Yesterday I felt light. Lovely, prism-white space surrounded my brain, seeping through the crevice between left and right, dispersing itself like water between the molecules, opening space, letting air and light flood in.
I flitted down the stairs with the barest touch, swung from the bottom rail to land lightly on the hardwood, glided. I felt as though I had turned down gravity. Unburdened, my body moved gracefully in a dance of doing through the kitchen.
Today I feel heavy. My scalp a contracting elastic, pressuring cranial bones against my brain like squeezing a sponge. My sinuses lie heavily on my cheekbones, and tug my drooping eyelids. My mind feels sluggish, veiled. It's hard work to think. I feel befuddled, half asleep.
I move in slow motion folding the laundry. I carefully smooth each section before lovingly patting down a fold. Unable to think, I am helplessly present with the moment but, periodically, I prick with vague awareness that I should be spending my time more effectively. I stand, inch by inch, my leg muscles resisting my body's weight, groaning and creaking to balance. Reluctant feet cling to floor, as though stuck in inch-deep mud.
I slow my breath to match my steps, allow my brain to put down its worry, just for now, and let me be heavy for awhile.
(A short musical accompaniment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5EUZsjSvuY )
Tender
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Oh, no, I need clothes
Normally I feel pretty good about myself. That is, until I am forced to venture into that dreaded place, The Mall, to shop for clothes. It then becomes clear that my body not only falls short of the societal ideal, but is, in fact, so oddly proportioned as to be completely and utterly unique in the world. My waist is too short for normal-people shirts, but my shoulders too wide for petite. My legs are too long for petite-legged pants, but regular ones need 4 inches off the bottom. And so it goes. It’s too big on my tummy but tight on my crotch. It’s too small on my tummy but perfect in the rear. The bust is too tight but under the arms sags.
Or it's just ugly, ugly, ugly by design. What's with tiny short sleeves ending in ruffles? Am I six? I look ridiculous. What's with these psudo-maternity tops - I'd like to ignore my leftover pregnant tummy, not highlight it or raise gossipy questions among women who have nothing better to do than watch each others' middles for "bumps." Little lacy collars - really? Belts around the upper-middle? You've got to be kidding. And what IS that, hanging there? It looks like a swarm of bees - no, it's a FLORAL PRINT that even my grandmother wouldn't have worn in wartime. Do they sit around thinking about how to make the ugliest possible clothes? It can't possibly be a complete accident.
Look, I just want to buy a few pairs of pants that are comfortable and look vaguely stylish. A few tailored-but-not-tight tops in standard "winter" colours like dark purple, red and blue. Short sleeves that end mid-bicep, not cutting off my armpit or boxing out my shoulders. A sleek, sturdy pair of shoes with enough heel that I don't look like a flat-footed granny while maintaining a comfortable step. In other words, I want the same clothing choices that men get, made for women. Is it really so much to ask? I have credit cards, I promise!
I don't have time for fashion, and clearly, I don't fit the profile. Where does one shop for a mumu?
Or it's just ugly, ugly, ugly by design. What's with tiny short sleeves ending in ruffles? Am I six? I look ridiculous. What's with these psudo-maternity tops - I'd like to ignore my leftover pregnant tummy, not highlight it or raise gossipy questions among women who have nothing better to do than watch each others' middles for "bumps." Little lacy collars - really? Belts around the upper-middle? You've got to be kidding. And what IS that, hanging there? It looks like a swarm of bees - no, it's a FLORAL PRINT that even my grandmother wouldn't have worn in wartime. Do they sit around thinking about how to make the ugliest possible clothes? It can't possibly be a complete accident.
Look, I just want to buy a few pairs of pants that are comfortable and look vaguely stylish. A few tailored-but-not-tight tops in standard "winter" colours like dark purple, red and blue. Short sleeves that end mid-bicep, not cutting off my armpit or boxing out my shoulders. A sleek, sturdy pair of shoes with enough heel that I don't look like a flat-footed granny while maintaining a comfortable step. In other words, I want the same clothing choices that men get, made for women. Is it really so much to ask? I have credit cards, I promise!
I don't have time for fashion, and clearly, I don't fit the profile. Where does one shop for a mumu?
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Message to ease the Anxiety of Error
A Message
From the me I have become
To the me I will become
Remember this
Not with a critical eye
But with an indulgent, knowing smile
From the me I have become
To the me I will become
Remember this
Not with a critical eye
But with an indulgent, knowing smile
Monday, May 24, 2010
Blog split?
So I've been slowly moving to a 3-blog system. Surprised? You didn't know I had 3 blogs? Not surprising - I didn't tell you. Oh, and 2 of them have sat largely empty while I contemplated the split. It's all me, it's all my writing, why split?
I've been treating this blog like a journal or random writing notebook that other people might just happen to also read and relate to. I haven't been treating it as a piece of work with an audience, but a small audience has nonetheless developed. Which begins to create a mutual responsibility. And I find myself censoring, only posting what I feel might have semi-broad appeal to the people I tend to see commenting and lurking. My other thoughts and writing stay underground, so to speak - all the things that REALLY aren't ready for prime time, the experiments and attempts at various voices, the themes that might push past the zone of acceptability, the disjointed bits that might come in handy later.
So I created "Bits in Progress" to house them. And proceeded to post...nothing. Another blog? I barely have time for one. And it's likely to have the same audience anyway, so similar problems arise. If I'm willing to post it publicly, why not just use the blog I have? But if I can separate the "bits" from the introspective journal-type posts, that allows a cleaner and more consistent experience for the audience. I'm still in the midst of this ongoing debate."Bits in Progress" may be a late-bloomer yet, but as of now, empty.
This weekend I created #3: Privileged Information. It's a private blog, invite only. If no one reads it, I might as well journal, but there's something about putting early work out there for reaction that lets me incorporate, improve, mold into something, even when the comments are few or not directly helpful (there's information in that, too). In Privileged, I am not as concerned about the audience - if they are reading, I hope it's to help me as a writer, or because they like experimental work. If they don't enjoy the direction, no need to follow it. I may explore themes that are outside people's comfort. I may casually include elements that would cause people to wonder about my moral character because I even want to explore them. Privileged is not a PG blog and it won't even try to make you feel comfortable. It's my repository for the misfit writings, my practice runs, my B sides.
What are my hopes for Privileged Information? I hope to attract a small, trusted cadre of people who say hello when they read, even if they don't have a comment. Who read for structure and style as much as for content. Who choose to read posts as excerpts from a larger work that doesn't exist yet. And mostly, who help me grow as a writer and a person. That's a lot of hope for a little blog that might get one or two posts a month. I'll work on toning those hopes down.
So all this to say, Writing Out Loud won't change much, though maybe the experience will be slightly more consistent in style/approach to exploration. And, if we know each other through exchanged comments and twitter talk, most likely I'd be happy to have your voice at Privileged, too. That requires a DM with email address.
This is a pretty boring post, I'm afraid. Administration rears its head even in the best of experiences. And developing this blog has been one of those, for me. Every comment gets my full attention. Every interaction means something to me. Thanks for reading.
I've been treating this blog like a journal or random writing notebook that other people might just happen to also read and relate to. I haven't been treating it as a piece of work with an audience, but a small audience has nonetheless developed. Which begins to create a mutual responsibility. And I find myself censoring, only posting what I feel might have semi-broad appeal to the people I tend to see commenting and lurking. My other thoughts and writing stay underground, so to speak - all the things that REALLY aren't ready for prime time, the experiments and attempts at various voices, the themes that might push past the zone of acceptability, the disjointed bits that might come in handy later.
So I created "Bits in Progress" to house them. And proceeded to post...nothing. Another blog? I barely have time for one. And it's likely to have the same audience anyway, so similar problems arise. If I'm willing to post it publicly, why not just use the blog I have? But if I can separate the "bits" from the introspective journal-type posts, that allows a cleaner and more consistent experience for the audience. I'm still in the midst of this ongoing debate."Bits in Progress" may be a late-bloomer yet, but as of now, empty.
This weekend I created #3: Privileged Information. It's a private blog, invite only. If no one reads it, I might as well journal, but there's something about putting early work out there for reaction that lets me incorporate, improve, mold into something, even when the comments are few or not directly helpful (there's information in that, too). In Privileged, I am not as concerned about the audience - if they are reading, I hope it's to help me as a writer, or because they like experimental work. If they don't enjoy the direction, no need to follow it. I may explore themes that are outside people's comfort. I may casually include elements that would cause people to wonder about my moral character because I even want to explore them. Privileged is not a PG blog and it won't even try to make you feel comfortable. It's my repository for the misfit writings, my practice runs, my B sides.
What are my hopes for Privileged Information? I hope to attract a small, trusted cadre of people who say hello when they read, even if they don't have a comment. Who read for structure and style as much as for content. Who choose to read posts as excerpts from a larger work that doesn't exist yet. And mostly, who help me grow as a writer and a person. That's a lot of hope for a little blog that might get one or two posts a month. I'll work on toning those hopes down.
So all this to say, Writing Out Loud won't change much, though maybe the experience will be slightly more consistent in style/approach to exploration. And, if we know each other through exchanged comments and twitter talk, most likely I'd be happy to have your voice at Privileged, too. That requires a DM with email address.
This is a pretty boring post, I'm afraid. Administration rears its head even in the best of experiences. And developing this blog has been one of those, for me. Every comment gets my full attention. Every interaction means something to me. Thanks for reading.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Un-Anniversary
I’m holding an event on Tuesday, so the date is front and center – May 25th – which is also the anniversary of my first wedding.
As I do each year, I find myself meditating on my first husband.
We met when I was 18 and he was 17. He was tall, dark, handsome and muscular. He had a lovely, broad, open and warm face, striking green eyes and a shock of black hair hanging over his forehead. He looked like a magazine cover, and my first impression was that he was sweet like a puppy dog.
I could appreciate his attractiveness aesthetically, but truth be told, I actually preferred a slighter build, a more streamlined look. I found it very pleasant to be with a boy that other girls found lovely, while I myself was almost indifferent to his looks. It felt like a super power. We had sex almost from the beginning – he was so eager, and I thought, well, whatever. It was fun enough.
He adored me. I was the most beautiful, smartest, most interesting and fun person he had ever known. He wanted to know me. He wanted to love me until I loved myself. It was inherent in him. But I was a tough nut that way. He loved me more than I loved myself, and I never really forgave that in him – I always held it against him as weakness in my deepest, most unseen place that believed I’d duped him into this love.
We were living together by my second year of University, mostly through his dogged determination to join me after a year apart in which I took the “commitment” as more of a “wait and see.” I loved him as I had never trusted or loved anyone – as my only friend. I couldn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t continue our journey together when the time came for him to move in.
I was really paying no attention. I was working my way through University, and if he wanted to tag along I expected him to start some kind of academic program (and not flunk out) and bring in some money. As long as he did that, it was very convenient to have an adoring lover available and a roommate to split the bills. I didn’t enjoy hounding him and setting up reward systems for him to learn how to do his homework and hold himself in discipline, but on balance the arrangement was good.
We stayed together for 10 years.
After I graduated, I lifted up my head, looked around, and thought, “now what?” So I got a job, and got promoted, and put my head back down and pushed the career path. Again, he was great to have around, as long as I was okay with taking care of all the actual responsibility. And generally, I was. It made me feel competent, and a little tender toward him that he needed caring for. What would he do without me?
I traveled a lot, barely kept my head above water between work and more school, and he required little of my mind or emotional energy. When I wasn’t irritated, he was incredibly easy to be with and he sustained me with back rubs and orgasms. When he suggested marriage, I thought, why not?
We re-parented each other in a lot of ways. He gave me the take-for-granted love that I didn’t feel from my parents. I gave him high expectations that required him to work as hard as his potential allowed. But we were really children together, emotionally. We had fun, we bickered, we were each others’ best friend and harshest critic. We celebrated each other and tore each other down. We grew up together, a little like siblings except for the adult part of the play.
At some point it began working less and less well. His low expectations and high output acceptance were like a challenge, pushing me to see how bad I could be and still be adored. I didn’t respect him because he didn’t give me the respect of expecting me to be better, but at the same time, if he had I would have lost the unconditional love I needed.
To his credit, he did try, he just wasn’t very good at debating and I was pretty excellent. I didn’t give him the respect of expecting him to stand up for himself, and when he did, I treated it as laughable. As it was. I held all the cards, jealously, then judged him for not having any.
I had high expectations for his behaviour, and a general disdain for his consistent failure to meet them. Even so, many of my desires were reasonable – paying some of the bills, changing the garbage, picking up some groceries, keeping his job, paying attention, doing what he said he was going to do. I couldn’t count on him, and it wore at me.
I viewed his irresponsibility as primarily an issue of discipline, likely exacerbated by some degree of ADHD, which really just means the TV generation. I was relentless with him. He was less and less reliable, more and more sullen. These traits triggered my frustration and irritation, and the meaner I was, the more I needed his unconditional love to reconcile myself and regain balance.
This was not a healthy relationship for either of us. At the time, I didn’t think I could fix it. I couldn’t be in a room with him without finding myself slipping into language and communication patterns that we had burned-in over our most formative, post-adolescent years. I loved him – he was my best friend. I didn’t want to be the person I was when I was with him. I didn’t want to work through it. I wanted to break free.
We had no children. I was coming up on 29 years old. He had been more and more insistent about starting a family, and I had put it off, first with my career, and then by getting a puppy instead. In the start-up frenzy of the day, his employer was bought by Microsoft, and in a last-ditch effort to change our patterns, we moved to the U.S.
I didn’t last six months.
I sprung it on him that I was leaving. I hadn’t given him the kindness or respect of coming to the decision through conversations over time. I let the emotions all boil up without any reflection, until I had to act or I would explode, and then I left.
I still carry some guilt for damaging a lovely and innocent soul. In trying to make him stronger, I broke what was good in him. In trying to find my own path, I yanked away his only emotional support, his best and only friend, and left him with his mind and heart blown, to pick up his own pieces. I took his unconditional love and handed it back to him like it was worthless.
We would talk on the phone a few times a week, him always hopeful that we would get back together, me waffling in the loneliness of missing him, giving just enough hope that he couldn’t quite let go because I couldn’t quite let go. It was such a painful time, it wrenched my heart until I was sure I could feel it bleeding into my gut and turning to bile.
I broke his heart. And still, he participated with me in an easy and uncomplicated divorce – we didn’t have much to split. He was remarried within a year; me, within three.
We wanted to stay friends. We’re friendly through Facebook across the miles (he stayed in the U.S.). He steers carefully away from any topic that might hint at our past. We live our purely online relationship as appreciative acquaintances in the present. What we cherish and regret from our common past is now our own, not something we share. It’s better that way, but I miss him. He was my family, and I still love him as family. I want to know his wife, and his son. I want him to know my kids. I wish we could be a part of each others’ grown-up lives, the way my siblings and I are.
So happy un-anniversary to my first experience of love, inadequate and clumsy as I was at it. I love you, S. I wish you joy.
As I do each year, I find myself meditating on my first husband.
We met when I was 18 and he was 17. He was tall, dark, handsome and muscular. He had a lovely, broad, open and warm face, striking green eyes and a shock of black hair hanging over his forehead. He looked like a magazine cover, and my first impression was that he was sweet like a puppy dog.
I could appreciate his attractiveness aesthetically, but truth be told, I actually preferred a slighter build, a more streamlined look. I found it very pleasant to be with a boy that other girls found lovely, while I myself was almost indifferent to his looks. It felt like a super power. We had sex almost from the beginning – he was so eager, and I thought, well, whatever. It was fun enough.
He adored me. I was the most beautiful, smartest, most interesting and fun person he had ever known. He wanted to know me. He wanted to love me until I loved myself. It was inherent in him. But I was a tough nut that way. He loved me more than I loved myself, and I never really forgave that in him – I always held it against him as weakness in my deepest, most unseen place that believed I’d duped him into this love.
We were living together by my second year of University, mostly through his dogged determination to join me after a year apart in which I took the “commitment” as more of a “wait and see.” I loved him as I had never trusted or loved anyone – as my only friend. I couldn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t continue our journey together when the time came for him to move in.
I was really paying no attention. I was working my way through University, and if he wanted to tag along I expected him to start some kind of academic program (and not flunk out) and bring in some money. As long as he did that, it was very convenient to have an adoring lover available and a roommate to split the bills. I didn’t enjoy hounding him and setting up reward systems for him to learn how to do his homework and hold himself in discipline, but on balance the arrangement was good.
We stayed together for 10 years.
After I graduated, I lifted up my head, looked around, and thought, “now what?” So I got a job, and got promoted, and put my head back down and pushed the career path. Again, he was great to have around, as long as I was okay with taking care of all the actual responsibility. And generally, I was. It made me feel competent, and a little tender toward him that he needed caring for. What would he do without me?
I traveled a lot, barely kept my head above water between work and more school, and he required little of my mind or emotional energy. When I wasn’t irritated, he was incredibly easy to be with and he sustained me with back rubs and orgasms. When he suggested marriage, I thought, why not?
We re-parented each other in a lot of ways. He gave me the take-for-granted love that I didn’t feel from my parents. I gave him high expectations that required him to work as hard as his potential allowed. But we were really children together, emotionally. We had fun, we bickered, we were each others’ best friend and harshest critic. We celebrated each other and tore each other down. We grew up together, a little like siblings except for the adult part of the play.
