Get Twitterpated/Manic Memorization

Didn't write yesterday and almost didn't today. Feeling off kilter, but I'll be fine.  At the office with Joey, the world's cuddliest yellow Lab.  He may love his Liz the best but I'm a close second.  As for me, I adore him, love bear hugs from him and kisses from a tongue that always smells like corn chips.

Has it ever happened to you that you instinctively know what you need without consciously thinking it through? I think it's that subtle right brain activity that nudges us to order a hamburger when our bodies are low on iron, even though we normally eschew red meat.  Or the warning red flags we get about certain people?  This week I found myself with a hyper-drive mind, was thinking too much, in too high a gear.  So what did I do?  From a free music Internet site, I downloaded 37 new songs to learn! That, in and of itself, is impressive right - the ambition to learn 37 new songs, given that my current repertoire is only about 60 songs? But, that's not all.  The weird part is that, after my date on Tuesday, and after the writing group on Wednesday, I found a total of 5-6 hours in which I memorized the lyrics to ALL 37 songs!!   If you're not a singer, you might not be impressed. If you are, you are stunned by the achievement or you probably think I'm lying!  (I'm not).  People who know me (especially employees) know I've got a freaky memory. I remember subtle details of a project I worked on 20 years ago, or a phone number from an obscure support group at AT&T that I haven't called for ten years. But the memory is imperfect. I'm the mother who would drive off with a carseat (kid in it) on the top of the car! Anyway, the memorization thing....it had the unplanned for effect that it calmed my overactive mind.  For those 5-6 hours, my brain was anesthetized.   And!!!!  I now know the lyrics to 37 new songs!

I loved my friend's Steve's reaction when I told him what I had done.  He has seen my on-steroids project management skills in action as he often visits my office for a change-of-venue place to work.  He knows my brain is different than others.  So, when I told him of my agitation and what I did to calm the over-activity, he looked at me with admiration and amazement and without thinking, gently placed his hand on the side of my head as if to say (talking to my brain, not me), "You are amazing, I am glad to know you, by putting my hand here, maybe some of that memory will rub off on me, I know you are in pain much of the time, but you are special and I honor you."   My brain thanked him - they had a moment.

Writing group was terrific!   We had eleven writers of all ilks and talents and James threw down some great prompts.  It can be like therapy.  One man wrote of his father and started crying.  Another woman was there in an attempt to excise pain from a recent loss (thinking someone close to her died).  For Liza, writing is always an antidote to her crazy life (just about the only thing she does for herself) and for James, it's what he's best at.  We have a female Episcopalian priest who comes to replenish herself and to find her creative muse - important because each week she has to come up with an inspirational sermon for her parishioners.  For me, it's therapeutic - I am often astounded at what bubbles up out of me.  And, given that much of what I write is dark and slimy, I think I'm glad the dark thoughts find a home on paper and exit my body.  Good to expel them.   Here is one of the pieces I wrote:

I knew I was cracking up but there was nothing I could do about it.  "Pity," I thought, "my life had such promise!"  And there was a certain release in giving up, admitting defeat.  Just letting all hang out - all of it, the fury, the fear.  It couldn't be contained. 

When did it start, the giving up?  When was it, the scales tipped in favor of insanity?  It must have been when Carmen purged my jewelry box,  She did that now and then, decided to dump a drawer and cleanse sedimentary layers of crap, plucking worthy object to be saved and organized, throwing much of it away.  A drawer here, a closet there.  I hated when she did that - it always felt like an invasion, but how could I tell her I wanted to keep the crap, wanted my life and filth preserved just so, like an insect in amber?  And so, I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached and endured her well-meaning cleansings. 

But the jewelry box - oh, the jewelry box.  Sure it had become a catch-all for weird stuff like the little packets with the extra buttons you get when you buy a new shirt.  There were singleton earrings never to be worn again, and keys to unknown locks.  

I know she must have been repulsed - probably got a tissue to pick them up.  There were three of them, black, shriveled, gnarled.  They were dessicated, little knots of old flesh.  Of course, she threw them out - she must have thought some critter had gotten into the box and laid three identical turds.  

They were all I had left of the babies - three perfectly formed, full term babies, delivered, one after each other - all silent, all blue.  All that was left - their petrified umbilical cords - gone now.  

So the weekend is upon us.  In three days, I'll be writing, "Monday again."  And so it goes - week after week, each week the same but different.  Each week that holds such promise, sometimes making good, sometimes disappointing, but always marching forward.  It is springtime.  These are the days when we should make good, harness spring, put it in our step.   If you're single like me, maybe you are feeling twitterpated, like in Bambi.  For my single friends, I wish you new love.  For my married friends I wish you reawakened love.  The challenge today.  Throw off the woolen feelings of winter.  Lighten your spirit.  Do something playful and stupid this weekend.  Get twitterpated.

Peace,
Sarah

twitterpated

An enjoyable disorder characterized by feelings of excitement, anticipation, high hopes, recent memories of interludes, giddiness, and physical overstimulation which occur simultaneously when experiencing a new love. These feelings take over without warning, usually at odd times (such as at a check-out line), with or without the partner present, and make it difficult to concentrate on anything but romance. They interfere with work and safe driving, but should be experienced at least once in every person's lifetime.

Interpersonal Neurobiology/I Absorbed Him

Wednesday is writing group on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.  Looks like we will have ten folks this evening if the RSVP's hold.  I want to write well tonight, something deep and dark but hopeful.  We'll see. Date last night was nice.  He was a lot of fun and it was good to be out with a gent, laughing and flirting.  And yet....

So, The Brain on Love, an article I just read in the NYT.  The first paragraph has to grab you.

A RELATIVELY new field, called interpersonal neurobiology, draws its vigor from one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life. In the end, what we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.

Literally transforms you!!!  Remember when your mother told you, you are what you eat?  That might have been true, but apparently it wasn't the whole story!  What we pay the most attention to defines us, transforms us!  Or as Liza would say if you spend your time with garbage, you end up smelling like garbage.  First the smell and then you become garbage.  Think she was cautioning her kids about their choice of friends.

There is a line in the article (here is the link - The Brain on Love) that blows me away, "Every great love affair begins with a scream."  The author goes on to describe the love affair between a mother and a child - the bond that "feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose."  I've always thought that when a baby starts experiencing separation anxiety - when his mother leaves the room, it's as if his leg or arm were leaving the room.  There are relationships where physical boundaries dissolve.  Apparently this mother/baby love affair is stamped in our brains - "the body remembers how that oneness with Mother felt, and longs for its adult equivalent".

Read this next.  Astounding:

When two people become a couple, the brain extends its idea of self to include the other; instead of the slender pronoun “I,” a plural self emerges who can borrow some of the other’s assets and strengths. The brain knows who we are. The immune system knows who we’re not, and it stores pieces of invaders as memory aids. Through lovemaking, or when we pass along a flu or a cold sore, we trade bits of identity with loved ones, and in time we become a sort of chimera. We don’t just get under a mate’s skin, we absorb him or her.

I think we already know this, already feel that when we are in love there is "someone" else in the room - as Stephen Covey would say, "a 3rd alternative", a one plus one equals three.  I tasted this and described it in my writing, the cleaving together of two souls, then the cleaving apart when the relationship ended.  It was almost a literal death.

Our author goes on to talk about how happy relationships actually relieve stress, heal wounds - the brain recycles the bad - replaces it with good.  When your brain knows you're with someone you can trust, it is free to care for the big stuff - it doesn't waste itself in the fight or flight stuff that can otherwise consume it.

So what do we do with this?  Being single or in a bad relationship, it would seem, is really bad for your health!  It is not a happy stasis for human beings - our brain is searching, scanning, interviewing - looking for missing pieces, what it needs to be well and whole so it can go about the business of higher thinking,  "A wedded heart changes everything, even the brain."  I'm thinking the old adage, "Behind every great man, is a great woman," was truer than we knew.  If the great man has a great woman under his skin and fingernails and draws on her strengths, his brain in an "idyll of safety", it is free to conquer the world.  The same obviously holds true for the potential of the great woman - with her man's fluids in her, she is somehow better equipped.

I am sad today.  Feeling like a hamster on a treadmill.  Ah...hamsters.  Someday I'll tell you how, as a teen, I ended up with 60-70 of them.  I was a hamster lady - even took them to college with me. When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I even dreamed that she was born a hamster and I dreamed of the challenge of breastfeeding the little thing with the tiny little mouth - my nipple was as big as its head.  I write a lot about the brain these days because I'm really struggling with mine.  I would like to master my thinking.  Intellectually, I know exactly what I need to think and do to be happy, and what I need to leave behind.  And yet, my stupid brain is in cahoots with my imbecile heart.  If my heart were a chicken, it would the one running around the farmyard with no head.  I get it.  I have read everything I can get my hands on.  I listen to friends.  I wait for time to pass.  Nothing helps. And so, I read articles about the brain, hoping for a way to master it, trick it, smoke and mirror it, sleight of hand it.  I have offered it substitutes, gotten busy to exhaust it, transported it to other worlds with fiction, tried to smile and laugh it to confusion.  Nothing works.  Not a day goes by.

