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Session 20231021-2

Mary’s Talk

“My World Is Pretty Small”
“The Mary Ennis Philosophy: ‘Don’t Pay Attention and You’ll Be a Whole Lot Happier’”

Saturday, October 21, 2023 (Group/Hinsdale, New Hampshire)

Participants: Mary (Michael), Ann (Vivette), Bonnie (Lyla), Christina (Melian), Debbie (Tamarra), Denise (Azura), Eric (Doren), Hazra (Lettecia), John H. (Lonn), John (Rrussell), Karen (Turell), Lynda (Ruther), Magdalena (Michella), Mark (Liam), Phil (Paetre), Tara (Niella) and Yvonne (Zarla)

MARY: So I was actually thinking that – or I believed – that the war in Ukraine had stopped. I thought that it… I don’t know, I just thought it stopped, like a long time ago. I thought it only went for like maybe six months or something and then that it must have stopped.

And as most of you know, I have been making a quilt for Natasha’s friend who lives in Kyiv. And so I was thinking this was going to be perfect because it would be something that she wouldn’t associate with war, because the war was over, and this would be something made out of love and it would be great, and that would be perfect. So I’ve been working on that this whole time; well, in the last year, and none the wiser.

And let me just tell you, okay? Because my daughter did say something – not about the war – but my daughter did say something to me about a month ago about something else which I can’t remember now because I really wasn’t paying that much attention – because I don’t pay so much attention when it’s something that is bad. But anyway, she was saying, “Well, it’s all over the news, Mom.” And I was like, “But I don’t ever watch the news.” And she was like, “Well, it’s on the radio.” And again, when do I ever listen to the radio? Never. And she said, “It’s all over social media.” I’m like (group laughter), “I’m not on social media.” So… yeah! And she was like, “It’s on Google.” I’m like, “Not on my Google.” I’m like, “On my Google, all that’s on my Google is… ”

ANN: Quilting!

MARY: —“quilting and cute stories about puppies.” (Group laughter) Dogs and quilts. That’s what’s on my Google.

JOHN H: When you’re doing a search, do you do “minus war?” (Group laughter)

MARY: I actually… Okay. So my daughter also is big on… She’s terrified of A.I., and she is convinced that it’s all about Big Brother. And she is also convinced that my iPad listens to me, which I thought was awesome. (Group laughter) And she said, “You have to be careful, Mom, because your iPad pays attention to you and it listens to you,” and I was like, “Cool!” (Group laughter)

So then on my Google one time, it put up this story about some dog that was abused and it was terrible, and I actually was so upset that I yelled at my iPad and I was like, “Never show me this crap ever again!” (Group laughter) And I’ve never seen it on my iPad again. My iPad does listen to me, so I think that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, so why would I know anything about the war? And people haven’t exactly been talking about it anymore. I mean, they were talking about it a lot in the very beginning, but after that people haven’t really been talking about it. That would be the only way I would know, would be from people talking to me about it, which nobody has. And I don’t see it on my Google, so where would I ever know about it?

And so, I really honestly thought it was done. And so in my reality, there was no war happening.

And then Daniel said to me, “Oh, Elias said that the war wasn’t happening in YOUR reality.” I was like, “What?” (Group laughter) He was like, “The war in Ukraine.” I go, “What are you talking about?” And I can just visualize Natasha smacking him in the head and going, “Daniel!” (Group laughter) “Why do you tell her things like that?” And I was like, “What, the war IS happening?” And he was like, “Well, yeah!” And I was like, “Oh man, that’s so disappointing.” I’m like, “Well, that sucks. Now I’m going to have to make it up again that it just ended, and I don’t know if I can DO that again.” Like it was natural the first time, but this time it would be not so natural, but…

ANN: So Daniel singlehandedly brought war to your reality.

MARY: He did.

GROUP: Wow.

JOHN H: The nerve of him.

ANN: Well, Dan, Dan, Dan!

MARY: He did. He did.

ANN: We love you, but Dan, Dan, Dan! (Group laughter)

MARY: Yeah. It’s all his fault.

