Josie's Playdate

Small Elegant Beings

I'm OK; You're OK?

He was a big, hearty, good-looking fella with a swoosh of white hair and he looked everyone in the eye, while bestowing friendly little shoulder pats or back rubs. I disliked him at once.

He also made a point of calling folks by their names. Repeatedly. Except for me -- I was always "Baby's mother."

Back in '73, when John and I were teaching at a small private school in Tampa, the entire faculty was treated to a course in Transactional Analysis (TA,) based on a wildly popular bestseller I'm OK; You're OK  (Wikipedia link HERE) -- and this friendly somebody was the facilitator. 

This school was terrific in that we could wear jeans (my previous stint teaching at Berkeley Prep had required dresses, heels, and panty hose) and we had a lot of freedom in how we structured our classes.  Also, we brought our baby to school with us -- and no one minded. So when we were told we would be staying after school one day a week for Transactional Analysis, we went along with it. We already thought we were ok and we were prepared to assume that others were ok too (unless they proved otherwise.) But the course would, we were told, make us better teachers. Or better people. Or something.

I don't remember a lot about TA -- there was the concept of 'giving strokes' as a part of one's transactions with another. 'Positive strokes' included eye contact, back rubbing, and saying the other's name -- all meant, I suppose, to affirm the okayness of the other. There were  'brown stamps' -- negative strokes -- and there may have been 'warm fuzzies.' 

I have forgotten most of what the facilitator said. Probably because it was a 'brown stamp' when he couldn't remember my name.

But  it all seemed like manipulative behavior to me and I have been left with an enduring suspicion of anyone who uses my name repeatedly in a conversation or maintains eye contact as if it were a staring contest, or rubs my back for no particular reason. You're doing TA on me, I think, and the shield wall goes up.

Scarred for life. 

Gratitude by Mary Oliver

What did you notice?

The dew-snail;
the low-flying sparrow;
the bat, on the wind, in the dark;
big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;
the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;
the sweet-hungry ants;
the uproar of mice in the empty house;
the tin music of the cricket’s body;
the blouse of the goldenrod.

What did you hear?

The thrush greeting the morning;
the little bluebirds in their hot box;
the salty talk of the wren,
then the deep cup of the hour of silence.

When did you admire?

The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;
the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;
the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;
at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;
then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.

What astonished you?

The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.

What would you like to see again?

My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,
her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue,
her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness,
her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.

What was most tender?

Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;
the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;
the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;
the tall, blank banks of sand;
the clam, clamped down.

What was most wonderful?

The sea, and its wide shoulders;
the sea and its triangles;
the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.

What did you think was happening?

The green beast of the hummingbird;
the eye of the pond;
the wet face of the lily;
the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;
the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;
the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve of the first snow—

so the gods shake us from our sleep.

Green and Yellow

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