Contemplating the Dark Side/SOS Sent and Responded To

Better today.   I was in trouble for sure and a bunch of people reached out with helpful and loving advice or just to say they were thinking of me and worried too.  It is amazing to be able to shoot up an SOS and have people rush to help when you need it.   I hope you have that in your life.

He knew I was in trouble and called and gave me the most solid of all advice.  His brand of advice usually resonates with me - I guess because he understand human nature being a psychologist but he also holds himself and others to a high standard of behavior. And there is also the first generation Irish thing that seems to ground him more solidly to the earth and gives him a very simple, practical lens for viewing the world.  Anyway, his advice is what I followed and really it wasn't rocket science but I couldn't get there by myself - I was too mired in desperate, doom and gloom, black and white thinking.   She was asked to leave the house because she has not lived up to her commitments but she goes with my love and support as best I can offer.  She and I feel positive about this step, she respecting that I have a bottom line and that I hold her to high standards and expect good things from her, me not quite as worried that she will just act out from desperation, thinking she has been abandoned.  She KNOWS I adore her and love her - that has to fill her up in a good way, right? Fingers crossed for that kid.

And talking with him again after a long stretch - good.   We are both in a better place.  Nothing changes but I feel like I can exhale a bit.   I feel less lonely knowing he is there when I am in trouble like yesterday.   He loves me and misses me - that came through when we talked.   Hard, but good....I'm glad for him in the world.

So, Arthur, he wasn't reticent after all, just shy.   And the orange car? - he stopped by my office Wednesday and as Karen predicted it was a bright orange Porche.   What is Sarah to think?   I am amused and flattered he likes me and we are a perfect match on paper, loving all the same things. But he is so fancy!  Perfect creases, black patent shoes, some kind of fancy trenchcoat, worried about getting dog hair on his perfect clothes and of course the car.   I am SO not fancy with my shabby chic house, two or three pairs of shoes, clothes that fill up one small rack in my closet, costume jewelry.   And I like that about me! Sarah=Simple.   I am not a material girl despite my penchant for fancy serving platters and dishes.  Not for me Rolex watches, fancy cars, name brand clothes, dining regularly at the best restaurants, status symbols of any kind.  All I need in this world is my health,  a cozy home, my kids to be OK, my friends to be OK, songs to sing, things to write, books to read, a kitchen in which to cook and a good man to pamper.   And yet...I will give him a chance.  Maybe he is deeper than I'm giving him credit for...maybe he is NOT all about the trappings.  He deserves a chance and I need to move on.

So what I'm thinking about today as I ponder the difference between Patrick and Arthur is, "What is really important?"  What is my bottom line?....what is the minimum I need to be happy?   I could get swept off my feet by a fancy man who takes me here and there in his fancy car and dazzles me with his affluence and status.  I could be lured to the dark side...become a glitterati.   And then there is Patrick who lives simply and frugally, who says, "I don't need much for myself"  - lives ascetically. Where is Sarah on that scale...where does Sarah want to be on that scale?   I'm going to give this thought.   My gut says simple is a surer route to happiness, that over consumption is a symptom of feeling empty inside and trying to fill a void with things. Having said that, I won't live like a monk and deny myself the pleasure of filling my world with beauty (fresh flowers, raspberries out of season, dry wood for the fire and a pair of pretty earrings now and then).

My challenge today is to stay the course.  Yesterday was upheaving.  I also need to be mature and not precipitous in considering this new relationship.   I don't want to toy with someone's feelings and allow engagement if I'm just trying to dull my pain.   I also don't want my next relationship to be doomed from the start like the last one, so I need to think about whether I can support this person's needs and be supported by him before there is intimacy.   If the answer is no, then I won't linger.

Your challenge could be thinking of your support system.  You probably don't write a blog where you can fire off an SOS like I did yesterday, but I hope you have groomed some good friends who you've let REALLY know you, warts and all - the kind of friends you can go to when you are a total mess and who love you and prop you up.   If you don't have that kind of support system, maybe some thought as to a) is it something you want and need and b) if so, how can you get there.   Tip:   Having friends who love you dearly means letting your underbelly show and being vulnerable.   People will admire your strengths, but it's your vulnerabilities they fall in love with*

Peace,
Sarah

*A quote from my English-Living-In-Germany friend.   Picture is of a friend of mine who must have contemplated some very deep things as he peered into a chasm and beheld the beauty of his world.

A Not-So-Good Good-Bye/Godspeed

And the adventure called life continues....another day, another page.   October 1st is two days away and it breaks my heart to say that one child will stay and the other will have to go.   It truly breaks my heart...weeping. I'm left no choice...promises broken again, again, again, one more chance turns into one more chance turns into one more chance.   I am little more than an enabler creating a cozy nest of no accountability, addiction enabling, a place to be a perpetual child with no growth.   And yet...this decision is chilling.   Do you even know what I've done?   In my mind there is better than 50% I will be telling you of the death of my child - I'm not being dramatic when I say this.   If that happened I would suffer a loss so unspeakable it makes my current sadness a mere mosquito bite.   Frankly, I'm not sure I would survive the death of a child -  I don't think I would stick around.  I wish I could change places with her and give her my confidence and will (even in its tattered state).  Liza asked me yesterday if I would die for my child and without hesitation I said yes.  She agreed - she would do the same.  I am so sad ...I wish, I wish I could infuse her with what she needs to live a good and productive life.   I'm not religious but sometimes....please put her in your prayers.   Godspeed, my little one.  You've got to figure this out on your own.

I don't think I can write anything else today.   I'm too sad and scared.

Peace,
Sarah

Staying Moderate/Steady Eddy

Backlash.  Was it suspicious that I was so "chill" with yesterday's events?  As if I was watching things happen to someone else?  I think they call that dissociation.  Last night a text to Kaveh saying no to stopping therapy - I have and am enduring too much loss already.  And really, what was he thinking?  Was he just testing the waters?   Maybe he was trying to shake things up to get me unstuck, but losing the person whom you depend on for your sanity seems ill advised when you are going through hell and haven't emerged on the other side yet.  It's as if Sam had endured the epic journey with Frodo only to leave him at the entrance to Mount Doom and not be there for his most arduous task, destroying the One Ring.  Kaveh, you are not allowed to leave me - not yet.

This morning, the blind leading the blinder.  My little one is in trouble - a rudderless little skiff, floundering in the transition from childhood to adulthood.  She has exhausted everyone who would help her - so many resources given to that child and yet...still....she is my child and somehow, even in my depleted state, I'm digging down and finding I still have a bit more I can give.   We know from the book, Willpower, it's been documented and measured that two key attributes of people who express lifelong satisfaction are intelligence and self-regulation.   My daughter has the intelligence - she struggles with her will.   Now that I know it's not a moral failing to be weak willed, that it's a muscle you can build, I'm determined to help her build hers.  We talked about the book and where the typical pitfalls lie - why, when people make copious New Year's resolutions, they're sure to fail - willpower is a finite commodity and it needs to be exercised strategically.  So little steps for her - small expectations.   In bed during the week by 11PM, up at 7:30, making her bed, tidying her room, walking with me to the dog beach, and then to the office with me for one hour of work for which I will pay her $15 cash.  Then a mental break to restore her willpower and a snack to restore the glucose in her brain and then an hour of job search.   The rest of the day spent any way she wants.   We will do this day in and day out until it no longer tests her will, until it's a comfortable, hummy routine. Then she can take on the next challenge.  By January I hope she has enough self-regulation to successfully take a course load at the local community college.   We will, together, put the suggestions of the book to the test.