ANN: (To Bonnie) Scratch my name out. (Group laughter and chatter)

JOHN R: Say what?

MARY: Like he won’t know.

ANN: (Laughs) I said scratch my name out. I don’t want him to know. (Group laughter and chatter) Oh, put “Finou said it.”

JOHN R: Tell her Finou!

LYNDA: Finou. (Group laughter)

JOHN R: That’s my new moniker – my second one. (Group laughter and chatter)

MARY: Well, so you know, I mean it is possible to create something entirely different from what the rest of the world is creating, and to actually even not be creating war in your reality.

I think there’s a lot of things that I don’t have in my reality (laughs) and other people do, because my daughter is constantly talking to me about stuff that’s going on and cannot believe… She’s constantly telling me, “What rock do you live under?” I’m like, “The good one, I guess.” (Group laughter) “The one that bad things aren’t happening, so I don’t care.” I’m like, “I happen to like my rock. (Laughs) It makes me happy.”

JOHN R: If you were to think about the world, what IS happening in the world?

MARY: Right now?

JOHN R: Yeah, from your perspective.

MARY: Um… Well, obviously the war in Ukraine is still happening. (Group laughter and chatter) It started up again. (Laughs) Obviously THAT’S happening. I mean, I don’t know how BAD it’s happening, but it’s obviously happening.

Um… I don’t know what’s happening in my world. Quilting and puppies and (laughs)… I don’t know. I guess…

DENISE: You turned into a Mexican.

MARY: What?

DENISE: You turned into a Mexican.

MARY: I did turn into a Mexican.

JOHN R: I didn’t know that.

MARY: Yeah. Didn’t you notice my house last night? It’s completely Talavera everything. Yes. I have turned into a Mexican, and I like it. I’m very happy being a Mexican.

I don’t know. I don’t think a whole lot is happening in the world right now. Is there a whole lot happening in the world right now?

TARA: You don’t want to know.

MARY: Don’t tell me. (Group laughter)

ANN: Don’t tell her! Don’t tell her!

JOHN H: You don’t want to know.

MARY: I mean, what? I…

JOHN R: There’s got to be GOOD things happening in the world right now.

MARY: There must be good things happening in the world, I think. Right?

ANN: We should concentrate on the good things.

MARY: Yeah. Good things are happening in the world.

PHIL: Well, it’s all change, so that’s good. It’s change.

MARY: Yes. Yes. I don’t know, I notice that people seem to be a little bit more aware these days than they used to be, so that’s a good thing. And I think that… I don’t know. I’ll just tell you what I told Frank, because Frank has been not in a good place lately. Well, he is okay now but he wasn’t in a good place lately, and I’m like, “My world consists of Brattleboro and my house, my dogs. I go to the store. I go to the bank. I go to Walmart. I walk my dogs on the mountain, and I quilt, and I work, and that’s it! And that’s my whole world, and I’m really happy with it. I don’t need to KNOW anything that’s going on outside in the world, because it doesn’t affect me.”

He was talking about – see now, this is something that a lot of people do think about, I think. He was saying that, you know… Oh, I didn’t realize that we are about to (laughs) have another election. I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s coming up again, huh?” But he was talking about the candidates and who’s running for office and I was like, “I don’t know who’s running for office. I don’t care.” And he was like, “Well, are you going to vote?” and I said, “Well yeah, I’ll vote.” And he was like, “Well, how can you vote if you don’t know who’s running?” and I said, “I don’t care. I tick the boxes. I go a straight Democratic”—

ANN: (Laughs) Oh, I thought you meant a straight line down.

