Category Archives: A Karagöz puppet battle

On the work of meditation: A Karagöz puppet battle of epic proportions

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20121214-111714.jpgLater today, I am heading out to my first-ever Buddhist weekend meditation retreat in central Massachusetts. I’m a little nervous, but let me tell you the karagöz puppets that accompany me everywhere are even more nervous than I am.

Last year, another close friend took me to a daylong meditation retreat – he said “Liz, you really need this, you need to come to this daylong retreat with me and learn to meditate. No is not an option!”

And so I did and it was a shake-up good experience, but what I found so hard about the work of essentially relaxing and tuning in, was that I could not even find my own breath which was the central purpose of the type of meditation we were doing.

It scared me that I was that out of touch with my body or my mind or both – I wasn’t even sure how to refer to it all. It was just me on the gerbil wheel with the Karagöz puppets flying around the gerbil wheel as they held on for dear life to stay with me in my constant mad dash aka my life at the time.

And of course the sea changes that have happened in the past year – especially in the last six months with the loss of my father and this shoulder injury and my midlife work crisis – well things are really changing. And I think I do need to stop and not so much relax, but really tune in to what’s inside of me and what I’m disconnected from.

So given that December’s BlogHer NaBloPoMo topic is on work or contemplating work, I am choosing this time to contemplate on the work of meditation vs. today’s other work-related prompt.

Before he left this morning, M. had a lot to say about meditation. He sat with me very serious and sparkly, “you know, I’m glad you’re doing this for you. I guess I’ve just always known how to meditate.

Frustrated, I said “you meditate when you’re doing your art? Or looking at Turkish soap operas on the Internet?”

Ignoring the bait, he said “I meditate almost every moment in my life to clear my mind and just be present in that moment.”

Looking at him askance, a bit jealous, I posited “I guess you’re Buddhist,” a little bit teasingly, knowing what his reaction would likely be. And it was.

“I am not a Buddhist, I am not anything, I am just me. I’ve seen enough of what organized religion or spirituality can do to damage things in the world. And I want none of it.” I remember that he is likely referring to the Iranian revolution that happened in the country so near him – during his formative years.

In my mind, I’m horrified because I’m sure the Buddhists would be horrified to hear this view of his – peace-loving bunch that they are. But mostly I just focus on how I’ve found this guy who can do the impossible, or what the impossible is for me – to clear my mind.

There is nary a moment that goes by where my academically trained and perhaps overly analytical brain is assessing at least five different things and running two different experiments.

It would be such a relief just to clear my mind and focus on the present in a way that wasn’t analytical. I am hoping that some of M.’s innate skill at meditation will slink over my way. So I’m ready to go to this Buddhist meditation retreat now.

Now, I may be ready to go to a Buddhist meditation center for the weekend, without a electronics, without distraction, to eat delicious vegetarian food, to learn about Buddhism, something I don’t know much about, but I’m not sure my Karagöz puppets are. They are protesting a little bit.

Karagöz is flipping and turning and somersaulting in protest. “Meditation? Pshaw! My expertise is banshee behavior, that’s my specialty and ain’t no way I’m gonna sit silently and listen for my breath, I mean why would any idiot do that? I just want to be an agent provocateur and maybe I’ll just run around the meditation room to wake everybody up so they can’t listen to their breath and can’t focus on being mindful. I’ll whistle & fart & belch for human ears to hear. I need to keep going, I need to get going and keep going – I need to instigate instigate instigate! I resist this meditation retreat, I am not going unless I can raise hell!

Tiryaki, the opium addict puppet, has just taken his first toke of the morning to calm his nerves and sooth his soul. So he is a different story. He is at his best just after his toke, before he nods off into a drugged sleep, falling into the arms of the addiction that has carried him for so long. I suppose he’s a metaphor for my addiction to workaholism these days as I don’t touch the stuff anymore.

Anyway, Tiryaki, as you may recall, is sort of a surfer dude and so he says “dude, man, yeah, I like Buddhist meditation right on, chilling to the max, I can totally get with that. Yeah – and that food man it’s pretty good you know you think it’s going to be all weird and hippie-like shit but actually it’s going to be really really good and you know it’s good to like take care of your body even if you’re addicted to some kind of weird drug. Let’s roll!”

Okay, I guess he’s in.

As for Safiye Rakkase, the vainglorious dancing girl puppet, I don’t hear much from her. I just see her rushing around the house trying to figure out what the best fashion for a Buddhist meditation retreat could be. I remind her that it’s going to involve comfortable clothes and sensible shoes and she shoots me the look of death. But I guess she’s in too, Prada or no Prada.

Kenne the Queen of manners and the maintenance of ladylike behavior and etiquette, is stumped. I actually woke up to the sound of turning pages, thick parchment pages filled with illuminated script and pages of newsprint paper fluttering – all part of her etiquette book collection. She’s trying to find out the proper etiquette for comportment at a Buddhist meditation center.

