What's your "Default Doodle?"
When you are bored and in a meeting, or on the phone, and just doodling in the margins of your paper, what do you most commonly doodle?
I am curious. I have a feeling our "default doodle" has the potential to see what is in our minds when the cognitive parts of us are disengaged.
I will tell you mine.
From the time of childhood, I have doodled geometric shapes, consisting mostly of combinations of triangles and spirals. The triangles, I will start with one triangle and then put new triangles on the three sides of the triangle, then connect the points of the triangles to each other into basically square, rectangle, and rhomboidal shapes, and keep making this ever-expanding outwardly growing network of triangles and connect them to each other. Then I will color in the triangles or hash mark them in in different patterns, etc.
The spirals, I do sort of the same thing. I start making the “middle” of the spiral and draw the spiral going outward. Then I go back in and do things like fill the rows of the spiral in with different hash marks, colors or patterns, or try to draw a 2nd spiral parallel to the first one and fill them in between the two lines of the spiral. Sometimes I make the spiral the middle of the doodle and put a square around it and put triangles on top of the sides of the square, and there we go again with the triangles.
When I get to hatching and shading things, they take on somewhat of a three-dimensional look to them...but not totally. There are areas that appear more 3-D and other areas that are not so 3-D.
I usually make my patterns to a certain size, then start a new one, and if I am doodling long enough, I start to connect the big doodles to each other.
Now, there have been lots of people who have looked at doodles in Jungian sort of way. A couple of good references are here and here.
Ok, in the general sense, after reading those pages, I realize that the geometric intricacies of my doodles show I am a thinking, purposeful planning kind of individual, somewhat into complexity. The three-dimensional side to it speaks to my need of structure and logic. The spirals are representative of self-protectiveness. It's even more interesting that I often place my spirals within these intricate geometric shapes that I doodle--as if I am even "protecting" them more with my planning, structure, and sense of purpose. I almost never put the spirals on the outside of the doodle.
But two things come to mind about my doodling. One is the pattern of "how" I make them. The other is I realized there was a doodle I did in childhood and young adulthood I don't hardly ever do anymore which I used to do almost obsessively.
I have come to realize in recent years that perhaps the "outward and back inward to fill in the details" aspect of my doodles speak to something that is deep within me that is “ever moving outward and ever desiring to be connected and patterned.” It is significant, I think, that my doodles always “grow outward” to a point and then I go back and “fill in the patterns.” In the light of all the interesting spiritual discoveries I have made in recent times, does it perhaps in some way also speak to my spiritual journey? I move outward till I'm satisfied with the size, then start another, and then connect them. What is interesting is those spirals are always in the CENTER of the doodles...as if this soft, round entity is the core of me but I cover it with structure and logic. "Locked up" in a way.
Well, gee whiz, that is similar to how I take Scripture and push myself outward with it, then go back and fill it in with my own unique pattern. It is a form of “creating stability.” The "locked up" parts of me become the center of my spiritual core.
As I was reading and thinking about this, it dawned on me that there is a doodle I don't do so much anymore. When I was a child and young adult, sometimes I would get on runs of "doodling stars." Mostly they were the five pointed kind that you draw with a single stroke of the pen; sometimes they were six-sided "Jewish" stars. But I would make rows and rows of them and crowd them together very tightly.
Stars can sometimes represent "a need to be noticed"-- A need to "prove myself." I imagine that was a stronger dynamic when I felt a lot of the difficult parts of my growing up, and a stronger dynamic in my years of "schooling," and my years of trying to find my place in an achievement-oriented atmosphere.
I haven't done that doodle in any great quantities for years. Oh, I might throw an occasional star in here or there, but not that row upon row of intensely crowded stars like I used to draw. Maybe I have reached a point in my life where I don't have to "prove myself" so much any more, or so intensely. That is a thought for me to ponder.
I knew I had that photo handy! Here's the late Mr. Willis Woo doing his best Wyeth imitation.
From the NYT:
Andrew Wyeth, one of the most popular and also most lambasted artists in the history of American art, a reclusive linchpin in a colorful family dynasty of artists whose precise realist views of hardscrabble rural life became icons of national culture and sparked endless debates about the nature of modern art, died Friday at his home in Chadds Ford. He was 91.
"Hardscrabble rural life".
That is probably why his paintings are so meaningful to me. My generation of rural life was not so hardscrabble growing up (just a little financially dicey) but for my Depression-era grandparents, those images were very real, and I saw ghosts of those images in old family photographs and family recollections.
