Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking

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Those who know about such things say that in any relationship there is one up and one down in terms of power over or who has the upper hand.  In a healthy relationship, this will alternate.  I don’t think this is true in the relationship with ourselves.

I once pondered metacognition – the thinking about thinking.  You know how you’re standing at the kitchen doing dishes, and you say to yourself, “Today I have to buy coffee, mail that package, text Cindy, and return that awful blouse”? And then later you get home and realize you forgot to buy coffee, so as you drive to the Dollar General you say, “You are so stupid, how could you forget coffee!”

Ok?  Who is the I?  And who is the You in these conversations we have in our head?  I submit the one saying “you are” is Jung’s Shadow Self, and I don’t think it’s ever good to let the Shadow be the upper cognition.  Or not good to let our Shadow have power-over for too long.  The Shadow is useful for pointing out our foibles and identifying what we need to work on, but giving that asshole upper reign for too long guarantees a miserable person.

Marie-Louise von Franz, a close associate of Jung, said:

[If and when] an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others – such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions.

But Jung carried on quite a bit about the Shadow Self and the Collective Shadow. It’s fascinating stuff and time I did some more reading about it.

I think we are living in an era where the Collective Shadow of this country is romping unconstrained, and it’s high time for some serious therapy.  Our souls are crying out for rescue from this power that’s taken hold and won’t let go.

Only the sea can explain

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Photo by Олег Мороз on Unsplash

I’m letting a restorative wave crash over my life. One that will wash the beach clean of frustrations and angers, rid me of tension that leaves my spine stiff and sore, and will clear my mind of the endless chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.

It’s been a long time coming.

Like waiting for a tsunami.

The warnings have been out for days, the nonstop preparations, the waiting, the waiting, the waiting. And then the sirens.

I don’t evacuate. I wish to be purged. To be changed. To be scrubbed clean by the raw power of the ocean.

And then the wave comes.

It is tall. It Is ferocious. It is just and nondiscriminating.

I am roiled in the water. Powerless. Not even flailing. Not panicking.

Just surviving one breath at a time.

And then it is over.

The beach is clean save for some interesting driftwood and a starfish.

I have a blank slate, and I can begin drawing – creating this new future – from scratch. I am both new and restored. A paradox that only the sea can explain.

Talavera Memory

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MEXICO-MAYA ARTISTS. “Market Scene,” by Maya artist Gregoria Coche Mendoza from San Pedro de Laguna

Maria Lucia Machado was ready for market.  Every Friday, the same routine.  Pack the vegetables, the fruit, the flowers into baskets, bowls, and boxes and load them into the back of the truck that only still ran because Maria Lucia Machado lit a candle at mass every morning, praying for its continued life.

Into the back of the truck, she also loaded the box of used plastic bags for those who didn’t have shopping bags – usually the gringos that came over the border for Market and cheap prescription drugs at the farmacia.

Not loaded yet were the watermelons.  She was waiting for Ricardo, her eldest, to come load those.  They were now just too heavy for her old bones. 

Oh!  And her tamales.  Maria rushed to the kitchen.  She had made them the night before.  They only needed to be wrapped and would be ready to go.  She thought it stupid to wrap them – that’s what the corn husk was for.  Stupido.  But the city folk and the gringos wouldn’t buy them in just the husk.  Maria shook her head as she wrapped them quickly, two each to a square of tinfoil. 

¡Hola, Mama!  Ricardo had arrived.  All happiness and enthusiasm.  Ricardo loved market day.  Ricardo loved life.  He was young, and he was strong, and he was filling his head at the universidad.  He was also in love with Teresa Maria Antonio. 

Mama, I took three of the calla lilies for Teresa.  ¿OK? 

Sí, nino. 

She hugged him, marveling that his strong, beautiful self came from her body. Oh, how she wished Eduardo had lived long enough to see the man he had become.  A fine one.  With a future.

Mama, I brought some of Teresa’s art to sell for her. ¿Is that okay with you?

Yes, of course. Let me see it.

It’s in the truck already, come see

Ricardo pulled out a canvas, and Maria gasped.

Oh, nino.  She is very talented. That is the pattern I described to her.  Just words.  The one mi madre designed to represent her goods.  Maria touched the painting gently.  It was like her Mama was alive again.  ¿She saw this from my words?

Yes mama.  I have a surprise.

¿A surprise?

Yes.  Teresa said to give this one to you.  It is yours.  Teresa said your descriptions of the old Talavera patterns were invaluable.  She knows now that she is preserving history and not just guessing.

Maria Lucia Machado loved the painting too much to even pretend to demure.  A wide grin filled her face.  For once, her missing teeth could not quiet her face.

¡Oh, nino! ¡Tell her gracias!  Bring her for dinner Sunday.  I will prepare a feast of thanks. 

Mama, you will still be tired from market.  I will bring her to dinner on Sunday, but just a regular Sunday meal.  It will be enough.    

Maria looked at the old wall clock above the stove.  It was time to leave.  She gathered her things and headed to the truck.  Ricardo would drive.  He helped her into the cab, and when finally seated, he turned to his mother and both of them at the same time said, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” as he turned the key.

The truck started on the first try.

Maria grinned for the second time that day.  A good omen.  It would be a good market day. 

That obnoxious officiant clerk

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Longing for Budapest
I want to cruise the Danube
from Switzerland to the Black Sea
drifting from one fairytale to the next.

I’m more interested in Vienna than
Paris thought I certainly wouldn’t
turn up my nose at the Louvre
and afternoon coffee on the Seine.

An overwater bungalow with a thatched
roof in the Fiji appeals
more than Bali, though the terraced
rice paddies are really something.

Thailand would be lovely.
But Vietnam’s beckoning is stronger.
A train from north to south.
My family has a history there.

Speaking of which — Ireland.
But Edinburgh shouts louder.
It’s wilder, I think. A little rough around
the edges, like my chosen home.

I was in Guatemala on an aid trip
fifty years ago this year.
I’d like to see it with these eyes.
That 17-year-old’s were perhaps too young.

The choices are limitless and overwhelming.
When at most. I can choose one. Maybe two.
My finite bank account is an officious clerk
refusing to stamp my passport so I can move on.