Tonight is the 2nd meeting of the Evanston Creative Writing Group.   We have 10 people coming which is great, given it's the start of the Jewish holidays and many of our members are Jewish.   I'm leading the prompts tonight which is something I've always ducked out of, my thought being I hate being in charge of things in my off time since I spend my work hours bossing people around.   But, given I'm one of the leaders of the group, my prompt slacking days are over!   Tonight the prompts will be:

•  Your GPS says, "You have arrived at your destination."   You are flabberghasted by what you see.  Write for 15 minutes in detail, describing the destination.   No plot, no characters, no dialogue.   Just description.    Your reader should be able to "see" what you are describing in vivid detail.
• Write a piece with pure dialogue, not even any "he said" or "she answered".   Two characters, each with a distinctive "voice".  One character is breaking some bad news to the other.
• Open a book (I'll bring books) to a random page.  Count 10 lines down on the l-h side of the page.  That is the first line of your piece.
• The last prompt will be write a piece based on the image at the top of this post.

My little one is going to prompt group with me tonight.   She is a talented lyric writer and while this may be a bit out of her comfort zone, I think it will spark her creativity.   And there's nothing to say she can't write song lyrics using these prompts.   One gal writes poetry.

I'm doing better.  Life is a bit bleak these days with the change of weather and the steady stream of rejections but I'm OK.   I have hope for the future which is what it's all about and every day there is something that gives me pleasure, even if it's a tiny thing.  This morning at the beach seeing my new friend Linda I told you about before.   She is coming to hear me sing at Petterino's with a friend on Monday and we will sit together.  And Judy Brubaker will join us, I'm sure!   She's back which is a huge relief - she was the toast of Provincetown this summer and said she couldn't walk 10' down the street without someone coming up to her to meet and congratulate her.   I'm so glad she is so with-it and accomplished at age 87....she's got aches and pains and she's obviously on the last stretch, but wow....what a dame!  What an inspiration!

My challenge today is staying moderate.....embracing the middle lane, not overreacting to things, getting stuff done, staying in the game.   Your challenge today could be doing the same.   It's not glamorous, being a Steady Eddy, but it's a good long term strategy.

Peace,

Sarah

Good Good-Byes/Voted Off the Island

Today is an odd day.   A couple of remarkable things happened.  The day started talking with Kaveh, my therapist - phone call at 7AM.  He led the discussion to talking about therapy wrapping up.  I was surprised.  We've been together for over four years and it seems he feels the objectives of the therapy have been largely met - that I'm ready to graduate.  Wow!  Fist off, that dispels the thought that therapy is for life.  Kaveh says one should seek therapy to live, not live for therapy. Today he said it's often, once the therapy has ended, that you see the big rewards, kind of like a surgical procedure.  Six months ago, I would have been in a tailspin over today's discussion - today, I'm surprisingly OK with the thought of the therapy being a wrap - proud actually.  It feels like a major achievement to have your therapist tell you that, despite your unhappiness, you're really OK - and to agree with him.

Second, I got voted off the family island.   I had planned to go to Boston to do Thanksgiving with my family.  It was sure to be interesting given that my mother moved there to live with my sister a month ago without us saying good-bye.   Also my youngest brother and his wife, who I haven't spoken with in years over a tiff, will be there, as well as my other brother and his wife coming from Manhattan.  At first my sister was jazzed with the idea of me coming, but today she told me not to come after all.   She didn't say as much, but I'm pretty sure that, when the family was canvassed, they didn't want me there.  So, yeah, it seems I was voted out of the family.  Wow.  What to make of that?  In all fairness to them, it really is a case of  reap what you sow.   I chose estrangement from family members and now I have to live with the product of that decision - estrangement.   I don't get to decide unilaterally when and how there will be engagement.  Other people have a say as well and they have spoken.

On the dating front, nice to meet Arthur last night.   I thought he was smitten but today he is reticent which surprises me.  The old Sarah would say, "Seriously!  You think you have more to offer than me?!   You think you are more attractive than me?!  You've got to be kidding!"  Or at least I would have thought that and conducted myself accordingly, pushing for a victorious outcome where I got to be the decider.   Never taking no for an answer, pushing, pushing, pushing on the closed door that has been there my entire life and that has never yielded to my cries, pleas, anger, violence.   Now I'm just bemused.   I have a wait and see attitude towards life these days.  I think I am done pushing and forcing.   I want to see what the cosmos offers up.   If I meet someone and despite my interest, nothing progresses, then my conclusion will be that the door closed so another could open, that there is a guiding hand, pages in a book that are turning with a plot that is unfolding.   It's fascinating.

Kaveh said he has been learning more and studying about the importance of good good-byes.   He said they are rare and worth striving for.  He wants us to have a good good-bye, one that is long but not too long, that celebrates the work we've done and memorializes the relationship.  He hopes to live in my heart forever - I told him he will - that I no longer feel as if my life were perched on a wet paper towel.  His care and love have given me a strong underpinning that I didn't have before, like strong upholstery webbing that holds a couch together, or even a sturdy trampoline that catches you and propels you upwards.   His timing is uncanny or maybe deliberate.   He knows I'm stuck in trying to say another good-bye.   Often the work he and I do is practice for the real world.   I think he wants to give me a template for what a good good-bye should look like so I can have other good good-byes.  So is it weird to think that, by experiencing the loss of him, I will be calmer and better equipped for other losses?   That I could actually get good at this whole loss thing?  Now that is something to strive for.

My goal today is to meet these latest challenges without alarm - let events flow over me without struggling or fighting.   I think of Aslan, the lion, in the Narnia books.   He was a formidable fighter but in the end he could only prevail by surrendering.   I am strangely OK with everything that is happening: the date disappointment, being voted off the family island, the impending loss of my beloved therapist and I'm even starting to accept the other loss as well.    Your challenge today could be thinking about the concept of good good-byes.   Have you ever had one?  Is there someone in your life you will be saying good-bye to soon?  Does the thought make you want to run, weep or bury your head in the sand?   Is there a better way where you can wrap some ceremony around the good-bye and make it a celebration instead of a tragedy?

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is of Kaveh

The Color Orange/Head and Heart

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

June 13th was a Monday.   Today, wow...chilly, unfriendly out there, a day that's hard to love! I've got a good head of steam, divesting stuff, shutting some doors, maintaining forward momentum even though every single thing I do is thwarted in some way.   Does that happen to you?   My niece's birthday Thursday.   Need to get a present, trip to Barnes and Noble- check.  Need wrapping paper and a card - no paper at B&N so a special trip to the Hallmark Store - check.  Needs wrapping - search for the tape, can't fine it, then find it - Check.  Need to make a label - the computer that the printer is hooked up to is not functioning - troubleshoot it for 15 minutes - Check.  Go to print the label - the black toner in the printer is depleted - special trip to Office Depot for more toner - Check. Missed the mail, special trip to the post office - Check.   Hard to maintain forward motion when every single step along the way there is stuff in your way!!!   And that is JUST one tiny action item that needs accomplishing today.   Multiply that by 100 and you will feel my pain!   And yet, there is no substitute, right?  What's the alternative?  Just giving up and saying, "No present for Angela this year - I'm just too weary to make the effort."   Nah.

