Lying in the Mud Waiting for Rain

Another sleepless night. Now I know what it feels like to get thrown under that proverbial bus. It's an experience that has a demoralizing quality like no other. The wheels start to spin and dig their muddy ruts and there seems little chance that the bus will ever extract itself from the pit to roll forward again. The gears grind and we lurch from side to side.

I truly think I'd rather be under here than on the bus at this point. I think I am going to welcome the role of scapegoat and run with it. I think I am actually uniquely suited for the role, and that it fits me well. Blame me for everything. It makes sense.

Part of my minutes-taking love is the sacred role of impartial witness, observer of all, interpreter, person who frames things with honesty. I try so very hard to do that. It's a spiritual practice to me. I think of myself as someone who pursues rationality, contructs sensible and productive narratives even when there is chaotic action to describe. I don't think this is delusional, though of course tonight I am working over my delusions in fine detail trying to see if I am really the dissembler I have been accused of being. It doesn't fit with who I believe myself to be.

But I'm a person who understands being really wrong. I am the gullible innocent, and don't try not to be. I think it's part of what allows me to approach that level of honesty I try to get to. I can be fooled. But I can also see patterns and repeating attempts to confuse and I can articulate them. Not that it helps. People who haven't seen the patterns tend to not believe in them and the more the description extends, the more the listener can edge away. There's an instinctive discomfort to get away from things that one doesn't have the capability to follow or understand. Gaslighting comes into play. The sensitive noticer becomes the one at fault. Protesting adds more words. Someone who exposes misconceptions in such detail must be constructing one. People throw up their hands and won't believe anything.

Lots of metaphors I could use. I wish I could tell the story in concrete detail, but it's depressing and the best strategy is to endure until more pressing matters arrive to wash the bus down the lane despite its broken parts. Pack up the tools and pick up the next piece of work. There's still plenty to do, and there's no better way to rebuild trust than to pick the work up and resume doing it. Start sawing, start stacking, get that woodpile lined up straight and don't forget that winter will arrive whether or not all of us are ready. Summer will flee while we fret and analyze and fiddle with the details of things that are going to have to creak along somehow. With or without us.

I have the strength to be the scapegoat for awhile. I've made enough mistakes that I certainly deserve blame for some of them. I made my kid eat school lunch, for heaven's sake. I'm guilty. Blame me.

Dump all your blaming and your shaming and all of your accusations, dump them right on me, right now. You get two more minutes. Get it out. This is a limited time offer, but it's wide open. Blame me for every little thing. Let's all throw it all out there and then we can let it go up in smoke. We can bury that hatchet once we chop all of our flaming blame into little tiny pieces and stomp on it and make sure all the fire is out. Get it done.

And then we can get back to work. We still have a lot to do, and we're still stuck with each other here in our little mud pit we made. We're still going to have to shove each other around a little until we can get comfortable for the long haul. We keep finding a lot more problems to pitch into this soup. We keep trying to make something beautiful happen with what materials we have.

It's always worked before. I've been through this: being wrong, being blamed, being seen in the wrong light or called hurtful names or bruised with the thrust of someone else's defense moves. It wasn't about me then and it isn't really about me now. It's about our need to climb up, out of the pit, and the way we sometimes step on each other when we do that. It's nothing personal, that muddy boot on your shoulder. You're supposed to climb out too. At some point someone else will reach back and give you a hand. It's not a story that has an end to it.

Hardly a story at all. Someday I'll tell you the details, maybe. Probably they don't matter. It's when I tell the details that people start edging away and thinking I'm too serious about it, too intense, maybe even hysterical. Been there? Let's keep trying to make a world where that doesn't happen.