. 

Social distancing is the new rule: Stand at least ten feet away from other humans. Stay in your house. Wash your hands until and even after they crack. Don’t touch your face. Is this the beginning of a long goodbye? 

Or is it a second chance for the world  community to assess its behavior and start acting civil to one another? To realize how fragile our social and emotional infrastructure is and then go to great pains to protect it?

I lived in DC when the post 9/11 quarantine happened. The eerie absence of flying aircraft was unsettling. And no traffic on the streets, and empty shelves in stores. Hoarding food and medical supplies and arming up with guns for self-defense was the norm. As was xenophobic treatment of Muslims.

This time, though, it’s different. We can’t see the “enemy”. We’re waiting at home for a cataclysmic change in society. Anticipating the metaphorical asteroid to crash into the planet and to decimate it entirely. And the response of the vox populi is not united, as was the case in previous crises.

Some hoard, some hide, some disregard what’s happening, some freeze and are haunted by anxiety or worry. Strange times indeed. Lives will be lost, Social structures irretrievably changed. People groaning and pointing at the air in search of someone to blame.

I’ve taken myself physically out of the world at large, given my risk factors for the virus. But I also am vehemently present to my inner self. Hoping for guidance, inspiration and serenity. And contemplating how I can be better for my world community when this crisis goes off of the present’s referral list.