At some point it began working less and less well. His low expectations and high output acceptance were like a challenge, pushing me to see how bad I could be and still be adored. I didn’t respect him because he didn’t give me the respect of expecting me to be better, but at the same time, if he had I would have lost the unconditional love I needed.
To his credit, he did try, he just wasn’t very good at debating and I was pretty excellent. I didn’t give him the respect of expecting him to stand up for himself, and when he did, I treated it as laughable. As it was. I held all the cards, jealously, then judged him for not having any.
I had high expectations for his behaviour, and a general disdain for his consistent failure to meet them. Even so, many of my desires were reasonable – paying some of the bills, changing the garbage, picking up some groceries, keeping his job, paying attention, doing what he said he was going to do. I couldn’t count on him, and it wore at me.
I viewed his irresponsibility as primarily an issue of discipline, likely exacerbated by some degree of ADHD, which really just means the TV generation. I was relentless with him. He was less and less reliable, more and more sullen. These traits triggered my frustration and irritation, and the meaner I was, the more I needed his unconditional love to reconcile myself and regain balance.
This was not a healthy relationship for either of us. At the time, I didn’t think I could fix it. I couldn’t be in a room with him without finding myself slipping into language and communication patterns that we had burned-in over our most formative, post-adolescent years. I loved him – he was my best friend. I didn’t want to be the person I was when I was with him. I didn’t want to work through it. I wanted to break free.
We had no children. I was coming up on 29 years old. He had been more and more insistent about starting a family, and I had put it off, first with my career, and then by getting a puppy instead. In the start-up frenzy of the day, his employer was bought by Microsoft, and in a last-ditch effort to change our patterns, we moved to the U.S.
I didn’t last six months.
I sprung it on him that I was leaving. I hadn’t given him the kindness or respect of coming to the decision through conversations over time. I let the emotions all boil up without any reflection, until I had to act or I would explode, and then I left.
I still carry some guilt for damaging a lovely and innocent soul. In trying to make him stronger, I broke what was good in him. In trying to find my own path, I yanked away his only emotional support, his best and only friend, and left him with his mind and heart blown, to pick up his own pieces. I took his unconditional love and handed it back to him like it was worthless.
We would talk on the phone a few times a week, him always hopeful that we would get back together, me waffling in the loneliness of missing him, giving just enough hope that he couldn’t quite let go because I couldn’t quite let go. It was such a painful time, it wrenched my heart until I was sure I could feel it bleeding into my gut and turning to bile.
I broke his heart. And still, he participated with me in an easy and uncomplicated divorce – we didn’t have much to split. He was remarried within a year; me, within three.
We wanted to stay friends. We’re friendly through Facebook across the miles (he stayed in the U.S.). He steers carefully away from any topic that might hint at our past. We live our purely online relationship as appreciative acquaintances in the present. What we cherish and regret from our common past is now our own, not something we share. It’s better that way, but I miss him. He was my family, and I still love him as family. I want to know his wife, and his son. I want him to know my kids. I wish we could be a part of each others’ grown-up lives, the way my siblings and I are.
So happy un-anniversary to my first experience of love, inadequate and clumsy as I was at it. I love you, S. I wish you joy.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Vigilance vs Presence
I am very attached to my vigilance.
At any given time, I have more processes running than a network of computers could handle. I am up-to-the-minute aware of the status of everything I have responsibility for. I rarely let anything go without a checkin for more than an hour, and trust me, there is a lot to fit in. It can get in the way of my work, so I've learned to turn it down, barricade off for bursts of time, but it's always there. Work stuff, home stuff, me stuff, everyone (!) I know stuff, the world, the community, the microcosm, the macrocosm, the state of humanity, everything. Cycle cycle cycle. Not only the checkins, but the constant, up-to-the-second ranking and prioritization in relation to time constraints and my capabilities - it's like watching the stock exchange and I am the central processor and all the traders.
Whenever it gets a bit overloaded in there and I choose to let something of slightly lower priority or longer time frame rest for a bit, I inevitably get pulled back to a checkin slightly panicked, with an elevated sense of urgency to be on top of that. It's how I make sure everything gets done. Do I drop things? Occasionally, but I think my record is pretty good. When I choose to let something go, even briefly, either things go awry or I get stressed.
I'm like a squirrel - have you ever watched one? The are never still for a second. Quivering vigilance keeps them revving even in idle, their little haunches quivering oh-so-slightly, ready to leap at the first sign of danger. Using every sense, every second, to stay safe. And it works. They're fast! And I've seen some narrow escapes, some true acrobatics that they execute because they know exactly where they are and where the danger is. Or maybe I see what I want to see.
I've tried to place some of the burden on external systems, putting order in place to replace some of my vigilance. Incredulous, I watch myself sabotage my efforts to use computer systems, task lists, or any number of time management tools. I'm simply not reliable. I will often prioritize writing things down and planning things out below the actual doing, because my mind has already constructed a framework and 2/3 of a plan, and execution is the key. I don't want to let go of the control and immediacy of knowing, placing my faith in a system instead of myself.
I also suspect, deep down, that I want to keep my vigilance sharp. I am semi-deliberately unreliable at sticking to a system, just so I'll never feel quite certain of the system. That way, I won't get soft and lazy.
But it's tiring. I didn't used to find it so. It's since I added two kids, changed profession and sector to remove all familiarity gains, and committed myself to fast-paced self-reflective personal development that I'm frayed around the edges.
The vigilance gets in my way. I try to practice deep pleasure in the moment I am in, as often as I can, and all the cycles and weighing and checking bombards me instead. I give the moment less than 1/10th of my attention, and even that is eroded by worry that the other 90% isn't enough for what it's working on. I feel perpetually distracted.
I also feel as though I have a responsibility to know everything, to be aware of everything happening in the universe, all the time, so that I can be in a position to see the big patterns and help shape the course of human events. You heard me. Arrogant, huh?
Why do I have such a sense of grandeur? It doesn't feel that way to me. I don't feel equal to it, I just feel called to it. I know I have some developing talents that could make it possible for me to one day change the world. Yet, I'm a small-town nobody, plugging away at tasks and trying to make sense of what changing the world even means to me. I feel a sense of obligation to be ready and watchful on my path, looking for the best way, at every moment, to serve. I'm not sure about that word, serve, but it insists that I use it.
Thus, I come around to this paradox of craving presence and vigilance. I have always given vigilance big preference for being the safer option. Now, I'm less certain. As my spirit asserts itself more, I feel it hemmed in by all those existing processes. It's not so different from my external life, trying to find my way in a tangled web of people, politics and processes.
Who has been here? Who has found the secret passage around or through this collision of will? How can I get my mind to give up its vigilance for more than 5 minutes? How can I begin to reprogram how I evaluate what I can afford to trust to the universe and what I must do to be a good wife, parent, employee, citizen, friend?
I would cherish your experience and advice.
At any given time, I have more processes running than a network of computers could handle. I am up-to-the-minute aware of the status of everything I have responsibility for. I rarely let anything go without a checkin for more than an hour, and trust me, there is a lot to fit in. It can get in the way of my work, so I've learned to turn it down, barricade off for bursts of time, but it's always there. Work stuff, home stuff, me stuff, everyone (!) I know stuff, the world, the community, the microcosm, the macrocosm, the state of humanity, everything. Cycle cycle cycle. Not only the checkins, but the constant, up-to-the-second ranking and prioritization in relation to time constraints and my capabilities - it's like watching the stock exchange and I am the central processor and all the traders.
Whenever it gets a bit overloaded in there and I choose to let something of slightly lower priority or longer time frame rest for a bit, I inevitably get pulled back to a checkin slightly panicked, with an elevated sense of urgency to be on top of that. It's how I make sure everything gets done. Do I drop things? Occasionally, but I think my record is pretty good. When I choose to let something go, even briefly, either things go awry or I get stressed.
I'm like a squirrel - have you ever watched one? The are never still for a second. Quivering vigilance keeps them revving even in idle, their little haunches quivering oh-so-slightly, ready to leap at the first sign of danger. Using every sense, every second, to stay safe. And it works. They're fast! And I've seen some narrow escapes, some true acrobatics that they execute because they know exactly where they are and where the danger is. Or maybe I see what I want to see.
I've tried to place some of the burden on external systems, putting order in place to replace some of my vigilance. Incredulous, I watch myself sabotage my efforts to use computer systems, task lists, or any number of time management tools. I'm simply not reliable. I will often prioritize writing things down and planning things out below the actual doing, because my mind has already constructed a framework and 2/3 of a plan, and execution is the key. I don't want to let go of the control and immediacy of knowing, placing my faith in a system instead of myself.
I also suspect, deep down, that I want to keep my vigilance sharp. I am semi-deliberately unreliable at sticking to a system, just so I'll never feel quite certain of the system. That way, I won't get soft and lazy.
But it's tiring. I didn't used to find it so. It's since I added two kids, changed profession and sector to remove all familiarity gains, and committed myself to fast-paced self-reflective personal development that I'm frayed around the edges.
The vigilance gets in my way. I try to practice deep pleasure in the moment I am in, as often as I can, and all the cycles and weighing and checking bombards me instead. I give the moment less than 1/10th of my attention, and even that is eroded by worry that the other 90% isn't enough for what it's working on. I feel perpetually distracted.
I also feel as though I have a responsibility to know everything, to be aware of everything happening in the universe, all the time, so that I can be in a position to see the big patterns and help shape the course of human events. You heard me. Arrogant, huh?
Why do I have such a sense of grandeur? It doesn't feel that way to me. I don't feel equal to it, I just feel called to it. I know I have some developing talents that could make it possible for me to one day change the world. Yet, I'm a small-town nobody, plugging away at tasks and trying to make sense of what changing the world even means to me. I feel a sense of obligation to be ready and watchful on my path, looking for the best way, at every moment, to serve. I'm not sure about that word, serve, but it insists that I use it.
Thus, I come around to this paradox of craving presence and vigilance. I have always given vigilance big preference for being the safer option. Now, I'm less certain. As my spirit asserts itself more, I feel it hemmed in by all those existing processes. It's not so different from my external life, trying to find my way in a tangled web of people, politics and processes.
Who has been here? Who has found the secret passage around or through this collision of will? How can I get my mind to give up its vigilance for more than 5 minutes? How can I begin to reprogram how I evaluate what I can afford to trust to the universe and what I must do to be a good wife, parent, employee, citizen, friend?
I would cherish your experience and advice.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Being me today
I am a gravitational force.
I am a sun.
I am a stealth warrior for the cause of sanity.
I am an artist creating human mosaics.
I am an Air Traffic Controller for people in constantly turbulent skies.
I am in training for proficiency.
I am practicing.
I am improving at an accelerated rate.
I thrash.
I spin.
I question.
I rail.
I cry.
I feel angry.
I give up.
I give in.
I feed the immediate.
I sacrifice later for now.
I wither.
I reach for hope.
I am learning patience with the world.
I am learning patience with myself.
I breathe.
I am a sun.
I am a stealth warrior for the cause of sanity.
I am an artist creating human mosaics.
I am an Air Traffic Controller for people in constantly turbulent skies.
I am in training for proficiency.
I am practicing.
I am improving at an accelerated rate.
I thrash.
I spin.
I question.
I rail.
I cry.
I feel angry.
I give up.
I give in.
I feed the immediate.
I sacrifice later for now.
I wither.
I reach for hope.
I am learning patience with the world.
I am learning patience with myself.
I breathe.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Pink eye
Leaning over, I notice my 4 year old's right eye is pink, which confirms an earlier suspicion.
Before I even know I'm going to, I say, Oh, baby, you have an eye infection. I'll have to put in drops.
Why did I say that out loud?
He starts howling. No no no drops, NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo (breath in) OOOOOOOOOOoooo...
Arms flailing, he pulls his t-shirt up to cover his head, armorizing this barrier by crossing his arms across his forehead and eyes. The howl continues.
Babe, you're upset. Let's have a conversation about this.
No. No way. No way Mom. I don't want a conversation. I don't want a conversation and then the drops. No drops. No conversation. No way. No. No. No.
He's sobbing and hiccuping. A few more rounds of the same, and he starts to quiet, but continues rocking with his arms over his t-shirt covered head.
Do you need a hug?
Yes.
He lowers his arms and his head emerges from the shirt. I pull him gently onto my lap, consciously making my arms the safest place in the world. He sags against me, his head bowed. I slow and exaggerate my breathing, and he unconsciously begins to slow his breaths. Then he kind of convulses once; a beat passes, and his hands are starting to wave as he's working himself up again. He throws his head from side to side, screaming No, No, pulling out of my arms.
He runs behind a chair and pulls the throw from the chair-back over his head. I stay where I am. I breathe once. twice. slower. three. . . four. . . five. I survey the situation. What is the status of this battle?
I have no doubt that we will put the drops in. What I am evaluating is timing. Is it better to see this through to the bitter end, so as not to waste the patience and vehemence we've already spent? Or, to let it go for now and try again later?
Experience tells me that, later, he will have renewed his energy and he will go through the exact same level of response to his dislike of the drops. Then he will have done it twice before we're forced to force him. So, it seems to me the better thing for him would be to see it through now, but only under one condition: my state of mind must allow me to do so without becoming upset. If I get angry or impatient, he will dissolve into hysterics.
I check in on myself. I actually feel pretty calm. I try to identify all the emotions I'm feeling, and weigh them. I'm sad that he's so upset. I also wish that we were done with this battle. I push on that wish and find I don't feel resentful about it. Good.
I wish that he didn't have to have the drops. I push on that - will I give in and wait until tomorrow in order to save him now? No. Okay.
I wish that he would accept the inevitability and cooperate to make it easier for me. That wish feels a little dangerous to me, like a package left at a bus station that could be a time bomb or old cheese. When a wish feels like that, I know from experience that success requires actively deciding to let that wish go.
Can I let it go? Can I stop wishing for cooperation and just make it as comfortable and loving as possible if I don't manage to convince him?
Yes I can. Phew!
I probe a little deeper. Do I feel any anger with him for not coming around to cooperation? No, he's right, it hurts and this is a natural reaction. Do I feel impatient with him for not being developmentally mature enough to accept that the drops are needed? I am relieved to find no impatience. He's behaving exactly as he ought to for his capabilities. I'm often unreasonably impatient, so I'm happily surprised.
I feel resigned to knowing I will do my best explaining why, and he will respond how he needs to. Then I will hold him in my arms as gently as I can while my husband drops drops into his eye.
Okay then, I think I can stay calm. I feel almost giddy with relief - so many times I reach and reach to feel calm when I really don't, but I think this is real. I can just move through what needs to happen with him, and I don't need any particular kind of participation from him. I will do what is needed to keep him safe and whole, in as respectful and loving a way as I can. He will respond as he is able, and I think I can love and support him through it. Cool.
So one more try to see if he decides to come with me, if not willingly, at least of his own volition.
I move the chair he's behind so that I can join him, but I don't touch the blanket he's hiding under. I sit on the floor, my head resting on the side of the chair, and regard him. I focus on my regard for him as a person, my love for him, and my compassion for how hard this is for him.
NO. NO. I don't WANT a CONVERSATION! No conversation!
You don't want to understand why I need to put the drops in your eyes?
No! I don't want to understand! There's no understanding! I want to talk at you, I want you to LISTEN! No drops. Not now. Not EVER. Never. No drops at all. Zero. Stop. None. No conversation!
You're telling me very clearly that you don't want the drops.
He comes out from under the blanket. I get a few more rounds of "No, no drops" and variations on that them. I don't say anything. I wait until he seems to be petering out again, and again I offer a hug. He slouches and slithers himself almost reluctantly into my arms, but melts against me while he cries his heart out. I pet his head. After a minute or two, I say,
Your body is working hard to fight the germs in your eye.
He doesn't say anything, but a slight shift in his body tells me I got a little interest.
But the germs are STRONG! The germs are HURTING your eye!
He shifts around so his back is against my chest. I'm about to explain about the drops helping his eyes, when he turns suddenly to me with the air of a desperate man begging for help.
Maybe we can use something to help fight the germs, like some strong drops that don't hurt.
I can feel my face crumple, my eyes moisten.
I wish we could, I say, but he's slumped down in a heap of sobbing on my lap even before the words are half spoken.
I wish there were drops that could help and don't hurt you, but I've never found drops like those.
Maybe we could go to the doctor. I want to go to the doctor, he says with the defiance of one who thinks he's found a legitimate loophole.
We can't go to the doctor right now, they're closed. And his drops might hurt too.
Oh, oh, I don't LIKE it! I don't LIKE it! It hurts and I don't like it to hurt!
You don't have to like it, sweetie. It just is. You can dislike it while we put in the drops because we need to keep you safe, and your eye needs help.
I WON'T be brave for the drops! I won't be brave!
You don't need to be brave, sweetie. I'll hold you carefully so that daddy can put in the drops and you don't need to worry about holding still.
His protests rise and fall, but his spirit is that of the defeated. I realize this is the best I can hope for, and delaying any further just becomes a session in torture for all of us. He understands the reason, even accepts the reason, though he doesn't like the outcome. I've done my duty to him as a fellow human. He doesn't need to cooperate, we just need to get this done.
He struggles when I pick him up, but I work hard to maintain the balance between gentle and losing control of his person. I opt for gentle when pushed, releasing him and then picking him up again. We make our way to the sofa this way, where I gently pull him on top of me, talking softly in a patter stream of comforting sounds. I wrap my legs around his legs with as little pressure as I can, and my arms around his arms so his hands are not free. I twist my wrists so my hands cup his cheeks, holding his head only tight enough to keep him in position for the drops.