Tonight singing at Petterino's and potentially meeting Arthur for the first time.  Nervous.  I'm not going to write much about him here because I'm feeling private about him.   I have a feeling he could be very special to me and I don't want to publicize the relationship if it's going to be something long term. I'll give you tidbits now and then.   One thing I find uncanny.   We talked and he mentioned driving in the country and enjoying the sights, especially a pumpkin patch he passed.   I waxed poetic about how much I love the orange of a pumpkin patch and he said, "Are you serious?"  I was. He then told me orange has always been his favorite color ever since a child, that he is known for loving orange, that he even has a limited edition orange car (he won't tell me what kind because he worries that I already think he's a snob).   I told him that orange was my favorite color as a child - I painted my bedroom bright orange.   I fell out of orange as an adult, but just within the last few years as I've come out of my cocoon, I started to love it again and I remember saying delightedly to myself a few years ago, "I love orange again!" - as if it were a long-lost friend.   I'm thinking there is a lot to love about a man who still retains the passions of his youth and feels fiercely about something like having a favorite color.  Damn we are so much alike!   I asked him what his second favorite color was and he said (of course) purple, to which it was my turn to say, "Are you serious?"  And we both agreed purple and orange are an amazing color combination.  My wedding china is orange and purple and just last week I bought orange and purple fall pansies.    In the fall, I pluck tired things from my flower boxes and plug in pansies - if the fall is mild they will sometimes bloom all the way to Christmas.

Today I've decided to trust my head and ignore my heart.   It's like the classic angel and devil on my shoulder, they both chatter at me throughout the day.   I've been governed by my heart of late and it's led me down a bad path, a path of never-ending pain and inertia.  My heart is a false adviser these days.  I can't shut it up, but I don't have to do what it says.   I can even be tender with it and say, "I know you still love him, but you can't do...(fill in the blank)."   My head chatters at me just as much as my heart but I mostly ignore it these days, despising its practical advise.  This morning, final items gathered and mailed back to him, even the precious shirt.   Heart:  "Keep it, you need to have something of him.  You need to remember what he smelled like. DO NOT give it back!!!"   Head: "If Heart was right and knew what was best for you, you would be feeling better by now.  Don't listen to him.  Do what you know is healthy.  Do the hard thing and you will be free." Heart:  "Please, don't listen to him.  One more deep smell.  You need to remember him!"   Head: "Shut up Heart. You're pathetic. Sarah, buck up and do the right thing."  And so the struggle goes.

My challenge today is putting one foot in front of the other, and trying to Live Well.  Being busy and productive, listening to my head, getting stuff done, NOT getting derailed by the incessant obstacles to progress.  I will act like an ant and move the anthill one grain of sand at a time.   Your challenge today could be thinking about what you feel passionately about, remembering what animated you as a child.  Are you still on fire with life, brimming over with enthusiams like you were then?  Do you have a favorite color?  Do you love that about yourself, that, even though you are a responsible adult, you still retain the intensity of your youth?   If, on the other hand, you shed your childhood dreams and passions and you are now living by rote, be worried!  Take corrective action!  We are not just worker drones!  We need a daily dose of things that inspire, like the color orange.

Peace,
Sarah

Pumpkin Spice Latte/Delete Selected Texts

Today my daughter Elizabeth said, "Starbucks is responsible for our moods!"  I laughed because just a few days ago I pondered a pictorial display that showed a buccolic fall scene and the words, "Shorter Days and Longer Nights and Not Minding It one Bit," or something like that. It was a promotion for a Pumpkin Spiced Latte, the message being that, now that Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back, we can relax into autumn, surrender to the waning daylight and let ourselves be comforted with a warm cozy drink.   I was sold!  I ordered one with the specification that they use skim milk and not use the pumpkin syrup which would have added calories.  So what I got was my usual non-fat latte with a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spices on top.  Very little consolation for the loss of summer!

This weekend, I had a somber time.  Fun at Schaller's on Friday night.   A group of six of us - would you like to join us some night?   Janet and I sang great and that guy Christ was handsome and fun and the new friend from Australia, a delight - so glad I befriended her - she is special.   And I drank moderately and felt just fine the next morning.   The day was spent completing the transposing of all of my Patrick texts from my phone.   James says it's weird that I did that - that a normal person, having broken up with someone, would have just deleted them all, along with the contact information, pictures, etc.   I couldn't do that - I had to archive the texts and so, in my best handwriting, I copied them all into my journal and relived the relationship from the very first get-to-know-you, flirty texts, to the happy-in-love texts, to the WTF texts where he accused me of hacking his e-mail, to the final breakup and the heartbreaking texts - too many of them sent as I struggled to let go.   Then a certain amount of ceremony as I deleted them from my phone, along with his contact information and pictures of him.  There is now no trace of him in my smart phone.  Was this a good thing to do? I'm not sure....it could have been just more clinging, another exercise in heartache, a fooling myself that I'm moving on, while really I spent two full days reliving every day we were together.   I dunno. Time will tell.  I feel a little more moved on today...a little.

Willpower - the book, done.   It didn't disappoint.   I learned so much about our capacity for exercising will, what is possible, where the pitfalls are, strategies for improving self-regulation, aha moments, and more.  Not sure how much reading the book will affect my life - I'm hoping a lot.   A follow-up book I ordered by David Allen:  Getting Things Done:  The Art of Stress Free Productivity. There was a chapter in Willpower dedicated to this approach to time/task management.   It appeals to me.  One thing that makes a lot of sense is how they break down tasks into the most granular sub-tasks.   It's not enough to assign yourself a task to, for example, Get Apartment Rented.   That is too general.  You ask yourself, "What is the very first step to getting the apartment rented?"   The answer may be, "Place an ad."  But again, that is not specific enough.   The task that should be put on your to-do list should be the very next specific action item which might be, "Log on to Craig's List and Search for Apartments in Evanston to Evaluate Housing Price Points".    If you're thinking you need to get new auto insurance, the action item would be something as specific as "E-mail three friends and ask them who they use for auto insurance and determine how much they pay".   You get the idea.

Victor is helping me at the office.   He said I'm dying by a thousand paper cuts.  He's right. I need things to change starting this week. Watch me be a phoenix rising from the ashes!   It's going to happen.

So what do we think about this time of year?  I awoke on Saturday to a cloudy, crappy morning and didn't take Mr. Joe to the dog beach but instead went to Starbucks and left him in the car while I sat at a table there and did my transpositions.   I enjoyed feeling the flux of people around me and my crazy friend Roger was there.   He literally is a bit looney but so very interesting.   He is a life long learner and publishes tiny, little books on bizarre topics like priests abusing altar boys, or the Federal Reserve Bank and he always gives me free product when he sees me.   He was orgasmic over the Willpower book which I had with me - he was extremely familiar with experiments done on parole judges that showed a link between the judge's glucose levels and their decisions - if you are going in front of a judge asking for parole, you are 80% more likely to be released if he's just gotten back from lunch or a snack break!

Home again and I forced myself to create beautiful fall ambience in my home.   I carted wood in from the pile and started a crackling fire.   I roasted butternut squash with olive oil, garlic and nutmeg.  I cleaned, polished and organized and then sat by the fire and did more writing.   It was lovely.   I got out board games and Madeleine and I played Parcheesi which we hadn't played for years.  It was really special in a very cozy, low key way.  Then friends Liza and James came over in the late evening for a drink and more Parcheesi - nice.  Today more of the same, a cozy fire, more Parcheesi, careful eating, and my book finished.  Tonight dinner with Karen.

