Tag Archives: deep thoughts

Hot Links: Being a Grown-Up

11 Apr

For some reason, this week, I have been having a bad case of the Olds. I am not someone who lies about my age, I am proudly 42, but, blearrrrgh, I am feeling every second of those 42 years. Nothing fits right, my runs are kinda slow and herky-jerky, it seems like my grays show up faster, might I have arthritis in my left middle finger (and yes, I am flipping it off), I feel like I look tiiiiiiiiired and I am worried-beyond-worried about all the super bad news lately. (Well not really about North Korea, but they are all over the news cycle!)

But because I am 42 (only!), I am fine, I got this, life will go on, and I know how to not slip into a Pit of Despair Over Things I Cannot Control. I am actually happy and content and inspired. And I totally made this pound cake last weekend for my outlaw step-daughter and BF.

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That said, onward with some random Hot Links from all over that spectrum of 42-year perspective.

Hat tip again to Kim France for linking to these over-4o fashion bloggers.

Looking forward to my summer soundtrack.

They have heard of Roe v. Wade right? Get off women, jerks.

Best obituary of Margaret Thatcher hands-down. A sampling:

Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Given the nature of her legacy “survival of the fittest” – a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn’t surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton – from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness?

And finally, the sheer goodness power of the Internet. I met Leslie Fandrich in person (!) at Camp Mighty last fall, she of the twinkling-eye, earnest comments and wicked sense of humor. She has the kind of talent with both her camera and her paintbrush that makes it seem like, “omigod, I can totes draw that,” until you go, “no wait, I cannot, I can barely take a proper selfie or draw a stick man,”  because wow, she has some serious SKILLS of the magic kind, but that is why you are drawn into her work so deeply – because you can access it with your own emotions and experiences. The way her photos are both observational and composed creates an instant relationship, with Leslie and her subjects. This is probably why, when I flagged her down to sit with me for the last dinner at Camp, I found myself spilling my guts in a way I only do with very old and trusted friends, or perhaps, my therapist. (Still feel spazzy about that LF!! You get my shoulder next time, drinks on me!) Leslie is just that person. A brilliant, warm, talented, funny, awesome person.

Leslie has also been sharing one of the most intimate human experiences (and one that I have not yet had), the passing of her mother. Her photos, words and art work documenting the intimate nature of dying has been as life-affirming for me as a sunrise hike, belly laughter, great sex, a perfect plate of pasta. Using the word effortless to describe her experience and her work does a disservice to her courage and determination to be present and share it with all of us. Nothing about this is passive… yet there is an ease, and a quiet power, and mostly… great love in her expressions throughout this time. My deepest sympathies are with Leslie and her family as they move into the necessary period of mourning, but also, deepest and most humble gratitude for showing me what love and courage looks like.

Much love to you Leslie, can’t wait to see you in the fall. Let’s try something magical.

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Fight or Flight

31 Mar

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I can’t remember the first time I heard a story about super-human strength, but it was definitely when I was a kid. I feel certain I saw it on TV, on “That’s Incredible” or “Real People.” (Note, we now have the Internet and a thing called You Tube, all but putting these types of shows out of production.) A person rescuing another from a harrowing situation and the lifting of a car or the ripping of a door off its hinges Hulk-style was the general gist of every story. Once, a row of lockers fell on a friend while we were horsing around after gym class, and I lifted the lockers off of her… so I know these feats are true. Soon after, I learned about the endocrine system, and that a rapid burst of adrenaline is the magic juice that enables our muscles to effortlessly lift steel lockers off a friend. Even knowing the science, I was still fascinated with these tales of survival. It did not just happen in movies or to Wonder Woman.

And then, I got older.

Age brought with it life experience, which seemed to have more stories about people getting hurt, maimed or dying than of adrenaline-fueled survival. And these were sometimes people I knew. Worse still, people were getting sad, or hopeless, or addicted to all manner of distractions. And because it can always get worse, I saw that people isolated themselves. I was one of those.