Your challenge today is reading that article - be astounded and convinced that your wellness is predicated on having relationships that give your brain safe harbor.  If you are not in a relationship that floods you with positive endorphins, think about getting out.   You deserve and apparently NEED to be loved and cherished.  Your health and longevity is tied to it.

Peace,
Sarah

Less of a Mess/Crack Some Nuts!

Kaveh today.  So much to tell him now that we only have been speaking every three weeks.  At one point we reminisced about the highs and lows of our journey together.  I asked him if I was his "Bob" - remember that funny movie What About Bob?   He laughed and said, "Yes, it's in the nature of the work to have patients like you from time to time."  Mostly he is so proud of me and proud of himself - I know he is professionally gratified to have made such a difference.  I hooted when he reminded me of our our first consultation when I dragged Madeleine in to see him and told him, "Fix my daughter!" And then, "This is what you need to do to fix my daughter!" as I proceeded to tell him how to do his job!  Ouch!  We talked about the "L" word.  I think he is unusual in that he is totally comfortable with the concept of loving a patient - the trickiness of defining the loving feelings properly, maintaining solid boundaries while allowing himself to feel what he feels.  What a wonderful job he has done with that - loving me, helping me, saying no to me, making sure he didn't bring his own longings  into the therapeutic room, being constant and consistent so that I could thrash around and explore a full gamut of emotions.  A rock that one.

And how serendipitous this blog can be.  I should be mindful that lately if I write about a concept, within days it's put to the test!   Remember the day after I wrote about not being overly attached to possessions, the theft?  Yesterday I wrote about "one for all and all for one" families.  I wrote about always being there for my kids.  My eldest daughter is extremely independent, rarely asking anyone for help.  Lately she is is struggling to make ends meet despite working 80+ hours/week.  This morning an uncharacteristic call from her for help - somehow she felt like a failure having to ask her own mother for help!  I rushed to her, took her to breakfast, listened and shared, gave motherly advice and helped her out of her financial predicament.  I was so happy to be useful to her.  I really adore my kids - they are such a source of joy to me these days.

And this morning as I sat with her, I shared my own struggles. I told her I was going to tell her something really weird, something counter-intuitive.  I told her I was living the most amazing time of my life - that this last year has been the absolute worst and best of times.  I told her I've never been happier or sadder.  Each day brings me immeasurable joy and yet, each day, I further plumb the depths of despair and have a good cry over the loss of Patrick.  Despite all my recent realizations that we weren't what the other one needed, I still miss him terribly and long for him.  I wish it had worked out.  So I have my cry and then I bounce into the day with enthusiasm and an unbridled love of life.  I can finally say I wouldn't have traded his love for anything - it was life changing.  What I wanted to convey to Catherine was that it's OK to struggle, OK to be sad, OK to need help - it doesn't mean your life is worthless.  I shared Collete's quote with her "I had a wonderful life, I just wish I'd realized it sooner!"  I told Catherine not to wish away these days, even if they're tough.  They are the painting of her life.  Some day she will brag to her kids about how poor she was and how she prevailed.

Yesterday, as I pulled up to the lakefront to do my 10,000 steps, I had a self critical moment.  "I am a mess," I said to myself (remember I do that a lot these days - talk to myself).  "Yes," I replied to myself "but you are less of a mess!"  Loved that -  "Less of a Mess!!"  First off, it rhymes and who doesn't love a pithy rhyme?  Second, what a wonderfully forgiving thing to say to oneself!   Progress is so incremental!  Good to be pleased with "less of a mess!"   And then I envisioned my challenges as nuts in a bowl that were being satisfactorily cracked one at a time.  And really aren't most nuts crackable no matter how tough the shells?  Exercise, diet, good relationships with the girls, discipline at the office, eschewing hard liquor, having good boundaries - these are all the nuts that I'm working on cracking.

Spring - that rebirth time of year - it's confusing this year with the bizarrely warm weather.  Are you confused like me?  The harbingers of spring are here - saw my first crocus last week and my first robin a few days ago.  But on the heels of that were daffodils (too soon!), magnolias blooming at the same time as the forsythia, houseflies in March, air conditioning, choruses of confused birds, grass that already needs mowing. Uneasy - it all feels like a rush.  What happened to the slow unfolding of spring into summer!?   Maybe it's fitting - mirrors my life these days.  Tempus fugit, right?  Life is going by way too fast, the years piling on, one after the other.  I no longer gain acceptance for one stage and another is upon me.  So this spring, why the hell not?  Bring it all on!  It's a magical realism life anyway, so if the cherry tree gives fruit at the same time as the rhubarb ripens, whatever! These days I wouldn't be surprised for us to have a blizzard followed by a heatwave, with squirrel babies being born and having their own babies in the same season and trees whose new shiny leaves turn to fall color in the same week.  It's all wrong...it's upside down, it feels like doom but there's nothing to be done so I just bear witness and write and try to be OK.

This will be a canning year - I can feel it.  I need another obsession and when I can, I get lost in the reverie of it - late night, even all nighters - a race against ripening, a race to get the fruit put to bed in little boiling water sealed jars.  Hundreds and hundreds of jars, each looking like garnets, rubies or amethysts.  It's punishing - the kitchen getting into the sweaty '90's, arms aching from the heavy kettles, feet and legs begging for a break.  One year, I started canning peaches in the evening and at midnight sloshed boiling water on my chest.  Three layers of clothing held the scalding water against my skin and by the time I had ripped off my clothes and jumped into a cold shower, the damage was already done.  I waited a week before going to the doctor, only after I had lost half the skin from my chest and my family begged me to go.  And what a pioneer woman I was!  After the scalding, I returned to the kitchen to finish the peaches until 5AM!  Time doesn't wait for peaches!  I still bear faint scars from that day.

Tonight a date with Dave - he is funny on text.  His name "NiceDave" worries me.  I eat nice people on bad days.  Hope he can hold his own.   Your challenge today could be to picture your challenges as hard Brazil nuts in a bowl.  Label them:  home improvements, skin care, eating organic, job search.   Taken individually, they are totally crackable.  Then go look for your nutcracker and crack some nuts!

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is the peaches from that year - just a fraction of them - there were actually hundreds of jars.

All For One and One For All/The Price

I had a wonderful time with my Aunt Jeanne this weekend - we packed in a whole lot of living. Friday, I was going to take her to Schaller's but good thing we called ahead 'cuz music was cancelled due to no patrons (I guess it was a big basketball night or something).  We went, instead, to Maggiano's in the city and sat at the piano bar.  Fun.  Bob Salone reigns there - really good pianist and performer, and there were a handful of singers.  I sang three tunes - did well.  A funeral on Saturday (Dorothy's mother-in-law) and then a play on Saturday evening at The Raven.  The Price by Arthur Miller.  I took Jeanne and Mom's old friend, Peggy - the play was astounding. Sunday, made dinner and the girls came up, all in good spirits, and the tenants from downstairs. Great food - fajitas.  We grilled marinated skirt steak then fried up a boatload of peppers of all kinds, tomatillos and onions - added in the grilled meat which was cut thin, cross-grain, and then topped it with fresh lime juice, cilantro and garlic.  Served it all with warm tortillas, fresh guacamole, homemade salsa and sour cream.  Sublime!  Then for dessert I made a Grand Marnier dark chocolate fondue into which were dipped, pieces of pound cake, dried apricots, apples, pineapple, bananas, strawberries, blackberries and sumo oranges.  It all went down easy with lethal Sangria (not vodka though! - still good to that commitment!).

What I love is putting on a relaxed meal where the food just unfolds out of the kitchen, seemingly effortlessly.  Now and then, I give someone a chore (Mark grilled the meat.  Jeanne peeled the paper off the tomatillos), but mostly I just enjoy working as people hang out, and because I'm a confident cook, there is never any worries.  Food should be that way - well conceived, prepared with love and laughter and presented in a relaxed way.

Date tomorrow night.  I know, I know, I said I wasn't ready to date yet.  All my friends tell me to just give it a break.  I've been going through the motions of meeting people with little intention of giving them a fair chance.  And who's to say that tomorrow evening will be any different.   One thing, and maybe it's sour grapes, but this weekend I realized that Patrick and I probably would not have been happy had we stayed together.  There were cracks, fissures that, I think, would have widened in time.  I realized this after talking with him last week.  He was a huge help but there are communication issues between us that are seriously troubling and frustrating for both of us.  It was liberating for me to realize this, realize that, if he wanted me back, I would have to say no unless things were very different.