Today I ramble.  Yesterday I seriously toyed with not writing this blog any more.   I told James and Liza that I'm a hypocrite.  The title of this blog is "Living Well" and I don't feel that I embody that mission these days.  I am treading water and slipping below the surface most days.  I'm a broken record over my not-so-recent loss that I should have been over long before now.  I have been using writing as an escape.  And most of all, this blog is my last link to him.  Most days I speak to him here.  So what to do?   I'm prone these days to rash pronouncements and promises that I'm not keeping, lines in the sand, black and white thinking.   Each time I make a vow that I don't keep, a part of me withers in disappointment.  All my life I've had a will of iron, indefatigably getting things done.   Now I'm a horse that can't get out of the gate, thrashing this way and that, trying to find a way to break through, to be rid of the inertia and pain.   Baby steps - that's all I can promise.   Today no Patrick in my phone.   Tomorrow I may not mention him at all on my blog.  Tuesday I might focus on something entirely different when I talk with Kaveh, my therapist.  Baby steps.   Steady as she goes.   No need for big pronouncements.

My challenge for today is loving myself even though I am so disappointed in myself these days.   There are forces at work within me that I just don't understand and can't get my arms around.   There are ancient wounds that have been ripped open that have stopped me in my tracks.  Sad, confused, heartbroken, disappointed, afraid - all of it is OK.   I have hope that I will be OK in time.  I have hope that my melodic laugh will return in time.  I have hope.   Your challenge could be congratulating yourself on being a good friend to me so that you read this drivel day in and day out because you love me despite my pathetic state.   You could also check out that David Allen book if you, like me, feel overwhelmed by minutiae and tasks.

Thank you for reading.,
Sarah

No post today/sad and dispirited

'Tis the Gift to be Simple/Too Many Options

What a beautiful day today...crispness and clarity on this our second (or is it third) day of fall.  The day started predictably - the whole out of bed, leash, dog, hat, latte, beach thing.  But there were some differences....a car accident outside Starbucks.   I saw a policeman escort an elderly black woman to a bench  - she was shaking -   When I came out with my drink, I saw her try to rise and fall back so I had to ask her if she was OK, could I get her a drink, call someone for her, was she sure she shouldn't go to the hospital?   I reengaged the police officer on her behalf and suggested she go to the ER just to be sure.  And then I left her, hoping she would be OK, feeling like I should have done more.  And then I questioned my motivation in helping her - I always do this, as if I'm God or something passing judgement on my actions to determine if the source of them is true goodness or just narcissistic supply.  Did I help her because I like to think of myself as a kind and generous person and by acting like a kind and generous person a) I can fool everyone into believing that about me or b) maybe if I do it enough I WILL be a kind and generous person.   Or maybe I really AM a kind and generous person!  It's all so confusing when you start second guessing yourself!

Also today I made some unremarkable but important observations.  I stepped out of my own head and noticed and listened to the other beings around me.  The black woman - for her it was a day from hell, a couple in Starbucks talking earnestedly, she with tears in her eyes - for them this might be their break-up day (sad), a darling curious little boy and his equally curious mother who lingered over every store window they passed, taking everything in and chatting happily to each other - for them, a precious day, a couple on the beach arguing about who to invite for Thanksgiving, seemingly hostile but then seeing them happily holding hands - for them just another day duking it out while still maintaining a loving connection.  I realized that today, September 22, 2011 is a mixed-bag day.  For some a day that will live in infamy, for others just another beautiful fall day to be enjoyed, for others a red letter day to remember forever.  Taken in toto, it's just life - life that moves us forward, always changes, usually surprises. Sometimes it's a delight, sometimes a tragedy, sometimes just dull. The only certainty is that everything plays itself out...time marches.

New potential beau - Arthur.  We are so much alike I wonder if it's vain of us to like each other - like looking in a mirror.  The Internet dating site has us so closely matched it's as if we just copied each others' answers and slapped our names on it.   Maybe we really ARE the same person! - he my male clone, separated at birth in some freak circumstance.  OK, I'm being silly, but it's eerie.   Haven't met him yet...I think we are both a little afraid to meet - afraid to spoil the phone magic, afraid that despite the resonance we feel, the pheromones just won't be there - that there will be a reptilian response to each other that says, "I don't care how good you both look on paper, I'm just not feeling it."   And that can't be ignored, overridden, intellectualized, rationalized away.   If, when we meet, there is no physical reaction, a leaping of the heart, a curling of the toes then it will be an alas moment and we will continue our respective quests.  He is an attorney with a specialty that less than 200 people in the world have, extremely cultured, a foodie like me, a reader like me, and world traveled.  We shall see!

So my book is giving me insight about the dating rituals I'm going through.  I'm experiencing what they describe firsthand.  I've found an Internet dating site where there is a plethora of prospective partners and maybe because I'm "accomplished, attractive and articulate" (as one man described me) I receive a lot of communication.  Prior to the discovery of this site, my criteria had descended to pulse, male, interested in me, and little more.   Now I match myself with very strict criteria and there are tons of people to meet.  And the more options I have, the less decisive I get.  The book describes.."In theory, that detailed profile should have helped people find just the right mate, but in practice it produced so much information and so many choices that people became absurdly picky....online customers typically go out with fewer than 1% of the people whose profiles they check out...because online seekers have so many choices they just go on browsing.  They studied this reluctance to give up options by watching people play a computer game in which they earned real cash by opening doors to find rewards inside rooms.  The best strategy was to open each of the three doors on the computer screen, find the one with the most lucrative reward, and then stay in that room.  But even after players learned that strategy, they had a hard time following it when an additional feature was introduced.  If they stayed out of any room for a while, its door would start shrinking and eventually disappear, effectively closing the door permanently.  That prospect so bothered players that they would jump back into a room to keep the door open even though the move reduced their overall earnings....Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss.  Sometimes that makes sense, but too often we're so eager to keep options open that we don't see the long-term price that we're paying - or that others are paying.  When you won't settle for less than a perfect mate, you end up with no one.  

This is interesting right?  We are in information overload and as a result we often suffer paralysis. Better that we be given fewer choices - it's less crazy making.  As we've discussed before, I am trying to put some helpful blinders on and limit the amount of information I let into my world - I am guarding the portal.  I am aware my mind gets exhausted and paralyzed by too much - too much yammer, too many topics, too much worry, too many choices.   It's not good for me.   And so I crave a simpler life, one my brain can relax around.  Some good loving, good conversation, simple but delicious meals made in an uncluttered peaceful house, time to read, time to enjoy nature, some honest work.   That would be my daily fare which could then be punctuated with some peak experiences - trips to exciting places, music, theater, meals.   It wouldn't take much.

My challenge today is to set a goal to realize this dream of simplicity.   I will mentally walk through my day and my environment and decide what should stay and what should change or go.  I will divest much of what I have - remember when you buy something, it ends up owning you!  It's really doable.   Your goal could be the same - to look critically at your environment - is it supporting your happiness?  Are the things, people and habits you've surrounded yourself with making you happy? Maybe they did once but now they're just hangers-on and they need to find a new life elsewhere in someone else's life.  I'm thinking it's time we put ourselves on a information/possession diet.  Less is more!

Peace,

Sarah

Picture is the score to the Shaker song, "Simple Gifts".  I used to sing it in church.