It's over fairly quickly, and his struggles are not full-strength. They seem, if anything, automatic - a fight reflex of the body, not supported or hindered by a spirit that reluctantly agrees with the cure. I feel like he understands on some level that I'm supporting him in the hold, rather than just restricting and forcing him.
After the drops, he stays in my arms, not struggling while I stroke his head. He's still complaining that he doesn't like it.
Shhh. It's done. We're done.
No more drops. Never again, mom.
I can't promise that, sweetie.
He starts struggling away from me, and I keep my hands on him but don't restrict his movement.
Sweetie, we'll see tomorrow, okay? We'll see. Maybe your eye will heal now while you sleep.
Okay, he mutters dejectedly.
I check in with myself. I didn't get supper and my stomach is a bit upset; also, I'm exhausted.
Do you want to watch TV for ten minutes? I ask.
Well, that lightens his mood.
Before I even know I'm going to, I say, Oh, baby, you have an eye infection. I'll have to put in drops.
Why did I say that out loud?
He starts howling. No no no drops, NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo (breath in) OOOOOOOOOOoooo...
Arms flailing, he pulls his t-shirt up to cover his head, armorizing this barrier by crossing his arms across his forehead and eyes. The howl continues.
Babe, you're upset. Let's have a conversation about this.
No. No way. No way Mom. I don't want a conversation. I don't want a conversation and then the drops. No drops. No conversation. No way. No. No. No.
He's sobbing and hiccuping. A few more rounds of the same, and he starts to quiet, but continues rocking with his arms over his t-shirt covered head.
Do you need a hug?
Yes.
He lowers his arms and his head emerges from the shirt. I pull him gently onto my lap, consciously making my arms the safest place in the world. He sags against me, his head bowed. I slow and exaggerate my breathing, and he unconsciously begins to slow his breaths. Then he kind of convulses once; a beat passes, and his hands are starting to wave as he's working himself up again. He throws his head from side to side, screaming No, No, pulling out of my arms.
He runs behind a chair and pulls the throw from the chair-back over his head. I stay where I am. I breathe once. twice. slower. three. . . four. . . five. I survey the situation. What is the status of this battle?
I have no doubt that we will put the drops in. What I am evaluating is timing. Is it better to see this through to the bitter end, so as not to waste the patience and vehemence we've already spent? Or, to let it go for now and try again later?
Experience tells me that, later, he will have renewed his energy and he will go through the exact same level of response to his dislike of the drops. Then he will have done it twice before we're forced to force him. So, it seems to me the better thing for him would be to see it through now, but only under one condition: my state of mind must allow me to do so without becoming upset. If I get angry or impatient, he will dissolve into hysterics.
I check in on myself. I actually feel pretty calm. I try to identify all the emotions I'm feeling, and weigh them. I'm sad that he's so upset. I also wish that we were done with this battle. I push on that wish and find I don't feel resentful about it. Good.
I wish that he didn't have to have the drops. I push on that - will I give in and wait until tomorrow in order to save him now? No. Okay.
I wish that he would accept the inevitability and cooperate to make it easier for me. That wish feels a little dangerous to me, like a package left at a bus station that could be a time bomb or old cheese. When a wish feels like that, I know from experience that success requires actively deciding to let that wish go.
Can I let it go? Can I stop wishing for cooperation and just make it as comfortable and loving as possible if I don't manage to convince him?
Yes I can. Phew!
I probe a little deeper. Do I feel any anger with him for not coming around to cooperation? No, he's right, it hurts and this is a natural reaction. Do I feel impatient with him for not being developmentally mature enough to accept that the drops are needed? I am relieved to find no impatience. He's behaving exactly as he ought to for his capabilities. I'm often unreasonably impatient, so I'm happily surprised.
I feel resigned to knowing I will do my best explaining why, and he will respond how he needs to. Then I will hold him in my arms as gently as I can while my husband drops drops into his eye.
Okay then, I think I can stay calm. I feel almost giddy with relief - so many times I reach and reach to feel calm when I really don't, but I think this is real. I can just move through what needs to happen with him, and I don't need any particular kind of participation from him. I will do what is needed to keep him safe and whole, in as respectful and loving a way as I can. He will respond as he is able, and I think I can love and support him through it. Cool.
So one more try to see if he decides to come with me, if not willingly, at least of his own volition.
I move the chair he's behind so that I can join him, but I don't touch the blanket he's hiding under. I sit on the floor, my head resting on the side of the chair, and regard him. I focus on my regard for him as a person, my love for him, and my compassion for how hard this is for him.
NO. NO. I don't WANT a CONVERSATION! No conversation!
You don't want to understand why I need to put the drops in your eyes?
No! I don't want to understand! There's no understanding! I want to talk at you, I want you to LISTEN! No drops. Not now. Not EVER. Never. No drops at all. Zero. Stop. None. No conversation!
You're telling me very clearly that you don't want the drops.
He comes out from under the blanket. I get a few more rounds of "No, no drops" and variations on that them. I don't say anything. I wait until he seems to be petering out again, and again I offer a hug. He slouches and slithers himself almost reluctantly into my arms, but melts against me while he cries his heart out. I pet his head. After a minute or two, I say,
Your body is working hard to fight the germs in your eye.
He doesn't say anything, but a slight shift in his body tells me I got a little interest.
But the germs are STRONG! The germs are HURTING your eye!
He shifts around so his back is against my chest. I'm about to explain about the drops helping his eyes, when he turns suddenly to me with the air of a desperate man begging for help.
Maybe we can use something to help fight the germs, like some strong drops that don't hurt.
I can feel my face crumple, my eyes moisten.
I wish we could, I say, but he's slumped down in a heap of sobbing on my lap even before the words are half spoken.
I wish there were drops that could help and don't hurt you, but I've never found drops like those.
Maybe we could go to the doctor. I want to go to the doctor, he says with the defiance of one who thinks he's found a legitimate loophole.
We can't go to the doctor right now, they're closed. And his drops might hurt too.
Oh, oh, I don't LIKE it! I don't LIKE it! It hurts and I don't like it to hurt!
You don't have to like it, sweetie. It just is. You can dislike it while we put in the drops because we need to keep you safe, and your eye needs help.
I WON'T be brave for the drops! I won't be brave!
You don't need to be brave, sweetie. I'll hold you carefully so that daddy can put in the drops and you don't need to worry about holding still.
His protests rise and fall, but his spirit is that of the defeated. I realize this is the best I can hope for, and delaying any further just becomes a session in torture for all of us. He understands the reason, even accepts the reason, though he doesn't like the outcome. I've done my duty to him as a fellow human. He doesn't need to cooperate, we just need to get this done.
He struggles when I pick him up, but I work hard to maintain the balance between gentle and losing control of his person. I opt for gentle when pushed, releasing him and then picking him up again. We make our way to the sofa this way, where I gently pull him on top of me, talking softly in a patter stream of comforting sounds. I wrap my legs around his legs with as little pressure as I can, and my arms around his arms so his hands are not free. I twist my wrists so my hands cup his cheeks, holding his head only tight enough to keep him in position for the drops.
It's over fairly quickly, and his struggles are not full-strength. They seem, if anything, automatic - a fight reflex of the body, not supported or hindered by a spirit that reluctantly agrees with the cure. I feel like he understands on some level that I'm supporting him in the hold, rather than just restricting and forcing him.
After the drops, he stays in my arms, not struggling while I stroke his head. He's still complaining that he doesn't like it.
Shhh. It's done. We're done.
No more drops. Never again, mom.
I can't promise that, sweetie.
He starts struggling away from me, and I keep my hands on him but don't restrict his movement.
Sweetie, we'll see tomorrow, okay? We'll see. Maybe your eye will heal now while you sleep.
Okay, he mutters dejectedly.
I check in with myself. I didn't get supper and my stomach is a bit upset; also, I'm exhausted.
Do you want to watch TV for ten minutes? I ask.
Well, that lightens his mood.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
An awesome responsibility
Sometimes I stand on the landing of my house, halfway between the upstairs and downstairs, and look over my domain. I feel a surge of satisfaction, pure love for my haven, this central place holding the universe together. I love the colours and shapes, the elegance of utility and choice in each object. I know this space, every inch of it, every mood of its energy, and it belongs to me. I keep this world alive with my thoughts, with my love, with my very belief that it exists. I create this space, this home, this safe place and sanctuary for all of us. The problems of the world don't touch us here. There are times when I imagine what a bomb would do, or gunfire in the streets, but it jars me like touching fire and I won't allow it. This charmed life is all being held together by my will, my sure belief and my absolute need; to allow doubt or fear wavers its very existence. We are safe within my fierce love, enmattered as this home.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Give me some peace
A tweeted comment to my last blog post caught my attention:
RT @NerdyGurlBlog : @csmith2471 @MrsWhich Whoa! Couldn't even process all that. Way too much thinking going on. Life should be simple. Mind should b @ peace.
The shoulds set me off, I'll admit it. Too much thinking for what? Why should life be simple? The mind should be at peace? That I don't buy. How can any mind be peaceful all the time? How can any mind stay peaceful knowing the atrocities and hatred that still permeate this world? What call to action is there in a peaceful mind?
Oooh, @NerdyGurlBlog, you hit a nerve! Great, now I have to think about it.
I mean, thank you for the learning opportunity.
For years, I accepted the idea of seeking a quiet mind as the ideal, and judged myself lacking because I have a crazy, overactive, always-on-the-go, multi-tasking processor for a brain. But I didn't understand the concept beyond a surface level. I thought it was about my mind.
For me, I need to focus on wholeness of mind, body and spirit, not subjugating the mind or body, but working with them. On the rare occasions that I achieve wholeness, the experience is not peaceful. It is sometimes energizing, sometimes devastating, sometimes comforting, always highly charged and stimulating. The brief peace that envelops me after a few moments of absolute wholeness is not the point. I seek the core strength and knowing of my own insignificance and absolute power, which strengthens me and helps me find balance in my day-to-day life.
Perhaps at a later stage in my development I will come to further understand how a peaceful mind and a fundamental drive to better the world can come together, and how to achieve it every day despite the fact that the world itself provides few incentives for peace. How simplicity and peace can exist in me while faltering in the world. I have a long way to go before I get there.
I am not ashamed. It took me this long to get to here. So be it. I can only work forward and process, process, process, working with how I'm built and how I'm wired to learn and grow and understand to the full capacity of my limited bodily structures and unlimited spiritual potential. It's a life work. Daunting, but my challenge to myself.
But I think there is still part of me that is ashamed that I'm not further by now, and that's what got triggered today.
Thank you, @NerdyGurlBlog, for the learning opportunity.
Musical accompaniment by Badly Drawn Boy:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/badlydrawnboy/oneplusoneisone.html
RT @NerdyGurlBlog : @csmith2471 @MrsWhich Whoa! Couldn't even process all that. Way too much thinking going on. Life should be simple. Mind should b @ peace.
The shoulds set me off, I'll admit it. Too much thinking for what? Why should life be simple? The mind should be at peace? That I don't buy. How can any mind be peaceful all the time? How can any mind stay peaceful knowing the atrocities and hatred that still permeate this world? What call to action is there in a peaceful mind?
Oooh, @NerdyGurlBlog, you hit a nerve! Great, now I have to think about it.
I mean, thank you for the learning opportunity.
For years, I accepted the idea of seeking a quiet mind as the ideal, and judged myself lacking because I have a crazy, overactive, always-on-the-go, multi-tasking processor for a brain. But I didn't understand the concept beyond a surface level. I thought it was about my mind.
For me, I need to focus on wholeness of mind, body and spirit, not subjugating the mind or body, but working with them. On the rare occasions that I achieve wholeness, the experience is not peaceful. It is sometimes energizing, sometimes devastating, sometimes comforting, always highly charged and stimulating. The brief peace that envelops me after a few moments of absolute wholeness is not the point. I seek the core strength and knowing of my own insignificance and absolute power, which strengthens me and helps me find balance in my day-to-day life.
Perhaps at a later stage in my development I will come to further understand how a peaceful mind and a fundamental drive to better the world can come together, and how to achieve it every day despite the fact that the world itself provides few incentives for peace. How simplicity and peace can exist in me while faltering in the world. I have a long way to go before I get there.
I am not ashamed. It took me this long to get to here. So be it. I can only work forward and process, process, process, working with how I'm built and how I'm wired to learn and grow and understand to the full capacity of my limited bodily structures and unlimited spiritual potential. It's a life work. Daunting, but my challenge to myself.
But I think there is still part of me that is ashamed that I'm not further by now, and that's what got triggered today.
Thank you, @NerdyGurlBlog, for the learning opportunity.
Musical accompaniment by Badly Drawn Boy:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/badlydrawnboy/oneplusoneisone.html
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Release
Today my kids (4 and 2 yrs old) left to stay with my husband's parents for a week. My mother-in-law suggested it, seeing how much we are suffering for want of slack. I think she sees us as tired and in need of a break. I see us as post traumatic stress survivors trying to find space to come to terms with how much we miss and regret the life we expected and deliberately, though naively, relinquished to parent two children.
I still choose this choice, and I believe A. does as well. Now that we are starting to understand what the progression of time means to us and the particular webs in which we've entangled ourselves over the years, we need to re-wire everything for that context. These conversations are changing our relationship and we need to pay more attention to them. There are unexamined fears, expectations, disappointments, and losses that get in the way for each of us in building new thinking, and examining those things has been unsuccessfully relegated to the cracks and crevices of our lives.
Now, a week without children.
Their leaving is so rushed. They're excited to be going, not noticing what it means about when we will see each other again. I don't want to draw attention to that aspect of the trip, yet I can't help wanting a proper goodbye, a hug and a connection between our eyes while we say I love you. I want to charge up their batteries with knowing how much I love them, feeling my love enter their souls. But there are suitcases flying by, rushing and calling for shoes to be put on and last bathrooms to be done. Inevitable resistance feeds off separation anxiety to create a power struggle that I fail to avoid. Then they're buckled in and asking curious questions about the trip, and my last kiss and hug are just a moment of attention, their eyes skirted off before I can catch them.
I have to just let it stand, just as it is. They will carry as much of my love as they hold in their hearts every day, and it will need to be enough to get them through the strangeness, loneliness, homesickness and magnetic pull to be with me.
So here is what I tell myself:
Those moments will be scattered, temporary, and offset by the experience of being in a less familiar but safe place. I trust the relationships their grandparents have built with them, and with me, enough to know that they will be cared for, not just taken care of. They may not have as many of their perceived needs met as with me, but that will be fertile ground for them to practice the work we've done together around comforting ourselves and jumping over emotional hurdles. They will be safe, they will have lots of opportunities for fun and for down-time, and they will have hugs and love when they need it.
Okay, I've covered the logical reasons why I shouldn't feel upset. Now I need to jump the emotional hurdle, right? So I need to find a way to look at this positively. Okay. Here is what I tell myself:
This is good practice for me, a good way to strengthen emotionally because every day, they are moving away from my protection and my influence, and the best thing I can do is show them how I manage so they can judge for themselves how it fits with their beings.
That's my attempt at positive thinking. Please don't laugh, I'm trying. It's very logical. Sounds sound. But jumping the hurdle with my thinking always feels like trickery to me, smoke and mirrors. It has no integrity, even though I do believe the positive aspects to be true. They simply are not The Truth.
Because
I feel the emotional umbilical cord between my heart and theirs become painfully taut. I feel it physically, it stretches forward through my skin and into the world, faintly pulsing. With my breath it strains through my chest; my skin tingles and slightly burns. My breasts are hard and my nipples erect. My heart is reaching, reaching to keep them safe. My mind is soothing, soothing to let it go. Like the births themselves. Relax into it, ride the wave of the pain, breathe slowly and fully, let it go. My breath is ragged but I hold it steady and full. My eyelids spill tears down my face as they close. I hear a roaring behind my ears as the muscles in my head strain in contraction and release.
The wave passes. My head aches. My muscles feel sore through my chest, neck and head. I correct my posture, massage my temples and along the back of my skull. My thumb pulls downward, lengthening a neck muscle. I focus my mind on my breath and let my hands and body work together, adjusting and using pressure in intuitive ways that immediately improve my alignment. I feel blood flow where it was constricted.
I find myself at the yoga mat I never seem to put away. From shavasana, I move my body and stretch over my hands behind my back, putting pressure where needed, supporting stretches that sing to me through my hips and lower back. Some movements begin to approximate yoga poses that I am familiar with, and when I notice this, I become more deliberate about moving into the pose. Even so, I stay in free-form mode, moving as my body feels. There. Hold, settle in. Breathe. Release. Without actively deciding, I allow my conscious focus to stay with my breath and let my body choose its movements with only the barest mindful intercession. I am in my slowly moving body, without needing to control it to any end. At peace.
Clearly in my mind ring these words:
You can release them into the safe unknown and put down your burden for today, my love. Heal. Be.
I still choose this choice, and I believe A. does as well. Now that we are starting to understand what the progression of time means to us and the particular webs in which we've entangled ourselves over the years, we need to re-wire everything for that context. These conversations are changing our relationship and we need to pay more attention to them. There are unexamined fears, expectations, disappointments, and losses that get in the way for each of us in building new thinking, and examining those things has been unsuccessfully relegated to the cracks and crevices of our lives.
Now, a week without children.