So, the play, The Price..  Two brothers, a father, the stock market crash and a family ruined and force to live in an attic.  The once powerful father was reduced to a zombie, sitting in a chair.  The socialite mother vomited all over him when she realized they'd lost everything.  The younger brother took off and didn't look back, went into the world to make his fortune. The eldest brother became a martyr and abandoned his dreams and took care of his parents, literally foraging for garbage to keep them alive.   The play is set years later, the parents are gone, the brothers, older with children of their own.  They finally reunite in the old attic of the house to sell the family possessions.  Conflict. The brothers argue and defend their actions.   It is revealed that the stories they have told themselves and others are not complete truths.  Convenient truths but not fleshed out, accurate truths.  The real truth, when it's revealed is ugly and hard to digest.  It becomes less clear who the villains and victors are.

Most disturbing was the thought that, the family ideal of "all for one, and one for all" is often just an illusion.  How deep is our love?  How much are we willing to sacrifice for the people we love?   How often do we appear to be acting selflessly when really it's our own self interest that is our real motive?  And what is it about some families that really do operate with a "one for all, and all for one" mindset versus other families where selfishness is at the core?

I am learning to love my family in a proper way.  It's taken too long, I know.  I'm a slow learner. If I get this right, my girls will know they can completely trust me and count on me to do right by them. These days, they see the change, are gratified by it, but are, I think, suspicious of it.  My new ways have not passed the test of time.  Constancy is only something that can be proved over time.  In due course, I hope they will believe in my steadfastness.  It will be my life achievement - the flame of love for them that never falters, that they can count on and "take to the bank".

Corrupt, selfish parents must be the root of most evil in the world - it's the "gift" that keeps on giving, inter-generationally.  In The Price, when disaster struck, the parents shrunk in on themselves and protected their own self interest at the expense of their children.  The father let his son sacrifice himself and scrounge for food while he sat possessively on $4,000 - literally in the chair cushions. That $4,000 could have been used to create a future for all of them   Instead, he horded it and sacrificed his children.

The challenge today could be giving thought to your own family unit and your own bottom line. Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons - you are one or more of these things. How important are these relationships? (and there is no right answer).   If you're honest, is your family an "all for one and one for all" unit, or are you individuals loosely connected without the safety net of each other?   Do you love someone so much you would give your life for them?  Are you, in turn, loved that deeply?  Do we have the right to expect that much fidelity?  I'm starting to suspect that, in good families, there is a sense that every family member, whether they like each other much or not, would fight to the death for each others' survival - that a good family unit is inviolable. And sad when we come from a family that never got it right.  It's the ultimate loss.  The good news is that it may not be too late to change it.

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is a horrible picture of me, but great of the girls.  I had been toiling in the kitchen, no make-up, hair a disaster, but it captures us and the happiness of the evening.  We are special, yes?

So, So, Suck Your Toe/The Rainbow

So, so, suck your toe, all the way to Mexico.  When you're there, kiss a bear, and don't forget your underwear!  Lately I've taken to talking to myself - aloud.  I started today with that little ditty that I taught my kids when they were little - other parents hated me for it after their kids, in turn, recited it over and over and over again.  Say it aloud.  It's fun on your tongue!  So, yeah, I've taken to talking to myself each morning and sometimes other times during the day.  I ask myself questions.  I answer my questions.  Sometimes the "dialogue" gets pretty lively.  Thinking this is how strange old age starts.  First you start talking to yourself, then you start cooking for your cats and playing Scrabble with them.  You definitely wear a pedometer and, even though the device counts steps for you, you count each step you take just to be sure it's accurate.  If you saw me walking along the lakefront, you would see my lips moving!  What's next?  I'm thinking I might have to cover my windows with aluminum foil to keep my brain from being scrambled further by alien thought waves! OK, I really am just having some fun!  Truth is, I do have two cats but I don't cook for them nor fuss over them much  (we don't play Scrabble - that would be weird.  Any cat lover knows they're not good with language - that backgammon is their game!).  I rarely count my steps and I'm not worried about aliens.

But the talking to myself, yeah, that I do.  Only at home - never a crazy lady walking down the street arguing with herself (although these days we just assume the person is wearing a bluetooth, right?). This morning, I marveled at the day, listed all the things that were good and there is so much to be happy about!   Working the 7 Habits.  It's a work in progress but how good it feels to break from negative patterns and find new paths!  The 10,000 steps is an incredible achievement.  What's amazing about it is that, in under two weeks, I've gone from dreading and hating the steps to looking forward to them.  I adore getting on my elliptical in the morning and donning my iPod, programmed with a random shuffle of music.  Every morning is different.  The music that presents itself to me is like my version of Tarot cards - significant meaning in the random selections.  Today, the songs that really resonated were, Carol Kings, "Beautiful"  (You've got to wake up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart, then people gonna treat you better...), and an instrumental version of "The End of a Romance" played by old flame and incredible Chicago pianist Tommy Muellner.   That was my "tarot reading" of the day.  I always look for signs.

One day, quite a while ago, stands out.  It was a desperately sad day, missing Patrick.   I had been to a client appointment near his house.  I parked outside his house for about 15 minutes and had a long sob.  Somehow I needed to feel his presence even though I knew he would be at work and not there.  I thought it would help (it didn't).   On the way home, I begged for a sign - something, anything, to show me what to do next.   Driving down Dempster - looking, looking for the sign I was sure would come to me.  "Please God, tell me what to do!"  Right after I said that, I looked up at the street signs and there is was, the sign, the name of the cross street - Kilpatrick.   At that point I burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all.  Surely the gods didn't want me to compound my problems with murder!  And why would I - I love the guy!!!   Wise Kenneth said to me later, that WAS a sign and a good one - kill him in your heart.   It worked as a metaphor.

Yesterday afternoon - feeling good - it was drizzling outside but I had 6,000 steps to go for the day so I decided, why not a rain walk?  I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West (contrary to what some people on the dog beach may think!) - I don't melt from rain.   So, a solitary rain walk it was - no one else ventured out - I had the lakefront to myself mostly.  Then the rained thinned and the sun came out. Dare I hope for a rainbow ?  It was the perfect conditions for it - rain and sunshine together.  And then..........there it was - over the lake a full two sided rainbow!  Incredible!  I stopped and hugged myself in excitement.  Then I looked around - I was giddy, the moment needed to be shared.  A lone runner came toward me.  Smiling, I blurted,  "Look at the rainbow!"  He stopped and stood next to me and said as we both gazed out to the lake, "Beautiful.  Thank you so much."  We said not another word - just took it in and then went our separate ways.  It was a lovely, humbling moment.  And an auspicious sign.   Rain, troubles, flashes of sunshine, a cloud again, then the sun again and finally the ecstasy of a rainbow and the peace that comes when you find yourself in just the right time and place.  At that moment I think he and I both felt like intentional brushstrokes in a beautiful painting.

Last night - the 3 Ellas:  my friend, Spider Saloff, Frieda Lee and Dee Alexander - a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.  The concert was held at my favorite music venue, Katerina's on Irving Park Rd.  It was packed to the gills which was so cool - not an inch to spare and yet everyone properly situated at tables happy with drink and food and the anticipation of great entertainment.  Then the gals did their thing and OH MY.....they were hot.  They wore their life experiences on their sleeves, voices soaring or a controlled whisper, pain palpable, joy unleashed, humor, humor, humor.  And what I loved was that they were all passed the age where being perfect and pretty is paramount - they WERE imperfectly beautiful which I think is way sexier.    They inhabited their bodies with gusto and guts and just let it rip.  They were women realized - pretty, gutsy, tragic, feminine, masculine, gritty to the point of ugliness sometimes, ball-busting but man loving - the full spectrum of a woman.  Raw.  Awe-inspiring.

The challenge today is taking a rain walk.  You won't melt.  Unless of course, you're not in Chicago and then who knows what your weather is.  And how cool that there are people all over the world reading this blog.  Who are you and how did you find me?  I would love for you to reveal yourselves. Anyone who wants, can send me an e-mail to, first part, sbritton and then there's that little symbol for "at" and then the second part, brittoninfoservices (dot) com.  You know why I had to give you my address that way, right?  There are evil bots searching the internet for e-mail address so that they drown you in spam or worse.

Peace,
Sarah

Terrorize a Crone/It's A Wonderful Life

Yesterday I boiled over - the angst and rage needed an outlet.  Joey and me at the dog beach. Tranquility to sit in the sand and soak up some rays while he romped.  He is a good dog, good at the beach, good with other dogs, really mostly appropriate.  But....there is one thing he does.  When he gets another dog's toy he will not, for anything, give it up to anyone, including me.  Other dog owners know this quirk about him, they always have toys to spare so he is humored.  And everyone adores him, knows his back story of abuse and marvels at what a lovely animal he is. Except.......this one scary hag of an 80 year old woman.  She has two golden retrievers who she yells at constantly.  Joey must take pleasure aggravating her because he ALWAYS takes her dogs' toys.  She and I have discussed this in the past.  I've told her he is in obedience classes with my daughter, that they are working on behaviors including "give", and that in time it will be resolved, I'm sure.