My favorite Wyeth painting is the one above, "Master Bedroom." (It's in my OWN bedroom, actually!) In fact, I have a photograph of the late Mr. Willis Woo Dog sleeping on MY bed with my print of "Master Bedroom" in the background, in a similar pose. I'll have to dig that one out of the archives!
The starkness and poverty of the room is striking, yet the family dog is sleeping as if royalty. It is a scene I have seen many times over in all the homes of my life, on chenille bedspreads, hand stitched quilts, and other understated bed covers. Something about that sleeping dog, just as content in stark nothingness as in the most palatial home, hits deep with me.
His work has always been a reminder of the beauty within stark reality, and I honestly mourn the loss of this type of talent. That recognition is hard to come by.
(P.S. Almost all of my friends are more "unique" than me. Then again, I have the 23rd most popular first name in the US and the 48th most popular last name so I was probably doomed in this game...)
In my journey backwards through the Psalms, I am getting down to the wire here, am at Psalm 11. Verse 3 is kind of thought provoking in that regard: “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
Simply “not feeling well” can certainly erode on our foundations, can’t it? That’s true with physical or emotional pain or situational anxieties or anything like that.
Being distressed can do it too. Or even good things can do it. We might start getting a little “heady” about our blessings and a little of “But it IS about me” creeps in and erodes at us.
You know, merely being disciplined about faith, whether it is prayer, or study, or just dedicated time for reflecting, is in the world's eyes, kind of counterproductive. That is a lot of swimming upstream every day of our lives. That can wear on our foundations. Being a person of faith can be downright freeing and exhilarating at times...but it also comes with the realization to be that person, you have to swim upstream every day, and some days it’s tiring.
So...it’s back to “What can the righteous do?” It’s like a question I posed to a friend when we were grumping about feeling "different than everyone else", ”When you are a 'different' kind of person, how do you love fully and also experience the fullness of love with a different gold standard than the bulk of the world?”
When the world has a different gold standard for “success,” for “love,” for “happiness,” than we do, the sheer tidal force of our culture laps at the foundations of us. We can be doing nothing but living the way we have chosen to live, and it will still wear on us, just as waves lap against a pier constantly.
So how do we deal with this constant pressure of entropy?
Honestly, I am not totally sure, but I do think it means we have to be continuously mindful of what our foundations are made of, and that much of our foundation is NOT “us” but something bigger than us. To stay connected with God in a “foundational” way. This is part of why I am mad the evangelicals have co-opted the word “fundamental.” “Fundamental” is not being forced to accept a certain attitude about the Bible and salvation that a particular set of people believe. “Fundamental” to me is to continue to seek God’s instruction in a disciplined way...to regularly pray, read, study, reflect, and LISTEN. Part of it for me is learning to be ok that I cannot possibly see all the answers, to accept some degree of ambiguity. Part of it for me is to accept that God made me who I am for a reason, that the fundamental parts of my psyche are basically good things, but that these good things can come out sideways and backwards when things lap at my foundations.
I spent a lot of years ignoring my foundations, or even seeing them as hindrances to “true happiness.” Only in recent years have I been attending to these neglected foundations. Yeah, it’s hard, but what I am discovering is the “good” things in my life are becoming stronger and deeper and more alive.
So perhaps the answer to “what can the righteous do?” is to persevere with their own foundations by continuing to engage in the disciplines of their faith, not necessarily b/c it will give answers, but in that the SEEKING these things brings hope and meaning to us in a world that runs counter to us.
Well, in short, it's not good. Although Bo had a biopsy of his mass (results to follow next week), it is probably a moot point, as further studies show he probably has metastases to bone and possibly his lungs. The advice of the veterinary team at MU was "let him go home and be a dog as long as he feels like being a dog," and prescribed some pain pills to start to plan to keep him as pain-free as possible.
In other words, if he were a person, it would be the equivalent of a stage IV malignancy.
Bo's mom says he has a little bit of the "drunken sailor" walk at the moment since he had been drugged to get a CT scan, but I'm sure by tomorrow he will mostly be back to being "Bo as usual."
I hope they can have "Bo as usual" for as long as they're allowed. I also worry about his companion, Miss Zera Ruth. I left some goodies over at their house while his folks were driving to Columbia to pick him up, including some for Zera...she deserves some lovin', too! Meanwhile, I think the best prescription is lots of hugs and a few hamburgers. I will keep you all posted.
I got some tough news from two of my friends today.