Their leaving is so rushed. They're excited to be going, not noticing what it means about when we will see each other again. I don't want to draw attention to that aspect of the trip, yet I can't help wanting a proper goodbye, a hug and a connection between our eyes while we say I love you. I want to charge up their batteries with knowing how much I love them, feeling my love enter their souls. But there are suitcases flying by, rushing and calling for shoes to be put on and last bathrooms to be done. Inevitable resistance feeds off separation anxiety to create a power struggle that I fail to avoid. Then they're buckled in and asking curious questions about the trip, and my last kiss and hug are just a moment of attention, their eyes skirted off before I can catch them.
I have to just let it stand, just as it is. They will carry as much of my love as they hold in their hearts every day, and it will need to be enough to get them through the strangeness, loneliness, homesickness and magnetic pull to be with me.
So here is what I tell myself:
Those moments will be scattered, temporary, and offset by the experience of being in a less familiar but safe place. I trust the relationships their grandparents have built with them, and with me, enough to know that they will be cared for, not just taken care of. They may not have as many of their perceived needs met as with me, but that will be fertile ground for them to practice the work we've done together around comforting ourselves and jumping over emotional hurdles. They will be safe, they will have lots of opportunities for fun and for down-time, and they will have hugs and love when they need it.
Okay, I've covered the logical reasons why I shouldn't feel upset. Now I need to jump the emotional hurdle, right? So I need to find a way to look at this positively. Okay. Here is what I tell myself:
This is good practice for me, a good way to strengthen emotionally because every day, they are moving away from my protection and my influence, and the best thing I can do is show them how I manage so they can judge for themselves how it fits with their beings.
That's my attempt at positive thinking. Please don't laugh, I'm trying. It's very logical. Sounds sound. But jumping the hurdle with my thinking always feels like trickery to me, smoke and mirrors. It has no integrity, even though I do believe the positive aspects to be true. They simply are not The Truth.
Because
I feel the emotional umbilical cord between my heart and theirs become painfully taut. I feel it physically, it stretches forward through my skin and into the world, faintly pulsing. With my breath it strains through my chest; my skin tingles and slightly burns. My breasts are hard and my nipples erect. My heart is reaching, reaching to keep them safe. My mind is soothing, soothing to let it go. Like the births themselves. Relax into it, ride the wave of the pain, breathe slowly and fully, let it go. My breath is ragged but I hold it steady and full. My eyelids spill tears down my face as they close. I hear a roaring behind my ears as the muscles in my head strain in contraction and release.
The wave passes. My head aches. My muscles feel sore through my chest, neck and head. I correct my posture, massage my temples and along the back of my skull. My thumb pulls downward, lengthening a neck muscle. I focus my mind on my breath and let my hands and body work together, adjusting and using pressure in intuitive ways that immediately improve my alignment. I feel blood flow where it was constricted.
I find myself at the yoga mat I never seem to put away. From shavasana, I move my body and stretch over my hands behind my back, putting pressure where needed, supporting stretches that sing to me through my hips and lower back. Some movements begin to approximate yoga poses that I am familiar with, and when I notice this, I become more deliberate about moving into the pose. Even so, I stay in free-form mode, moving as my body feels. There. Hold, settle in. Breathe. Release. Without actively deciding, I allow my conscious focus to stay with my breath and let my body choose its movements with only the barest mindful intercession. I am in my slowly moving body, without needing to control it to any end. At peace.
Clearly in my mind ring these words:
You can release them into the safe unknown and put down your burden for today, my love. Heal. Be.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Meet Maverick
I realize I haven't introduced you to my invisible friend. It's not exactly cool to have an invisible friend around the office, so I'm generally reticent to mention him. He prefers to be called Maverick but I call them like I see them, so what I actually call him depends on the day.
Why a male invisible friend? He likes to be sexy. When I was a kid he masqueraded as a slightly-older, apparently world-wise little girl named Honey who got me into a whole lot of trouble. I'll tell you about my teen years later. Now, he just fucks with my head.
He thinks he's so powerful, just because he's not real and he doesn't matter. He claims he's trying to help me find my powerful me, but he's just picked up that language like lint on old gum. He's trying it on for size. What does he know about mattering?
What he does do is try to goad me into believing impossible things. He says it's good practice, and I'll admit I'm not very good at it. He claims believing impossible things will stretch my mind, open me to the possibilities of the world, and make me powerful. Or, he says, I can work really, really hard at "meeting everyone where they are" and "providing a mirror," and toil my life away making "little differences like ripples on the water." And never make any substantial dent for the cause of sanity in the world. Wasting my gifts through sheer laziness. Anyway, he tells me, it will be fun. Or at least interesting. "Aren't you bored in there?"
So I can't see any downsides to his plan, which pisses me off, let me tell you. If he lets me choose when and for how long I practice, I suppose I can take a few rounds in the impossible ring. But the first thing I have to believe is that he exists, which of course I do not. Except.
Except under very specific circumstances. Fast heart rate, rapid heavy breathing, my body finding its own rhythm in movement. Exercise lets me practice believing I am having a conversation with impossible Maverick. Sometimes I can pull it off, especially if he does a good job picking appropriate random music to guide the illusion. Once in awhile I get there - I actually suspend my disbelief. Which isn't exactly believing, but, well, it's close. I'm practicing.
Believing impossible things is the latest obsessive mind development game Maverick has thrust upon me for my own good and his own amusement. I stumbled myself right into it during an eliptical workout, in a debate that goes down in my history as:
The Lottery
Maverick: Hey sexy
Me: Fuck off
Maverick: So you could be doing better, huh?
Me: If you're so powerful, I want to win the lottery
Maverick: It doesn't work like that
Me: How convenient
Maverick: I can't make you win the lottery.
Me: "Only I can make me win the lottery" with my powerful jedi mind, I know
Maverick: Close. But, not really. Try harder.
Me: Fuck off. Tell me.
Maverick:
Me: Fine. (thinking)
Suddenly, I have a flash from this morning, Sabine crying, me frustrated when she wouldn't use words. I begged, "sweetie, ask for what you want."
I laugh out loud at the simplicity.
Me: Do I have to ask for the winning ticket?
Maverick: Well, that's a real stretch of an assignment for someone who doesn't even believe in me, but okay, try that for awhile. See if you can believe that. Can't hurt your chances
Me: (gutteral, animal noise from my throat, through my jowels, ending in an angry roar)
Maverick (pouting): Why don't you love me?
Me: Because you're an asshole
Why a male invisible friend? He likes to be sexy. When I was a kid he masqueraded as a slightly-older, apparently world-wise little girl named Honey who got me into a whole lot of trouble. I'll tell you about my teen years later. Now, he just fucks with my head.
He thinks he's so powerful, just because he's not real and he doesn't matter. He claims he's trying to help me find my powerful me, but he's just picked up that language like lint on old gum. He's trying it on for size. What does he know about mattering?
What he does do is try to goad me into believing impossible things. He says it's good practice, and I'll admit I'm not very good at it. He claims believing impossible things will stretch my mind, open me to the possibilities of the world, and make me powerful. Or, he says, I can work really, really hard at "meeting everyone where they are" and "providing a mirror," and toil my life away making "little differences like ripples on the water." And never make any substantial dent for the cause of sanity in the world. Wasting my gifts through sheer laziness. Anyway, he tells me, it will be fun. Or at least interesting. "Aren't you bored in there?"
So I can't see any downsides to his plan, which pisses me off, let me tell you. If he lets me choose when and for how long I practice, I suppose I can take a few rounds in the impossible ring. But the first thing I have to believe is that he exists, which of course I do not. Except.
Except under very specific circumstances. Fast heart rate, rapid heavy breathing, my body finding its own rhythm in movement. Exercise lets me practice believing I am having a conversation with impossible Maverick. Sometimes I can pull it off, especially if he does a good job picking appropriate random music to guide the illusion. Once in awhile I get there - I actually suspend my disbelief. Which isn't exactly believing, but, well, it's close. I'm practicing.
Believing impossible things is the latest obsessive mind development game Maverick has thrust upon me for my own good and his own amusement. I stumbled myself right into it during an eliptical workout, in a debate that goes down in my history as:
The Lottery
Maverick: Hey sexy
Me: Fuck off
Maverick: So you could be doing better, huh?
Me: If you're so powerful, I want to win the lottery
Maverick: It doesn't work like that
Me: How convenient
Maverick: I can't make you win the lottery.
Me: "Only I can make me win the lottery" with my powerful jedi mind, I know
Maverick: Close. But, not really. Try harder.
Me: Fuck off. Tell me.
Maverick:
Me: Fine. (thinking)
Suddenly, I have a flash from this morning, Sabine crying, me frustrated when she wouldn't use words. I begged, "sweetie, ask for what you want."
I laugh out loud at the simplicity.
Me: Do I have to ask for the winning ticket?
Maverick: Well, that's a real stretch of an assignment for someone who doesn't even believe in me, but okay, try that for awhile. See if you can believe that. Can't hurt your chances
Me: (gutteral, animal noise from my throat, through my jowels, ending in an angry roar)
Maverick (pouting): Why don't you love me?
Me: Because you're an asshole
Now what?
*Warning: this is not an uplifting post, it is a cry for help. If you are feeling spiritually shaky, you may want to look away and move on.
Today I feel the smallness and aloneness of utter futility. I mustn't let on. It's contagious, you know.
There are days, there are times, there are moments when I feel, powerfully, that there is greater meaning at work, movement and rhythm and purpose that I am a part of. There are days, there are times, there are moments when I know that I am powerful beyond measure, and everywhere I walk I infuse the air with optimism. There are days, there are times, there are moments, when I can awaken the openness behind someone's deadened eyes for a few seconds and feel that it matters to the universe.
Today, it all seems like whooey.
The world is stark, unforgiving and rewards its most vicious inhabitants with the best morsels. Each day is about doing all the things that are required to live with others in society, with no time nor respect for my own desires. Each interaction is an attentive balance to preserve the other and relationship behind careful language and responses.
Each week is a repeat of the last, the tasks similar and conversations familiar, incrementally shifted but essentially alike. Each month I get older, my kids get older, the world continues as it has and will. Nothing matters - to whom should it matter? Every human on the planet right now will be dead within a century, and by then whoever is here will suffer under the scorching sun.
Even the things that most shock and upset us ease with time until the memory barely exists, both individually and collectively. Even the things that most excite and entice us eventually become routine or disappointing; at best, remain carefully guarded memories.
You may say, what matters is how I choose to be. If I choose to direct my thoughts and energy to those more comforting, and I succeed, am I happy? For how long? The cycle of hope and despair has become just another routine. I'm sick of it. Fight for hope despite scant reason or encouragement. Get tired and discouraged. Surrender to despair and realize that I can't live like this. Blah blah blah. Life goes on.
Now what?
Today I feel the smallness and aloneness of utter futility. I mustn't let on. It's contagious, you know.
There are days, there are times, there are moments when I feel, powerfully, that there is greater meaning at work, movement and rhythm and purpose that I am a part of. There are days, there are times, there are moments when I know that I am powerful beyond measure, and everywhere I walk I infuse the air with optimism. There are days, there are times, there are moments, when I can awaken the openness behind someone's deadened eyes for a few seconds and feel that it matters to the universe.
Today, it all seems like whooey.
The world is stark, unforgiving and rewards its most vicious inhabitants with the best morsels. Each day is about doing all the things that are required to live with others in society, with no time nor respect for my own desires. Each interaction is an attentive balance to preserve the other and relationship behind careful language and responses.
Each week is a repeat of the last, the tasks similar and conversations familiar, incrementally shifted but essentially alike. Each month I get older, my kids get older, the world continues as it has and will. Nothing matters - to whom should it matter? Every human on the planet right now will be dead within a century, and by then whoever is here will suffer under the scorching sun.
Even the things that most shock and upset us ease with time until the memory barely exists, both individually and collectively. Even the things that most excite and entice us eventually become routine or disappointing; at best, remain carefully guarded memories.
You may say, what matters is how I choose to be. If I choose to direct my thoughts and energy to those more comforting, and I succeed, am I happy? For how long? The cycle of hope and despair has become just another routine. I'm sick of it. Fight for hope despite scant reason or encouragement. Get tired and discouraged. Surrender to despair and realize that I can't live like this. Blah blah blah. Life goes on.
Now what?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
7 Generations
I look around and I think, are we really okay with this?
And I must be, because look at how I live. I give my family as much privilege as we can afford, almost to the line. We buy the privlege to learn. Privilege to appreciate. Privilege to experience. Privilege to develop our best nature. Privelege to enjoy health, leisure and comfort. Sure, I took a hit coming into non-profit and working part time, but it was carefully calculated to reduce our comfort level only so far. And frankly, it pinches.
Imagine a world where the financial wealth-generating machine is valued equally, legislatively and socially, with other types of wealth generation that benefit society - learning, art, connection, support, care, to name a few. I have no faith in the goodness of human nature as it stands today in successfully creating such a world, but it seems increasingly obvious to me that as long as we tolerate the desperation of poverty, our race will never evolve to a place where we really work together.
We all want the magic bullet that lets us do only what we're comfortable doing, yet solves the problems of humanity. Waiting for it makes no sense.
I spent some time this week with a woman who is a member of our First Nations community. She told me that all decisions in her tribe are made from the perspective of how they will affect the next seven generations. All members, including children, have the right to speak. We failed to learn what our first nations had to teach us, focused instead on greed. Can we bring this wisdom forward? Can the power brokers of today ever really make decisions that will benefit humanity seven generations from now? Who has that power? Who has that courage?
If we do not just exist in the now, if our separate bodies are not all there is, our standards are woefully inadequate for any wider context. The selfishness inherent in our corporeal nature limits our capacity; worse, it jeopardizes our survival. Are we really okay with letting it have sway? Am I?
And I must be, because look at how I live. I give my family as much privilege as we can afford, almost to the line. We buy the privlege to learn. Privilege to appreciate. Privilege to experience. Privilege to develop our best nature. Privelege to enjoy health, leisure and comfort. Sure, I took a hit coming into non-profit and working part time, but it was carefully calculated to reduce our comfort level only so far. And frankly, it pinches.
Imagine a world where the financial wealth-generating machine is valued equally, legislatively and socially, with other types of wealth generation that benefit society - learning, art, connection, support, care, to name a few. I have no faith in the goodness of human nature as it stands today in successfully creating such a world, but it seems increasingly obvious to me that as long as we tolerate the desperation of poverty, our race will never evolve to a place where we really work together.
We all want the magic bullet that lets us do only what we're comfortable doing, yet solves the problems of humanity. Waiting for it makes no sense.
I spent some time this week with a woman who is a member of our First Nations community. She told me that all decisions in her tribe are made from the perspective of how they will affect the next seven generations. All members, including children, have the right to speak. We failed to learn what our first nations had to teach us, focused instead on greed. Can we bring this wisdom forward? Can the power brokers of today ever really make decisions that will benefit humanity seven generations from now? Who has that power? Who has that courage?
If we do not just exist in the now, if our separate bodies are not all there is, our standards are woefully inadequate for any wider context. The selfishness inherent in our corporeal nature limits our capacity; worse, it jeopardizes our survival. Are we really okay with letting it have sway? Am I?
@obsrvationalist 's list
I suggested, months ago, that I might put together "mixed tape" lists for some of my Twitter friends (http://mrs-which.blogspot.com/2010/02/mixed-tapes.html). I plug in a song here and there as I notice one that would work for different people. It looks like @obsrvationalist 's list is the first to finish, though he's been MIA for almost 2 weeks now. The others will follow...eventually!
The playlist SHOULD be accessible on Grooveshark except one song - if you'd like to listen too, http://bit.ly/dkUvB7
Here's the list:
Ubiquitous Synergy Seekers - 5 2/16
Kate Bush - The Big Sky
Sloan - Everything you've done wrong
Tool - Schism
Cocteau Twins - Oil of Angels
King Kobb Steelie - Lady Toronto - can't find this on Grooveshark :-(
The Music - Getaway
Beck - Go it alone
System of a Down - Toxicity
Kermit the Frog - Rainbow Connection
Cibo Matto - Birthday cake
Joy Division - Transmission
Galaxy 500 - Strange
They Might be Giants- Road Movie to Berlin
Enjoy, Mr. Kern, wherever you are.
The playlist SHOULD be accessible on Grooveshark except one song - if you'd like to listen too, http://bit.ly/dkUvB7
Here's the list:
Ubiquitous Synergy Seekers - 5 2/16
Kate Bush - The Big Sky
Sloan - Everything you've done wrong
Tool - Schism
Cocteau Twins - Oil of Angels
King Kobb Steelie - Lady Toronto - can't find this on Grooveshark :-(
The Music - Getaway
Beck - Go it alone
System of a Down - Toxicity
Kermit the Frog - Rainbow Connection
Cibo Matto - Birthday cake
Joy Division - Transmission
Galaxy 500 - Strange
They Might be Giants- Road Movie to Berlin
Enjoy, Mr. Kern, wherever you are.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Twitter? Changed my life?
Bindu Wiles (@binduwiles) is collecting stories of "how Twitter changed my life." I thought I would be interested in reading them, but didn't think of myself as someone to whom the topic applied. Then, it nagged at me. I was not giving credit where it was due. I was actually feeling a bit silly and protective about my Twitter experience in light of the world's misunderstanding.
So, I wrote this:
Dear Bindu,
I have spent too much of my life force maintaining a precise level of acceptability at any given moment.