Last fall when I went to Camp Mighty, I started to connect that very idea. That in the face of a long series of fairly large failures, disappointments and setbacks over the past nine years, I was choosing isolation as a coping strategy for far longer than I intended, and that now, if I wanted to get done all the things on my Life List let alone just live my life the way I wanted to, with perhaps some joy and even some love, I would have to find some of that super-human strength to do it.

I got back from Camp raring to go: work was great, the Giants won the World Series, and then, over Christmas break, while in my hometown, I found myself in a room with a man I’d been enjoying getting to know, when his ex-girlfriend walked in unannounced. Everyone was fully clothed; I was still in my coat and hat in fact, but yeah. There I was.

Being lied to. Again.

During Christmas. Again.

I walked out. I calmly, maybe almost too calmly, just got my bag, put my sunglasses on and walked the fuck out.

When this happens to you, and I hope it does not, there is no huge scene, or, regrettably, all the phenomenal and witty comments and comebacks of so many great movie scenes. No writer is feeding you lines like, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” and you’re definitely not shoving all his belongings into his BMW, dousing it with gasoline and lighting it on fire.

Nope. Not for me anyway. I just walked out.

(Later that day, I lost my mind with rage and hurt. Unfortch, I don’t like to eat or drink when I get upset, so I could barely even get the sorely needed booze down my throat at the parties I had to attend later that night. Again, no screenwriter in their right mind would have a just-dumped character not go on a bender. Not very cinematic.)

A pause now in this part of the action to jump ahead to this past Wednesday morning.

There I was, in my bathroom, freshly showered, naked, worried about missing the ferry while hastily putting body lotion on, when I came face… to another face in my bathroom window. After two full beats registering that there was a FACE LOOKING INTO MY BATHROOM WINDOW, I screamed an enraged terror scream that would have made the hair on the back of Jamie Lee Curtis’s neck stand up. The face disappeared, I grabbed my robe and ran out the front door to look for the bastard who I then computed to know, was the boyfriend of my upstairs neighbor. How did I know this? My other neighbor had reported to me that she caught him looking into her windows in much the same way a couple months ago and I remembered it in that split second and so went after him to try and catch him running away.

I. Was. PISSED. I screamed his name and yelled for him to get back here, which did not happen. I went back inside, put my Ugg boots on, grabbed my key and locked the door (in case he came back and hid in my apartment?) and marched upstairs to confront the girlfriend, my neighbor. I was yelling. I was shaking. I was breathing hard, near asthma attack levels, being out of shape from no running. It was 7:15 in the morning.

The confrontation with the neighbor/girlfriend did NOT go well, in that she was in full denial that this was really happening, and basically started to sass me, and gaslight me, telling me I was over-reacting, imagining it, and oh, by the way, he’s moving in here over the weekend.

Oh no you didn’t.

This whole situation WAS full movie scene, from that pervie punk skulking around to peek into my window, to my blood-curdling scream and running outside after him, to the bitchy, reality-show cast member finger-wagging of the 21 year-old girl accusing me of having an “erratic” personality. Are you FKM as they say?

He then CAME BACK to admit he did it and apologize to me, to which I said directly to his face, “You violated my privacy and my personal space. There is nothing normal about what you did. You have a problem. You are not welcome here. I never want to see you again.” Holy shit did that feel good.

The only thing missing was me calling the cops right then and there, which, thankyouverymuch, I did later in the day. He packed his shit and is not moving in. She’s leaving within weeks. If he shows up here, I will call the police again.

Calling on my inner-Taratino, one more flashback, but this time, to a few weeks ago, at an intersection while stopping for a red light.