Habits with Tentacles/Lazy Dorothy

It's hard to write every day!   That implies I have something interesting to say each and every day!!! Some days (like today), it's a real stretch!  Today got off to a late start - allergies I think are slowing me down.  Got up and this whole "be out the door within 15 minutes of rising" has really taken root - it's just what I do now by rote.   Good when new habits grow tentacles and become firmly implanted. The reason that's important is the whole willpower thing.  If I had to will myself to do the morning lakefront routine every morning - if I weighed the pros and cons every morning, I would surely start to falter.  It's like when someone asks you, "What's 2+2?"   You don't have to process that right?   You answer the question from some instinctual place in your brain.  Same with good habits.  Once they become your new modality they require very little discipline.  And that leaves your will intact to take on something else.

Last night, drinks with a new suitor at the Orrington.  Blake, nice - I didn't hate him.   He is a family/child psychologist.  He likes edgy women - I'm edgy, right?  This Friday, a kinda date with a man I met at a party a few months ago.  Executive in the food industry (casinos) - handsome, engaging, a foodie like me and he plays jazz guitar as well.  I pursued him and invited him to hang with the posse this Friday so I'm not sure he knows it's a date :)  Maybe I won't hate him either.   Dorothy tells me to read my "10 Things I Hate About You Letter" that I sent Patrick at one point when he hurt me badly.  She tells me he wasn't all that wonderful - that had we stayed together the things I wrote about may have driven me crazy.   I tell her that despite his flaws (and yes there were a bunch), he was the man for me and that I choose to remember the good things.  I know I must get past him.....it's like childbirth.  There is no going back.   If he walked back into my life today, the relationship would be a poor one because the balance of power would be way out of whack.  I need to get over him to be recalibrated - to be capable of healthy love again.   Enough about him.  The killing frost is almost here.

I think Sarah has to get some work done today and not let my head linger in Patrick-land.   With that I will leave you with no challenge for the day, but DO take the time to read this horrific Little Girl Story that I wrote years ago.  You will shudder.  Sorry Dorothy, I didn't write this with you in mind!   You are anything BUT lazy!!

DOROTHY

"Children, turn the TV off and come to bed, NOW!" yelled Mother. 

"Only if you'll tell us a Little Girl Story" bribed the children.

"Just a short one - what do you want to hear?" asked Mother in an exasperated voice.  The children had been especially bad that day and she wanted some time to herself.

"Tell us about Lazy Dorothy" the children hollered"

Dorothy was an only child and lived a solitary life with her mother and father in a big old house that was perched at the top of the highest hill in town.   Dorothy's mother and father were geniuses and university professors.   Dorothy was pretty sure that she was even smarter than they were.

She spent all her time at the computer and her parents bought her any game or software she asked for.    From morning to night, she hammered away at the keys doing God knows what on the computer.    Her parents tiptoed past her room, sure that she was probably going to find a cure for cancer or something equally important.  

Dorothy had no chores; she had convinced her parents that her studies on the computer were too important and that she shouldn't have to do menial work of any kind.

The only time Dorothy moved from the computer was to go to the bathroom or to sleep- she had dropped out of school long ago.   Dorothy's head grew larger, or so it seemed, and her bottom flattened from all the sitting.   Perhaps it was the rest of her body that had shrunk from not being used.    Her fingers were large and strong from all the typing - too large for the rest of her body.

Dorothy became so lazy that she asked for her meals to be brought to her room.  She was even thinking about having a toilet installed in her bedroom so she would not have to walk all the way to the end of the hall to go to the bathroom.

"Hmmm.   Today I think I'll play Dungeons and Dragons", said Dorothy as she booted up her PC.   She barely noticed that the room was almost dark despite the fact that it was almost noon.  

Her parents were already at the university having left the house quietly hours before, not wanting to wake Dorothy who liked to sleep until noon.

"Tom, there's a tornado warning and Dorothy is all alone at home.   What should we do? asked Dorothy's mother, worried. 

"You call her on the phone and I'll go right home" said Tom.

Dorothy's mom called and called but Dorothy couldn't be bothered to answer the phone.   It was in her parent's room and she was in the middle of a good game.   Dorothy did not notice the hail pelting the windows or the house shaking.

The phone rang and rang.

"Damn it!" said Dorothy.  "I wish whoever was calling would just leave me alone.   It's breaking my concentration - can't they see they're ruining my game?"

Tom almost made it to the house on time.   As he pulled into the driveway, he watched the top of the house break loose and sail away - Dorothy and all.

These days Dorothy lives in a nursing home even though she is only nine.    She took a nasty blow to her head when the tornado dropped her and now she is confined to a wheel chair.    She no longer has to feed herself, not because she's too lazy, but because she is unable to.

So, children, don't be lazy like Dorothy.    She never lifted a finger when she had the chance and now she can't even if she wants to - her fingers and the rest of her body don't work anymore.

The End.

Peace, 

Sarah

Untamed Women/Realize It Now!

Tuesday today.  Last night Petterino's in the theater district after an August break - I was the only female singer other than the hosts. I sang really well and got a compliment from the host, "Sarah, you just keep getting better and better!"   That is gratifying.   I sang The Man I Love and also Autumn Leaves first in French and then in English.  Then a riches to rags relocation - after Petterinos I went to a seamier side of town to Tom Muellner's Pro Jazz Jam session.   It's gotten really popular - I've been going since he started it when I was one of about five people. Last night, no less than 15 musicians showed up - the instruments:  piano (of course), bass, drums, several saxes, trombone, trumpet, guitar, and cello - sometimes several of each.  Tommy pisses me off because he no longer calls me up to sing.  I think it's a passive aggressive thing since we were a number for a while. I'm not sure why I keep supporting him.

Kaveh says....(I talked to him on Tuesday mornings on the phone) that I keep coming back to people who have told me no as if you say, "Are you sure?   Are you sure, you're sure?  Just checking one more time - want to make sure you really meant no."   My mother, Tommy and of course Patrick.  I am incredulous over "no's"  Ha!  Even when I read a dating profile from a guy who said to only contact him if I was an African American woman, my reaction was to contact him and say, "Are you sure?  I am Sarah, after all.  You should really reconsider."  Arrogant, right?

One nice thing...I sat next to a woman from Australia traveling for business.  She was very happy to have found the Cabaret show and she loved my songs so of course I liked her even more!   I asked her to join my posse and me this Friday at Schaller's Pump for what is sure to be a really fun and silly night - we've got a good group going.  One worrisome thing is that I haven't seen Judy Brubaker lately.  She is an amazing woman - you can Google her if you want.   I met her at Petterino's as well - she is a regular singer there.  Let me tell you about my amazing friend.   She is a frail little 87 year old woman who walks with difficulty with a cane.  When she is called to sing she minces her way up the stage and if you're seeing her for the first time, you are not sure what to expect...you feel sorry for her.   When she takes the microphone the years fall away from her.  She is active, energetic, forceful, commands her audience and her voice is gangbusters and SOO good.   She sings the old standards the way they were meant to be sung.   This summer she has been in Provincetown, where she goes every year for a summer-long singing gig.   She should have been back by now.  Her back story is that she was a Hollywood starlet, a Paramont girl with a star on her dressing room door.   She starred in movies with Shirley Temple, Clifton Webb and was a peer of Marilyn Monroe and Debbie Reynolds.  She starred in an awful movie called Untamed Women that in recent years won the Golden Turkey award for one of the worst moves ever made!   The role of Miss Lynch in the musical Grease was written for her.  Her stories are wonderful.  She spent the night with Marlon Brando and she tells a very funny story about when she turned down the sexual advances of Marlena Dietrich.  If that isn't enough she has made her living in recent years doing museum quality furniture restoration and she even had her own restaurant.   Oh, oh, and she paints and made me the most beautiful painting of a Cape Cod landscape - dear to me since I grew up there.  Of course I worry...she is 87 and she is not back.   I will miss her terribly if something happened to her.

