The illusion of control

Periodically I find myself in a situation where I have some control over my surroundings or circumstances. Construction projects, especially those involving inert materials, fit the bill nicely. The front walk project (involving dry-laying paving bricks in sand, at this stage) is a good example, and was the order of the day today for me.

In light of that, I am interested in my mood this evening: less tolerant of little inconveniences, decisive, quick to act, not very silly, etc. It could be the result of working against the Hurricane Hanna clock to get to a specific point…pushing myself, pushing myself all day. Maybe when a person pushes themselves all day they end the day feeling a little pushed around. At any rate, the walk is shaping up according to expectations, and the results are pleasing to me, and I feel the greater part of my mood is due to this reality, which has been my obsessive world for a handful of hours. The illusion of absolute control over my circumstances is deliciously seductive when things are going “right”. But I think that people who feel (more than think) that they have their circumstances comfortably in the bag are generally not happy people nor are they pleasant to be around, because they have come to base their own sense of wholeness or security on something which is exceedingly fragile (on some level they know this). They have a tendency to be intolerant of all those other people who have failed to achieve the same level of general competence. Children seem to be free of this malady, and have a tendency to liberally distribute monkey wrenches in the works: rare is the child who is predictable or whose behavior is always “right”.

If parenting teaches us nothing else, it seems it ought to be that to love another person well means to let go of the need to control all our circumstances (each loving relationship encounters some circumstances which are unacceptable…healthy boundaries require us to stick up for our rights or needs in sometimes painful ways). While we were in the thick of decision-making and intense care provision for Nora, it was so abundantly clear that we could not control what was going on. That was the reality that we lived in every hour of every day, and I feel as if we adapted to it surprisingly well (after resisting for quite a while). It was a kind of freedom I hadn’t known before: there was nothing we could do to change the facts, so we allowed the waves to wash over us, finding they washed away many of the things we usually busied our minds with, but which matter (especially at times like that) very little.

I would never, ever wish that we could experience the death of our child once or ever again. It was a precious and beautiful time that I would wish on no one. But I could wish that it would be a little easier to live the gifts that that time presented to us. Part of the problem is that those things which must be dropped or which are washed away in the immediacy of an unfolding loss or tragedy are often things which are quite useful in ordinary life. Things like efficiency and thrift are not helpful concepts when it comes to crisis time, or when dealing in personal relationships with loved ones. However, as habits that help us live our ordinary lives effectively, they are essential to creating the space around us that we need to maintain our sense of where we are in the world.

It is ordinary life that is our main focus now (it has its own beauty). Our time is quite well accounted for just in terms of completing the work set before us and keeping our bellies full and teeth clean. It’s sort of unsettling to notice how quickly the time goes by this way. To complete the circle with the thought with which I began this ramble, if the work set before us is not too overwhelmingly much, and if we complete it reasonably effectively, the temptation to believe in our ability to control becomes strong. One of the gifts Nora leaves with us is the memory we have of those moments when we had to let go. It is a memory of what it feels like to be free to love with all my heart. It is an antidote to the seductions of ordinary life.

Jason

P.S. This evening we enjoyed our first social event on the patio incorporated into our front walk: a Fruit Farm Lane neighbor’s potluck, with Hurricane Hanna storm clouds gathering overhead. Any mood difficulties which anybody may have experienced were (hopefully) not manifested until the merry guests returned to their homes to listen to the rain. Each time a chair squeaked on my tightly laid bricks was a tidy satisfaction. That’s fine for now and I’ll enjoy this stage, but as time passes and the weeds and ants find their ways into the cracks, I trust my satisfaction will transition to a roomier variety.