I was rear-ended by man driving a Range Rover. Totally low speed, a couple scratches to my bumper, but definitely, his fault. We pulled over to check on each other’s well-being and to exchange information. I was shaky from the adrenaline spike and trying to calm my breathing and gather my thoughts. He immediately started telling me the whole accident was my fault and that as such, I should “be reasonable” about the repair issue. “Which means what?” I asked. Did he think I would take less than the full amount for the repair for damage HE caused? Apparently he did. He started to tell me that my car was not in pristine condition anyway, so why should I even care? “Look at this, this dent on your front bumper,” he said, “are you telling me that you drive around with this, but that you expect me to pack for this tiny scratch that my car only caused because you did not go through the yellow light?” Oh my f-ing God. That is how this arrogant, Range Rover driving a-hole was speaking to me. Was I suddenly caught in a hidden-camera stereotype experiment?? I could feel myself crumbling a bit, feeling like maybe he was right, I did have to stop fast, but wait, the light was turning and I was not going to run it… UGH, I was drifting a bit down that hole of not thinking my feelings let alone the truth mattered.

After I reached out to a friend who calmly reminded me to call my insurance, especially since this guy was such a jerk, I did just that. I was thrilled to find out that he was as consistent an asshole with them as he was with me, and that I was not just some special weakling  in a sensible compact car he chose to harangue. He was an equal opportunity ass. (Oh and his insurance accepted liability and car will be getting repaired shortly. Front bumper I have to save up for!)

Back to the scene in December.

I would not change it. Because if I had not calmly walked the hell out of that house with my dignity intact, then had the emotional breakdown even as messy and hurtful as it was and then recovered from that, I would not have gone after this creepy spying schmuck and his abusive girlfriend for violating my home and privacy and sense of security AND been right about it.

I’d likely not have stood up to the jerk who hit my car either.

Superhuman strength, or what we call the fight or flight response is autonomic. We cannot control it. Not even Oscar winning screenwriters can control it, so that is why everyone is always lifting cars and saying awesome shit. But, we have powers beyond a witty line. When we pay attention to how we react, and understand that the only thing we can control is how we react and deeper still how we THINK about how we react, that’s when we do become heroes.

PS,

Dear Universe,

I am pretty sure I get it now. So that thing how you split the ass out of my pants on Friday, I mean, really was that necessary? I totally laughed, because split pants, like unintended loud farts, are totally funny. But Universe… really? You’ve read my Life List right? Please get back to work on that. I promise, I am in good humor. I just would like a nice boyfriend (#59) and a bit more financial freedom too (#14) would be great! Thanks! ;-)

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Q and A

28 Jan

As it is winter (well, global warming’s version of it anyway, less rain and snow, wild swings of temperature, an unease that this is the new normal), the days are dark more than they are light. And when it is dark more than it is light, I am less inclined to run on a regular schedule. Or, c’mon, who am I kidding the past month: I don’t run during the week.

I am a Weekend Warrior.

This means I try to churn out as many miles from either overly sore or slightly desk-mushy legs as possible in two days. Yesterday, it was about six miles, a trail run on my normal route with an ascension added in.

I was not in top event form or speed. I shortened my stride to go easier on my lungs. I stopped to rest in places I normally blow by. I didn’t check the timing.

And yet, I was deeply content.

That’s why it makes little sense to me that I fight against running during the weekdays of winter.  Why sit around pondering running when I could already BE running? Why turn down any guarantee of contentment? It’s a known fact that no one ever regrets going for a run, only not having gone on one.

I have pep talks queued up and plans in the hopper and I know this is all temporary, but it is bordering on a malaise, which is a distant cousin to a funk…

I am not done asking myself, why turn down any guarantee of contentment?

I think the answer will come on the trail.

This weekend.

 

 

 

 

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Cage Fight: Emotional Pain v. Physical Pain

11 Jan

Would you rather have emotional pain or physical pain?

Think on this for a moment.

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I have been thinking on a version of this question for the past couple of weeks, while I’ve been getting to the better side of a searing bout of emotional pain, only to then have been walloped with some of the worst, most debilitating physical pain I have endured in my adult life. (This statement is not an invitation to compare and contrast physical pain stories, it’s just a fact that from Saturday to Tuesday, I was in a place of 24/7 physical misery that I have not experienced pretty much ever. Ow does not begin to cover it.)

