Perception

Perception
A Memory

First, I was shorter than the stove.
I stretched my little-girl body upward toward the right-front-burner.
Always the right-front-burner.
Electric, it beamed pink/red at me with fearful promise, as its heat intensified.

Something to be reckoned with,
That growing heat,
To be managed.

So many things to be reckoned with!

Then, later,
I was taller.
Looking down
At the burner,
Stewarding the process.
Aiming only for perfection.

I used the same pot for all those years.
Breakfast after breakfast.
School week after dreaded school week.
Month and year after month and year.

Small, probably aluminum,
She became My Pot.
My breakfast ritual.

First, pour in milk,
Up to the line in the pot
Etched by repetition.

Then turn on the stove….
Was it medium?
Low?

Precarious a process,
It began.

Eventually, when the milk warmed
Just the right amount—
Oh!  So precarious,

Then, oh-god-help-me,
Pour in the Bosco chocolate syrup…

This was precarious.

Just enough syrup to make the milk a rich dark brown,
But not
To dull the flavor.

Over-doing was my slippery-sloped-tendency.

(Hum.  That pattern stands strong today, 10,000 years later…..)

Managing the Bosco was a deep, focused process.

Then guard, 
So very carefully,

Guard with baited-breath the heating.

Watch
Careful
Watch
Careful

At the right perfect moment
And it was hard!
So hard to wait!  

At the right perfect moment,
Take the piece of wonder bread.

Make little balls out of the soft white middle
Ignoring the crust,

And at the RIGHT MOMENT
When the milk chocolate was warm—not—hot.

When the chocolate was dark,
Not too-dark.

At the right moment
Drop in the balls of wonder-bread-insides into the pot!

First they sink?
Maybe.  (memory fuzzy)

Then they float?
(Not sure—might be confusing it with matzoh balls)

But be careful—it’s not over yet.

Now at the right moment
Turn off the burner,
Stretch stretch breathe don’t breathe….

Pour milk and chocolate and wonder bread balls into mug.
(Which mug?  No memory.  It didn’t matter.  Only the prep mattered.)

BREAKFAST.

This was mine.

This was
My breakfast daily
Throughout my
Childhood,
Elementary school
and
High school

Bosco for decades.

I have no memory of the mug,
I have no memory of the drinking,
Or the flavor,
Of the pleasure
Of the taste.

I only remember 
in stark and specific detail—
The process.

The excruciating pleasure
Of the process.

~~~
That little girl that I was,
That little girl that I am,
She was,
She is,
A hungry little girl.

She wants something
Warm
And
Chocolate
With floating
Balls of
Soggy
Carbs.

She wants 
Something.

What’s my job?
My adult job?

To love her.
To hold her.
TO NOT MAKE HER WRONG.

Making her wrong,
Trying to shame her
Or
Control her
Or 
Change her—
That is the problem.

The solution?

Hi, honey….
I hear you and I see you.
What are you really hungry for?
There’s no Bosco here today.
No more wonder bread little balls.

What can we give you that is yummy?
Delicious?
Exactly what you need?

Let me give you what you really need.

~~~
Perception.

I feel some questions for my parental units,
Both long gone from this earth,
Questions bubbling in my belly:

That was breakfast?
For a child?
Was there a nutrient in the entire thing?
How could you send me off to school?
Off to life, with that as the nutritional foundation?
How could you have imagined that would be okay for me?

Bosco and milk and white bread and a tiny child alone at the stove?

And—let’s be clear.  My parents did great.
They loved me fully and wholly and lived their lives for my happiness.
I know that—now.

But….and…..yikes.
It’s no wonder I’m hungry.

~~~
Perception.

That was breakfast.
They believed that was breakfast.
I believed that was breakfast.
In 1958, that occurred in reality as breakfast.

Perception!
Molded by culture, by decade, by advertising, by false news, by—media.

Perception.
In a time when so many millions of people think somebody beside the duly-elected president won the highest elected office in the country, without any data to substantiate,

Perception calls our attention.

What might yoga teach us?

Be here.
Now.

Right here.
Right now.

Practice grounds us, 
Clears us,
Opens our heart 
And our eyes.

Practice tethers us
Back to reality
As it is.

It changes!
(Whose idea was that?)

We are called to be fluid.
We are called to be skillful.
We are called to be gentle.
We are called to be compassionate.

Dear friends,
We are called.

~~~

First, no words for this one—check it out.  Just when you think you know what’s happening…..