I love my dreams. Sometimes I have a really good one. This was last night's: I was in "New Orleans," or some city like it. I was drawn to a run-down store whose name was "44," and I thought it was...I don't know...but it turned out to be a fabric and yarn store. The woman there gave me a straw hat, and was very nice. I noticed that a young, naked girl was there, perhaps as a clothing model, I had no idea. Suddenly, my father showed up, about 20 years younger than he is now. I was glad to see him; he was supposed to give me a place to stay. But I must have gone into the wrong building, because I looked out the window and saw only water, seething, bubbling water, with some large fish in it just under the surface. I didn't know if this was a normal part of "New Orleans," or a flood. Soon, my father said I should come over to HIS side of the building, since there was a place to stay there. However, there really wasn't; there were some different levels, and there was a transvestite type of person where I was supposed to sleep, all dressed up fancily; or maybe it was a leopard.

Changes

A women's group has come to its planned ending. The Buddhist group continues. I start teaching an English class in August while staying with my secretarial job. I am not sure what any of it means.

I have the same husband, same house, same closet full of thrift-shop clothes.

Previous eras of my life have not been like this at all. Many of the eras of my life have been extended "transition" stages. I was always looking for answers. Once (maybe in 1979) I said to myself, "If only I could twist my MIND around the right way, everything would be all-right." I am here to say, now, that even if you twist your mind around right, everything is not necessarily all-right. Because there is always "society," and "other people" to deal with.

I had so many pointless thoughts and anxieties on the way home today, I wanted to fumigate my mind. I really do want to figure it all out, but that's a bit self-involved. Better I should care about others. Not in a masochistic way, though. And that is the key. How do you translate the various motivations for "CARING ABOUT OTHERS" into something genuine? It must not be an escape. It must be excess goodness. Goodness (bodhichitta) is no big deal. Really, anyone can do it. It takes no skills! You just have to want for others what you want for yourself. Kind of Golden-Rule-ish, only more subtle.

So, in psyching up to "teach" beginning composition class, I am thinking: Maybe if I just want the BEST for each and every student, I'll do OK.

Who am I, inside?

Every morning I do a series of exercises before breakfast. They are simple, not strenuous. They wake me up and they let me know what’s going on inside. Is my body refreshed by sleep or still tired? Is there pain in one knee and not in the other? Is one shoulder feeling stressed and the other normal? How’s my equilibrium? One of the exercises I feel compelled to practice is walking in place for several minutes on some smooth stones in a box; it’s a balance test among other things. I like to conclude with crunches and a sun salutation, but sometimes I don’t have time. Anyway, breakfast tastes better when I’ve worked for it, or rather, when I’ve communed with myself before I eat.

But wait: is the body the “self”? Some would say no, but I feel it’s half the self I’ve got. My other half. Especially now that I’m older, and it’s talkin’ to me every day. In my youth it was silent during most activities. It neither complained nor felt delight. I depended on it unknowingly, like a child depends on an adequate parent. Then it started exhibiting an ego, wanting to dance or run when I turned 30. This was followed by floating anxieties, manifesting in things like plantar fascitis (sore heel) when I was 40. Now my body makes poignant speeches involving entire systems, like the hip-knee-calf, or the shoulder-tricep-elbow. I try to listen. My morning exercises are a congenial meeting with my body. We come to some agreement until the next morning, when we review the situation again.

I am turning into a skinny old lady. I never thought this would happen. But it’s intriguing. The parent/child model has switched. My mind, judgment, experience, compassion, humor (what there is of it), now comprise the parent. My body is the child; fussy, sometimes in need of re-education or attention or simply going more slowly. I actually love my body now. I always did prefer the taking-care-of rather than the being- taken-care-of. I never noticed when my body was taking care of me.

If the body is an expression of the spirit, or even of “god,” then it certainly does carry one through youth, through unseen dangers. Then one gets to return the favor, having learned what it is to be “god” from the body, from material existence. The senses arm the spirit for the adventures ahead.

Aesthetic war of the sexes

What is this? A competition between artful representations of female and male genitalia? One week after seeing a great local production of "The Vagina Monologues," I am present when a rather large painting of a penis wins a $1000 Best of Show award at an annual student art show.

Sheer size may have done the trick. Then there are the colors. The artist, an attractive young woman, uses lots of red and green and white. The phallus's surfaces contrast with the background, though the piece at sidelong glance seems to be just one hefty square of piled-up pigment. Looking at it straight on, it is impossible to ignore the central cylindrical shape defined by shadow, color, and texture.

The artist has been accepted to more than one graduate school. She obviously has the verve to succeed. This painting is one of her ongoing series on the subject. All of them are large, colorful, painterly, exciting.

In Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" -- a work made of words -- we have the female genitalia as a "village;" the source of a woman's identity; a piece of furniture; something to be dressed/adorned in a particular fashion; or something that speaks a phrase, like, "Come on in!"

The phallus -- in this work made of paint -- seems not to need a disguise or metaphor (except for the obvious one of being, for the moment, "art." It's simply THERE. Often erect, it has a singular purpose. The vagina is more vague, more open to possibilities, narrative.

I don't even know how to write about this, really. But if one is comparing possible aesthetic uses, it's clear that the vagina is more adaptable and exploitable. It doesn't have to "perform" to be useful. It can be seen as an empty theater, inviting a performance. But it does have a will, and often its will is not respected. More subtle and complex, its will is not as "impressively" expressed as the will of the penis.

And, really, what am I doing SEPARATING body parts from the persons to whom they belong anyway?

I see this young woman's paintings as demystifying the phallus at the same time as going along with its program. I wonder, in ten years or so, what other subjects she will deem worthy of her gooey, exuberantly applied oil paint.