This unholy alliance of the emotional and physical really had me thinking, what is the one I would prefer to be forced to handle.

Even though it is relentless, give me emotional pain ANY DAY EVER.

Friends who know the roots of my brand of emotional pain may be shocked that I am picking this side, especially because it might worry them that I could sink under the weight of these types of hurts to the point of severe depression, where I bottomed out before and they do not want to see me back in that terrible place. I realized how scary it is for them a few weeks ago, when, looking for someone to just mind the fire of my flared up anger/sadness/shock/humiliation due to, shall we call it, an unfortunate situation with a man, I unintentionally hurt their feelings by rejecting the quick comfort and affirmations they were trying to offer. I had wanted and needed to freak the fuck out, to cry and yell out all that bile and self-doubt and have it be witnessed by trusted allies so that once I calmed down, I would have the space to accept the love and comfort and wisdom that they were ultimately trying to offer all along. The misunderstanding inherent in poor communication was quickly handled and forgiven – this is the blessing of old friendships that are treated with care and respect and grow mighty over the years – but I thought a lot about how the baring of raw emotional pain can be perceived as a confrontation, even for the closest in our tribes.

A pause for a moment to remind, that yes, I still pick emotional pain over physical pain. Deep breath. I’m getting there. Hang in with me.

We are all masochists a little bit. We are all masochists a little bit because so often on the other side of a smidge of misery is a reward. Physically, this is much easier to compute. As a runner, I know that if I don’t experience some muscle soreness, I am not training hard enough to go faster, or be stronger for the next event. So, I invite some pain into my body, knowing that it is temporary and that the reward is strength and speed. Emotionally, this is a bit tougher to explain, but the risk and reward scenario is similar. In order to have fulfilling relationships with friends, family, lovers and partners, we have to know we will feel some discomfort from time to time and we have to be willing to accept that it triggers at totally different times for all of us all the time. And here’s what thrills me about that entire cycle of emotional pain: we can absolutely make it safe for our people to bare their pain, to just get it out, to just hold it for them, and then when they are ready, ask what kind of comfort they need, wait patiently for their answer, and then help them get that comfort. We are the Vicodin for each other. And we’re non-narcotic.

I know, you think I am on Vicodin while writing this, but nope, totally sober! Re-read that paragraph. It makes total sense. Do it.

Physical pain is the student teacher to emotional pain’s professor. Physical pain is also a nuisance, which by its very definition means it’s minor. Do not get me wrong. I have friends and family who have endured car accidents, bike crashes, skiing wrecks, street fights, knee surgery, root canals, amputations, migraines, child birth, chemotherapy, fibromyalgia, MS, you name it, I have watched and offered comfort during the physical suffering of so many and it’s hard. It’s so very hard. But for the most part, physical pain is finite and its lessons are not as transformative as emotional pain. Yes, much physical and emotional pain gets intertwined, but when looked at separately, it’s the emotional pain that really has something to teach us.

It wants us to learn to be courageous and kind.

It wants us to learn to hold each other’s pain, not try to take it away immediately.

It wants us to ask each other, what do you need right now, and then to listen to the answer and abide by it.

It wants us to be courageous and kind.

Winner by a… yes, a knockout: emotional pain.

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Christmas Conflation

13 Dec
Mt. Tam and wires. 3/28/12

Mt. Tam and wires. 3/28/12, a dog walk no-run night in suburbia.

Since I currently live in close proximity to the desirable and lovely city of  San Francisco, it seems to perplex many why I choose to not live in the city proper. It’s one of those topics that comes up in mundane, obligatory, work function, internet date type chit-chat. It’s the kind I especially loathe, where no one is actually listening to anyone but themselves and so things that are meaningful to you don’t get adequately represented or appreciated. Like why I live close to a mountain instead of on a cramped city block.