So yesterday, she marched up to me as I sat in reverie and asked me to get the toy from Joey.  I said, "No."  She was stunned.  I said, "We've had this discussion before.  You know that he won't give it to me - he thinks it's a keep-away game.  Please leave me alone and next time bring two toys."   She then proceeded to pace up and down the beach with her friend within earshot and vilify me.  Comments like, "Get your fat ass up and take control of your dog," reached my ears. I fumed.  Reverie gone.

After 15 minutes or so, I tricked Joey into giving me her toy (offered him a replacement) and I marched up to the crone and her friend and had it out with them.  I started calmly enough, reminding her of previous conversations, that the dog belongs to my daughter, the classes, etc. and then I escalated and, just to make her feel like a penny waiting for change, I said, "How dare you insult me? You don't know me, don't know what I'm going through.  Anyone sensitive would see that I am very sad, sitting, looking out to the water.  In fact my mother passed away last Monday!" (a lie - easier than telling her about the theft).  Once I got started I didn't stop.  I yelled at her, "It's a fucking toy for God's sake and he's a fucking dog!  It's what dogs do!  They're not people - you can't reason with them!   He was abused.  He has a brand on his back from being abused!  It's a miracle he's here and doing so well!  So you should really think twice before you call someone a fat ass!  You don't know me - don't know what I'm going through. You two bitches need to be checked.  How dare you!  You're goddamn beach bullies and the next time you pull this shit, I won't be as nice as I am today.  Stay the fuck away from me and my dog and if my dog steals your dog's toy too fucking bad! Get over it!"   By the end I was shouting and almost foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog!  I was that mad and it felt so good to just unload on someone.  She SOOOO had it coming.

With that, the whole beach watched as I left.  I swear Joey looked at me with pride in his eyes. When I told Elizabeth what had happened, she bemoaned that now we couldn't go back to the beach. "Are you serious?" I said.  "On the contrary.  I own that beach now.  No one will fuck with us again!"  Sarah =bad ass yesterday.

So, am I proud of myself for taking my fury out on a mostly defenseless 80 year old woman?  No, I guess not.  It's certainly not the pacifist way.  Not the "3rd alternative" way of handling conflict.  It was a  Middle East solution - just destroy her (I think I threw the ball at her face but hit her in the chest).  I'm reminded of the movie, Network.  The line, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" Think I need to get Ryan to take me to the firing range again.  Shooting a gun would really feel good about now.

When I am desperate for a solution I have reached out to Patrick and so it was after the theft.  He is reliably there for me as a good friend.  I really try not to abuse it.  A desperate time.  He helped a lot - he has a way of reaching me.  His advice is the advice I need the most.  Others are well-intentioned but I'm pretty sure if I follow a hard line approach it will be disastrous.  Being a Marine, he preaches responsibility and accountability but surprisingly he is also extremely compassionate and insightful.  Surprising because you wouldn't expect that from a big, burly Marine.   The crisis is largely over so I don't need him anymore and I will put the lid back on communication.  Grateful that he's in the world and in my corner and there when I need him.  So, I thank him.  I hope I can return the favor some day when he needs level headed, measured advice.  I hope my advice is as good as his is.

Last night, I sang my heart out in Bucktown - it's what I needed - didn't matter who was listening. Today Aunt Jeanne arrives from Portland - my mother's sister.  She is terrific and more a friend than an aunt.  Can't wait to hang with her.  She reads this blog, so "Hey Aunt Jeanne!"  Tonight we'll attend an amazing concert at Katerina's - the 3 Ellas, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.  It will be three dames:  my friend Spider Saloff, the great Frieda Lee and the jaw droppingly good Dee Alexander.  I saw this show a few months ago - at the end the audience jumped to their feet in appreciation - that good.  Now I want to share it so I have my aunt and 8 others going tonight - table for ten.

Can you tell I'm trying to be OK?  Some days we just have to put one foot in front of the other - stay the course.  That is today.  I've got 4,000 steps on the pedometer, I'm here at the office and will get shit done and tonight I will enjoy a fabulous show.  Really I'm very lucky right?  I have my health, I live in one of the greatest cities in the world, I love my girls, love my friends, it's spring.   Good stuff. Today I will put Collette's quote on my computer to glance as I work.  "What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner!"  Think I'll phrase it differently though, "What a wonderful life I'm having - don't wait until the end to realize it!"  And I will remind myself of the commitments I made in my mission statement,  

I pledge to live my life with integrity and honesty, to express my love for others with kind words and reliable deeds, to apply myself diligently and effectively in the work I choose, to treat people with fairness, patience and compassion (ooops not sure how that squares with the dog beach incident!), to care for myself physically, mentally, emotionally and financially, to try and live each day with passion and enthusiasm, rejoicing in the journey, being open and curious to new people and experinces, appreciating beauty, accepting sadness and loss, and creatively expressing my love of life.

The challenge today is reminding yourself that you're having a wonderful life - find a moment to take stock and embrace it all - all of it - the yummy stuff, the crap, the worries, the fun, the beauty, the confusion and even to be amazed when angry lava erupts from your head and you find yourself in combat with someone who has crossed you.  It's life.


Peace,
Sarah

Frisbies/Aldei Gregoire

It's hard to write today.  I feel like a wrung dishrag.  And no details will be forthcoming because it's fine for me to talk about myself, but I need to do a better job of honoring other people's boundaries, not airing their issues in this electronic venue.  Suffice to say I'm confused, hurt, desperate and exhausted.

So what to talk about today?  Surely there is something!   Maybe this is a good time to tell you the story of the Frisbies.  About five years ago, friend Carol (I talk about her a lot, don't I?) who is an avid genealogist, asked me about my father, Joseph Frisbie, who died when I was 16 months old.   When he died, we rarely spoke of him, knew very little about him or his side of the family - my mother cut off ties with them, so I had little to tell Carol.  With just his name and approximate age, she found records of him and then excitedly called me one evening.  "Sarah, you have FIRST cousins living an hour away from you in Elgin!"  My response, "I guess I have to call them sometime."  "Now!" she said and because I always do what Carol tells me, I called my first cousin Judy who was overjoyed to hear from the missing branch of the family.  She was the daughter of my father's eldest brother - a real first cousin. She regaled me with stories of my father who I didn't know, other family members, and that night word got to my father's one living brother, Uncle Ken.  I had been sent to live with him for a time while my father died and he and his wife, Sylvia asked my mother if they could keep me - she said no.  Uncle Ken called me that night in tears to have found me again

Turns out Frisbies are one of the founding American families, even pre-dating the Pilgrims.  In this country, all Frisbies of any spelling (Frisbee, Frisbye, Frisby, etc) descend, almost without exception, from Edward Frisbie who was born in Jamestown.  If you remember your grade school history, you remember Jamestown failed.  The folks that didn't perish there, hightailed it back to England.  Edward's family was among the ones that went back.  When he was 15, his family returned to America, New England this time, and only Edward survived the trip (smallpox).  He and 19 other settlers founded what is now New Haven, Connecticut.  His house still stands and is a pilgrimage to current day Frisbies.  And even though genealogy has only in recent years become fashionable, the Frisbies have had a family association since about 1950.  Serendipitously, there was a reunion scheduled a few months after I reconnected with them.

Steve, Madeleine and I went to the reunion in New Delhi, NY.  It was a poorly attended affair and the main agenda was was whether to fold up the group or not.  Cousin Judy volunteered that she and I would do the next reunion in Chicago in two years - so they didn't fold.  By "we", Judy meant "Sarah".  For the next two years I labored every day to breathe new life back into the Frisbie Frisbee Family Association of America.  I put up a beautiful website, entered much of the geneology into a geneology database, send out 20,000 postcards, called thousands of Frisbies, drummed up support and attendance for the reunion and rekindled interest in Frisbies.  I worked on it for hours most every day for two years.

The reunion was a huge hit - about 30 states represented.  The Chicago Tribune ran a half page article about us because of the connection to the Frisbie toy.  One of the Frisbie ancestors had a business that mass marketed pies around New England in Frisbie trucks.  One client was Yale and the students there used the empty pie tins as flying toys.  The tins were stamped with the name "Frisbie" and had cut out holes to promote browning of the bottom crust.  Later Whammo commercialized the game and tried to change the name of the object to the Pluto Platter, but it never stuck.  Frisbie did.  The Tribune sent a reporter to my home.  By then I was Madame Frisbie President and I was photographed standing in front of a Frisbie pie tin I kept on my kitchen wall.  The headline of the article, something cute like, "Frisbies are Flying in From All Over the Country!"

