the miracle emotional

I wasn't always what I am now. For a while I was a Social Anthropologist. I ran experiments and wrote observations in notebooks, sometimes I even drew diagrams. I read extensively on topics such as modern applications of first century pagan rituals; Madonna: ancient beliefs to post modern pop star with an ex husband or so. I was a collector of rare facial expressions and took a special interest in violent sibling rivalries in the late 20th century. I was 12 years old at the time.
In my mid thirties I've pared it back, thank goodness, to an odd tendency to wonder what the postal carrier listens to in his headphones as he delivers the mail and a puppy love for muscle cars or really, anything with a slant 6. In short, I've given up most of my junior high tendencies for a different kind of musing.

But the impulse is the same: I am still watching others for clues about who they are and why they are, say, kind or indifferent. Why you hold me at arms length or can't stop hugging me. When you tell me who you are I want to believe you. But this is difficult, arduous.

It requires organizing my thoughts in a way that would give Martha Stewart's staff a run for their money. Otherwise I'd just be a hoarder of experiences. Not healthy. How does one quiet her emotions to the extent required for this task?

If the goal here is to offer a helpful comment, a hopeful idea about the next challenge or a bona fide listening ear, then I have to create categories that don't truncate the meaning of a gesture or limit the definition of your smile. My study of humans has required a turn toward other animals and their habitats now.

How does one tame a lion heart? How do you teach a whale to hum when she wants to sing?
My only hope is in the fact that even mean dogs have to sleep; they need no training for this. They have to lie down and when they do we let them lie. They do not seem mean at all as they snore and whimper in their dreams. It's somewhat dishonest of them but it does create a balance. And the fruit trees that seem to blossom and shed their fresh petals sloppily like pubescent adolescents, the rivers that swell like the veins of a runner in the final mile, the vines reaching, climbing, clinging to hillsides like so many toddlers to their mother's limbs.

So the animal and wild nature of emotions in me that want to fight or fly do know how to rest. The fears climbing my windpipes, the tears welling up could very well follow the cues of the seasons-which is really to say they respond to the sun and moon or the earth spinning quietly.
So I am turning the observing eye inward and becoming able to slow the pace of conversations and keep ballast in the torrent of confusion just a little.

I've read that it's possible to understand emotions and manage them-both mine and yours. They call this process emotional intelligence. I call it a miracle of the human condition. That I could face a fear or forgive a friend in spite of my instincts to cut losses, turn and run is quite a wondrous idea.
Let's not pretend it isn't.
In the daily mess of life we are expected to make these little miracles happen and then pretend they are not miracles because they are constant-what a sad sad life that would be!
Well, I'm not in junior high anymore which is to say, it's expected that I have a good deal of this intelligence at my disposal. But that doesn't make it any less miraculous.
So there you go, permission to expect the miracles-but also the hope that you will celebrate each one. Thank you.

chasing bullets

Spent the morning chasing bullets.
We know we aren't fast enough to stop them before they hit their mark.
So we followed them.

One of the bullets led us to the street corner where the man who caught it had crashed his truck. He had found his lost dog and then, together, they found two 16 year olds with a gun. When the boys threatened him he laughed and tried to take the gun. He wasn't able to get the gun, only the bullet and then he drove away, straight into a tree.

We followed one bullet to a grassy hill beside a gas station. We saw the cars on the highway speeding past us like a stampede out of town the same way they did on the day a three year old boy caught the bullet we were following. He had discovered his father's loaded gun under the seat of the car while waiting for his mother and auntie to shop at the quickie mart.

We followed another bullet to a vacant lot. The grass was just high enough to hide the litter. We stopped under a tall tree in what used to be a front yard. One of our group had seen smoke, not from the gun, but from the house fire lit by the man who had first set this bullet's course, then set his home ablaze.  His wife caught the bullet and so stayed in the house while it burned. We arrived too late, of course, to stop any of this from happening.

One bullet led us past the house where one of my friends is raising children, and a puppy. We crossed the street and stood on the lot where volunteers are planning a community garden.. We saw the signs of change. The yellow police tape is gone; neon pink tape marks the locations for raised beds. A shed has been erected in the alley where a man named Saul had caught up with some car thieves and the bullet from one of their guns.

And then it began to rain like a mother's tears. Our maps were sodden. We might have lost our way.

Before we gave up we hurried to follow another. It led us to a grove of trees proudly rising out of a well kept lawn sprinkled with tiny daisies, between the elementary school and a little church. One of the women with us explained that she had seen the gun that had shot the bullet we had followed here. She bravely recalled the young man leaning out of a car window, pointing the gun at her while he laughed. As she spoke, I marveled that her mind had finally found a way to wrap around the fact that she hadn't caught that bullet. A week later a teenager had caught that bullet between his shoulder blades as he ran toward the trees for shelter. And now, we had followed the story, followed the bullet. We stood between the very trees that might have saved his life had he reached them in time.

Why do some people catch the bullets and others only chase them?
I can't be sure.
But I know that I will continue to follow those I cannot catch. I know I will not ever be fast enough or brave enough to catch them but I will chase them. I sometimes hear them explode like fireworks in the middle of the night. Their sounds punctuate my dreams and when I wake I am filled with a kind of curious gratitude and wonder why. Even if we never find the bullets we chase and even though we hope no one will ever have to catch them, they are caught. They are caught and therein lies the great sadness that sets us on the journey toward answers for the hardest questions about death. I will follow the bullets because the routes they draw invite me into beautiful places of past loss, heroism, rage, courage, resilience. These are things we should follow closely so as not to lose track of them.