As a child, I ran innocently to strangers, insisting they come in for lunch. Gloriously happy, invitingly open. School killed that quickly. Confused, terrified, my spirit retreated. I gave up nothing more of myself than I had to; I became silent and solitary. I watched carefully. I decided very deliberately, by about eight years old, to never show any portion of myself before first feeling certain that portion would be acceptable. The pain of rejection felt so acute that I believed this was the only sane path. I devoted myself to developing skills to stay safely hidden while appearing to participate in the world. I became an exceptionally good reader of people, not just through traditional means, but by feeling the slightest change in their emotional state as they feel it. Since most people's expectations of me have been lower than my capabilities, I've combined this talent with adequate acting skills in order to be what people needed me to be. People like when you give them what they need. But that's not a meaningful relationship.
I had come to believe, at my core, that I was unacceptable. I believed that developing new relationships was pointless, since there will eventually come a point where I can't share any more of myself without becoming unacceptable. Intense is the word many acquaintances, co-workers, family and friends have used to describe me. THEY HAVE NO IDEA. Beyond my husband and my children, I have permitted only surface-level engagement of my spirit. I was making incremental steps, opening dialogues with other women, introducing myself, overcoming my fight-or-flight to stay present for a few moments before letting my gloss take over. But I felt I wasn't getting far. My spirit longs to be free; more, it longs for communion with others. I had stalled out on my ability to reach widely for love.
And then Twitter. I had opened an account for work, but felt constrained by my name as a community brand, so I created a pseudonymed home account. I mostly followed comedians and found it a pretty futile exercise. One day I started doing searches on random words, and came across @obsrvationalist . He followed me back and actually tweeted @ me, which had never happened before. I looked at his profile, followed his most interesting followers, and over the next month or two, I discovered myself building community with people across North America. Supporting each other, asking about each other's lives, even sharing real email. Jokes, inspiration, advice, and even agreements to disagree without any withdrawal of affection. I have been encouraged and supported to be me in ways that I never am in my daily life. The people who follow me, for the most part, don't know me in person, but there are a handful I'd want to share my good news with before anyone. There are a handful I would turn to if my heart were breaking.
Is it because they don't know me? Yes. I am not ready to build these kinds of relationships in real life, nor do I have time to be in regular contact with my real people in a way that allows this level of relationship. It's a limited partnership with very clear parameters. I can be entirely myself, and I don't have to worry about continuing to work with or socially address people who don't like me at any point in the revealing. They can just unfollow. What pressure that removes!
Building a small, trusted audience encouraged me to try blogging, where I'm really pushing my limits. I may lose some people, gain others, but I am communicating my experience honestly and clearly in a way that resonates with others. I am exploring themes that become a work of fiction that compels me. But here's the best part - it's translating to real life. Every day, out in the world, I'm building my tolerance for presence with others. I am pushing myself to reach out, and I've cleared the plateau. Since I started working with Twitter in June, I have made more progress than I had in the previous three years. The relatively small sting of unfollow has helped me build a thin callus against rejection. It's a starting place. I am finding my way with more courage and less fear, putting myself forward more than holding myself back. It's hard, and I'm clumsy, but practice helps. Twitter offers me daily practice on my home ground. A tremendous tool in my healing - the ability to find and connect with other real people in a supportive, loving way that fits my lifestyle, schedule and capabilities. I'm surprised to find myself saying: it's changed my life.
Sincerely,
@MrsWhich
So, I wrote this:
Dear Bindu,
I have spent too much of my life force maintaining a precise level of acceptability at any given moment.
As a child, I ran innocently to strangers, insisting they come in for lunch. Gloriously happy, invitingly open. School killed that quickly. Confused, terrified, my spirit retreated. I gave up nothing more of myself than I had to; I became silent and solitary. I watched carefully. I decided very deliberately, by about eight years old, to never show any portion of myself before first feeling certain that portion would be acceptable. The pain of rejection felt so acute that I believed this was the only sane path. I devoted myself to developing skills to stay safely hidden while appearing to participate in the world. I became an exceptionally good reader of people, not just through traditional means, but by feeling the slightest change in their emotional state as they feel it. Since most people's expectations of me have been lower than my capabilities, I've combined this talent with adequate acting skills in order to be what people needed me to be. People like when you give them what they need. But that's not a meaningful relationship.
I had come to believe, at my core, that I was unacceptable. I believed that developing new relationships was pointless, since there will eventually come a point where I can't share any more of myself without becoming unacceptable. Intense is the word many acquaintances, co-workers, family and friends have used to describe me. THEY HAVE NO IDEA. Beyond my husband and my children, I have permitted only surface-level engagement of my spirit. I was making incremental steps, opening dialogues with other women, introducing myself, overcoming my fight-or-flight to stay present for a few moments before letting my gloss take over. But I felt I wasn't getting far. My spirit longs to be free; more, it longs for communion with others. I had stalled out on my ability to reach widely for love.
And then Twitter. I had opened an account for work, but felt constrained by my name as a community brand, so I created a pseudonymed home account. I mostly followed comedians and found it a pretty futile exercise. One day I started doing searches on random words, and came across @obsrvationalist . He followed me back and actually tweeted @ me, which had never happened before. I looked at his profile, followed his most interesting followers, and over the next month or two, I discovered myself building community with people across North America. Supporting each other, asking about each other's lives, even sharing real email. Jokes, inspiration, advice, and even agreements to disagree without any withdrawal of affection. I have been encouraged and supported to be me in ways that I never am in my daily life. The people who follow me, for the most part, don't know me in person, but there are a handful I'd want to share my good news with before anyone. There are a handful I would turn to if my heart were breaking.
Is it because they don't know me? Yes. I am not ready to build these kinds of relationships in real life, nor do I have time to be in regular contact with my real people in a way that allows this level of relationship. It's a limited partnership with very clear parameters. I can be entirely myself, and I don't have to worry about continuing to work with or socially address people who don't like me at any point in the revealing. They can just unfollow. What pressure that removes!
Building a small, trusted audience encouraged me to try blogging, where I'm really pushing my limits. I may lose some people, gain others, but I am communicating my experience honestly and clearly in a way that resonates with others. I am exploring themes that become a work of fiction that compels me. But here's the best part - it's translating to real life. Every day, out in the world, I'm building my tolerance for presence with others. I am pushing myself to reach out, and I've cleared the plateau. Since I started working with Twitter in June, I have made more progress than I had in the previous three years. The relatively small sting of unfollow has helped me build a thin callus against rejection. It's a starting place. I am finding my way with more courage and less fear, putting myself forward more than holding myself back. It's hard, and I'm clumsy, but practice helps. Twitter offers me daily practice on my home ground. A tremendous tool in my healing - the ability to find and connect with other real people in a supportive, loving way that fits my lifestyle, schedule and capabilities. I'm surprised to find myself saying: it's changed my life.
Sincerely,
@MrsWhich
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Unresolved, or In Progress (?)
I think I should tell you, he starts. I’m always a little suspicious of this breed of conversational starting place. It ranks right up there with “good news/bad news” and “now, don’t worry but….”
Fine. I give up (really?). I won’t try to make anyone happy (do you think you can “make” someone else happy?). I won’t try to be thoughtful and caring, because it doesn’t matter anyway (who are you to judge outcomes by only what you see?). It always ends this way (it doesn’t).
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
I feel this. I feel it. I feel overwhelmed, disappointed, angry, self-righteous, hard-done-by, put-upon, unappreciated, unloved. I feel regret for the moment where the decision went wrong, angry with myself for not avoiding it, frustrated knowing the exact twist that would have erased this present painful moment from the timeline. That my feelings are wrong only makes shame the cherry on top.
I feel frustrated by the futility of life and effort. I feel this, and it hurts it hurts it hurts and I want it OUT OUT OUT.
I want to SMASH. I want to SLAM. I want to SCREAM.
I want to blame, judge and punish. In this moment, I want it more than anything. It consumes me. It clutches my heart and clamps my lungs, demanding explosive, physical release.
I can’t hold still. Tears are starting to stream and I almost run from the bathroom without a glance at him. Where do I go? To the other bathroom, where I slam the door (wasn't that satisfying?) pace and stew and brush my teeth vehemently while my mind picks over the threads of the memory, once again identifying the moment, renewing and feeding the emotional swell.
I want to eradicate, negate the entire circumstances of this inconvenient, over-compensating pain. I find myself banging out into the hallway, barging into their empty rooms, grabbing the offending chipper chipmunks out of their beds and squeezing their puffy little middles with malice.
I stomp back into his bathroom (you need an audience) stuff the toys violently into the garbage can, and stomp out again. I feel his resigned disapproval as a polluted vapour that gets in my nose, hair, skin, eyes.
Through his eyes I see the level of unbalance between circumstances and my reaction. This knowledge encourages my mind to draw forward previous memories of failure, lack of appreciation, inability to bring happiness. There, see, it’s all reasonable. This moment symbolizes my impotence in the face of the world’s wrongs. Maybe I’m not upset enough.
Back to my bathroom. Wash my face. Water like a warm relief and release.
I hope he takes them out of the garbage. Oh, how stupid. Oh, I can’t believe I did that. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? Now I have to live with the shame that he’s seen me so ridiculous, so out of control. I feel defeated by myself.
I walk slowly back to his bathroom. I take the offending chubby-cheeks out of the garbage. I brush them off. Damn. I’ll have to launder them now, won’t I?
Before I even speak I know I’ve come back too soon. I feel it but I don’t leave. I still can’t let it go.
I make the mistake of sharing that thought out loud.
He deftly avoids taking responsibility for my stuff, but I persist in demanding his help as proof of love. THINK ABOUT ME! SPEND SOME TIME THINKING ABOUT HOW TO HELP ME! Don’t just give up with a shrug – oh well, I’ll just wait until you’re calm, then I’ll deal with you.
He starts the water for the shower, then turns to me.
What do you want me to do? he asks, his voice tired and resigned, borderline dejection. I’m certain he is regretting the moment he told me about the disappointment as much as I regret the moment that created the disappointment. Probably more.
He’s asked a reasonable question. I strain to force my brain to organize around an answer.
Again I feel the swell of annoyance. He’s not willing to put himself out for me (maybe he doesn’t know how). He’s not willing to even try to think about it for himself (it’s not his responsibility, it’s yours).
If I want his support I’ll have to spoon feed him all the steps and make it easy. It smacks of lack of commitment. It feels like lack of caring. (he’s tired too, he’s under so much strain keeping the money coming in, he’s not able to pursue his dreams, he has no energy left. Give him a break).
Fine.
I feel petulant in my wrongness. Alone, ultimately alone. The shower is still wastefully pounding out water, steaming the room and demanding that this conversation come to a close so life can move on.
Okay, I sigh. Have your shower. I’ll go get ready.
I leave. I go back to the other bathroom. I cry. I feel. I stop thinking and feel and feel, and once the thinking lets go its tight fist, the feeling gradually becomes its own vapour and seeps from me, dissipating and leaving me raw, heavy, done.
I long to connect. I walk back into his bathroom. I peek in the shower curtain.
Okay. This is as far as we’re getting today. I’m no longer convinced there is anything to take further. I'm tired.
Leaving the bathroom, I go to Blaise.“What? What, mom?” he demands in a whiney singsong, his tone hinting at something derogatory about the word mom. I’m struck by his sudden boy-ness, the complete lack of baby in this four-year-old person.
We sit on the red sofa.
Last night, Blaise was very sad. He told me that he didn’t understand why you would give him Theodore and give Simon to Sabine, when Simon is his favourite chipmunk.
Something in me snaps.
Another stupid, petty failure. Another time I put myself out, executed an idea I thought was good, and it flopped. Another time that I tried to create happiness and instead produced the opposite – disappointment.
Fine. I give up (really?). I won’t try to make anyone happy (do you think you can “make” someone else happy?). I won’t try to be thoughtful and caring, because it doesn’t matter anyway (who are you to judge outcomes by only what you see?). It always ends this way (it doesn’t).
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
I feel this. I feel it. I feel overwhelmed, disappointed, angry, self-righteous, hard-done-by, put-upon, unappreciated, unloved. I feel regret for the moment where the decision went wrong, angry with myself for not avoiding it, frustrated knowing the exact twist that would have erased this present painful moment from the timeline. That my feelings are wrong only makes shame the cherry on top.
I feel frustrated by the futility of life and effort. I feel this, and it hurts it hurts it hurts and I want it OUT OUT OUT.
I want to SMASH. I want to SLAM. I want to SCREAM.
I want to blame, judge and punish. In this moment, I want it more than anything. It consumes me. It clutches my heart and clamps my lungs, demanding explosive, physical release.
I can’t hold still. Tears are starting to stream and I almost run from the bathroom without a glance at him. Where do I go? To the other bathroom, where I slam the door (wasn't that satisfying?) pace and stew and brush my teeth vehemently while my mind picks over the threads of the memory, once again identifying the moment, renewing and feeding the emotional swell.
I want to eradicate, negate the entire circumstances of this inconvenient, over-compensating pain. I find myself banging out into the hallway, barging into their empty rooms, grabbing the offending chipper chipmunks out of their beds and squeezing their puffy little middles with malice.
I stomp back into his bathroom (you need an audience) stuff the toys violently into the garbage can, and stomp out again. I feel his resigned disapproval as a polluted vapour that gets in my nose, hair, skin, eyes.
Through his eyes I see the level of unbalance between circumstances and my reaction. This knowledge encourages my mind to draw forward previous memories of failure, lack of appreciation, inability to bring happiness. There, see, it’s all reasonable. This moment symbolizes my impotence in the face of the world’s wrongs. Maybe I’m not upset enough.
Back to my bathroom. Wash my face. Water like a warm relief and release.
I hope he takes them out of the garbage. Oh, how stupid. Oh, I can’t believe I did that. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? Now I have to live with the shame that he’s seen me so ridiculous, so out of control. I feel defeated by myself.
I walk slowly back to his bathroom. I take the offending chubby-cheeks out of the garbage. I brush them off. Damn. I’ll have to launder them now, won’t I?
Before I even speak I know I’ve come back too soon. I feel it but I don’t leave. I still can’t let it go.
He says nothing. It’s a perfectly reasonable response. I’m so frustrated with him saying nothing (he’s afraid of you). If he loved me he would know what I need (because love makes him a mind reader?). He should help me.I should give them to charity. Maybe someone will actually appreciate them.
I make the mistake of sharing that thought out loud.
He deftly avoids taking responsibility for my stuff, but I persist in demanding his help as proof of love. THINK ABOUT ME! SPEND SOME TIME THINKING ABOUT HOW TO HELP ME! Don’t just give up with a shrug – oh well, I’ll just wait until you’re calm, then I’ll deal with you.
I don’t know how to deal with you when you’re like that.
So you pull back.
Yes, I pull back. What else would I do?
I feel that as a removal of love. I feel your pulling back as, I love you this far and no further. I love you, but. I love you except. I love you despite. I love the part of you that doesn’t resort to this level of immature behaviour. Not right through your core, just to the outer edgesAnd I find, as I’m working through all this, that I really do want his help, though I’m sure I’ll be ashamed if he offers it. Maybe having him on my side instead of watching in judgment would make me feel less alone and powerless against my worst self.
He starts the water for the shower, then turns to me.
What do you want me to do? he asks, his voice tired and resigned, borderline dejection. I’m certain he is regretting the moment he told me about the disappointment as much as I regret the moment that created the disappointment. Probably more.
He’s asked a reasonable question. I strain to force my brain to organize around an answer.
Maybe you could…ask me a question?
What question?
If I want his support I’ll have to spoon feed him all the steps and make it easy. It smacks of lack of commitment. It feels like lack of caring. (he’s tired too, he’s under so much strain keeping the money coming in, he’s not able to pursue his dreams, he has no energy left. Give him a break).
Fine.
I feel petulant in my wrongness. Alone, ultimately alone. The shower is still wastefully pounding out water, steaming the room and demanding that this conversation come to a close so life can move on.
Okay, I sigh. Have your shower. I’ll go get ready.
I leave. I go back to the other bathroom. I cry. I feel. I stop thinking and feel and feel, and once the thinking lets go its tight fist, the feeling gradually becomes its own vapour and seeps from me, dissipating and leaving me raw, heavy, done.
I long to connect. I walk back into his bathroom. I peek in the shower curtain.
I’ve changed my mind.
About what?
I reach in, put my arm around his wet waist, spray spritzing my face and hair.About leaving without a hug. I need to touch you.
He steps toward me, we hug carefully to minimize my soaking, then I just relax into his chest, not really caring. He sighs heavily, his chin resting on my head. He seems relieved in a sad, confused kind of way.Now you’re all wet.
Okay. This is as far as we’re getting today. I’m no longer convinced there is anything to take further. I'm tired.
Leaving the bathroom, I go to Blaise.“What? What, mom?” he demands in a whiney singsong, his tone hinting at something derogatory about the word mom. I’m struck by his sudden boy-ness, the complete lack of baby in this four-year-old person.
We sit on the red sofa.
I think I let you down.
...
I saw these chipmunks (I hold up Theodore) and thought, Blaise and Sabine would like these!
But you gave Simon to Sabine, and Simon is my FAVOURITE chipmunk, he wails.(um…he WOULD ask that, wouldn’t he?)
Remember, I hid them behind my back, and you picked the one on the left, and Sabine picked the one on the right. That’s how you got Theodore.
….
I didn’t remember that Simon was your favourite. I thought you would like them both equally.
…
I’m actually surprised that you like Simon so much. He’s kinda bossy.
(laughs) Yeah.