After the reunion my sister and I decided to do a DNA test.  She and I were both in therapy and there were clues that made us question whether we had the same father.  The doubts were well-founded because, when the test came back, there was less than a half a percent chance that we were fathered by the same man.  It was clear she was the Frisbie.  I was not.

The irony!!!  The president of the Frisbies is not, after all, a Frisbie!  Scandal in Frisbie-land.  I immediately resigned and I've never had contact with them since.

One interesting footnote. Growing up, I longed to be French.  Today, a chunk of my repertoire is singing French cabaret songs.  Turns out my biological father was French Canadian from a family who was brought over from France for an American version of the famous Folies Bergere.  So it seems I come by the French Cabaret thing honestly!!!  His name was Aldei Gregoire and the picture today is of him.  It is a huge regret of mine that he and I never knew each other as father/daughter.   He lived alone and childless until I was 32.  He could have had a loving daughter and, at that point, two grandchildren to give him love and solace in his old age.  Apparently it was not meant to be.  It is a personal tragedy.

All for today.  The challenge today can ONLY be to steal some time and get outside to enjoy the day.  I'll do my 10,000 steps along the lakefront later in the day.  Tonight I sing at the Blue Star Wine Bar in Bucktown.  I think, because of today's post, I will sing a French song and think of my father.   I hope he would have been proud of me.

Peace,
Sarah

Synchronicity/The Theft

Synchronicity.  When I tell you what happened yesterday, you will, like me, be amazed that it happened on the heels of yesterday's post about possessions. It's time for Sarah to walk the walk. Do her pretty words have substance?

A robbery of all my gold jewelry.  Last night dressing to sing at Petterino's, I noticed my gold ring was missing from my dresser.  It's a very special ring.  When I was financially flush back in the dot.com days, I commissioned it from a local jeweler.  He found me a very special stone.  Here's the Wikipedia description:

A rare variety of sapphire, known as a color changing sapphire, exhibits different colors in different light. Color change sapphires are blue in outdoor light and purple under incandescent indoor light; they may also be pink in daylight to greenish under fluorescent light. Some stones shift color well and others only partially, in that some stones go from blue to bluish purple. While color change sapphires come from a variety of locations, the gem gravels of Tanzania is the main source.

A heavy gold ring with the special color changing sapphire, flanked by two unusual green sapphires. I have adored wearing this ring in the past year - my hands are thinner with the weight loss and it fits perfectly and is stunning.

I suspected foul play and noticed that a glass heart, friend Pat gave me from a trip to Venice, was missing its gold chain. A look in my jewelry box confirmed additional theft.  Both of my wedding rings were missing as well as my Joe Frisbie father wedding ring - the only thing I have of his, a treasured item.  And then the crushing realization that my great grandmother's gold locket was also gone.  I was given the locket as a young girl and uncharacteristically, I took really good care of it.  I remember sitting in boring classes playing with it, opening and closing it.  I remember in Biology putting it under the microscope and marveling at the fine workmanship.  It had a tiny diamond - I was amazed to own a diamond.  I knew even then, age 10 or so, that I would shepherd the necklace to the next generations.  I have always envisioned handing it down to a granddaughter with stories of its origin. It is the only family heirloom I have - had.

Today, tears and sadness.  The biggest financial loss was the sapphire ring, but the crushing blow is the loss of the family heirloom items.  Today I'm reeling from the loss, sad beyond words to be the recipient of such cruelty.  I feel violated...someone was in my bedroom, my sanctuary going through my things, taking my things.  I have theories of who is responsible which I won't share here.  Suffice to say, the biggest loss of all is not a material loss.

One good thing.  For some inexplicable reason I had hidden my gold and emerald earrings and an opal ring that I've been safeguarding for Elizabeth.  Not sure why those two items were given special treatment - they are special but no more than the wedding rings and the locket.  Kicking myself for not hiding everything.   And the necklace that Patrick gave me at Christmas, my most treasured possession, was not taken.  Weird - it was right out in the open, as if someone knew the loss of that would reduce me to rubble - someone who knew me well and was only 9/10ths heartless.

Today, I will strive to keep my balance and perspective.  I won't minimize the loss - tears are appropriate for a bit.  I won't overreact - they were after all just things, but I am also reevaluating my home situation, who lives with me, what it's fair for me to expect.  I'm feeling under siege.  I should be able to feel secure and relaxed in my home, my bedroom especially.  I've been generous and open and welcoming to all and now I'm feeling like I've got to tie up my camel.  I hate breaches of trust.  I've always said, if you trust people, they give you their best.  It's a better way to live, being trusting.  It brings out the good in everyone.  I guess the shadow side of that is that, from time to time, you will get burned.  It's a choice the trusting person makes.  Naive maybe, but it's how I've chosen to live.

I could go two ways right now.  The first way is to pull up the drawbridge and put a moat around myself - I'm tempted to do that, feeling the need for protection.  The second way is the Aslan (Jesus) way (remember the Narnia books?).  I am taking blow after blow as if it's a test to plumb the depths of my love, as if someone doesn't really believe in the constancy of my heart.  In the final chapter of Narnia, Aslan refuses to fight his enemies.  He is trussed, tortured and mutilated on a sacrificial alter -  humiliated and killed slowly. He refuses to fight back (he could have wiped them out with one swipe of his powerful paws), forgives them, dies and then comes back to life to rule again.  Don't worry.  I'm not comparing myself to Jesus or Aslan.  Just that there's a lesson there - laying down the weapons, loving still, even when you're taking blows, refusing to return blow for blow. Surrendering.  Defusing your enemy with love.

Today Sarah is so confused.  Tears, lots of tears.

No challenge.  Just listen and care.

Peace,
Sarah

Treasured Possessions/Score One For The Humans!

Monday again, again.  Lots of Mondays.  The weekend was usual, how was yours?  I'm starting to sound like a broken record.  Schaller's on Friday - Christ and me, Judy and Bernie - their first time and oh, my - they were the toast of the place - they loved it and everyone loved them.  Christ and I made good music together.  We're comfortable. The whole romance thing has passed.  Funny how when that window closes, the feelings move on as if to say, "OK, I can do friends.  Friends=good." These days, zero romantic prospects and that's OK.  Besides, I think I may have mated for life even though he and I are not together.  There are plenty of people who, when they find their puzzle piece, can't conceive of being with anyone else, even if their mate dies. I'm not a freak.  And never say never.  Lightening could strike twice, but it might not and I need to be OK with that.  It was a miracle to have had him for a time.

Saturday I cooked for friends, Irish of course given that it was St. Patrick's Day (wince).  They feasted on traditional fare:  corned beef and cabbage, red potatoes, Irish soda bread and for dessert a fabulous apple maple bread pudding with freshly whipped cream.   Sunday a quiet day of cleaning. I did battle with kitchen pantry moths.  I hate the little fuckers who continue to plague me after more than a year despite a concerted effort by Orkin to exterminate them.  This time I've got all dried food in containers, I ordered pheromone traps online, and I detailed the kitchen with tiny utensils just like it was a vintage car.

So the book, The Most Human Human, it's getting ponderous.  I'm not sure I can recommend it with the same enthusiasm I had last week.  I struggled through a whole chapter on chess - human vs. computer including play by play moves which were supposed to amaze and shock me.  Maybe I'm not smart enough to fully appreciate this book.  Maybe you would have slapped your forehead and said "Dummkopf, how could he have played 47.h4!!!  Anyhow, I'm still plodding through it but it's feeling like work.  When I'm done with this read, I'll have to reward myself with some romantic fiction!

Today I was thinking of possessions because of an incident yesterday with Madeleine.  She had a full head of steam to get the back lawn in spring shape - laying down peat moss, then grass seed and patchmaster for the barest of spots.  Her Tom Sawyer ways meant she enlisted a few friends to help her - hey, whatever it takes!  She asked if they could borrow my Bose docking station to listen to tunes while they worked.  Later I looked at the yard and saw the Bose sitting in the middle of the lawn!  I freaked - buying the Bose had been a splurge, not cheap, several hundred dollars and here it was sitting in dirt!  An honest mistake, she said.  Hmmmmm..it went against my better judgement to let her take it outside.  I was right to be worried about what is a treasured possession.

Treasured possessions.  How treasured should they be?  When do possessions stop being life enhancing and become, instead, life enervating?  Most recently Carla warned me that the steel sculpture on my front lawn could be stolen for scrap.  I shrugged and told her, "I try not to get too attached," to which she responded, "I am very attached to my possessions."  Her possession are exquisite, rare, expensive but yet very personal.  I understand the attachment.   And yet, I aspire to a different kind of relationship with my possessions; one that keeps them in their non-human place.

I love the story Liza tells about a European mother with a brood of artsy kids.  Their house was artistic chaos, full of love and humor.  One day a new dining table was delivered - massive to seat the family of ten, a strong, simple table of oak - quality.  The story is that Erika shocked her family on day one of table ownership by flinging a cleaver into the center of the perfect surface, the table's first injury.  "Now," she said, "we can enjoy this table."  And that is what it's about, right?  Being able to enjoy our possessions without them owning us, without becoming servants to them?