Throwing her hands up and uncharacteristically giving up, she says, “well, when in doubt, it’s like at a dinner party watch what’s the hostess does and mimic that. So I guess that’s what will have to do. Maybe this is a chance for me to write a book on the etiquette of Buddhist meditation retreat center behavior.” And she scurries off to pack her bags. So I guess she’s in as well.

Then then the nervous Nellie puppet, like a jar of quivery jelly, well she’s anxious and ringing her hands.

“What if, what if, what if we can’t find our breath again. What if it doesn’t work this meditation, what if it makes us feel upset or anxious as we’re sitting there with our thoughts – I know I mean we’re supposed to be noticing our thoughts not engaging with our thoughts, but what if we can’t? Oh my! Oh dear! Oh no! Should I even try to do this if I’m not sure I can? Maybe I’ll fail.”

But I noticed that she packed her bags. And those bags are waiting in the hallway by the door.

As I go into the kitchen, I notice that there is a small circle of puppets sitting quietly around one of the orchids in a circle, their legs are all in the lotus position and I can see that they are meditating. And of course it is these parts of me that are able to do this kind of work, I guess.

The group includes: Hacivad Bey, Yehuda Rebbe, Esma the hippie puppet and Bebe Ruhi, the giggly puppet with Dwarfism. I am surprised to see him there. He looks over at me and says “M’lady, with my disability you need to meditate a lot to get over the ways that people stigmatize you – so this is nothing new to me. If I can do it you can do it.”

And so, with this variety of feelings, we’re all heading over there and we’ll just have to see what happens. It seems to me that the title of this meditation retreat, “Patience: Emptying the ocean with a teacup,” is probably just what we all need.

So, I/we will report back in a couple of days about how the work of meditation went for us. Until then, may you be well. And may you enjoy the posts I have pre-written and put into the publishing queue for the days I am away.

Hard work: On the retreat of the Write-a-matrix and the victory of her nemesis, Hacıyatmaz

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une réunion pas stable

A dark army of roly poly Haciyatmaz warriors – laying in wait in case the Write-a-Matrix comes back with her own army of whipcrackers (Photo credit: bu.)

Now that I have challenged myself to carefully consider the topic of “work” as part of December’s NaBloPoMo, two of the primary metaphorical puppets that have inhabited my mind for some years now are popping up once again in earnest.  I think they are bubbling up with a geyser-like fury because the BlogHer writing prompt of the day is “how hard do you think you work?”

Regular readers will recall that on occasion, two or more of my mental puppets get into what I have dubbed “a puppet battle” (you can click here to read all posts categorized as such) and there is no more fierce a battle than the one in which the Write-a-matrix and Hacıyatmaz (Hah-juh-yacht-maz) are engaged in.  It may be an eternal battle, but I hope it will just subside into the occasional debate/skirmish that dissolves with subtle mediation.

Now, one of my Moms, who is likely reading this post, has told me that she worries about these Karagöz puppets in my head, with all of their battles.  She wants me to feel whole, not so fragmented. Of course, I can understand and appreciate this loving concern.  My take on it is that this puppet exploration is a natural and healthy part of the process of figuring things out that must be named and recognized before moving on. She’ll likely sigh, maybe shake her head, and chalk it up to personality differences, but the puppets and I are asking her to please not worry, I am on the right path, and it is a healthy one. Let me encourage her to listen to the other puppets in the Karagöz puppet troupe, who have different stakes in my brain, heart and soul.

Those puppets are reminding me that Hacıyatmaz and the Write-a-matrix are located in only one side of my self – they are not in my whole self.  Hacivad Bey reminds me that Hacıyatmaz (named for a Turkish children’s toy that has a roly poly bottom and never stops rocking, albeit gently) was sent by the rest of the puppets to tango with the whip-cracker herself, that Write-a-matrix.  You know, fighting fire with fire, and all that.  To bring you up to speed, the Write-a-matrix was the dominatrix-type who had me by the throat, publishing scads of articles for tenure…too many articles compared to what secured what I now know to be the bittersweet brass ring for my colleagues.

Ignoring all that noise from the Write-a-matrix, Hacıyatmaz stayed true to his mission, to shock me back into some better balance.  As a result, he decided to affix me with the creative writing bug with as much energy as I had devoted to my academic research. Not a perfect approach in the larger scheme of things as for a stretch I was throwing myself into both, but that approach did engage the part of me that was caught up in the frenzy that is the Write-a-matrix – and made it take notice.  As it turns out, it took about a year, my Dad’s passing – and a rotator cuff injury on my writing side to wake me up from the madness. I need time for my own writing work – and my academic work.

So, as I leave my Write-a-matrix in the corner and head upstairs into a more healthy, but uncharted territory, I agree that it is time for more balance (can you hear the cheers and huzzahs of the puppet troupe?). Hacıyatmaz is smiling now, but the rhythm of his roly-poly-ness is steady. You see, has been patiently waiting for me since the 6th grade, when I turned down the special art/writing curriculum as the cool kids made too much fun of me already – why be a bullied artsy geek, I reasoned without a second glance.  I could just lift that young girl up and shake her senseless, I am so disappointed in her for that. Hacıyatmaz has a lot of compassion for her, it seems, and just stuck around, almost imperceptibly, rolling back and forth in the corner. He doesn’t speak, he just rolls, functioning as some sort of Buddhist metronome from which I should take my cue.