Today, I trudged to the dog beach, did the whole walk including stopping at the exercise stations as I usually do and doing the fitness thing.   It is a gorgeous day - really a gem of day and maybe one of the last, and yet I had no smiles for anyone.  I didn't walk shoulders back and head high as I have of late.  It was a feet-looking slouchy morning with no eye contact.  Even the lake seemed apathetic today.   There was no excitement to the surf - waves yes, but anemic ones that seemed to lap the shore disinterestedly.  Even the dogs seemed to be hard pressed to find their usual level of enthusiasm for each other.   Joey is really good with all dogs but he is still puppyish and he can be a bit rumble tumble for some of the smaller dogs.  I got glares from the little dog owners and I glared back as if to say, "He's a dog for Christ-sake!   This is not a tea party!  If your sorry little dog can't cut it, get him off the beach!"  Grrrr....

Today my challenge is maintaining momentum in the face of ennui - feels like swimming in molasses.  Despite the beauty outside it is an uninspiring day in my head - the day lacks passion of any kind.  What do we do when we feel like a black and white photograph, here but not really here? Is there some mental exercise we can do to engage?  I suspect we just wait it out....fulfill our obligations and wait for something good to happen. Your challenge could be Googling Judy Brubaker and "meeting" my wonderful friend!  It could also be getting outside today to cherish the beauty of this remarkable day.  Me?  I am going to repeat Colette's quote to myself many times today in order to convince myself,  "What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner!" or to put it in the present tense, "What a wonderful life I am having!   Realize it now, not later!"   Do you think if I say this enough times I will believe it?

Peace,
Sarah

Score One for the Humans!

Monday again!  Funny how that happens!  No dog beach today because it's just too crappy out and Joey is here with me at the office, panting with excess energy.   He MUST be exercised hard every day to be OK.  We all have non-negotiable needs.  So this morning, some luscious quiet time reading at the crack of dawn while everything was quiet and the day and week was yet unsullied. Hope for a good day, a good week, a good season, a good life.  It all starts with a fresh Monday and self-forgiveness.   I was a jerk this weekend.

So this Willpower book - it may be the singularly most important book I have ever read, right up there with Younger Next Year.  It's not as much a self help book as it is hard science.  Once you understand why you do the things you do, what you are physiologically capable of, what the danger signs are, what strategies work when your will is compromised, you can probably make huge strides in your life. I will report more about this as I gain more insights.  Suffice to say you should run, not walk to your library or bookstore and get this book. Trust me on this one.  Willpower (Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength) by Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney)

Thanksgiving is coming up in about 8 weeks.  I remember last year a promise I made to myself to shake things up this year - to do something entirely different.   I remember hating the rote, the same foods, the same rituals, cooking for three days only to have it devoured in minutes. And even though I'm a great cook, there is something so flawed with the Thanksgiving menu, something that has always bothered me.  You don't need teeth to eat it!  Everything is mush except for the turkey. Stuffing,mush.  Mashed potatoes, mush.  Sweet potatoes, mush.  Green bean casserole, mostly mush. Cranberry sauce, mush. Pumpkin pie, mush.  This year I've decided to do Thanksgiving on the Saturday before so I can cook for a house full of friends – family can be overrated at the holidays.  They will be in attendance but they will be on their best behavior!  And the food!  We’re going for crunch this year!

My friend Robin just sent me an article that has my head spinning.  We humans are amazing!

In just three weeks, online gamers deciphered the structure of a retrovirus protein that has stumped scientists for over a decade, and a study out Sunday says their breakthrough opens doors for a new AIDS drug design…..Looking for a solution, researchers at the University of Washington turned to Foldit, a program created by the university a few years ago that transforms problems of science into competitive computer games, and challenged players to use their three-dimensional problem-solving skills to build accurate models of the protein….."The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems," Khatib said.

Doesn’t this blow you away!   Score one for the humans!   I’ve been known to harbor grudges against inanimate objects and computers certainly fall into that category.   My friends still laugh at my reaction when a clumsy guest broke one of my precious crystal goblets that had been handed down to me by my mother.   Instead of being angry, I said, “Score one for the humans!”  It’s always bugged me that our possessions outlive us….it’s just not fair or right!   In the case of the goblet, that sucker met its demise before I did!  Ha!  Take that, you inanimate object!!!

I ramble today.   I’m feeling better, more positive.   Friend Victor came to the office today to help me get some forward momentum and it worked.  I’m feeling energized – his enthusiasm was palpable and just what I needed.   Plus I’ve been lonely lately, working alone – it was REALLY nice to work side by side with someone else.   And he’s mean!  A real nag!  And that’s perfect.

My challenge today is to do whatever I have to, to break the vicious software loop in my head that keeps my thinking circular and painful.   It can’t win, it mustn’t win.  Just like when I had a squirrel in my ficus tree in my bedroom, I will throw shoes and boots at it.  I will enlist the help of friends.  I will keep reading and writing.   Sooner or later I’ll find a chink in the circular thinking monster’s armor and I will break free and start seeing things in a different light.

Your challenge today could be to think about the upcoming holidays – if you’re Jewish the high holidays that are upon us.  If you’re not, then Thanksgiving which is really just weeks away.   Are you happy with how the holidays go?  Do you feel trapped in a script?   Can you take a dry eraser and just wipe the board clean and start afresh with a new approach?   We don’t have to eat turkey if we don’t want to.  We don’t have to purchase presents at Christmas.  We don’t have to spend time with relatives we may despise.  You don’t HAVE TO do any of it!!!   You can be a holiday maverick….let’s shake things up.

Peace,

Sarah

Picture is of my Thanksgiving table last year.  This year there won't be just mush!!!

Did I Hit Bottom?

Did I hit bottom this weekend?  It was certainly not Sarah's finest hour Saturday night.  First dinner at my house with Victor and that was fine - nice.  But then a drink with one of my suitors at Pete Miller's afterwards - a fellow I had never met but had talked with several times.   I had already had two martinis under my belt when I met him and then a third.  What a nice person he is - interesting, intelligent, kind, interested in me.   In return, I regaled him with too many boastful stories, I lamented over Patrick and even showed him pictures of him, when I got e-mail notifications I checked my messages from other guys and joked about it.  Maybe it was a twisted pay it forward thing after that awful date I had last week.  Last night I was the date from hell.  Later at home, the floodgates of tears broke open and I went through a half a roll of paper towels.   I hadn't cried in a long time - thought I was over the tears part of the breakup but apparently I was just storing them up.  Oh, and drunk texted Patrick volumes of weepy words.  This morning when I woke up, I hated myself for everything that had transpired - my date cruelty, the fact that I'm pathetic, the drunken correspondence.

But tonight a better date.....Michael, really nice.  Dinner at an Italian restaurant and I was mostly well behaved.  He didn't rock my world but I didn't hate him which is a start.  We sat and talked for four hours and now I'm at the office writing this blog just because it's a daily thing for me to do it and it's the one thing I have discipline about these days.