My own similar story centers around a set of beautiful crystal goblets passed down to me from my father. They were a special gift, given in gratitude to him by an antique collector neighbor.  The woman was older and to her delight was being wooed by a younger, handsome man.   My father recognized him as a con artist and warned the woman who, at first, refused to believe him.  In time, she connected the dots and was able to extricate herself from the relationship before falling prey to his schemes.  I revisited that story every time I drank from those glasses, proud of my father for having warned her - most people would not have gotten involved.  One day, my friend Victor brought a hyperactive guest to my house, who bounced around and insisted on doing the dishes after dinner. We grimaced as he clanged around the kitchen and when we heard the sound of breaking glass we weren't surprised - he was a klutz extraordinaire.  The casualty of his carelessness was the last remaining crystal goblet.

I should have been angry and bereft but curiously I wasn't - the incident occurred at a time when I was feeling very existential and mortal.  When the glass broke, I smiled and said, "Score one for the humans!"  I had come to hate the idea that our possessions outlive us so, the thought that one of my possessions bit the dust before I did, made me smile.  Is it weird to be jealous of a desk or a painting?   Maybe when I die, I'll arrange for a large pit to be dug in my backyard and all my possessions burned.   As you can see, I have an ambivalent relationship with my stuff.

The challenge today is thinking about your stuff.  Do you own it or does it own you?  Have you created an environment in your home where humans rule or do you fuss and fret and put down coasters, take your shoes off to protect the floors, threaten the cleaning lady with her life if she isn't more careful with your figurines, use your silver and best china just once a year and then nervously? If that's the case, maybe you should do the equivalent of impaling the knife in the table.  One of my favorite bowls is an old Indian pudding bowl my mother gave me - not sure if it was passed down to her.  It's got two very large chips on it.  I use it proudly.  It's old, it deserves to be chipped.   If it gets another chip it will still be serviceable.   People probably wonder why I serve them from such a disfigured bowl but they're too polite to ask and I've long since forgotten it's an eyesore - I just like it. It's a good bowl.

Peace,
Sarah

Monsanto Mischief/Outsource Your Left Brain

Friday..the weekend upon us.  When you're a couple or dating, Fridays and Saturdays are special. When you're not, they are dicey.  Regained my bearings yesterday - it was a relief to feel stable ground under my feet literally (I did a hugely long walk along the lakefront - many miles) and figuratively - my lapse was just that, a lapse.  My new initiatives and commitments are intact.  Good.

Loving The Most Human Human book - it's like candy.  Call me nerdy but I love scientific books that integrate cross disciplines in new and astonishing ways.  My friend Carol has the same curiosity - it was she who first turned me onto a great book about the human genome as well as Michael Pollen's first book, The Botany of Desire.  OK that was a bit freaky and there is a story to tell.   That book is presented in four chapters:  apples, potatoes, marijuana and tulips.  If you haven't read it, do.   The chapter on the potato was unnerving, especially the part that described the prevalence of the oversized russet potato which is grown largely for McDonalds to produce the perfect length french fries - long enough to peek out the top of their little red boxes.  Russets are not a sturdy potato - insects and viruses have long ago penetrated their defenses.  A typical russet potato field is totally devoid of any insects or creatures - massive amounts of pesticides are used to create what is almost a sterile growing environment.  Then Monsanto to the rescue.  They created a genetically modified russet potato with insecticides spliced into the potato's genetic structure.  Voila! The potato is both a food item and a pesticide!  Problem solved!

I ordered The Botany of Desire from Amazon.  Eerily, a few weeks later I got a letter from Monsanto inviting me to an informational luncheon in downtown Chicago - the subject - genetically modified food and their new product lines.  Seriously!!!  They must have gotten my name from Amazon as someone who had purchased the openly critical Pollen book.  Is this corporate big brother or what!!!!

Anyway, I digress.  What I'm loving about the human human book is the discussion about what it means to be human.  The thinking continues to evolve.  Years past, it was thought the differentiating factor between humans and other sentient beings was our ability to use tools.  Then it was discovered many animals use tools, among some: chimpanzees wielding spears, crows who drop stones in water to raise the water level, orangutans crafting whistles, dolphins using marine sponges to scrub the ocean floor looking for hidden prey, and octopi who use discarded coconut shells as armor!  So back to the drawing board - "What is it," philosophers and scientists pondered, "that makes humans human?"  Until recently the conclusion was, our ability to reason, a left brain activity other animals don't possess.  We worship our left brains - makes sense because it's the verbal side of ourselves.  When we talk and refer to "I", it's really just the left brain that's talking.  The right hemisphere, because it's mute, never gets to weigh in.  And because the right brain is mute and mysterious we don't understand it and as a result we are skeptical about its contribution.

BUT.....just about everything we do with our left hemisphere can be replicated with a computer! Computers are actually much better than we are at logical reasoning.  Drat...that puts us back to the drawing board again!  It's not reasoning that makes us special.  The answer is, of course, the overlooked functions of the right brain - the poets within us.

So this is where I'm guessing the book is going.  Rather than be horrified by the realization that our beloved left brain is being trumped by computers - that anything we can do, the machines can do better, we should see it as an opportunity to free ourselves from our obsession with logical, relative, uncreative thinking.  We should outsource our left brain - just let it atrophy.  That will free us up to dive into the miasma of our most human side, nurture the mysteries of what has been dismissed as illogical, primitive thought patterns, tease out answers to life's most complex problems by applying creative, non-linear, artistic thinking.

Of particular interest was the discussion about lichen which was thought, until 1867, to be its own species - not so.  Turns out lichens are really symbiotic relationships between two species - algaes and fungi.  Is it so far-fetched to think there is a metamorphic, symbiotic relationship already underway between humans and computers?  You laugh when I say that, in the future, there will be a new being that is part human and part computer.  Aliens would observe these creatures and surmise they are a different species than the remnants of humans.  Laugh, but answer this question honestly.  "How does it make you feel when you are separated from your smart phone?"  Do you, like me, carry it with you from room to room, are never without it, respond instantly to its call?  If you leave it somewhere do you feel like a part of you is missing, as if you are without a limb?   And really how inconvenient to have to always remember to tote it around!!  Is it a far stretch to think that, in the future, there will be an option for us to have it implanted?   Like routine circumcision, babies in the hospital may get a computer implant.  By then, technology will have advanced so that we do very little of our own left brain thinking (why bother?).

All for today.  I'll report more as I make my way through the book.  You can see it's got me thinking!!! Your challenge today could  be to pick up a copy so we can talk about it (why do I rarely get comments!?) Or, you could just give some thought to the whole right/left brain discussion and when you lose your phone and your breathing starts to get shallow with panic like it would if you lost a family member, think about my question!

Peace,
Sarah

Human Human/Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Hmmmm...reading, The Most Human Human and probably just in time.  I can't tell you much about it yet - just about 50 pages in, but it's an amazing read and has my human brain spinning.  The premise is that the writer participated in a contest of sorts,  Here's a description:

Named for computer pioneer Alan Turing, the Tur­ing Test convenes a panel of judges who pose questions—ranging anywhere from celebrity gossip to moral conundrums—to hidden contestants in an attempt to discern which is human and which is a computer. The machine that most often fools the panel wins the Most Human Computer Award. But there is also a prize, bizarre and intriguing, for the Most Human Human.

Yesterday was destabilizing and my iron will of late just went poof.  Despite my resolve when I wrote the blog yesterday, I didn't get the day back on track, didn't take the long walk with the dog, didn't eat well, didn't feel good about myself.  Sarah=C- yesterday.  What WAS good (and yes let's focus on that) is that I had a great conversation with Elizabeth - she is really an interesting, amazing person and I'm proud to call her my daughter. I got a few books that prove to be great reading (I'm always happy reading).  Liza, James and I went out after the writing group and I didn't drink even though I had thrown most everything else to the wind, and I didn't send any pathetic texts or e-mails which I can do when I feel myself spiraling down.

So I guess that makes me a human human right?  Stumbling?  I hate that I broke promises to myself and yet I would be a robot if I didn't falter sometimes.  What would I tell a friend or an employee if they messed up and had to come to me with an admission of a broken commitment?  I would be impressed they owned up to the transgression and took responsibility for it.  I would expect them to apologize and assure me they felt it was just a lapse - their goals were still intact and they intended to move forward with resolve (notice I didn't say they promised to never mess up again!).  I would forgive them of course.  That is the conversation I'm having with myself today.  Get up.  Brush yourself off.  Forgive yourself.  Keep moving forward with love and compassion for your own efforts. Today 10,000 steps for sure, meeting work commitments, eating well, meeting the needs of the day.

