sentimentality and self understanding

Self understanding is a key point in Buddhism. When we question why we react to situations and why our feelings are triggered by certain outside influences, we get a better understanding of the way our ego works. Hopefully with this understanding we can lessen the hold the ego has on us and begin acting and reacting from a place of love and compassion rather than fear.

I have this habit of putting a lot of weight on the ways I express my care for other people. If I am baking banana bread for my friends and it comes out wrong, I get WAY more upset about it than seems reasonable...even to me. Recognizing that my reaction seems out of proportion to reality (I mean, seriously...it's just banana bread) I try to understand what meaning I'm putting into it that makes it so life or death.

Which brings me to Ireland...

In the summer of 2005 I visited Inis Mor, an island off the coast of Galway. I was going to be traveling through Europe alone for the next three months but my mother and sisters had joined me for the first week in Ireland. The day before my mother and sisters were leaving the island, my mother and I got into an argument. We rarely argued and I'm sad to say I was the one who really started it. Without resolving the conflict we parted ways -in dramatic fashion my sister Meg joined me on a walk on the high road across the island while my other sister Mary went with my mother across the low road. (True story, there are only two roads on the island and they are appropriately named.)

When we met up later in Kilronan, my mother handed me a scarf as a peace offering. It was a scarf that said she knew me - blue (naturally), knit and longer than I am tall. But more than that, it was a scarf that said "somehow we lost sight of the fact that we love each other for a minute, but here is a physical object to remind us".

The next morning I saw them off at the ferry and waved til their boat was out of the bay, then turned to walk across some untraveled part of the island with the blue scarf wrapped several times around me. I wandered along the cliffside of the island (the picture on this blog was taken from the cliff on Inis Mor) and met a farmer who broke my heart with various sentimental stories that the Irish tell so well.

As the day went on, it grew warmer and I wrapped the scarf around my bag and started to walk back toward Kilronan. When I got there, I realized the scarf was no longer on my bag. Panicked, I walked back across the island, searching for it. No dice. By the time I returned to Kilronan the second time I was in a bit of a state. I stopped in a store I had been in before I noticed the scarf was missing, to see if I had dropped it there. When I asked the clerk she said "No, dear, no one has turned in a scarf. You should go to the police."

I nearly laughed at this, but thought maybe the sight of my face two seconds away from crying over this scarf had led her to believe it was like... a Hermes scarf signed by God or something. So I assured her that it was actually just a blue knit scarf, garden variety. She nodded. "mm hmm, go to the police."

Then I thought maybe this lady isn't quite sane. So I went to a little cafe where I had bought a water around the same time and asked them if they had found a scarf. Their answer "you should go to the police."

They even gave me directions - the police station was on the low road.

Screw it, I thought. I was still really upset about the scarf and I was leaving the island tomorrow so why not go to the police? When I got to the police station, one policeman was sitting behind a desk in the middle of a pleasant phone conversation. He waved me to a chair in front of the desk and I sat in it, wondering how I was going to phrase this.

When he hung up the phone he smiled at me. "How can I help you?"
"um..this is kind of weird, but...I lost my scarf."
He nodded, pulled out a pad of paper and said "What does it look like?"
When I had given him all the particulars of the situation and where I had last remembered seeing the scarf, he took down my name and the hostel I was staying at and said he'd call after he did his nightly drive across the island and let me know if anything turned up.

Back at the hostel, I told the story to some acquaintances, young Americans who were working there. I thought they'd be incredulous about the police intervention instead they said "You LOST the scarf your mom gave you!!!?!"

Thanks, guys.

The police never found the scarf and I left Ireland the next day. This is the example I come back to when I question why I get so stressed out about banana bread. Why does this object gain such significance? Why does the scarf carry my mother's love? Why does the banana bread carry mine?

I'm sure everyone has their idea of how they show love. But when I get stressed about a baked good or upset to the point that I will go to the police over a scarf, I have to question my point of view. And try to remind myself that love is much bigger than the gestures and sentiments that we use as physical representations of it. Because, really, such a tiny, tiny piece of my mother's love for me is still in Ireland, while the rest is much closer.