Their beloved Bo has a yet to be diganosed soft tissue malignancy and it's probably fairly dire b/c it appears to have eroded into a rib. Right now, Bo seems in good enough spirits, so there is no urgency with any decisions. Bo is spending the night at the University of Missouri vet school, and everyone will have a better idea of what they are dealing with in a few days. They have been blessed that even though he is 12 years old, he's always been a very "young" 12. Most big dogs are already pretty old by age 12.
He had a small mass for some time. Of course, none of us thought much of it, because older dogs often get benign fatty tumors. but then recently he started having more masses.
But this is all tough duty, even for "dog extended family" like myself. There will be decisions to be made, things to think about, and a LOT of tears in this family, and mostly, my job will be "just be there." It is hard to walk through these decisions with a dog...in some ways harder than with people, because it seems to be accelerated b/c of the shortness of a dog's life, and also because active euthanasia is always one of the options on the table. It's hard for us to understand what a dog thinks, what a dog feels, when thinking about treating something vs. not treating it. I have found in my own case, I have to always step back and ask myself, "Am I treating the dog, or am I treating me?" At any rate, it is tough, whether you are the owners or just the friend of the owners.
I kind of know what Bo is to this family. He is that kind of dog that I think, sometimes, a person only gets to have once in a lifetime. I think if you have been a good person, you are allowed ONE dog that is different than any other dog...a dog that seems "more than a dog" in more ways than most dogs. If you have really courted God's favor, you are allowed more than one. It's not that you love your other dogs in your life less, it's just that this "one dog" is different. That one dog you are allowed to have makes you question everything you think you know about the mysteries of the cosmos.
Bo is that dog in this family. He represents a time in Bo's dad's life when he was very alone and at times, Bo must have seemed to be all he had in the world that was loyal and true. He represents the gift of "learning to love" in the case of Bo's mom. She was attracted to Bo's dad b/c Bo was in the first picture she ever saw of him, and it broke the ice to exploring a relationship that led to marriage. She didn't like Bo at first, b/c he didn't get along with her dog Rex. But she learned to love him, and I am sure learning to love Bo was part of the plan of learning to love all the things that came with this new family she chose.
When I think of these two friends, I don't just think of them, it's "them and Bo and Zera." All four of them are part of a family I dearly love. So, this news about Bo cuts into the security and stability of my extended family, too.
Here is my "once in a lifetime dog." J.R. was my dog of my young adult life. I got him right after college, and he was my dog when I was teaching school for a living, my dog of my medical school years and part of my residency. He was a cast-off. A lady gave him to me b/c her husband mistreated him and she feared he'd kill him. He was damaged goods. He was deathly afraid of storms. He never did learn to be comfortable around "blond men." But he was smart--smarter than just the ordinary "Sheltie smart" in a lot of ways. He probably knew about 300 words. He babysat the small children at our med school parties. If you asked him in a totally different part of the house, "Where do we keep the cheese?" he'd scratch the fridge. If you asked him "Where do we cook the weenies?" he'd scratch the stove. I did NOT teach him this. He made me wonder if the Hindus weren't on to something about reincarnation.
I was always amazed at what I COULD teach him. He would spin in a circle in the direction your spun your finger...clockwise...counterclockwise. He won a year's worth of dog food in a contest b/c I taught him to tap a telegraph key and just by dumb luck, he tapped out "eat" in Morse code! (then again, maybe it wasn't dumb luck!) He made me believe in Jim the Wonder Dog. The picture above was J.R. wearing my hood and cap from my med school graduation in 1991. We all joked maybe the wrong one of us graduated!
When he got old, he got arthritic and "down in the rear" and I eventually had to put him to sleep when life was just too painful for him. He got fearful that he could not get up and whined and cried with a horrible tone to his voice, because his old joints hurt too bad. It became just not fair to expect him to lie there in fear till I got home. I cried for days after I had put him to sleep, even after I brought his successor Mr. Willis Woo home.
(Ok, I admit it. I lasted five whole days without a dog. I caught holy hell from my grandmother for not "mourning J.R. for the appropriate time frame" but all in all, Mr. Willis Woo was a godsend. The flip side of that was I remember when my grandmother was dying of cancer, she was petting Mr. Willis Woo and I overheard her telling him, "I'm sorry I didn't like you at first, because you were not J.R. But now you are the most loyal of them all when I can't even get out of bed. I'm sorry I thought that.")
But thinking about dear Bo this evening, I remember J.R., and it helps me understand exactly why Bo and his mom and dad need your prayers.
