Author Archives: Patricia Wild

The bells of mindfulness are calling out to us,

trying to wake us up, reminding us to look deeply

at our impact on the planet.

Thich Nhat Hanh

When, in 1770, John Woolman connected “retailed rum, sugar, and molasses [to be] the fruits of the labour of slaves,” he practiced the sort of mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh espouses.

But sometimes that gets very complicated.

Every morning, rain or shine, hail storm or snow storm, The Boston Globe is delivered right to my door. Literally. Andrey Goncalves, the delivery guy, throws my paper from his car onto my front porch; most mornings, his aim is so precise the paper lands right onto my doormat.

Can you spot the mindful/environmental/spiritual dilemma? Of course you can! It’s that damned car.

“Should I continue to pay NYT BostonGlobe  $46.56 every month?” I began to wonder. “Environmentally, maybe it would be better if I walked to a store every morning where stacks of Globes had been delivered.”

Ah, but just as I was contemplated this, what should arrive with my morning paper but a cheesy Thanksgiving card from Andrey Goncalves!

So what, you might say. It came with an addressed envelope, you might point out. That card was obviously your Paper Delivery Guy’s underhanded way to get a tip.

Maybe so.

But Something about that card “spoke to my condition,” as JW would put it. I remembered Andrey’s faithfulness—even in terrible weather. And his excellent arm. I remembered how long he’s been my Delivery Guy. Which just might be saying something about how much he—and his family?—need this cruddy job? I regarded his name, considered what it might be like for anyone named “Goncalves” to survive in this economy, this anti-immigrant environment. And, cheesy as it was, there was Something heartfelt about that card which, indeed, asked me to take a moment to reflect upon the bounty that informs my cushy life.

What would JW do? Well, truth be told, I have no idea.

But TNH has this to say: “To bring about real change in our global ecological situation our efforts must be collective and harmonious, based on love and respect for ourselves and each other, our ancestors, and future generations.”

So here’s what I’m planning to do: Keep on shelling out almost fifty bucks every month for my newspaper. Keep on giving Andrey generous tips. And, on a rainy or snowy or miserable morning, when I hear that familiar thunk at my front door, to sleepily offer a prayer of thanksgiving to Andrey and all the millions of unseen, unknown men and women whose fruits of labor I partake every single, mindless day.

The bells of mindfulness are sounding.

Thich Nhat Hanh

A week after my father died, my husband and I used a gift certificate from Jeremy and Vita (my husband’s son and his wife; thanks, you two!) to help pay for two Boston Symphony Orchestra tickets. Entering that august, lofty, historic auditorium, I realized that the first time I’d been in Symphony Hall, it had been my dad who’d squired our family there—for Tufts Night At the Pops in 1962. And I remembered a time when I’d been, maybe, six or seven, when he and my grandmother attended a BSO concert and, much as I had begged, had left me home. “You’re too young,” they’d declared. “You’ll squirm and fidget and bother the other concert goers.”

“I’ll be good,” I’d promised.

“Maybe when you’re older,” they’d told me. But we moved, my grandmother died; it was not to be. In college as now, however, whenever possible, I’ve attended concerts in Symphony Hall—but not in the black patent-leather mary janes I’d once imagined I’d wear on my BSO outing.

As I took my seat and perused the program, I was aware both of my own grief and my intense joy to be back in a space that has been such a significant place in my life.  My grief worried me a little: “There’s a lot attached to this evening,” I acknowledged. “I really need for this be perfect!”

Our orchestra seats were wonderful, we’d gotten there early enough for excellent people-watching and, oh, the sheer thrill to watch the orchestra members stroll in, schmooze, play a few riffs, tune their instruments. So far, so good.

But at about 7:55, two women in their late twenties/early thirties breathlessly brushed past us and took their seats beside us, just as the “Please turn off all cell phones” announcement flashed. But the woman beside me didn’t notice: She was checking her messages!

OK, Patricia, I counseled myself. You’re in a diminished state. You came here, tonight, with an unrealistic expectation for perfection. And, I reminded myself, you were raised in a family where concert-going behavior was held as something so significant, SO important, that you weren’t deemed worthy enough to attend.

But still . . .

Just as the conductor entered, the young woman slipped her Whatever The Hell It Was device  into her very nice evening bag (Spiffy electronic gadgetry, spiffy bags; please don’t judge me because I care for neither. OK?).