MARY: I do! I go a straight line in all the Democratic boxes. I don’t know who the hell they are. I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference in my world. I’m like, “It didn’t make a difference when Clinton was in office or when Bush was in office, or when Obama was in office or when Trump was in office. None of them! It didn’t make any difference in my world.” And he was like, “Well, Biden said he was going to raise gas prices and he did, and that affects you.” I’m like, “No, it doesn’t.” I’m like, “I live in a town the size of a postage stamp. How far am I going to go?” I’m like, “So I fill my little Mini up with gas, and it lasts for about a month. I mean, I can go to Keene and back, I don’t even know how many times. I just don’t use that much gas! So, it doesn’t matter to me if it’s $2.00 a gallon or if it’s $5.00 a gallon.” I said, “I don’t even KNOW how much it is right now, because I just don’t pay attention.” I said, “That’s what I use to get places. I don’t go that many places, so it doesn’t matter. I’m going to use gas no matter who is in office, so what difference does it make?” And he was like, “Well, it makes a difference because of, you know, the climate of the country.” I’m like, “Again, I live in a town the size of a postage stamp.” I said, “That’s all I care about. It’s all that affects me personally.”

And he finally actually said, “I need to adopt the Mary Ennis Philosophy.” (Group laughter) He’s like, “That sounds really good.” I was like, “Well, it’s true. If you think about it, how much is REALLY affecting you? Does the government really affect you? IS it really affecting you? Does it really matter who’s in office?” I’m like, “My daughter made herself INSANE while Trump was in office. It didn’t make any difference in MY world. I don’t care.” I’m like, “Do I like the guy? No. But do I like Biden? No. I haven’t liked a president since… shoot.” (Group laughter)

JOHN H: I think you’re supposed to say Kennedy.

MARY: Yeah, probably. (Group chatter)

ANN: I liked Carter. Carter was good.

MARY: I liked Carter.

ANN: He’s just a good human.

MARY: He is. I liked him. I did vote for him, and I liked him. And yeah, he probably was the most recent one that I liked. Other than that, no, after Reagan and forward from that, I didn’t like any of ‘em. I’m like, “I could care less about any of them, or their politics, or whatever.” And Clinton was just a nimrod. I mean, he just… I don’t think he was a bad guy; I just think he was stupid.

The one person I changed my perception of, which shocked me as much as it would shock anybody else, was George W. Bush. I really hated him, and then after he was in office I read this whole thing about him, about what he did about AIDS and overseas and all these different programs that he did, and I was like, “Really!? The idiot actually did something good? Wow!” I was like, “Well, I don’t think he’s so bad now.”

YVONNE: And, he paints portraits of dogs.

MARY: He does! He does. I know that.

ANN: That’s the real reason. That’s the real reason.

MARY: I know. And his father just thought he was like the stupidest person on the planet and had nothing good to say about him. I’m like, “Well you go, George W.”

ANN: Really? I didn’t realize that.

MARY: Yeah, his father hates him.

JOHN H: Jeb was the one that was supposed to –

MARY: Yeah. He was the one that was supposed to be president, right? And George W. made it. And I’m like, okay. (Laughs) But as far as it affecting me? It didn’t affect me. I mean, I had a really difficult time listening to him whenever he was on anything because he sounded like an idiot, but I was like, “He just is not a good public speaker. He just…”

JOHN H: I think he created more words than any other president. (Group laughter)

MARY: And none of them meant anything! It’s really amazing. He really just sounded so dumb. I was like, “What are you TALKING about?” Yeah, I couldn’t listen to him. But then, I have to say, Trump went him one better and was more dumb than George W. I was like, “Wow. I didn’t think anybody could be stupider.” But yep, he was stupider. That’s amazing.

But he didn’t affect me either. It didn’t matter. I still went to the grocery store. I still went to Walmart. I still did my quilting. I still worked. So it was like, what difference does it make? It doesn’t matter what they’re doing up there on Capitol Hill. Who cares? It’s much ado about nothing. (Laughs) It’s really amazing. So, I don’t know.

So my world is pretty small. I don’t really know too much about what’s going on in the rest of the world.

I did know when it was fires in Australia. I did know that and I was really sending lots of energy over to Australia, that there was lots of fires.

JOHN R: So why do you…? I have a similar result as you, but in the inverse where I follow what’s going on in the world but I don’t bother voting, because it doesn’t affect me. But why do you vote, in that case?

MARY: I have this personal philosophy that if I don’t vote then I don’t have a right to bitch. (Group laughter) That I have bitching rights… I have bitching rights because I vote, so…

DENISE: But you don’t pay attention to it!