Seeing me write all this, the Write-a-matrix screeches in a banshee-like wail and claws at the walls. It is beyond painful to watch, hear and write about.  That poor Write-a-matrix, she cannot bear this utter *failure* on the loss of additions to “what’s in the publishing pipeline” writing front.  She tells me I have yet to publish in the journals with the highest “impact factor” using more advanced statistical analyses. She tells me I am an academic nobody who has wasted my training, my potential.  For her, existence itself equals an unhealthy all-or-nothing approach to one tiny sliver of what life can be vis-à-vis making a contribution to the world. She is upset beyond red, puffy-faced bitter rage, as she is realizing that I now know I only need her in moderation, such as on a deadline, not all the time. She is also horrified to hear that I am no longer trying to make my parents proud by amassing an academic publishing record akin to their own, regardless of impact factors and fancy statistics. But more than anything, the Write-a-matrix is also afraid of what is lurking behind all of that whip-cracking workaholism that needs tending to, but that is another story altogether.

So as the Write-a-matrix retreats in despair and Hacıyatmaz rolls steadily along, I am reminded of a playground fixture I saw in my childhood – it was something in between a carnival tilt-a-whirl and a see-saw, and it required all the kids playing on it to balance just so in order to keep the spinning up at a fun – and reasonable rate. That’s how I will approach the work of writing from now on.

It’s a new world out here.

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Turkish women and their hair: A visit to the guzelik salonu

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This is me no more - I am going back to silver, much to the chagrin of Safiye Rakkas, the vainglorious dancing girl and Kenne, the Queen of Manners and Maintenance of Ladylike Behavior. The little chorus of dancing girls are in Switzerland and Karagöz is dancing a jig at my (for Turkey) oppositional move.

This is me no more – I am going back to silver, much to the chagrin of Safiye Rakkas, the vainglorious dancing girl and Kenne, the Queen of Manners and Maintenance of Ladylike Behavior. The little chorus of dancing girls are in Switzerland and Karagöz is dancing a jig at my (for Turkey) oppositional move.

We Karagöz puppets take over while m’lady rest. She a right mess! Don’t tell her we say. We sneak jumpy jumpy iPhone toy, find her drafts from summer. She too perfectionist. We hit “publish” while she sleep, We blame Karagöz trickster – it work every time!

————
Today, our beloved dog went for a visit to the canine guzelik salonu for a nail trim – he won’t let us get anywhere near them.

And it made me think – it’s been a while since I have made my own visit to a human guzelik salonu, a.k.a. beauty salon.

That’s because I am growing out my silver hair, as the most empowered women I know refer to it. No more hair dye. Just me as is.

Safiye Rakkase, the vainglorious dancing girl puppet sniffs and turns her head in an exaggerated angle as she haughtily exits the house. Kenne, much to her horror, stands, straightens her crisp, linen apron, and follows her out the door.

As the Queen of Manners and Maintenance of Ladylike Behavior, Kenne is somewhat mortified to actually *agree* with a dancing girl, of all things, but “principles,” she pronounces with perfect diction and a balanced dictionary on her head, “are principles.”

It wasn’t always this way, you know, the dying of my locks. Aside from a teenaged dalliance with the infamous manic panic dyes in all shades of the rainbow, it has been me and my early silver strands.

And then I went to Istanbul with M.

And his family was horrified.

Just.

Horrified.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that they turned their heads back and forth, up and down, much like my dog trying to sniff a mouse out of a hole, wondering what on earth that grey hair was doing on my head.

“In Turkey, Liz,” they would say in succinct and serious sentences, “we dye our hair.”

I heard this refrain over, and over again each day. I even heard it from M.’s elderly aunt, who herself is silver-headed. Go figure. Sometimes there was a variation along the lines of “you are too young to let your hair go.” No stranger to bucking tradition when it came to my hair, I paid it no heed during that first year’s visit, nor the second, but the third, that’s when I broke down. Not that I broke down on the idea of moving away from my silver gilding, if you will, but rather I got so sick of the familial protest that I let them have their way with my hair.

$300 later, I walked out of the snooty salon with my sister-in-law, raven haired once more. Five years on, I have done endless battle with the hairdressers in the States – begging to grow out my silver – and each time being convinced that a non-permanent dye would “blend it in.” Although there are plenty of silver-haired foxettes out there, it seems the hairdressers just can’t get the idea that we WANT our silver.

Thankfully, Billie Jean, my hair savior right here in Provincetown, “got” me right away, and I am back on the path to grey – with all of those layers of dyed locks shorn in favor of what one friend called “middle-aged short.” We’ll see how this goes down in Turkey, but for now, Karagöz is dancing his oppositional dance, and Hacivad Bey is smiling too.