Good news on the Mother Manifesto thing - it's working...the chores are getting done.   It's miraculous!  And I'm loving my kids for stepping up.  And tomorrow Victor at the office - we are going to demand accountability from each other - me in reinvigorating my work effort, he in his job search.   We will shore each other up.  That's a good thing.

I'm really tired.  It's been an emotionally difficult weekend.  Would it be OK if I cut this short tonight? I'm not feeling very inspirational - mostly mortified with my behavior this weekend.  I don't like the person I'm morphing into.  I am sorry Manny, Patrick and James too.

Not at peace,
Sarah

The Empty Moments/Me, Myself and I

I hate weekends these days...despicable weekends....always disappointing weekends.  And I'm like Charlie Brown with the football - I keep looking forward to them!  Arg!   No singing last night and the weekend caught me by surprise with no plans made at all despite my bevy of suitors.   It was a lonely hearts club night at my house.   I cooked dinner for James and me and then Liza joined us later - the thought that we'd just stay in and play board games and drink, laugh and have fun.  What was I thinking?  We are three miserable people and when we get together our misery is compounded.   It's really a bad idea these days for us to seek solace in each others' presence without someone fun like Pam to keep things light.  The night ended badly.  Liza and James fought. James and I fought.  It got nasty and ended with him storming out to my "Fuck yourself" launched at his retreating back.  I guess you have to be pretty good friends to recover from something like that - we did.  Talked it out this morning.  But yeah, no pathetic Friday nights at Sarah's anymore with the three bitcheroos.

This morning I lay in bed and dreaded a lonely day.  I decided that I either needed to end it or fix it and because I'm a basically life-affirming person I only toyed with the "end it" scenario but couldn't seriously consider it.   So fix it, it is.  And I think that means spending more time with myself, really embracing this aloneness thing, not trying to fight it, not trying to fill every moment with distraction.  I think I need to be OK with lonely, bored, understimulated, sad, grim, heartbroken.   I can't keep running from these negative emotions and looking to anesthetize myself with constant activity and human contact.

I have a friend who talks about loving herself.   She is a beautiful woman who always thought she would get married and have a family.  Somehow that dream eluded her and now she is 60 and those dreams are behind her.   She also dated seriously for most of her adult life and she reached a point where she was tired of continually selling herself.  So now, she doesn't date at all.  I swear if George Clooney asked her out, her response would be, "Thanks, but I don't date."   She is amazing - happy, fun, vibrant with a network of people she loves.  Most of all she is her own biggest fan, her best lover. That is a lesson in acceptance.  No one has the capacity to love me as much as I have the capacity to love myself.   No one thinks I am as fascinating as I find myself.   No one is with me 24 hours a day except myself.  No one puts me to bed and wakes with me more reliably than myself.   So given that I can't escape myself and that we spend an awful lot of time together, I think I had better learn to relax when my evening consists of me, myself and I and treat myself the way I would a treasured guest...royally.   Sarah=alone by choice...for a while.  At least a good portion of the time.

Some of the dating profiles I'm reading are really inspirational...there are amazing men out there who really reveal themselves in an effort to make a connection.   After I all but decided to crawl back into my shell today, I read this quote from one gent's profile and it seemed like a sign to stay in the game.

I enjoy connecting with people. Life is not all about 'me'. I like to keep in mind the best things in life are shared. Sharing can be messy, heartbreaking, most excellent, and cool...sometimes all at the same time. We will never know the next great person if we never try to connect. Just take people for who they are, be better to them than they ever expect.

And then this quote from another fellow's site (not original - he lifted it from somewhere):

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like
the company you keep in the empty moments.

Does this speak to you the way it did to me?  The idea of sitting with pain and just enduring it, the idea of surrendering to the joyous moments even when you know a relationship is sure to end in pain and tragedy, and the idea of being able to sit alone and like your own company.   These are thoughts to hold onto and strive for.

Tonight Victor is coming over for dinner which will be meaningful. He is mega Patrick impatient with me and so I will refrain from mentioning his name and give Victor the happy impression I'm moving on successfully.  My friends are like the cheering bet holders at the track watching their favorite horse stuck in the gate.  They are screaming at me to cut myself loose, they are crying fowl. They are stamping their feet and exhorting me to get going, to catch up, to cross the finish line ahead of the others the way I've always done in the past.  They know I'm a thoroughbred and they're confused as to why I'm behaving like a broken down nag.  

The challenge for me today is to embrace the dullness and pain of my life "without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it."  There is no place I can hide from it.  And from that place of still and quiet acceptance, sitting alone and liking my own company.  Your challenge could be the same....if you are filling your life with distractions in an effort to avoid the mirror, find some stillness and spend some time with yourself even if it's damn uncomfortable at first.  You really are your own best friend even if you don't always like yourself very much.  And it's hard to yell "Fuck Yourself" at your own retreating back when it's attached to you!

Peace,

Sarah

Make Good Ruts/A Bar Set Too High

So, this dating thing.  I said I wouldn't be ready until the killing frost and I think I should have stuck with that. Having said that, it's fun and flattering - all the attention I'm getting these days.  Every day I talk to someone new and I've started keeping a database of the romantic prospects.  And...almost without exception I'm making some kind of meaningful connection with these men who are looking for something.  I suspect I'll end up with a bunch more male friends because I don't let it progress past the flirt.   I'm finding something wrong with each of them....too old, too poor, retired-yuck, too young, still lives in the same house as his ex, a nudist, too far away, probably too tall, too fit, too fat, too much a player, unemployed, not handsome enough, too busy, too Republican, too sweet, too talkative, too dumb, uninteresting, etc. etc.   I know...I get it - if I keep comparing everyone to him, everyone is going to come up short in one way or another.  That's what James told me this morning to which I answered, "Is it too much to ask that they are as wonderful as he was?" Hmmmmm....I'm thinking he set the bar impossibly high.  And yet I hope.

So this morning, brisk right?  I bundled up and took Joey to the beach as usual.   Today I brought the book Willpower with me and sat in the sand and read as he galloped with the other dogs.  And if you're going to borrow this book from me be prepared for water damaged pages and tons of sand in the spine.  The book is already an amazing read and I think it's just what I need to get unstuck...nothing else is working.  Here are some of the things I've picked up so far.

• When psychologists isolate the personal qualities that predict 'positive outcomes' in life, they consistently find two traits:  intelligence and self-control.    
• The Victorians were big on willpower but by the 20th century psychologists and philosophers doubted its existence.  
• People rarely name self-control as one of their greatest personal strengths.  
• People spend a quarter of their waking hours resisting desires - the urge to eat, sleep, urge for leisure, sex, social networking Internet sites, TV watching.  
• People are pretty good at avoiding sleep, sex and spending money but typically can't resist TV, the Web and the temptation to relax.  
• Freud actually postulated that the "self" depended on mental activities involving the transfer of energy - that "transfer of energy" has recently been discovered (there is a willpower/glucose connection).
• Willpower has fallen out of fashion - the idea of character building as something that could be developed.  
• After WWII there were forces that weakened the ideal of a strong will. Consumer demand became vital to the economy and new generations of people were directed by things like neighbors' opinions and authors who espoused the realizable wish - "believe it, achieve it - self indulgence.  
• By mid 20th century people lacked the sturdy character of their ancestors.