I live close to a mountain because I need that mountain. I need to come home from my city job - a job that I do love, appreciate and am inspired by – to this mountain and her trails and her trees and her quiet. I need it because when I start to feel that kind of city exhaustion that makes the tears rise to just below the surface, the only cure is a mountain. Unfortunately though, it’s also Christmas and everyone has lost their minds and that is impeding my mountain time. That and it’s dark at like 4PM.

As a general rule, I come down on the side of Christmas hate. I have spent many years researching this position, and feel confident that I am fine with it, even though there have been years that I actually succumb to the elusive, but oh so potent Christmas magic. I love the sparkle and romance and nostalgia and homecoming of Christmas, but I reject how our culture conflates happiness with forced gift giving while then producing endless songs, stories, TV specials and movies that say just the opposite, that it’s really all about the people you love, but we are all just nodding and winking that we know we are still expected to participate in this confusing madness that now starts the day after Halloween.

The past two days I have been feeling that Christmas funk; end-of-the-year projects at work are demanding and I can’t get it together to run on my mountain. I have insomnia, and I am cranky. I am really homesick. So, tonight, I walked. Not like this is a novel concept – I usually walk the dog whether I run or not – but I walked with the intention to be aware, grateful that I live near the mountain, and to honor that I chose to not live in the city so I could have a night walk like this.

I was promptly rewarded:

I saw a shooting star right over Tam, (it’s the Germinids!) and yes I totally made a wish. (Maybe I get extra Christmas wish points even though I am grinchy…)

And just for a bonus, a huge, beautiful Spotted Owl swooped right over me and Duke and into a nest in a 70 foot sycamore tree.

Thank you mountain, you took care of me tonight.

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Mudder4Life

23 Sep

I entered my first half marathon in the fall of 2008.  I had never run over five miles at one time, let alone be officially timed while running.  I had only started running as a way to tire out my Golden Retrievers, then I realized it was good, cheap exercise, and it was stoking some creative energy that I thought I had long since snuffed out.  The only reason I entered that half marathon was at the nudge from a friend who is without a doubt the most authentically warm, genuine and positive person I have the pleasure to know and I had not one good argument to tell her I couldn’t do it.  Plus, I was getting addicted to that runner’s high.  I know, gag me, but it’s real.

Since that race in 2008, I have run six half marathons, two of which where off-road trail halfs, and as of tonight, three Tough Mudders.  As my team, the mighty Mudtallica walked around Truckee this morning, we were chatting about how we became Mudders, and it all goes back to me and an email I wrote on April 30, 2010 to several good friends who were each experiencing some of life’s hardest and darkest times.  The email was a rallying cry, an effort to inspire my friends to join me in showing life that we were not going to take its worst days without showing it how we live our best days.

As I sit here, sore as hell and chuckling about our adventure on the course yesterday (yet also feeling a bit of the post Mudder blues), I realized that my next organized event is not a run, but a much needed nudge to honor my writing and creativity, Camp Mighty.  I am seriously WAY MORE terrified of that than any eight foot Berlin Wall will ever be.  But, since I used my writing to inspire the friends that have now helped me complete three Tough Mudders, I wanted to share that email, and a picture of me, with my actual face showing, however covered in glorious mud.

Hope this inspires you too.  I imagine it can.

30 April 2010

So there I was last night, on my walk with the pooches, not really running this week as my body needed the rest after the half on Sunday, and my mind started doing its thing where it lets go and settles into my “write” brain.  My feet would not not run, so I let myself settle into short bursts of jogging as gentle as possible since my feet still ache from the race, I had not taken my inhaler, and most of all, was without proper boob support.  I started thinking about the next physical challenge I wanted to pose for myself since that seems to be the way I have kept sane the past two years.  The ideas and images of half marathons and trying out Cross Fit and getting back to yoga all meandered by.  Then I remembered an article I read in the NY Times the night before about a challenge called Tough Mudder.

Apparently the Tough Mudder is a not-race, meaning it is untimed, but it is a 7 mile course with intensely crazy-fun obstacles, like a mud run on steroids.  I f’ing love it.