MARY: Well, it doesn’t matter. I mean, I don’t bitch, really, most of the time, but I used to. I just feel like if I don’t participate then I don’t have the right to bitch about it. If I’m not voting and I don’t like something that’s going on, well too bad, I didn’t vote. Even if I voted for somebody who didn’t win, I still put my two cents’ worth in. And if I don’t do that, then in my opinion, in my perception, I don’t have the right to bitch about it if I don’t like something, but I do have the right to bitch about it if I vote. So I always vote.

PHIL: But not voting IS a vote.

ANN: That’s what I was going to say.

PHIL: It is a vote.

JOHN R: That’s right.

MARY: I don’t actually agree with that – which, we can agree to disagree. I’m not saying that you’re wrong; I just don’t have that perception. My perception is that not voting is not participating, which I suppose you could say that that is –

PHIL: That’s the purpose.

MARY: Right. Right. So I understand that; I just feel like… Like I said, I just feel like I don’t have the right to bitch if I don’t LIKE something, if I don’t participate. So that’s why I vote. I mean, it’s a little bit of a pain in the butt because you have to go out and go to the polls –

PHIL: Not any more.

ANN: Not any more.

MARY: Why?

ANN: You can mail it in.

LYNDA: Mail-in ballots. (Pause) (Group laughter)

JOHN R: She doesn’t follow the news! (Group laughter)

KAREN: You can mail it in months early.

DENISE: See, the important stuff gets to her when it needs to.

ANN: See, you find out what you need to know when you need to know it.

JOHN R: You just changed her reality.

ANN: I know! We just changed… (Group laughter)

DENISE: You just went to another reality here. A mail-in voting reality.

PHIL: Why not? Why not?

DENISE: Does that make you happy?

MARY: I don’t care. (Group chatter) No, I probably will go to the polling place and then just tell the person, “No, I don’t want your sticker.” They just want to put that sticker on you: “I voted today.” I hate that. And I’m like, “Mm…” So… –

DENISE: You should say, “I need to bitch now.” (Group laughter and chatter)

MARY: I’d have a sticker that says that.

JOHN H: Bitching rights.

MARY: Yes. If they had that sticker, I would take that sticker. I would take that. Yes.

LYNDA: They don’t do buttons anymore.

MARY: No, they haven’t done president buttons since the ‘70s.

KAREN: No, Obama had president buttons.

MARY: He did?

KAREN: Yeah.

MARY: He had buttons?

KAREN: Yeah.

MARY: Really?

KAREN: Yeah. He had some.

ANN: Obama had buttons?

KAREN: Yes.

MARY: Wow! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that.

JOHN R: George Bush in ’88 had his own pack of cigarettes.

ANN: Really?

JOHN R: Yeah.

ANN: Are you serious?

JOHN R: Uh-huh.

ANN: Oh. (Mary laughs) Multiple realities are existing right now. (Group chatter and laughter)

MARY: I didn’t know any of this stuff. Wow. That shows you how small MY world is. (Laughs) I didn’t know any of this.

JOHN R: And what was it? The “Made in China” MAGA hats. (Group laughter)

MARY: The what?

JOHN R: That was the Trump slogan, right? “Make America Great Again,” and you see it on the caps. And all of the baseball caps are made in China.

MARY: Oh! (Group laughter and chatter)

ANN: But he said that they were all made in the U.S.

YVONNE: But then they were really made in China.

MARY: No. Wait a minute, though. That would be… Was that…? It was his opinion or his—

ANN: Reality?

MARY: Reality.

ANN: Yeah. A false – what was it called?

KAREN: False evidence appearing real?

ANN: No, no, no, no. Something reality. It was a whole big thing.

ERIC: Fake news.

ANN: Fake news.

MARY: Yeah, but everything that he said, even though it was stupid and wrong, it was like right because he said it.

ANN: Well, in his reality. We can’t condemn him. In his reality, it could be true.

MARY: Sure we can! (Group laughter)

JOHN H: She voted.

DENISE: She voted!

