practicing the art of an open palm

The image of the open palm is universal. It has different meanings across pretty much every culture: Buddhism has about six different mudras (hand positions) that use the gesture of the open hand, and each has a slightly different meaning. Catholics use the gesture when recieving the Euchrist to signify an openness to the glory of the body of Christ and a sense of wanting. The list could go on and on, but if we were to draw a common thread across the cultures, the open palm is a symbol of a sense of willingness to accept what is given.

My grandmother had a saying: "You can hold sand in the palm of your hand forever, but as soon as you close your fist and try to hold on tight, it will all fall through."

Lately, I've been attempting to practice the art of an open palm. In my yoga class, my instructor often asks us to focus on acceptance of the moment and things within our power to control. Does your leg hurt? Move it to the left. Are you cranky? Maybe you're hungry, eat something and drink some water. Are you tired? Take a nap.

If only all of life's questions were that easy, right? But I think, to some extent, maybe there is something to it. I think maybe when we get frustrated, we're not asking ourselves the right questions. We're frustrated because we're asking ourselves questions we cannot answer. What do I want to do with my life? Why am I here? What am I doing in this job that I hate? When is he going to marry me?

My friend Bridget says that the best way to talk to kids is by asking them questions they can answer. They'll never learn to behave if you start off by asking them why they did something wrong. They have no clue. You have to ask them things that they know: Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? Now, I am, by no means and expert on parenting, but I feel like most of the time, the source of the problem is probably somewhere within reach after a few rounds of those sorts of questions.

I feel like we (adults) are probably about the same way. I think it's about asking the right questions of ourselves at the right magnitude. We cannot arrange world peace, end world hunger or make someone love us. But we can do things to change and affect the way that we participate in the world.

To me, acceptance, or allowing the sand to lay in our palms, does not mean complacency. It does not mean blindly ignoring the world and allowing it to trample us. Practicing an open palm, to me, means knowing when action is needed and when it isn't.

into the bin

I moved this past Saturday. Unlike all the moves I've done before, to and from college, this move was particularly special. I moved into my own place. A place that I pay for with my own money, without help from anyone else. This is a big deal for a number of reasons. For me, it means insurmountable increases in independence that had be lost since moving home after graduation. It means learning about unclogging toilets, hammering nails, painting walls and calling Pepco when our power is out. And it means that never again in my life is my parents' home "my home." I will, in all likelihood, never again live with my parents for longer than a week.

And that, in so many ways, is incredibly bittersweet.

I could go into all the sappiness about how I feel about being left to my own accord with rent payments and such, but that's not really what this post is about. What it's about is all the stuff that I found when I started packing up the bedroom I've occupied since I was 8 years old.

We moved to the house we live in now the summer after I was in fourth grade. I think this is significant because I feel like the age of 8 is sort of when, developmentally, you start to have things that are significant to you on a new level. Sure when you're little you have your pacifier, or your special blankie, or pilly if you're my cousin Melanie, but I think after about fourth grade, you start to have things that you collect that are significant because of things that happened to you.

Now, I'm not a scrap-booker. I never have been, and I sort of never want to be. But I do save things. Most of them end up on bulletin boards or in boxes. My anti-scrapbooking mentality has nothing to do with any lack of creativity, it has more to do with a lack of time and a desire to allow the objects and things that I save to speak for themselves. I've always felt like I was a photo/memory minimalist. Let it stand for itself. No frills, lace or goofy catch-phrases needed.

Now, let me clarify. I am, by no means, a hoarder, a pack-rat or anything else along those lines. Things that I save are things that would normally go into a scrapbook, like a Charlie card from a visit to Boston. A button from a march in DC. A drawing a friend gave me in seventh grade. Random things that hold value and importance to me.

So this past week, as I was packing up, I started uncovering the stuff. The bits and pieces of my life that I'd saved for who knows what reason. The cool thing is that most of the stuff, I could tell you right away where it came from.

But then came the hard part: I had to get rid of it. It couldn't come with me to my little apartment, and at some point, my mom would want "my room" back to use for something else. It'll all have to go eventually.

I had to physically throw away the odds and ends, trinkets and stubs, of my childhood and adolescence. And the weirdest part of it all was that for the most part, I was OK with it. There were some things I kept, just because they were very, very significant. But most things ended up in the trash bin with the old pair of flip flops, the broken picture frame and the other refuse that had been collecting dust in my room since the 1990s.

I'm sure there are somethings I'll never be OK with tossing, and I think that's normal.