Now comes the imagining part…

As I walked along last night, I started going all GI Jane and thinking about climbing hills, and rope walls, and slogging through mud and doing it with glee and shouts and laughs and yawps and promise of beer at the end.  And then I thought, who would be the best people to have on a team for this insanity?  Please see list above :-)

Each one of us, for all our blessings has had their share of shitstorms, stresses, dramas, depressions, worries, and hells on Earth the past year or so.  Between us I tallied up three divorces, one nearing divorce, two strained marriages, two kids with life threatening surgeries, two pending bankruptcies, one mom on chemo and radiation, one dad in a coma, two sick dogs, two dogs who passed away, cats given up to others, family members dying, friends dying… just amongst the 10 of us.  Each one of us has found strength in the others and damn it all to hell, our tough asses are still here facing these seeming disasters.  And each one of us has used physical strength, movement and activity to heal ourselves, or at the very least, expend some of the nervous energy that builds up in our battered hearts and minds.  We have a triathlete, two marathoners, several collegiate athletes, skiers, both amateur and pro, and some who just like to run and all who like to move their bodies.

I started to imagine each of us, standing together as a team at the top of some crazy-ass hill in the Northern California mountains in October getting ready to hurl ourselves down it Braveheart-style, scramble across logs and rocks and mud and water all the while helping each other along the course.  We would be our own Race for the Cure: the Cure for Fear, the Cure for Worry, the Cure for Stress, the Cure for Hating Your Job, the Cure for Anger, the Cure for Sadness, the Cure for Others Who Cannot Hurl Themselves Down a Hill…  Us.  We together could do that.

And I would write about it.  Oh boy would I.

So, dear friends, I just ask you to IMAGINE.  Just spend a little time this weekend imagining this.  It is five months away and the same weekend as the Nike Half and Full, which two of you I know were considering anyway.  We would be an AWESOME team.  We already have a coach on the list.  And I am really good with logistics.

IMAGINE.

Love you,
J.

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My Mother Owns A Gun

20 Jul

“Throughout the history of mass gun killings in America…” is a phrase I never want to hear again, but as the meta-indication of the phrase denotes, I definitely will. This time, as with so many times before,  a former FBI profiler used it while being interviewed by a cable news anchor whose actual expertise for his network is early morning political analysis, not breaking gun murder news. As such it was not surprising, yet slightly disingenuous, when he called Aurora, Colorado an American suburb straight from central casting. I do however, know what he meant: that Aurora could be any American suburb, we all know that town, that strip mall, that theatre multiplex with the stadium seating and the THX sound system. Any one of us could have been in that midnight show of the new Batman last night. We are all from central casting, and we all know this script by heart.  The coverage goes something like this, I will bullet point it for you, pun intended:

  • Heavily armed, likely mentally ill young man walks into a crowded public space and opens fire.
  • The victims are all age ranges, from the very young to the very old. It’s always the kids dying that really makes us sick. The first responders are deft and often heroic. The shooter is either killed or subdued and brought into custody.
  • Cable news scrambles to get the facts straight, sometimes they screw up badly like when NPR prematurely announced the death of Representative Gabrielle Giffords after her attack last January, and the TV news went with the unverified reports.  They start interviewing surviving or merely wounded victims who give their eyewitness accounts using phrases like, “it sounded like firecrackers” or “it seemed like a movie” or “I slipped on some blood.”
  • We cut to the news conferences and endless interviews of police authorities, the chiefs of surgery, the friend who knew a guy who had a class with the shooter, the open carry advocates, the gun control supporters.
  • We shake our heads and fight back tears and swallow the mouth sweats down hard.
  • We remember the last one and we always, ALWAYS remember Columbine.
  • Some of us start pleading for more gun control, but weak to do anything, we can only unfriend the person in our Facebook list we didn’t realize was an NRA talking points automaton.
  • We feel like shooting someone.

Why is this happening again?  WHY?  What the hell is wrong with us that we cannot, as community members, Coloradoans, Americans, as HUMAN BEINGS, once and for all stop with the free flow of guns in our country?