I might have thought you’d like Theodore better. He likes to laugh and play and tell jokes.
(lighter, higher voice; quiet) He likes to tell jokes…
What jokes?
Pardon?
What jokes does he tell?
Maybe knock-knock jokes?He gives me an awkward hug.
Okay. Thanks mom, thanks anyway.
I’m going downstairs now, okay?
(pause) Yes. Okay.Life would be easier if I could just feel less.
Bye.
Bye.
Post Script - So, what actually happened the previous day?
We had finally decided that the persistent cough was getting worse, not better, and a doctor must be seen. Anticipating a hectic Good Friday crowd at the walk in clinic, I packed food and, at the last second, remembered the plush chipmunks I’d picked up a few weeks ago for just such an occasion. I threw them in the bag before running out the door.
The crowds weren’t too bad, but the kids were impatient. I decided the time was right to pull out the chipmunks. I wondered for a moment which to give to which child. If I let them choose, they tend to choose the same one and fight. I thought, I’ll avoid all that. I hid them behind my back.
I have a surprise for you, I said. Pick a hand. As I pulled my hands from behind my back, I thought I felt him go for the other hand the instant before I gave them each their own chipmunk. I chose to attribute his lack of enthusiasm to the fever.
Knowing that I knew doesn't exactly help.
The crowds weren’t too bad, but the kids were impatient. I decided the time was right to pull out the chipmunks. I wondered for a moment which to give to which child. If I let them choose, they tend to choose the same one and fight. I thought, I’ll avoid all that. I hid them behind my back.
I have a surprise for you, I said. Pick a hand. As I pulled my hands from behind my back, I thought I felt him go for the other hand the instant before I gave them each their own chipmunk. I chose to attribute his lack of enthusiasm to the fever.
Knowing that I knew doesn't exactly help.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Letting Kate speak for me
Suspended in Gaffa
by Kate Bush (who has provided me years of mentorship of which she is comnpletely unaware)
Out in the garden
There's half of a heaven,
And we're only bluffing.
We're not ones for busting through walls,
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
He's gonna wangle
A way to get out of it.
She's an excuse
And a witness won't talk when he's called.
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
(I want it all) *
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
"I caught a glimpse of a god, all shining and bright."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo *
Can I have it all.
I try to get nearer,
But as it gets clearer
There's something appears in the way,
It's a plank in me eye,
With a camel
Who's trying to get through it,
Am I doing it?
Can I have it all now?
(I want it all) *
I pull out the plank and say
"Thank ye for yanking me back *
To the fact that there's
Always something to distract."
But sometimes it's hard
To know if I'm doing it right.
Can I have it all now? *
(I want it all) *
Can I have it all now?
(I want it all) *
Can I have it all?
(I want it all) *
I can't have it all. *
"We all have a dream...maybe."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you,
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo
Can I have it all.
I won't open boxes
That I am told not to.
I'm not a Pandora.
I'm much more a like a
That girl in the mirror.
Between you and me
She don't stand a chance of getting anywhere
(I want it all) *
Not anywhere at all
(I want it all)) *
No, not a thing.
(I want it all) *
She can't have it all.
"Mother, where are the angels? I'm scared of the changes."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you *
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud,
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo *
Can I have it all now? *
I hope you'll check out the song at http://tinysong.com/eWYy
by Kate Bush (who has provided me years of mentorship of which she is comnpletely unaware)
Out in the garden
There's half of a heaven,
And we're only bluffing.
We're not ones for busting through walls,
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
He's gonna wangle
A way to get out of it.
She's an excuse
And a witness won't talk when he's called.
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
(I want it all) *
We can't have it all.
(I want it all) *
"I caught a glimpse of a god, all shining and bright."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo *
Can I have it all.
I try to get nearer,
But as it gets clearer
There's something appears in the way,
It's a plank in me eye,
With a camel
Who's trying to get through it,
Am I doing it?
Can I have it all now?
(I want it all) *
I pull out the plank and say
"Thank ye for yanking me back *
To the fact that there's
Always something to distract."
But sometimes it's hard
To know if I'm doing it right.
Can I have it all now? *
(I want it all) *
Can I have it all now?
(I want it all) *
Can I have it all?
(I want it all) *
I can't have it all. *
"We all have a dream...maybe."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you,
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo
Can I have it all.
I won't open boxes
That I am told not to.
I'm not a Pandora.
I'm much more a like a
That girl in the mirror.
Between you and me
She don't stand a chance of getting anywhere
(I want it all) *
Not anywhere at all
(I want it all)) *
No, not a thing.
(I want it all) *
She can't have it all.
"Mother, where are the angels? I'm scared of the changes."
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud.
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you *
Suddenly my feet are feet of mud,
It all goes slo-mo.
I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not 'til I'm ready for you, *
Not 'til I'm ready for you hoo hoo-oo-oo *
Can I have it all now? *
I hope you'll check out the song at http://tinysong.com/eWYy
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Instant Presence (another Bad Mom post)
A few weeks ago I gave my kids a tool. Sometimes I've thought of it as a weapon. It's changed our relationship.
I work hard at parenting, especially since it draws on two of my glaring natural deficiencies - patience and calm. I'm often a great parent, sometimes exceptionally incredible, and occasionally, I'm Monster Mom.
Monster Mom has HAD IT. NO MORE. THAT'S IT. ENOUGH!
She yells. Yes, I do. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I growl GRRRR and sometimes I roar AAAAARRRGGGH!
Even the most deviant, defiant of children may find themselves terrified, in over their heads, past a line they didn't understand but soon will.
I can hang my head in shame. I can apologize. But I can never take back the video of my face, distorted and angry and flying at them, that they will carry in a special place in their subconscious to remind them that there is something about them that is unlovable.
The last time it happened, a few weeks ago, I talked with each one later that night. It went essentially the same with each.
Mommy was pretty mad, huh?
Yeah.
A little scary?
(silence)
Maybe a little?
...yeah.
I'm sorry.
...
I love you, even when I'm mad.
Yeah.
Sometimes when I'm mad, I forget to be loving.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
...
Next time, if mommy yells or you feel afraid, could you help me?
...
Next time if mommy yells, you could say "Mommy, you love me!!" (I exaggerated and stretched this out so it was a bit pathetic and funny)
(laughs)
Can you say that back? I'm monster mom and I'm yelling at you "stop doing that!" What can you say?
... Mommy, you LOOOOVVVE me!!
We practiced a few more times. I wondered what would happen. Here's what happened.
The very next day, I was getting upset with the pace. I'd been sharp, increasingly impatient, and finally, exasperated. I repeated an order for the tenth time with full vehemence, and Blaise's little face crumpled into tears. He hiccuped a few times, stuttering over the words, and out burst an accusation and question, "Mommy, you LOVE me!"
Instant presence. I was not angry, upset, anxious about anything except what he needed in that moment. "Of course I love you!" I rushed to him, hugged him close. Sabine watched from her chair a few feet away.
Later that same day, I snapped at Sabine. "Mommy, you LOVE me!" she cried, giving voice to all humanity's primal need. My heart opened.
Okay, so you get all that, but you're thinking - that's going to get old really fast. Maybe you aren't. But that's what I was thinking. After a day or two of "mommy, you LOVE me" thrown out for everything from a "no" to candy to an admonishment for impoliteness, I started to wonder.
But here's the thing. Every time they said it, the truth is that I've been starting to get impatient, upset, irritated. Every time. I may have been technically correct and they may have been misbehaving, but my tone and my approach were not as respectful as they could have been. And taking 4 seconds before continuing the learning moment to smile, look the child in the eyes and say "yes, I DO love you," has helped me get the outcome and message across every time.
So it does kind of get on my nerves, because I have to face myself every time. It's been such good practice.
Two more things.
1) I worried this is putting my responsibilities for my behaviour on my kids. Maybe a little, but my observation is that it actually empowers them, gives them permission to call me on my bad behaviour in a safe way. I must never, never betray it.
2) This morning, Blaise and I had a huge blow out. Or, he blew, I mostly held it together, with cracks and chinks where the worst showed through. We worked it out. We moved on. And then...
Tonight, after I told him a story and I lay down for the "big hug," he kissed the top of my head, put his hand on my head and said, "Mom, I love you. I love you even when I'm mad. Mom, when I'm yelling at you, you could say, "Blaise, you LOVE me."
And I said, that's such a great idea. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
I work hard at parenting, especially since it draws on two of my glaring natural deficiencies - patience and calm. I'm often a great parent, sometimes exceptionally incredible, and occasionally, I'm Monster Mom.
Monster Mom has HAD IT. NO MORE. THAT'S IT. ENOUGH!
She yells. Yes, I do. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I growl GRRRR and sometimes I roar AAAAARRRGGGH!
Even the most deviant, defiant of children may find themselves terrified, in over their heads, past a line they didn't understand but soon will.
I can hang my head in shame. I can apologize. But I can never take back the video of my face, distorted and angry and flying at them, that they will carry in a special place in their subconscious to remind them that there is something about them that is unlovable.
The last time it happened, a few weeks ago, I talked with each one later that night. It went essentially the same with each.
Mommy was pretty mad, huh?
Yeah.
A little scary?
(silence)
Maybe a little?
...yeah.
I'm sorry.
...
I love you, even when I'm mad.
Yeah.
Sometimes when I'm mad, I forget to be loving.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
...
Next time, if mommy yells or you feel afraid, could you help me?
...
Next time if mommy yells, you could say "Mommy, you love me!!" (I exaggerated and stretched this out so it was a bit pathetic and funny)
(laughs)
Can you say that back? I'm monster mom and I'm yelling at you "stop doing that!" What can you say?
... Mommy, you LOOOOVVVE me!!
We practiced a few more times. I wondered what would happen. Here's what happened.
The very next day, I was getting upset with the pace. I'd been sharp, increasingly impatient, and finally, exasperated. I repeated an order for the tenth time with full vehemence, and Blaise's little face crumpled into tears. He hiccuped a few times, stuttering over the words, and out burst an accusation and question, "Mommy, you LOVE me!"
Instant presence. I was not angry, upset, anxious about anything except what he needed in that moment. "Of course I love you!" I rushed to him, hugged him close. Sabine watched from her chair a few feet away.
Later that same day, I snapped at Sabine. "Mommy, you LOVE me!" she cried, giving voice to all humanity's primal need. My heart opened.
Okay, so you get all that, but you're thinking - that's going to get old really fast. Maybe you aren't. But that's what I was thinking. After a day or two of "mommy, you LOVE me" thrown out for everything from a "no" to candy to an admonishment for impoliteness, I started to wonder.
But here's the thing. Every time they said it, the truth is that I've been starting to get impatient, upset, irritated. Every time. I may have been technically correct and they may have been misbehaving, but my tone and my approach were not as respectful as they could have been. And taking 4 seconds before continuing the learning moment to smile, look the child in the eyes and say "yes, I DO love you," has helped me get the outcome and message across every time.
So it does kind of get on my nerves, because I have to face myself every time. It's been such good practice.
Two more things.
1) I worried this is putting my responsibilities for my behaviour on my kids. Maybe a little, but my observation is that it actually empowers them, gives them permission to call me on my bad behaviour in a safe way. I must never, never betray it.
2) This morning, Blaise and I had a huge blow out. Or, he blew, I mostly held it together, with cracks and chinks where the worst showed through. We worked it out. We moved on. And then...
Tonight, after I told him a story and I lay down for the "big hug," he kissed the top of my head, put his hand on my head and said, "Mom, I love you. I love you even when I'm mad. Mom, when I'm yelling at you, you could say, "Blaise, you LOVE me."
And I said, that's such a great idea. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Getaway
And I’m running, only a few strides ahead of my two captors. Dirt under my bare feet, lots of hard stings to ignore. She calls out,
Honey, why are you running?
He shouts,
We’re trying to keep you safe!
I stumble; they gain ground. His hands grapple my left shoulder, knocking me off kilter. Her fingers catch in my hair, yanking back my scalp. My foot catches a dip, I volley for balance, and they are on me. We are a heap of bodies on the ground.
We sit up clumsily in the dirt and glare at each other; an isosceles triangle of discontent. To my left, she brushes off her arms and head very gently, lovingly, as though she were her own prize pony. She wrinkles her nose at me, affects a teasing lilt with a put-on smile.
Where are you running to, anyway?
Where do you think you could possibly go that would be better than here?
The wind whips my hair into my eye. The sting! Through squinted, watering eyes I see the despair leaking out from behind her face. She knows she should let me go. She will die if she lets me go. Dusk progresses. She illusively recedes just slightly behind the thickening wall of dust. She shouts plaintively,
If you have to live here on this declining, dangerous rock for another 50 years or more, do you really want to risk this life?
Because at this point, it’s unlikely that things are going to get better than this. In fact, it’s very likely that…
Her words are garbled in the weather, but I hear them.
To my right, he shifts his weight and stands.
She's right.
Oh, surprise, surprise, you agree.
Not only are things not going to get better, they are likely to get worse
I’m tired, and damn it, he’s earned my belligerence. Yeah, yeah, what she said. Original.
His withering glace-by barely acknowledges my presence as his eyes and shoulders roll upward. He heaves a sigh, laces his voice with disdain and he lowers his eyes to meet mine, level.
So what are you going to do? Anything? If you were going to do something significant, you would have done it by now.
His words are one with the shards of dust pecking my face.
I look around. The wind sucks my breath and I can’t clearly see more than a dozen feet in any direction. Where we’ve come from is just visible – the shape of a house shining through advancing dusk. I start to feel afraid that if we don’t head back, we won’t find our way.
But I was running, I don’t want to go back.
They are both standing now; their stances betraying confidence in their combined capabilities. We’re all still a bit out of breath. She looks distracted and sad, but she often affects distraction to avoid being party to unpleasantness. He’s dead set on me, advancing to force me back or allow him closer.
I feel the need to defend myself.
What do you mean, “would have done it by now?” I’m not that old. I have at least 25 years of work left in me.
In that body? Besides, at the pace you’re going, you’ll surely be dead before you’ve had enough “development time” to make any big difference in the world.
He harrumphs in triumph, once again exposing the consequences of my undisciplined nature. The successful hit emboldens him, and he fires off a round.
Face it, you’re too slow. You meandered down paths when you should have picked a way and committed to it.
When you had perfectly adequate protectors to teach you how to be safe in the world you disdained them. You had to figure it all out for yourself.
You never achieved financial security – you’re one job away from a significant dip in lifestyle. You haven’t achieved ownership of your own time.
You’re thirty-eight years old and still only adequate at providing safety and protection for yourself, let alone all these other people you’ve acquired.
You had all that time, and you wasted it with your eyes closed, denying yourself in pursuit of comfort. Now, you’re soft. You’ll never be happy less comfortable and you’ll never have a big impact.
I let myself slump a bit. Encouraged, he continues,
You can’t understand meaning or consciousness with the tool you have –it’s a good brain, but come on. Get over it.
Settle in and do some work. Make whatever small contribution you can now and quit whining.
He’s right, of course. I feel defeated. I have no choice but to go back with them. His voice becomes a sing-song.
Accept where you are. Move in increments. Narrow your scope of influence. And you will be happy.
He’s exasperated with me. Resigned. But not angry. He looks a bit pathetic, his eyes running in the wind and his rough, red cheeks slightly sagging. He turns his palms upward to encourage trust.
I feel cautious, but I step toward him. His voice softens.
I know I drove you all those years with a sense of potential greatness, the capacity to affect wide-scale change, but it’s time to let that go. You didn’t work hard enough. You didn’t pay enough attention. The time is gone.
The best you can hope for now is to be an excellent mentor as you co-develop with your kids and work to stay ahead of them.
He is so serious, and his tone has become so soft and loving that I melt into his arms. He is a giant. He holds me firmly and awkwardly, inspiring my tender heart. Then he says,
I had high hopes for you once, but you know, you haven’t done too badly. Not bad at all. This can be a comfortable life.
As if in response, a gleefully musical, sardonic laugh, just a single exhalation of mirth, tickles behind my left ear. I whirl around, half-breaking our embrace. No one.
My heart beats faster. I am consumed, compelled by that laugh. I breathe deeply, and my lungs sting as the laugh’s pulsing, musical vibration pulls them more open, clamps them more closed. My ribs sing with the joy of true expansion.
I am left hungry, wanting. I close my eyes, shake my head.
I want to settle back into that big, comfortable hug but it’s awkward. I feel irritable. That stupid, sleek, right-on sexy laugh has lodged open a small part of my mind that says, hey, wait a minute.
Ever-alert, she sees me falter and instantly we’re forehead-to-forehead, her arms wrapped around my shoulders and her soft, soft fingers under my hair, playing with the tiny strands at my nape. Her breath is warm, sweet strawberries in spring. In all the world there is only Me and She. Security radiates from her in warm, cooling waves.
Shhhh, She guides me to the ground and crawls behind me, then sidles up until her legs and arms are around me, her torso pressed to my back, her chin resting softly on my head. She is bigger than me, warmer than me. She is Beauty, and I Love her. She Loves me. Me, all flawed and broken. Me without more effort. Me. I am of her and safe to Be. When she speaks, her gentle, soothing tone delays her meaning.
There, now. You know he’s right.
Betrayal.
I stiffen.
Now, now, hear me out.
My ears ring with the wind. My strength ebbs and I drop my head. She gently catches my forehead in her two palms, her fingers massaging up into my hairline. I whimper
All this striving, for what? You thought it was money, and that certainly would have been nice, wouldn’t it?Freedom? But you didn’t find a path that led to money.