ANN: Now I’m sorry I didn’t vote… (Group chatter)

JOHN H: Finou can’t complain.

MARY: (To John R) You don’t get to bitch about it because you didn’t vote.

JOHN R: Oh well.

ANN: Well, I’m just the opposite. I figure if I don’t vote, I didn’t participate in a system that I think is broken, so then I have MORE of a right to complain.

MARY: There you go. (Group laughter and chatter) But you’re participating in that broken system.

ANN: You just told us we weren’t! You said if we didn’t vote, we’re not participating.

CHRISTINA: Mary, I’ve got a question for you. So you’re saying you’re not aware of like mass events that are going on?

MARY: Well, sometimes I am.

CHRISTINA: Let me ask you, like how does the soft thing work with the awareness on the level of mass events?

MARY: That’s really interesting, because it used to really… It used to really bother me, and it used to really affect me a lot, and then I kind of learned how to cover all that out. And I think also by not paying attention to stuff, that that helps a lot. And I think that that has made a huge difference in… (slowly) in me feeling more content and happy, and not being bothered by, you know, all…

I mean, when Princess Diana died, I flippin’ cried for a whole week. Which is ridiculous, okay? I was like inconsolable. And… of course now sometimes some things still do, because I cried for three days when the Queen died.

YVONNE: But it’s half.

MARY: What?

YVONNE: But it’s half of Princess Diana —

MARY: Well, true. It’s not as bad, no. That’s the first time that I have really paid attention to something, yeah, which I was… Well actually, I should say that even though I cried for three days I was obsessed for eleven, because I watched the whole from beginning to end, nonstop. I had it in the background on my iPad all day, when she was lying in state and the whole nine yards. And forget about the funeral, I sobbed all day long. And then they brought out her horse and her dogs as the procession went by – oh my god! I thought I was going to die crying. I was like, “This is just horrible.” But it doesn’t happen hardly at all anymore. I mean, I don’t…

It’s not about like hiding your head in the sand. It’s just… I think I got to a point where I kind of realized that I was allowing a lot of outside things to not only affect me but like dictate to me what I feel, whether I’m happy or sad, what’s going on in my life, my choices.

Yeah, because if I’m totally upset, I’m the kind of person that if I’m totally upset I don’t want to talk to people and I don’t want to be involved with anything and I just want to wallow in being upset, which sucks, and it is not productive. And I realized that I was just making my own life miserable. And I’ve been so much happier not doing that. (Laughs) It’s like this really is way better, and it’s really nice to be happy most of the time. And if I’m not happy I’m just kinda neutral, so I’m not sad or upset. Once in a while I get angry at something, but other than that I’m pretty much… pretty even these days.

(To Karen) You’re making me freak out with that hood. You look like the Grim Reaper. (Group laughter)

KAREN: It’s getting close to Halloween.

MARY: I mean, you are totally being witchy power right now. That is totally looking like one of those flippin’ creepy oracles or something. Okay, yeah. All right. She’s just really creepy looking right now, sorry. (Group laughter) Oh my god!

Anyway, so… Well, that would be my little fifteen cents’ worth. (Laughs)

We will see what the dead guy talks about – and if he talks about war, please people, don’t tell me, okay? (Group laughter) Because that is such a subject I don’t care about and I don’t want to know about it, so he can just keep his wars to himself. I don’t want to know about it. So that’s that.

Okay. I’d say don’t pay attention and you’ll be a whole lot happier.

ERIC: Would you say you get off the drama train –

MARY: Oh, there you go!

ERIC: Is that what you were talking about? “I’m too old and too tired for this,” and you —

MARY: There you go. Yep. That’s a really good idea. Yeah. Yeah. It really makes a big difference, it really does. And especially, I think, with soft people because we can really get on those drama things and, you know, we can be pretty intense sometimes.

CHRISTINA: Oh yeah.

MARY: Yeah. And that just is… It’s like, you know, explosives. (Group chatter) Okay, all right, atom bombs going off and things like that. (Group laughter) Okay.

(Mary’s talk ends after 34 minutes)

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