“Is that thing off?” I asked her. Firmly. But, I’m hoping, with a wee bit of gentleness, a tiny bit of I-know-I’m-a-mess-so-please-forgive-me.

But here’s the thing: That woman spent the entire concert with her head bent down while she leafed through her program. But, I realized, watching her with dismay, that’s what young people DO. (Some do.) In a crowd, on the T, waiting, walking along a crowded, city sidewalk, for crissakes, they bend their heads and check their messages, text, whatever.

No, she wasn’t a complete philistine. It was a sheaf of bound pages on her lap, not an eerily glowing electronic screen. (Thank you, Jesus.) But here’s the other thing: She missed an amazing, electrifying performance by solo violinist Pinchus Zukerman. Who, when he interacted with the orchestra or simply felt/took in Beethoven’s music, had been well worth watching.

Sad, huh?

Did you know that Archibald Query invented marshmallow fluff, right here in Somerville, in 1917?

Quaker query and book publishing agent query today join a brief, grateful tribute to “the ‘Ville.” My hometown.

YAY!

Okay, technically, it’s a new month and “Winds of Change” is so last month. But with a possible hurricane bearing down on the Northeast this weekend, the same weekend as daughter Allison’s outdoor, on the Cape wedding, who could resist?

Instead of obsessively consulting weather websites a thousand times a day, this MOB arranged for a “Hurricane Earl” Google alert. The kind that gives you one report/day. Pretty smart, huh?

Not really. And yet brilliant.

The “not really” is because a Google search, I now realize, is about hits. So the sites that have come up  track this mighty storm’s process as people living in the middle-Atlantic states consult their computers.

What I really wanted to know was: Will this hurricane hit Cape Cod and if so, when, and how bad will it be? But what I’m really learning is: We’re connected. All of us. (And, oh, yeah, as precious and wonderful as Allison and Dustin and this wedding are, there’s all that other stuff happening, too.)

In case you didn’t pick up on it—that’s the “brilliant” part.

* Allison will be wearing pearls once belonging to my Aunt Katherine and borrowed from her Aunt Deborah.

Back from Baltimore Yearly Meeting—with a brief visit to New England Yearly Meeting—and eager to “unpack.” To spend so much concentrated time with so many Quakers and make meaning of all I saw and heard will require lots of time, lots of discernment.

Meanwhile—a wind story from BYM: BYM was held at Frostburg State College, in the mountains of western Maryland, so far west that one day, when I’d walked to the very top of its hilly campus, I watched another hill, maybe a couple of miles away, being strip-mined.

Besides hills and classroom buildings and dormitories, Frostburg State also boasts playing fields. Many, many playing fields. A perfect setting for a sports summer camp for kids. So while Quakers from MD, VA and DC were at their yearly gathering, K—12 football players and soccer players were also on campus (noticing what food—and how much—these kids selected at the college’s cafeteria was an eye-opening experience).

But we Quakes and those athletes shared that hilly, breezy campus with another summer camp: a high school marching band from Raleigh, NC. My first meal at the gathering and not knowing anyone, I noticed these kids, clearly not jocks, racially mixed, some a little, well, geeky, and sat with them. They were delightful. So the next morning after breakfast, as the brass section rehearsed under a tent near the cafeteria, I lingered.

Their director (whose much-used voice got more and more gravelly as the week progressed), his bearing and sports garb possibly leading you to believe he was football coach, was measure-by-measure taking these kids through a rough passage.

He instructed the trumpet section to stop playing. “This piece has some unusual chords,” he noted to the others. “How many of you are playing weird, discordant notes?” Several kids raised their hands. “Play loud,” he told them. “Emphasizing those notes are what will make this piece special.”

Now, maybe it was the coffee talking, but his instructions seemed to be a metaphor of how a group, a gathering, a community, a”body” (as BYM and NEYM referred to the people attending their sessions) might function. If the center holds, if the trumpet section carries the tune, if there’s trust and safety and respect and civility, the weird and discordant voices of that group or body make that community special.

From time to time during my stay at Frostburg, the wind would blow in the right direction and I’d hear those same labored-over, difficult, beautiful measures being played. And I’d again ponder that potential metaphor.

Now you can, too.