That’s okay, you did your best. You didn’t commit to a crazy path. You hedged, you balanced, you built effective contingencies, and you even made some bold moves to preserve yourself.
You’ve come so far, and you will be a good wife and mother. Because of you, this man and these children will reach heights they could not without you. The power of your energy concentrated on this little family could change the world, you know.
Her forgiveness and acceptance are a balm. Then she says,
I’m proud of you.
The laugh that startles my right ear rings with melancholic mirth and unspoken accusations of half-kept promises. My heart strains forward as though the sound calls my absolute essence. I am over-the-moon, beyond in-love with the unseen laugher, who is my only true joy and reason. And is not here.
Her embrace feels suddenly constraining, her radiant protection thickening into cloying stickiness. I notice how hard the ground feels under me, the wind scraping my numb hands, the drip of my nose. I pull away from her and stagger to my feet.
I feel incensed. Emboldened, I want to whip like the wind. I'm so mad I could spit, and I do. The wind blows it back and I don’t care. I'm livid that the voice dares make itself known this way, only to retreat. But I turn it on them.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? What makes you so sure that I don’t have greatness in me? I can do this. Maybe I can do it all!
She looks up at me, surprised and puzzled. He just shakes his head sadly and holds his stance, ready to take me back by force if necessary.
I look around me. All is chaos of wind and dust, but through it the shape of the house still beckons with its light and its peace.
Then I hear, reverberating, joyous and without doubt of welcome,
I’m calling!
My heart finds its rhythm in the resonance of this voice. It consumes me. The voice is mine, inhabiting and speaking in every cell of my body. The world closes into a pinprick the size of the universe and I hear only,
The power of you can light all the lamps in the world.
Infused with tenderest appreciation, urgency and sincerity, tinged with admiration, I cannot mistake these words for idle compliment. They feel like a hard-won message, truth wrested through trial and offered to me as a token of most devoted love.
The wind abruptly switches direction, throwing me off balance. The voice becomes an urgent whisper emanating from my core, through my organs, muscles, bone, flesh, aura and bursting into the world,
I love you. Pay attention.
The wind drops. The residue of that voice coats and tingles my skin, but I hear nothing. And then, shuffling. My former captors watch me, warily.
Dust still mills around the ground, but the air is clear. Dusk sits on the cusp of night, but I can see the details of my house, and shadows of buildings and activity in the distance.
I walk forward, and throw an arm over each of their shoulders, hugging them to me. They are smaller than me, and seem reassured by my presence.
We walk back to the house together.
Honey, why are you running?
He shouts,
We’re trying to keep you safe!
I stumble; they gain ground. His hands grapple my left shoulder, knocking me off kilter. Her fingers catch in my hair, yanking back my scalp. My foot catches a dip, I volley for balance, and they are on me. We are a heap of bodies on the ground.
We sit up clumsily in the dirt and glare at each other; an isosceles triangle of discontent. To my left, she brushes off her arms and head very gently, lovingly, as though she were her own prize pony. She wrinkles her nose at me, affects a teasing lilt with a put-on smile.
Where are you running to, anyway?
Where do you think you could possibly go that would be better than here?
The wind whips my hair into my eye. The sting! Through squinted, watering eyes I see the despair leaking out from behind her face. She knows she should let me go. She will die if she lets me go. Dusk progresses. She illusively recedes just slightly behind the thickening wall of dust. She shouts plaintively,
If you have to live here on this declining, dangerous rock for another 50 years or more, do you really want to risk this life?
Because at this point, it’s unlikely that things are going to get better than this. In fact, it’s very likely that…
Her words are garbled in the weather, but I hear them.
To my right, he shifts his weight and stands.
She's right.
Oh, surprise, surprise, you agree.
Not only are things not going to get better, they are likely to get worse
I’m tired, and damn it, he’s earned my belligerence. Yeah, yeah, what she said. Original.
His withering glace-by barely acknowledges my presence as his eyes and shoulders roll upward. He heaves a sigh, laces his voice with disdain and he lowers his eyes to meet mine, level.
So what are you going to do? Anything? If you were going to do something significant, you would have done it by now.
His words are one with the shards of dust pecking my face.
I look around. The wind sucks my breath and I can’t clearly see more than a dozen feet in any direction. Where we’ve come from is just visible – the shape of a house shining through advancing dusk. I start to feel afraid that if we don’t head back, we won’t find our way.
But I was running, I don’t want to go back.
They are both standing now; their stances betraying confidence in their combined capabilities. We’re all still a bit out of breath. She looks distracted and sad, but she often affects distraction to avoid being party to unpleasantness. He’s dead set on me, advancing to force me back or allow him closer.
I feel the need to defend myself.
What do you mean, “would have done it by now?” I’m not that old. I have at least 25 years of work left in me.
In that body? Besides, at the pace you’re going, you’ll surely be dead before you’ve had enough “development time” to make any big difference in the world.
He harrumphs in triumph, once again exposing the consequences of my undisciplined nature. The successful hit emboldens him, and he fires off a round.
Face it, you’re too slow. You meandered down paths when you should have picked a way and committed to it.
When you had perfectly adequate protectors to teach you how to be safe in the world you disdained them. You had to figure it all out for yourself.
You never achieved financial security – you’re one job away from a significant dip in lifestyle. You haven’t achieved ownership of your own time.
You’re thirty-eight years old and still only adequate at providing safety and protection for yourself, let alone all these other people you’ve acquired.
You had all that time, and you wasted it with your eyes closed, denying yourself in pursuit of comfort. Now, you’re soft. You’ll never be happy less comfortable and you’ll never have a big impact.
I let myself slump a bit. Encouraged, he continues,
You can’t understand meaning or consciousness with the tool you have –it’s a good brain, but come on. Get over it.
Settle in and do some work. Make whatever small contribution you can now and quit whining.
He’s right, of course. I feel defeated. I have no choice but to go back with them. His voice becomes a sing-song.
Accept where you are. Move in increments. Narrow your scope of influence. And you will be happy.
He’s exasperated with me. Resigned. But not angry. He looks a bit pathetic, his eyes running in the wind and his rough, red cheeks slightly sagging. He turns his palms upward to encourage trust.
I feel cautious, but I step toward him. His voice softens.
I know I drove you all those years with a sense of potential greatness, the capacity to affect wide-scale change, but it’s time to let that go. You didn’t work hard enough. You didn’t pay enough attention. The time is gone.
The best you can hope for now is to be an excellent mentor as you co-develop with your kids and work to stay ahead of them.
He is so serious, and his tone has become so soft and loving that I melt into his arms. He is a giant. He holds me firmly and awkwardly, inspiring my tender heart. Then he says,
I had high hopes for you once, but you know, you haven’t done too badly. Not bad at all. This can be a comfortable life.
As if in response, a gleefully musical, sardonic laugh, just a single exhalation of mirth, tickles behind my left ear. I whirl around, half-breaking our embrace. No one.
My heart beats faster. I am consumed, compelled by that laugh. I breathe deeply, and my lungs sting as the laugh’s pulsing, musical vibration pulls them more open, clamps them more closed. My ribs sing with the joy of true expansion.
I am left hungry, wanting. I close my eyes, shake my head.
I want to settle back into that big, comfortable hug but it’s awkward. I feel irritable. That stupid, sleek, right-on sexy laugh has lodged open a small part of my mind that says, hey, wait a minute.
Ever-alert, she sees me falter and instantly we’re forehead-to-forehead, her arms wrapped around my shoulders and her soft, soft fingers under my hair, playing with the tiny strands at my nape. Her breath is warm, sweet strawberries in spring. In all the world there is only Me and She. Security radiates from her in warm, cooling waves.
Shhhh, She guides me to the ground and crawls behind me, then sidles up until her legs and arms are around me, her torso pressed to my back, her chin resting softly on my head. She is bigger than me, warmer than me. She is Beauty, and I Love her. She Loves me. Me, all flawed and broken. Me without more effort. Me. I am of her and safe to Be. When she speaks, her gentle, soothing tone delays her meaning.
There, now. You know he’s right.
Betrayal.
I stiffen.
Now, now, hear me out.
My ears ring with the wind. My strength ebbs and I drop my head. She gently catches my forehead in her two palms, her fingers massaging up into my hairline. I whimper
All this striving, for what? You thought it was money, and that certainly would have been nice, wouldn’t it?Freedom? But you didn’t find a path that led to money.
That’s okay, you did your best. You didn’t commit to a crazy path. You hedged, you balanced, you built effective contingencies, and you even made some bold moves to preserve yourself.
You’ve come so far, and you will be a good wife and mother. Because of you, this man and these children will reach heights they could not without you. The power of your energy concentrated on this little family could change the world, you know.
Her forgiveness and acceptance are a balm. Then she says,
I’m proud of you.
The laugh that startles my right ear rings with melancholic mirth and unspoken accusations of half-kept promises. My heart strains forward as though the sound calls my absolute essence. I am over-the-moon, beyond in-love with the unseen laugher, who is my only true joy and reason. And is not here.
Her embrace feels suddenly constraining, her radiant protection thickening into cloying stickiness. I notice how hard the ground feels under me, the wind scraping my numb hands, the drip of my nose. I pull away from her and stagger to my feet.
I feel incensed. Emboldened, I want to whip like the wind. I'm so mad I could spit, and I do. The wind blows it back and I don’t care. I'm livid that the voice dares make itself known this way, only to retreat. But I turn it on them.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? What makes you so sure that I don’t have greatness in me? I can do this. Maybe I can do it all!
She looks up at me, surprised and puzzled. He just shakes his head sadly and holds his stance, ready to take me back by force if necessary.
I look around me. All is chaos of wind and dust, but through it the shape of the house still beckons with its light and its peace.
Then I hear, reverberating, joyous and without doubt of welcome,
I’m calling!
My heart finds its rhythm in the resonance of this voice. It consumes me. The voice is mine, inhabiting and speaking in every cell of my body. The world closes into a pinprick the size of the universe and I hear only,
The power of you can light all the lamps in the world.
Infused with tenderest appreciation, urgency and sincerity, tinged with admiration, I cannot mistake these words for idle compliment. They feel like a hard-won message, truth wrested through trial and offered to me as a token of most devoted love.
The wind abruptly switches direction, throwing me off balance. The voice becomes an urgent whisper emanating from my core, through my organs, muscles, bone, flesh, aura and bursting into the world,
I love you. Pay attention.
The wind drops. The residue of that voice coats and tingles my skin, but I hear nothing. And then, shuffling. My former captors watch me, warily.
Dust still mills around the ground, but the air is clear. Dusk sits on the cusp of night, but I can see the details of my house, and shadows of buildings and activity in the distance.
I walk forward, and throw an arm over each of their shoulders, hugging them to me. They are smaller than me, and seem reassured by my presence.
We walk back to the house together.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Discipline & payoff
My children are playing together, building a creative field to meet minds. This recent phenomenon cannot be taken for granted – any second, it could deteriorate. I listen for the signs: over-excitement, the same phrase repeated several times with increasing intensity, and words like can’t, don’t, but. Those words infect and break apart their shared field. When both have willingness, they often overcome them, so I'll avoid intervening.
So far, there is only one word they have yet to overcome for themselves: No. When I hear No, I don’t delay. Left to its destructive nature, No can turn a normal day into a nightmare of recurring blowups, touchy feelings and general impatience. The No virus can infect moods for hours. It must be diffused. As fast as I can, I inject a question. A question depressurizes the vacuum No creates. It could be any question. Most often, I ask some variation of “what do you need?”
Our family engages in ongoing practice to remind and help each other keep negating words out of our home and, eventually, thinking. It’s not just semantics – it’s being more honest. Negating words mean nothing. Absence. Their only meaning is not being what they negate. Naming that factor creates opportunity to deal with it. Without the tool of a negating word, the mind must look a little further to find and name what has been negated, and communicate it.
Here are the words we focus on primarily:
Don’t: I’d prefer
Can’t: Having a hard time
But: And
Shouldn’t: Could (should also becomes could)
Want: I’d like
Not: Might be
Hate: I wish
No: I need or I’m afraid or Why
No is the most difficult. Sometimes the answer is no. In that case, we use it appropriately by attaching an "I need" explanation and, whenever possible, and helping to identify options that could be yes. We expect the children to use No that way as well – I’d say their capabilities are close to my own.
This discipline has helped our family enormously. When I correct my children from this point of view, I take responsibility to let them know what is expected, instead of being left to decipher expectations from what is not permitted. I harbour great hope that enforcing this discipline now (they are now 2 & 4), when they don’t know better than to adopt it, can help them avoid many of the thinking traps that held me imprisoned as a child. (I require this kind of long-term optimism – it keeps me going, so please avoid poking a pin in my balloon).
Today, I've been writing for an unprecedented 16 minutes, and there has not been one blow up between them. I feel the shackles of baby house arrest beginning to loosen. The discipline is paying off. Spring is coming, my babies are becoming kids, and maybe, just maybe, I can steal back a bit of space for me me me. Soon, soon, soon.
(as I typed that, I heard them trampling closer, and they surrounded me, shouting over each other happily to share their game, each trying to hold my eyes, absently clawing each other out of the way. Back to it, mom)
So far, there is only one word they have yet to overcome for themselves: No. When I hear No, I don’t delay. Left to its destructive nature, No can turn a normal day into a nightmare of recurring blowups, touchy feelings and general impatience. The No virus can infect moods for hours. It must be diffused. As fast as I can, I inject a question. A question depressurizes the vacuum No creates. It could be any question. Most often, I ask some variation of “what do you need?”
Our family engages in ongoing practice to remind and help each other keep negating words out of our home and, eventually, thinking. It’s not just semantics – it’s being more honest. Negating words mean nothing. Absence. Their only meaning is not being what they negate. Naming that factor creates opportunity to deal with it. Without the tool of a negating word, the mind must look a little further to find and name what has been negated, and communicate it.
Here are the words we focus on primarily:
Don’t: I’d prefer
Can’t: Having a hard time
But: And
Shouldn’t: Could (should also becomes could)
Want: I’d like
Not: Might be
Hate: I wish
No: I need or I’m afraid or Why
No is the most difficult. Sometimes the answer is no. In that case, we use it appropriately by attaching an "I need" explanation and, whenever possible, and helping to identify options that could be yes. We expect the children to use No that way as well – I’d say their capabilities are close to my own.
This discipline has helped our family enormously. When I correct my children from this point of view, I take responsibility to let them know what is expected, instead of being left to decipher expectations from what is not permitted. I harbour great hope that enforcing this discipline now (they are now 2 & 4), when they don’t know better than to adopt it, can help them avoid many of the thinking traps that held me imprisoned as a child. (I require this kind of long-term optimism – it keeps me going, so please avoid poking a pin in my balloon).
Today, I've been writing for an unprecedented 16 minutes, and there has not been one blow up between them. I feel the shackles of baby house arrest beginning to loosen. The discipline is paying off. Spring is coming, my babies are becoming kids, and maybe, just maybe, I can steal back a bit of space for me me me. Soon, soon, soon.
(as I typed that, I heard them trampling closer, and they surrounded me, shouting over each other happily to share their game, each trying to hold my eyes, absently clawing each other out of the way. Back to it, mom)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Easier
Banish facts to make our lies true
Limit facts and understanding
Trust that it's all for good
Fail to try
Fail to try to see
What will make me change me (please don't ask me)
Easier, easier
To join our arms and march as one
Our eyes closed
Our eyes are closed yet we
We guide each other
Trust it will get us somewhere
Trust it will get us there (where?)
Anywhere
Anywhere that it's easier
Easier, easier
(when I have the melody captured I'll see how to share it here)
Limit facts and understanding
Trust that it's all for good
Fail to try
Fail to try to see
What will make me change me (please don't ask me)
Easier, easier
To join our arms and march as one
Our eyes closed
Our eyes are closed yet we
We guide each other
Trust it will get us somewhere
Trust it will get us there (where?)
Anywhere
Anywhere that it's easier
Easier, easier
(when I have the melody captured I'll see how to share it here)
Friday, March 12, 2010
I'm no poet (Déjà Vu)
If contentment seems a worthy goal
You really should pursue it
To me it feels so passive
The wind just blows right through it
No sheep am I
Content to find contentment as an end
That’s what they want, it’s harder
To tell enemy from friend.
We all are one, I’ll hold that true
If it eases conversation
But one of what? Why should you know?
Or assume some good intention?
If all is order, all is chaos
We can only muddle through
Choice by choice I pick my way
Perpetual déjà vu
You really should pursue it
To me it feels so passive
The wind just blows right through it
No sheep am I
Content to find contentment as an end
That’s what they want, it’s harder
To tell enemy from friend.
We all are one, I’ll hold that true
If it eases conversation
But one of what? Why should you know?
Or assume some good intention?
If all is order, all is chaos
We can only muddle through
Choice by choice I pick my way
Perpetual déjà vu
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sabotage
I put the entire cookie in my mouth.
It almost fills my cavity – large, intact, foreign – and my heart speeds against my ribs as I close my lips. Manifest anticipation.
I close my eyes.
I crush it gradually, my teeth grinding layer by layer to stretch out the stimulation of crunching and flood my mouth with intense, pervasive taste. I press my tongue against my palate and suck, slowly undulating the flavours toward my throat, delaying and extending the moment of swallow. Melting chocolate chips are the leaping joy of running salmon in a river of satisfaction. My head buzzes, I taste with my entire body, nothing else exists.