My mother has a gun.  MY MOTHER HAS A GUN.  I do not agree with this at all and I tell her every single chance I get that she is part of the problem.  Before you start parsing the 2nd Amendment and talk to me about hunting, let me make the uniquely American statement that if you are a hunter who uses guns to kill your animal prey and you keep those guns locked up in a vault and your ammunition is kept separately and also locked and you have registered those guns and maintain the good working order of those guns,  I am not talking to you.  I am talking to my mother and the millions of Americans who own handguns because they feel they the need to protect themselves.  You people, the legal gun owners, are the enablers of our entire gun problem.  There, I said it.

My heart should not have to go out to the victims, or their loved ones, or the theatre staff, or the first responders, or the doctors, surgeons and nurses, or the mental health professionals, or the good people of my first home state of Colorado who are dealing first hand with this attack on their sanity and security.  My heart should be celebrating for the everyday triumphs of all the aforementioned, none of whom I know, but are all part of my central cast.  My uniquely American central cast.  I will of course, share my heart with those who are most in need.

And then, I will use my brain:

GUN CONTROL NOW.

***Updated: My mom and I have had a long talk about this post.  I got very emotional in telling her again how much I don’t like her gun.  In her words to me, “I love you.  We are okay.”

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Love Songs To Me

12 Jul

Next month would have been my tenth wedding anniversary.  I realized that the other night in the middle of a six and a half mile run, while listening to my running iPod that needs to be updated, but having just survived a long misplacement and then a cycle in the wash, I was happy it was working at all.  A song came on, one that was played prominently at my wedding, and it reminded me: ten years ago, I got married.  Hearing it did not take me back to that day.  It did however, make me run a little stronger.

Ten years is a significant amount of time in a human life.  We mark the passings of decades with honor and celebration.  We smack ourselves on the forehead in semi-feigned shock, wow, has it been TEN years?  Yeah, it has.  Since the demise of my marriage came with such blunt force, swiftly ending a seven year relationship, but then dragging into a two and half year divorce, it has taken the better part of the last ten years for me to first sink under the weight of the emotional brutality and abuse of the relationship, then get sucker punched with financial ruin and a career in disarray before recovering at what feels like a snail’s pace.  A dear friend recently said to me on a hike not to worry, this had simply been my Bad Decade.  He knew because he was having one too.  To finally, FINALLY not quiver at the sound of those notes and instead feel resolute and confident and vulnerable in the good way, told me my Decade Of Suck was truly coming to an end.

I remembered, as the song played and I ran onward, that several years ago, in some then unrealized measure of self-care, I made a playlist called “Love Songs To Me.”  I loaded it with songs that feel sweet and romantic and twisty and tender to me, that one day I would get to listen to with the person who hears them with me in mind and is happy.  And maybe he’d make me a playlist called “Love Song To You” or even better, “Love Songs To Us.”  This is the first time I have ever acknowledged its existence publicly because up until this moment I have felt too fragile to admit I made my own love song list.  I have never felt so unlovable so deeply during some of the very darkest times in the last ten years.  The basic nasty voice said something like, “No one will ever be in love with you enough to make you a playlist for chrissakes, grow up, ain’t gonna happen.  Pay your bills.  Shut up.”  It was too scary to admit even to the closest friend I had done this for myself, the shame muting me to everyone.  But that’s why we have Love Songs.  To remind us we’re worth it, first and foremost to ourselves.

So what’s this one song you might wonder?  Well, of course I have written about it before, even going so far as to call it my personal anthem.  Among the many delicious songs on “Love Songs To Me” it is and will always be my most treasured, perfect, intimate song of all time.

Enjoy.  And then consider what your love songs to yourself are.  We all have to be a little smitten with ourselves from time to time.

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Crying On The Returns

28 May

Staring at the blank screen when my head is so filled with a tangle of thoughts and my gut is churning with so much emotion and my physical exhaustion is nearing its tipping point is a special kind of torture.  Normally, I’d bust out the Moleskine and blast out a diatribe or so, but I forced myself to open the blog machine to impose some structure on the internal rough drafts.  I have no idea how that’s going to go.