Last night, writing group - the group that Liza, James and I formed back in August.  We were supposed to have had a full house - there was actually a waiting list since we capped attendance at twelve.  It must have been the lure of the weather, because only one person, in addition to us, showed up!!!  That was unnerving!  But we always said, even if there were meetings where it was just us three, we would still have a blast and write.  So yeah.  I was the prompt leader last night and I threw down three ideas that we each wrote for 15 minutes about.  I think I did OK especially given my black mood.

Prompt#1 - Write about a childhood crush - real or fictional.

His name was Peter Peterson.  I wondered if he had a son some day and he named him Peter, would the boy's name be Peter Peterson Peterson?  He would, after all, be the son of the son of Peter.  When I wasn't thinking about his name and what we would name our own children (and it did occur to me to further the tradition and name any daughters Sarah Sarahdaught, or something like that), I was scheming how to be alone with him. 

Mrs. Downey was an old meanie.  She and her obedient husband, Fred, ran the little kindergarten called Harborside Day School - no one remembered a time before the Downeys.  All I remember of old Fred was the little half-pint cartons of milk he fetched us daily for snack time.  He seemed good at never being around.  Mrs. D., on the other hand, was everywhere at once which, in retrospect, was impressive given her enormity.  Nothing escaped her which was why I spent a lot of time scheming about how Peter and I could slip away. 

The Plan - developed.  Bad kids were sent to the coat closet.  We would be bad, or to be more precise, I would be be bad and get Peter in trouble with me - he stiill didn't know he loved me too. 

The Game - appropriately named "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater."  All the children sat in a circle on the tile floor.  Mrs. D. drew a large circle with white chalk - the pumpkin.  She then chose a good girl to be the bad wife and sit captive in the pumpkin until her husband released her from her shame.  We chanted, "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her.  He kept her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well."  Then the chosen boy entered the circle and released his bad wife from her captivity - we clapped our approval.   

The Disruption.  One day as we got to the end of the chanting, I grabbed unsuspecting Peter and sat him in my lap.  I lifted my smock and tucked him under it.  Mrs. Downey shrieked to see the tiny boy inappropriately  under my dress.  She banished only me to the coat closet where I wept in shame and frustration - my plan foiled. 

The Redemption.  Later, Peter Peterson proved his love for me.  We made raisin tarts by cutting squares of paper and glueing them together and stuffing raisins between the two layers...yumm.  Solemnly, without a word, Peter gave me his.  I threw my arms around him sending the tart flying, stuffed him under my smock and marched him around the room triumphantly.  Mrs. D. was not amused.

There are some who say the reason poor Peter had to lock up his wife was because she constantly cheated on him - he wasn't the only one eating her "pumpkin"!!  The pumpkin shell is code for chastity belt.  By belting up Mrs. P, Peter was able to keep her from wandering.  The reason for today's picture which I found by Googling "pumpkin vagina"! I'm giving thought to a new business venture - pumpkin decorated chastity belts. Thinking, given the current reproductive political climate, the timing is perfect.   I bet I could get cheap advertising air time on Rush Limbaugh's radio show!

This post is getting long so if I'm of a mind, I'll post the other two stories tomorrow.  The other two prompts were compelling.  Prompt#2  Someone died.  There is a funeral.  You go even though you shouldn't.  Prompt#3.  Write a piece where food is a main character.

Challenge today is to keep your forward momentum while realizing you are after all a human human and that you will have less than perfect days.  Find the right balance of forgiving yourself but not cutting yourself so much slack you thwart progress.  Hard, right?

Peace,
Sarah

Run Over a Biker/Gotcha!

Today, a venomous start.  Woke, no Madeleine in her bed, no call telling me where she was.  Sick and tired of  being the fire in everyones' bellies - most days it's all I can do to keep promises to myself!  Then panicked phone calls from Elizabeth.  "Where is Madeleine?  She is babysitting in my place today and she is supposed to be there by now!"  Somehow I was dragged into the drama. Forced myself onto the elliptical only to be interrupted 15 minutes later by a bounding Joey and Elizabeth demanding a ride.  So much for my needs.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.......   After dropping her off, I drove home with malice in my heart toward everyone, blaming everyone for my rotten mood.  Pissed off at the world.  I even fantasized about running over rude bike riders who hogged the road in front of me. It was the only thing that elicited a smile - the thought of mowing them down.  Elizabeth texted me an apology for interrupting my routine.  My response, "Can't talk now.  Feeling like killing someone."

Then I breathed.  I drank coffee.  I thought about my mission statement and knew I had to re-architect the day.  Mostly I recognized that I was in distress and looking outside myself for a solution or someone to blame.  "In, out, in out," I repeated to myself.  "I can look without, or I can look within for an answer."   The problem wasn't Madeleine.  It wasn't Elizabeth.  My anxiety had little to do with them.  It was of my own making and if I made it, I could unmake it.  So I did, beautifying my environment, eating a healthy breakfast, then going to the office and fixing my computer.  At noon lunch with a business associate with a new opportunity.  Good.  The day is on the upswing.   And what a day it is!!!!   It's summer out there!  After work, Joey and I will stroll the lakefront and I will put on my gratitude lens and thank nature for the gift of the day.

The blame game....we all do it right?   Just yesterday, one of my favorite people was guilty of offsetting accountability for his lack of initiative.   He had a bunch of excuses as to why he couldn't get momentum with a project, none of which held much water.  This morning I started to feel angry feelings towards Patrick and blame him for a bunch of stuff:  not loving me enough to stay, breaking my heart, leaving me, not recognizing my worth, not wanting me.  It felt good to be angry with him and to blame him for my unhappiness.   And maybe I DO need to be angry with him - maybe it's one of the grief stages that I have to go through.  But maybe it's just dumb and counterproductive.   He is the best of men and really there is no blame to be had.  But how good it felt this morning to mutter, "Mother Fucker" in my venomous state.

Once you become attuned to it, you start hearing The Blame Game being played everywhere like a top 40 hit.  It's insidious.  What if we declared  a holiday, a moratorium on blaming, on excuses? How about May 1st?  May 1st=Blame Day.   And how perfect if it rained and we slept too late and the first thing we did was blame the gloomy day for not getting out of bed!   All day, we would catch ourselves in excuses, catch those around us in shirking responsibility for themselves.  And we would call each other out - like a fun game.   "Ha, ha....you just blamed your boss for your lousy attitude. Gotcha!"  "Yeah, but you just blamed your lack of willpower for eating that oatmeal cookie, as if your willpower is separate from you!  Gotcha"  We could have a blast.   Maybe we could even award a money prize to the person who netted the best score.  Why do I think at the end of the day some of us would complain the game was rigged and blame me for making bad rules and for the fact that they didn't win???

Point of this goofy line of thinking is -  just STOP.  Now.  Feel what you're feeling if you wake up with a hair across your ass, but don't look outside yourself for the cause.  When things are crap, look in, not out.  The solution is always within.   As the mother fucker said, "We can't control other people but we can control our own reactions and deeds."  He is right (and he's not really a MF).

Lunch was great - opportunity exciting, the salad was delicious and Tom was great company - so interesting, bold and positive.  I think I would like him to be part of my inner circle - he is a person of high integrity and accountability.   Why do I think he might win the blame game.  Good role model.

Challenge today is to listen to all your words and catch yourself making excuses - any kind of excuse even if you didn't win Scrabble because you got all vowels.   It might be true, but really if you had just been more energetically in tune with the universe, your fingers might have found the consonants as you reached into the bag of letters.  Really it's your fault you didn't win - own it Kidding of course, but you get it, right?  Stop blaming.

Peace,
Sarah

Promises, Promises/An Irrevocable Tear in the Fabric of Our Lives

Sarah=missing in action the last few days, right?  Friday I had a melt down day and it was just hard to get moving, mired in sadness and despair.  Do you have days like that?  I didn't work so I didn't come into the office, hence no blog, but I probably wasn't up to it anyway.  I didn't hit the elliptical in the morning so noon found me floundering with my new 10,000 step initiative, formulating excuse after excuse in my head.  I was wrong. Day#4 was the hardest. I almost cut myself slack but some new-found will finally kicked in and I got my ass going and took the longest walk, all the way to the lakefront from my house which was about 7,000 steps total (both ways).  When I got back, I was ecstatically proud for prevailing and keeping a commitment to myself - the rest of the day was fine.  Had a blast at Schaller's singing with Christ behind me on guitar, Bobby on keyboard and Pete on trumpet.  Pam was there and she is instant party. Dreamy Kenneth showed up and sang great. He's so easy on the eyes.  Even very hetero James said, when he saw him perform,  "for him I'd go gay".