And then it’s done, only the sticky-sweet aftertaste coating my tongue and tingeing my saliva. My breathing slows. My essence settles heavily into my cells.
For this moment, at least, a short respite from anxiety.
Except, it's not. Because immediately I'm asking myself, why did you do that?
Sabotage.
It almost fills my cavity – large, intact, foreign – and my heart speeds against my ribs as I close my lips. Manifest anticipation.
I close my eyes.
I crush it gradually, my teeth grinding layer by layer to stretch out the stimulation of crunching and flood my mouth with intense, pervasive taste. I press my tongue against my palate and suck, slowly undulating the flavours toward my throat, delaying and extending the moment of swallow. Melting chocolate chips are the leaping joy of running salmon in a river of satisfaction. My head buzzes, I taste with my entire body, nothing else exists.
And then it’s done, only the sticky-sweet aftertaste coating my tongue and tingeing my saliva. My breathing slows. My essence settles heavily into my cells.
For this moment, at least, a short respite from anxiety.
Except, it's not. Because immediately I'm asking myself, why did you do that?
Sabotage.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Free-flow
As some of my twitter friends will know, I’m writing a novel. My tongue is slightly in cheek as I state that, since my writing is more like collecting. I rarely have more than 20 minutes in a row to realize I can go write, get to my computer, have a sudden spark of brilliance, type it fast, wish I could edit, and hit save before running back to active duty. Most of my writing is tweet-like in nature, whether or not I post it to twitter.
But one thing I can do in a short burst is blog. I find essence in writing about ideas, exploring and analysing themes outside the story of my shoestring novel. When I get a chance to write, I look back over my snapshot thoughts for inspiration, and often I get a page or two cranked out in my 20 minute opportunity.
I spend blog time exploring themes that appear in my fiction. So far, the themes I’ve blogged appear in my life and experience as well my story, but as I continue down this writing path, I find it difficult and awkward to qualify what is me and what is stretched and kneaded by the context of my first-person fiction. There are times when I’m not even sure where the line is. As a writer I’m fascinated with, and inspired by, the swirl of the universal when I hit my stride.
Aren’t we all a bit of a fiction, here online? We can be our best spirits if we choose, because we have the time to carefully consider what we say and think. We can find our points of connection anonymously and reach out with little fear, since rejection in this forum stings less than in real life. Nothing I blog could ever capture the fullness of my life and experience – it’s altered even by the writing. If I play with it, turn the kaleidoscope slightly or amplify the volume a little, am I betraying the trust of my readers?
I need to know, because I’m reaching a point with my blogging where I’d like to explore more, play a bit with the lines of thinking from a more story-oriented context. I feel that I can only write what is in me to write. Still, it’s possible that some of what I write is outside my immediate, right-now experience, even when written in the present tense, first person. I might be internalizing someone’s story as I imagine it from my own context. I might be exploring a realization I had years ago to relive it for my work. It all sounds like me, because it all is me, but it’s also more than right-now me. Does that bother you?
I guess I’m asking permission to blog in a free-flow between “reality” and “fiction,” though both terms remain relative. Do I need permission? No, but I’d feel freer if I had it.
But one thing I can do in a short burst is blog. I find essence in writing about ideas, exploring and analysing themes outside the story of my shoestring novel. When I get a chance to write, I look back over my snapshot thoughts for inspiration, and often I get a page or two cranked out in my 20 minute opportunity.
I spend blog time exploring themes that appear in my fiction. So far, the themes I’ve blogged appear in my life and experience as well my story, but as I continue down this writing path, I find it difficult and awkward to qualify what is me and what is stretched and kneaded by the context of my first-person fiction. There are times when I’m not even sure where the line is. As a writer I’m fascinated with, and inspired by, the swirl of the universal when I hit my stride.
Aren’t we all a bit of a fiction, here online? We can be our best spirits if we choose, because we have the time to carefully consider what we say and think. We can find our points of connection anonymously and reach out with little fear, since rejection in this forum stings less than in real life. Nothing I blog could ever capture the fullness of my life and experience – it’s altered even by the writing. If I play with it, turn the kaleidoscope slightly or amplify the volume a little, am I betraying the trust of my readers?
I need to know, because I’m reaching a point with my blogging where I’d like to explore more, play a bit with the lines of thinking from a more story-oriented context. I feel that I can only write what is in me to write. Still, it’s possible that some of what I write is outside my immediate, right-now experience, even when written in the present tense, first person. I might be internalizing someone’s story as I imagine it from my own context. I might be exploring a realization I had years ago to relive it for my work. It all sounds like me, because it all is me, but it’s also more than right-now me. Does that bother you?
I guess I’m asking permission to blog in a free-flow between “reality” and “fiction,” though both terms remain relative. Do I need permission? No, but I’d feel freer if I had it.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Control and the Journey So Far
Control is important.
We must all practice and strengthen behavioural control until we can keep emotional responses from resulting in behaviour that harms ourselves or others. From there, further development amounts to electives in the program. Depending on the level of influence a person desires, required control levels slide on the scale. Increased influence generally results in increased prosperity. Many people devote their lives to applying behavioural controls that permit them to meet expectations that may or may not deliver what matters to them.
I have, for the most part, achieved a level of behavioural control that lets me have an above-average level of influence when among fellow humans in the social economic environment. Without being charismatic, I still inspire serious consideration. My lifestyle is not extravagant, but I never wonder if I can pay my mortgage or buy food.
I crave significant improvements – smoothness and grace I haven’t mastered, the convenience that more money could buy. But when I consider my energy and time, and what matters to me, I feel that I can focus on incremental improvements over time, and devote more energy to higher leverage practice.
Over a period of about ten years, I deliberately reduced the amount of energy I spent on behavioural controls through experimentation and practice. My goal was to liberate resources and focus them on thought controls. I believed (and continue to believe) that strong, permeable and flexible thought frameworks will take me closer to merging my behaviours with my pure self, reducing the need for active behavioural control by providing effective alternative pathways for my attention and energy to flow when churned by unreasonable emotions.
I focused on things like presence, negative language, identifying assumptions and judgments, stretching my imagination, seeking myself in others and others in myself, compassion and forgiveness. Thought control and the frameworks I built supported me to start exploration and healing at the source of unproductive thought patterns without damaging my tender self too much. Actively practicing behaviour and thought control reduced the effort required over time, like any practice will. Healing further supported me by leveling the extremity of my responses.
About five years ago, I felt I had cleared about 84.5% of my worst emotional blockages (I over-estimated). The ones left require a lot more time and energy to tackle, and they don’t get in my way very often. When I considered my energy and time, and what matters to me, I felt that I could focus on incremental improvements over time and turn my energy to higher-leverage practice. I felt ready to mentor. I decided to have children.
Bringing my children into this life showed me that my behaviour controls may work fine in limited settings, but still need a lot of work when pushed hard. I resisted this backwards movement, resented having to redirect my resources back to basic behaviour and survival learning to meet the increased expectations. It’s just not as much fun for me, and my ego likes to think I'm beyond it. I felt pretty petulant about the whole thing. And then I chose different thinking.
I had developed my thought frameworks to the point where they were ready to support accelerated behavioural and thought learning once I decided to flow with the need. I am not the parent I want to be. But four years in, I feel that I have achieved an above-average level. I require more practice and control than I like, but when I consider my energy and time, and what matters to me, I feel it's time to turn a larger portion of my energy to higher-level practice. I feel compelled to do so for myself and the world, and these maturing humans I'm mentoring will demand it. The problem is, the next level isn't about control.
Learning what that means may take the rest of my life.
We must all practice and strengthen behavioural control until we can keep emotional responses from resulting in behaviour that harms ourselves or others. From there, further development amounts to electives in the program. Depending on the level of influence a person desires, required control levels slide on the scale. Increased influence generally results in increased prosperity. Many people devote their lives to applying behavioural controls that permit them to meet expectations that may or may not deliver what matters to them.
I have, for the most part, achieved a level of behavioural control that lets me have an above-average level of influence when among fellow humans in the social economic environment. Without being charismatic, I still inspire serious consideration. My lifestyle is not extravagant, but I never wonder if I can pay my mortgage or buy food.
I crave significant improvements – smoothness and grace I haven’t mastered, the convenience that more money could buy. But when I consider my energy and time, and what matters to me, I feel that I can focus on incremental improvements over time, and devote more energy to higher leverage practice.
Over a period of about ten years, I deliberately reduced the amount of energy I spent on behavioural controls through experimentation and practice. My goal was to liberate resources and focus them on thought controls. I believed (and continue to believe) that strong, permeable and flexible thought frameworks will take me closer to merging my behaviours with my pure self, reducing the need for active behavioural control by providing effective alternative pathways for my attention and energy to flow when churned by unreasonable emotions.
I focused on things like presence, negative language, identifying assumptions and judgments, stretching my imagination, seeking myself in others and others in myself, compassion and forgiveness. Thought control and the frameworks I built supported me to start exploration and healing at the source of unproductive thought patterns without damaging my tender self too much. Actively practicing behaviour and thought control reduced the effort required over time, like any practice will. Healing further supported me by leveling the extremity of my responses.
About five years ago, I felt I had cleared about 84.5% of my worst emotional blockages (I over-estimated). The ones left require a lot more time and energy to tackle, and they don’t get in my way very often. When I considered my energy and time, and what matters to me, I felt that I could focus on incremental improvements over time and turn my energy to higher-leverage practice. I felt ready to mentor. I decided to have children.
Bringing my children into this life showed me that my behaviour controls may work fine in limited settings, but still need a lot of work when pushed hard. I resisted this backwards movement, resented having to redirect my resources back to basic behaviour and survival learning to meet the increased expectations. It’s just not as much fun for me, and my ego likes to think I'm beyond it. I felt pretty petulant about the whole thing. And then I chose different thinking.
I had developed my thought frameworks to the point where they were ready to support accelerated behavioural and thought learning once I decided to flow with the need. I am not the parent I want to be. But four years in, I feel that I have achieved an above-average level. I require more practice and control than I like, but when I consider my energy and time, and what matters to me, I feel it's time to turn a larger portion of my energy to higher-level practice. I feel compelled to do so for myself and the world, and these maturing humans I'm mentoring will demand it. The problem is, the next level isn't about control.
Learning what that means may take the rest of my life.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
I'm not fat
I’m not fat.
I’m stating this up front because I can’t stand the thought of all the filters clicking into place, dulling your impressions of me through the lens of someone not quite in control. Someone with a self-imposed, somewhat pathetic, condition. Whether you feel pity, compassion, revulsion or nothing at all, I do not want you to think of me fat.
So, picture me if you will, strong, lean, capable. Carrying my body with the ease of one who has just what is needed. Light-footed, walking toward you with my eyes and smile wide open; our handshake becomes an embrace between friends.
Or picture me as I am.
How might others describe me if I weren’t in the room and, for some reason, needed describing? Heavier side of average? Keeping well under the circumstances? I think she looks fine? Or perhaps they would use other descriptive qualities: strong, intense, intelligent, attractive. Though those aren’t much help in picking me out of a crowd. Likely people would stick to safe features – long dark hair, blue eyes, about five-five, mid-30’s.
Size isn’t appropriate to discuss.
How do I see me? It depends on the day. Some days I look at the sagging skin of my battle-scarred mid-section with admiration that it’s not worse - like, wow, you grew two humans in there, grew yourself out to the size of a beach ball twice in 3 years – and now, not bad, considering. Some days I even manage to see an increased fullness as sexy, as long as I don’t look too closely at my thighs. Most days I manage to skip over self-hatred, through self-pity, and on to loving compassion in pretty quick succession.
But I'll tell you, there is a kernel at the centre that my can-do attitude can't reach. And it doesn’t take much to wake it up.
So yesterday it woke up. A casual tweet, humorously intended. And as I read it, I pictured a person I feel I’m getting to know, a person I admire, a person I know to be lovely and thin, dismissing me as a big fat slob. The comment wasn’t to me. It wasn’t about me. It wasn't intended to be judgmental. But in my own little kernel of fear, I believe it applies to me, and in the moment of reading, that belief burned.
My brain threw water on the flame frantically to prevent my fear of rejection heating into a gaseous state that can consume my whole being. I turned my thinking to the reasons for my unreasonably strong response, and found myself very impatient with them. And with myself that they are still there, lurking. Yes, yes. Am I not done with this yet?
The truth is, I’m almost okay with myself as I am, while gently and slowly working towards the body I want to inhabit – one that is strong, capable of doing what I need it to do without complaint. And, yes, one that is more beautiful to my eyes. Most days I don’t think twice about it, I just make one choice at a time based on what makes me feel healthier. And it's coming along.
What I’m definitely not okay with, when I let myself consider it, is how other people might see me. I’ve been heavier, I’ve been thinner, and everything in between. I have clothes in my closet from size 6 to size 14, not counting maternity wear. What I’ve discovered through personal experience is this – people, at least in business, take thin people more seriously. Fat is a symptom of weakness, lack of control, lack of discipline – a certain softness where firmness would be preferred. Unlike other addictions and many mental illnesses, fat is visible. It can be covered and minimized, but there is no hiding girth. It’s embarrassing. It’s private, but it’s on display for all to see. Heavier people make twice the effort to build half the respect. We could debate it, but that's my experience-based observation.
Since respect was my lifelong consolation prize for feeling too off-normal to inspire love, I still have a part of me that sees my weight as a real threat to my identity and my ability to connect with others. My fear triggers whenever something confirms my suspicion that polite conversation doesn’t reveal the true assessments by which I can be casually dismissed. Seeing myself on TV or even home video becomes torturous as I subject that poor girl to the judgments I build in my own mind for everyone else to hold. How much is real, how much is fear? I may never know.
What I do know is this – I am strong, capable, respected, loved and, yes, beautiful and sexy. Now, to penetrate that kernel of concentrated fear and neutralize it with that knowledge. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
I’m stating this up front because I can’t stand the thought of all the filters clicking into place, dulling your impressions of me through the lens of someone not quite in control. Someone with a self-imposed, somewhat pathetic, condition. Whether you feel pity, compassion, revulsion or nothing at all, I do not want you to think of me fat.
So, picture me if you will, strong, lean, capable. Carrying my body with the ease of one who has just what is needed. Light-footed, walking toward you with my eyes and smile wide open; our handshake becomes an embrace between friends.
Or picture me as I am.
How might others describe me if I weren’t in the room and, for some reason, needed describing? Heavier side of average? Keeping well under the circumstances? I think she looks fine? Or perhaps they would use other descriptive qualities: strong, intense, intelligent, attractive. Though those aren’t much help in picking me out of a crowd. Likely people would stick to safe features – long dark hair, blue eyes, about five-five, mid-30’s.
Size isn’t appropriate to discuss.
How do I see me? It depends on the day. Some days I look at the sagging skin of my battle-scarred mid-section with admiration that it’s not worse - like, wow, you grew two humans in there, grew yourself out to the size of a beach ball twice in 3 years – and now, not bad, considering. Some days I even manage to see an increased fullness as sexy, as long as I don’t look too closely at my thighs. Most days I manage to skip over self-hatred, through self-pity, and on to loving compassion in pretty quick succession.
But I'll tell you, there is a kernel at the centre that my can-do attitude can't reach. And it doesn’t take much to wake it up.
So yesterday it woke up. A casual tweet, humorously intended. And as I read it, I pictured a person I feel I’m getting to know, a person I admire, a person I know to be lovely and thin, dismissing me as a big fat slob. The comment wasn’t to me. It wasn’t about me. It wasn't intended to be judgmental. But in my own little kernel of fear, I believe it applies to me, and in the moment of reading, that belief burned.
My brain threw water on the flame frantically to prevent my fear of rejection heating into a gaseous state that can consume my whole being. I turned my thinking to the reasons for my unreasonably strong response, and found myself very impatient with them. And with myself that they are still there, lurking. Yes, yes. Am I not done with this yet?
The truth is, I’m almost okay with myself as I am, while gently and slowly working towards the body I want to inhabit – one that is strong, capable of doing what I need it to do without complaint. And, yes, one that is more beautiful to my eyes. Most days I don’t think twice about it, I just make one choice at a time based on what makes me feel healthier. And it's coming along.
What I’m definitely not okay with, when I let myself consider it, is how other people might see me. I’ve been heavier, I’ve been thinner, and everything in between. I have clothes in my closet from size 6 to size 14, not counting maternity wear. What I’ve discovered through personal experience is this – people, at least in business, take thin people more seriously. Fat is a symptom of weakness, lack of control, lack of discipline – a certain softness where firmness would be preferred. Unlike other addictions and many mental illnesses, fat is visible. It can be covered and minimized, but there is no hiding girth. It’s embarrassing. It’s private, but it’s on display for all to see. Heavier people make twice the effort to build half the respect. We could debate it, but that's my experience-based observation.
Since respect was my lifelong consolation prize for feeling too off-normal to inspire love, I still have a part of me that sees my weight as a real threat to my identity and my ability to connect with others. My fear triggers whenever something confirms my suspicion that polite conversation doesn’t reveal the true assessments by which I can be casually dismissed. Seeing myself on TV or even home video becomes torturous as I subject that poor girl to the judgments I build in my own mind for everyone else to hold. How much is real, how much is fear? I may never know.
What I do know is this – I am strong, capable, respected, loved and, yes, beautiful and sexy. Now, to penetrate that kernel of concentrated fear and neutralize it with that knowledge. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
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