I have just returned from a quick weekend trip home both with and to see family, and mostly, it was a fine trip.  Family is complex and mine looks like a Manhattan Project equation.   What I can always count on, and especially when returning from home, are some intense emotions that usually well up right after I get out of the car at curbside.  I keep my sunglasses on and my head down as I make my way through security, then pit stop at the bathroom for a muffled stall cry in an attempt to get it together before getting on the plane.  It’s not without precedent that I cry once settled and the plane is suddenly speeding me off the ground and back to reality.  I have always done this; my expectation is that I will always do this, and I am fine with it, but today’s episode reminded me how sensitive I am.

A wise person once told me, “Sensitivity is a superpower.”  I know she is right and it is time for me harness it once and for all.

However, I am terrified.  Not of Success – I am ready for some more of that to get here – but of  rejection and humiliation and abandonment and all the painful things that I  have already experienced showing up for a repeat performance.  I am not looking for pep talks by sharing this, because my previous rejections and humiliations and abandonments were mostly the result of abuse, the extent of which I have only just recently begun to understand.  At least now I feel confident I know how to spot that well ahead of time.  (With the exception of some recent fumbles of my own making and then endless fixation on them.)  What I don’t know how to do is actually open up enough to let the light in.

My most effective defense strategy and stalwart enabler is procrastination.  I am the Four Star Generalissimo of Procrastination, a lot of it now achieved by too much “screen time” and while I do have an iPhone, I have a cumbersome, work-brick laptop and a TV that was state-of-the-art… in 1997.  I dilly-dally and dawdle and putter and preen and run late and feel harried and then, like dysfunctional magic, I am failing just like Procrastination promised.  (Yes, I am aware of the Mean Voice in my head that is telling me I am doing it wrong.)

Here is where the Return Travel comes in to play: I am in a vulnerable state, not here nor there, yet totally present in the limbo of airports and time zone jumps.  And that’s when I realize I want so much more…

I want that light.  And that love.  And that success.  And that serenity.  And that fun.  And that magic.  And that energy.  And that security.  And that passion.  And that confidence.  And that warmth.  I want that light to get in.  To nurture me.  I want that.

This was a start.

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Why Even Child Abuse Needs Analogy

10 Nov

I have been searching for the right analogy to describe the contradiction displayed when a person runs for and becomes elected to public office with the stated intention of dismantling the regulations and institutions that make up the government itself (think Ronald Reagan, at times Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, the entire Tea Party, Libertarians…) I will of course report it here first because I think we are in dire need of a way to explain why that is so incredibly destructive to the people who are simply not getting that they are actually tearing themselves and their communities down in the process.

As I am going through this creative process, I am paying even closer attention than I normally do to the way writers use analogy and metaphor to express concepts and ideas, a skill I have retapped from when I was teaching. And I guess because I am so tuned in, I was profoundly affected by the way writer and blogger John Scalzi used an Ursula Le Guin story to frame his very concise description of the way adults failed to protect children in the Penn State child molestation scandal. The story describes a utopia where everyone is perfectly happy and well cared for, with the exception of one child that is kept in a miserable and disgusting solitary confinement. Each citizen is ultimately told of the child and then must make the decision whether or not to accept that their seemingly perfect existence requires the constant suffering of an innocent child. Obviously, this means that everyone who has been living there knows and has done nothing to protect the child.

This powerful and simple metaphor should give every single person who reads about the adults’ lack of action in protecting the children that were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky the clarity to understand that all of these adults willfully chose to let a child suffer to protect their utopia that was Penn State. And yes, that includes the man at the top himself, Joe Paterno. Few things in life are black and white, almost none. The one exception: there is nothing defensible about doing the least to protect a child from being raped by an adult. Not. One. Thing.

Please read John Scalzi’s excellent piece here.

And stay tuned for my breakthrough analogy on government and it’s elected officials.

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