I'll report more on my reading...some of the experiments cited are really interesting like the one they did on toddlers who were given a marshmallow and told they could eat it at any time, but if they waited until the adult returned to the room in fifteen minutes, they would get two.   Many children scarfed the marshmallow, some tried to resist it but failed and some were successful in waiting and earned the 2nd marshmallow.   The kids were followed to adulthood.  "They found that the ones who had shown the most willpower at age four went on to get better grades and test scores.  The children who had manged to hold out the entire fifteen minutes went on to score 210 points higher on the SATs than the ones who had caved after the first half minute.  The children with willpower grew up to become more popular with their peers and their teachers.  They earned higher salaries.  They had a lower body-mass index, suggesting that they were less prone to gain weight as middle age encroached.  They were less likely to report having had problems with drug abuse.... - the conclusion of the really smart people who have made this their study? - Self regulation failure is the major social pathology of our time.  Wow!

For me, it's carving some new ruts in the road - better, truer ruts that can daily guide my actions without huge effort.  Lately the road I walk is a confusing mess of old standby ruts and new confusing detours. The ruts that have held me in good stead are the healthy habits I do every day, the boring but necessary self care:  a refrigerator kept clean and organized and filled with lean protein, fruits and vegetables, exercise taken regularly, a tidy home, diligence at work, keeping in touch with people I need, creativity nurtured, etc.  Sometimes these daily habits are a huge source of pleasure and some days they are a drudge, something to do  just because they're good for me....the important thing is that they are done.   I think that's where the character building and willpower thing comes into play.   We make new ruts to guide us.  Initially there is excitement in the new endeavor, but eventually the initiative becomes rote and we're tempted to leave it by the wayside.

I made some rut detours this week - flirted with some behaviors I knew wouldn't support me well. Little stuff:   a biscotti purchased with my latte, not doing the full walk along the lakefront (just going directly to the dog beach), roast beef sandwich at Panera before the new writing group, tiny innocent looking containers of Hagen Daaz rum raisin ice cream, not making my bed in the morning.   Hmmm...taken individually these are not things to worry about, but if they are new ruts in the road, new bad habits, not good.

The season is changing on us and if you're like me you feel restless and a bit anxious.  There is change in the air and whenever there is change there is an opportunity to make positive or negative choices - there is vulnerability.  Things like less sun in the morning could entice you to sleep in where you were, this summer, getting up religiously early to hit your treadmill.  Maybe you were grilling lots of fish and vegetables but now with a snap in the air you are craving meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Or maybe you were taking your bike out in the evening but now you are drawn to the new fall lineup of what's on TV.  Change=vulnerability.   I think the challenge today is to protect the gains we've made.  Have a Plan B and C.   For me I'm thinking of what I'm going to do for exercise for Joey and me when it's too cold to walk along the lakefront and visit the beach.

Peace,
Sarah

Pictures are from my kitchen - the things I do to take care of myself.

Make Your Own Fruit Fly Trap/Super Stuck

The new writing group last night was great.  A few friends but mostly new faces which was wonderful - so energizing to meet new, talented folks.  My dear friend Victor was there which was a victory because he can be a creative loner.  His writing was fantastic and met with jaw dropping appreciation.   James led the prompts and, as usual, he did not disappoint - he was a great leader. And Sam came which was a cross pollination between two of my worlds - he's a new acquaintance from one of the Internet dating sites I haunt and now he's a member of my writing group!  I'm fine with that - he's already family. My writing....you won't believe this, given how much I spit out in a day....I had nothing to say!  My writing muse up and left me last night! I found myself being the very worst of things - trite, boring and a one-trick pony.  There is little more I can write about heartache and yet, that is the only subject that bubbles out of me when I take pen to paper.   In two weeks I'll lead the prompts and Liza said to me, "So what are your prompts going to be?  Prompt#1 - Write something with the word Patrick in it.  Prompt#2 - Write something with the word (his last name) in it. Prompt#3 - Write something with (his full name) in it.   She was obviously poking good fun at me but the point was well taken.  Sarah=boring these days.  Really, boring, me????   Never.

All kidding aside, these days I disappoint myself.  Someone else who I don't like or admire has inhabited my skin. I remember telling a friend once - the only thing that would make me disappointed in him is if he disappointed himself.   And now, I disappoint myself.  These are the things that trouble me:  I throw down challenges to myself and I am not meeting them; I'm not taking effective care of myself;  I am not good to my word these days;  I am self absorbed; I am stuck; I am not supporting others enough; I am unfocused; I am not living each day fully.   Since when does Sarah make a promise to herself and not keep it?  Since when does she make a solemn vow and break it?  Since when did she stop listening so, when friends reference, for instance, a recent trip she was oblivious they were even out of town!?  Since when did she throw in the towel with people she loves and not fight with her last breath for them to be OK?  Since when did she allow herself to be immobilized when desperate times required action?  And more.

I think I need rescuing.   I think I need someone like my friend Victor to mentor me for a few days, to be there from the moment I get up to the end of the day to get me back into a productive groove.  I need someone to sit with me and walk with me and say, "Do this, don't do this."   I need someone to lift me out of bad inertia and help me get on positive trajectory.   Or maybe I just need to Sybil myself and find a multiple personality that smacks of a Nazi prison matron who won't take any prisoners with my other multiple selves.

The mother manifesto was met with incredulity and dismay and then ignored.   I made a list of daily chores for them to do which required check marks placed so I knew they were being completed.   To date, not one check mark or chore completed.  They think I'm kidding...when did I become a eunuch?

This morning I did what I usually do which is scrub down the kitchen from the kid-slime mess of the day before (jam dripping off counters, egg encrusted pans, butter smeared on counters, etc).   I restored things to perfect order and wondered if everyone attends to things in the kitchen the way I do.  As I put delicata squash into a large bowl to be roasted later, I did my daily tending of the fruit bowl.  As I set out new fruit fly traps, I wondered - does everyone do these things?   How do other people handle the food management required to maintain a lovely and appealing fruit bowl?  Do they examine the fruit daily, putting pieces in the frig as needed?  Do they make banana bread with bananas past their point of edibility?  Do they set fruit fly traps?  Do other people feel the need to have six or more types of fruit at any one time?  Eating well requires this level of care and feeding!

One reader asked me to share my "recipe" for fruit fly traps.  You need a tall thin glass - a champagne glass works well, a piece of copy paper, scissors, tape, fruit and yeast.   Put a piece of fruit in the bottom of the glass and sprinkle with yeast.   Make a cone from the paper with a very small hole in the bottom.  If you want, cut the top of the cone to make it look more cone-ish.   Put the cone into the glass (it should not be touching the fruit) and then using a very long piece of tape, tape all around the seam where the glass and the cone meet, making sure there are no gaps. When you get to the end of the piece of tape, you can fold the last inch or so back on itself to make a tab - easier to unpeel when you empty the trap.   Place the trap near your fruit-bowl - in a day you will have caught many fruit flies.  They will have been attracted by the yeasty fruit smell and entered the trap through the cone and the tiny hole.  Curiously, they will not exit through the entrance hole.   Each day I empty the trap and make a new one.   Here is a picture.

My challenge for the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow is to get firm with myself.  I need to stop wallowing in sadness and indulgence and put my nose to the grindstone.   I think I will make myself a project plan, like I am my own customer, put some hard and fast rules about my work day.   Your challenge could be to do the same.   If you are floundering and need to be a rainmaker of your own life, take my cue and Sybil yourself.   Find your inner Nazi matron and hold yourself to a rigid Germanic schedule for just one day - see how that goes.

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is of a fruit fly trap with grapes.