Remainder of the weekend was fine.  Cleaning, voice lesson with Mark, cooked for a bunch of friends on Saturday night and on Sunday, a new act that Pam, Bobby and I are working on - a la Andrews Sisters.  Fun.  We went to Bobby's gorgeous condo on the Gold Coast and for Pam and I, the highlight was watching him play his huge theater organ which he had to climb up onto.  Three rows of keys and of course foot pedals and thousands of little stops for all kind of sounds.  The organ is very old but was overhauled to produce sound digitally.  Bobby had eight speakers hooked up to it. Amazing.

And then a funeral yesterday, my friend Alan's 98 year old father who died in Palm Springs - his body was flown back.  Steve, my ex, took care of him in for the last several months of his life - lived with him in Palm Springs.  The service was lovely and emotional for me, not because I was close to Milt.  I had never met him.  I cried to myself when the rabbi talked about how there had been an irrevocable tear in the fabric of their lives.  To demonstrate that, he ripped a ribbon on each of the mourner's lapels - it sounded like ripping velcro as he went from one to the other, ripping ribbons.

And I didn't mean to have selfish thoughts at that moment but I've been so sad and I wait and wait for my own heart to heal.   I'm doing everything right - no contact, living life fully, taking care of myself, keeping my heart wide open to the people I love, doing for others, waiting.  And yet.......I still mourn. The rabbi said it's something you just have to go through.  There is no running away from it, no short-cutting it, no running an obstacle course around it.  I'm reminded of the tests in the opera, The Magic Flute.  The protagonists even walk through fire to get to the other side.  Liza says, "More time". James says independently of her,  "Day by day, sweetie,"  I don't talk of him much these days but don't be fooled into thinking I'm over him.  "Not a day goes by."  When we broke up I wrote this.  My heart is still ripping.

Love binds.  Two hearts cleave to each other and start to beat as one, sympathetic beats in time.  Two bodies, move as one, in time.  Two breaths are shared, his out, hers in.  Limbs entwine, where his end, hers begin, physical boundaries dissolve.
 And when it ends, the hearts and bodies are cleaved in the opposite way, as with a butcher knife.  Two hearts, ripped from each other, two breaths independent once more.  Limbs unravel.  Separation.  The hearts and bodies mourn their other.

But spring...good, right?  Ah.....it heals and revitalizes.  I embrace it fully.   So, the 10,000 steps thing - progress report.  I'm on Day#8 with perfect compliance.  Each day I strap on my pedometer and pace myself during the day so that by day's end, I meet or top 10K steps.   Days 3-5 were make or break days - as I said before I almost gave up - sheer will prevented me.  By Day# 6, dare I say, I actually started enjoying it?   Yesterday after the funeral, a huge walk ahead of me to meet my goal so I walked 4+ miles along the lakefront and it was fabulous.  Yeah, my knee still hurts but surprisingly less and less.  There's truth to the "motion is lotion" adage.  The more you move the less you hurt.  Takes time though.

So many things are good these days.  I continue to live the 7 habits, working through the companion workbook.  Between that book and other reading I've done, plus my own iron will when I summon it, I'm making important structural changes and they're holding:  better relationships, taking good care of myself (diet, exercise, no vodka), keeping to a good work schedule, doing what I need to free my heart - all good.

Your challenge today could be to evaluate your self care.  Make a list of the things you wish to be different, i.e. eating less processed foods, taking vitamins, meditation time, exercise.   Can you take just one thing on? Take a big gulp and make a solemn promise to yourself to see one thing through the first tough week?  On the dating site I've been on, one of the questions is "Do you keep your promises?"  Invariably, everyone answers, "yes".  Yet, I suspect if the question was reworded with the addition of two additional words, the answer would be, "no".  "Do you keep your promises to yourself?"  They are, of course, the most important promises we make.

Peace,
Sarah

10,000 Painful Steps/Every Hand's a Winner

Thursday. Last night a pleasant evening.  James came over and we played Scrabble.  I lost big or as James said, "that was a spanking!"  In all fairness, it was amazing that I got over 250 points with the letters I had.  There were at least 6-7 hands where I had nothing but vowels. Fun though...we're just the right amount of competitive, enough to take it seriously but not enough to make it tense.  Tonight Christ comes over to work on music.  He plays guitar and the thought is for us to put together a set. Tomorrow we'll perform together at Schaller's.  No, it's not a date tonight.  I don't date these days, still not ready.  Every now and again I'll dip my toe into the dating arena, but it's really unfair to the suitors.  I'm like Jerry Seinfeld, picking them apart (remember when he broke up with a girl because she ate her peas one at a time?).  I have found fault with every single man who has expressed an interest me - most recently a guy whom I refused to meet because he mentioned frequently helping his elderly mother.  I concluded he was a mama's boy.  Like I said, not ready yet.

New habits.  I've decided Day#3 is the hardest.  Today is Day#3 of me wearing a pedometer and logging 10,000 steps a day.  For me to accomplish that number, I have to do 1/2 hour on the elliptical , and take a very long walk, in addition to just being overall active. The first day of a new initiative is exciting - you've got a head of steam.  Day #2 you are still rah-rah.  Day #3 you ask yourself why the hell you started it.  Day #4 and Day #5 aren't much better.  By the end of the first week you've got an accomplishment under your belt and there is a sense of achievement and the launch of a new, lovely habit.

I remember it was that way when I quit smoking in my '20's.  I knew it would be terrible so I let everyone know I would be impossibly awful for a week and not to take it personally.  I steeled myself for a week of hell and hell it was.  I remember bolting from my desk at work and rushing into the bathroom and sitting on the toilet crying.  I remember long, fast walks around the block, around and around until my mind quieted.  There was one fellow, one of the managers where I worked, who was very encouraging and supportive.  In retrospect I recognize his strategy for helping me.  Each day, he would come up with a "new statistic" that would help me get through the day.  "Day #1 is the hardest day because the drug is still powerfully in your brain."  Then, the next day, "Day#2 is especially tough because you've gone over 24 hours without the drug and your body is panicked." "Day#3 is the day that most people quit.  It's the day that separates the mice from the men."  Then as the week progressed, "It's the first week that you have to get through. By Week#2, the drug will be mostly out of your system and you will feel much better.  Etc.  He would even cite percentages that he pulled out of the air, "67% of people quit on Day#3 but I know you can be one of the 33% who don't".   I will always be grateful to Peter for getting me through that awful experience.  I wonder what he's doing now.  If you know someone who is giving up something difficult, maybe you can try the same approach.  It made the difference for me to have something to hang onto each day, little mini accomplishments.

So, 10,000 steps.  It's noon and I am already over 7,000 because I front loaded the day and did the elliptical and walking back to back.  Since I have dinner plans I knew I would be busy in the evening shopping and cooking.  I walked on the lakefront and it was a lovely blustery spring day that I almost enjoyed if it hadn't been that every single step hurts due to the tear in my right knee.  I think I deserve kudos for taking this on when every step I take hurts.   It's a Catch-22 thing - physical pain. If you give into it, you atrophy and with atrophy comes more pain.  They say, "motion is lotion".  I tell myself that as I wince with each step.  I have to think that the fitter I get the less the pain will bother me.

The other initiatives are humming along:  the no drinking anything other than an occasional glass of wine is easy.  It was just a matter of making that choice.  Dieting is excellent - I love the way I feel when I'm eating healthy and properly.  Getting up at the crack of dawn and getting to the office early is still a work in progress but good.  Embracing solitude and not seeking comfort from others is also going well.  Personal victories.  The first three of the 7 habits.  A dignified life.  (OK, maybe not so dignified given yesterday's post and my therapy admissions!!).

This is a day of just putting one foot in front of the other, staying the course.  Ah, I'm reminded of when I moved to Chicago as a young woman.  It was a scary time.  I had just divorced my first husband, gotten a promotion from a secretary to an assistant V.P.  I moved into an apartment in Lincoln Park, sight unseen, I knew almost no one in Chicago.  What's more, my boss despised me and had fought my promotion.  Each day I dreaded going into the office in the Loop. I readied myself with a heavy heart, feeling like I was a lamb to slaughter, not sure if I could succeed in my new position with people gunning for me -  no one had my back.  As I dressed each morning, I put on the song, The Gambler.  Seriously!  It was that song that got me through.  The lines,

If you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.  You got to know when to hold 'em know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.  You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.  There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.  Now every gambler knows that the secret to survivin' is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.  "Cause ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser, And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

After fortifying myself with that song,  I would trudge to my office and do battle.  Despite the adversity, I did good.  I made the company a lot of money, my boss came to admire me and be a friend of sorts, I was promoted again to full V.P. and I made a very good living and was very proud of myself.  You gotta love the line, "every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser."  How true is that? It's that whole glass half full or half empty lens from which we view life.

Today=trudge.  It's not time to count the money yet, there'll be time enough for that.  Your challenge today could be to give some thought to this rebirth time of year and the new habits or initiatives you might want to take on.  The hardest part is deciding.  And if you DO start something new, remember Day #3 is the hardest.

Peace,
Sarah