Cool Your Equipment/Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!

Amazing day at the dog beach - took the dawg there mid-day and people and dogs were out in droves, soaking up the 50+ degree weather.  What a strange winter this has been!   I wasn't feeling social though, wrestling with some stuff and I sat apart on a large flat rock at the very end of the beach and looked out to "sea".  I watched Joey romp with the other dogs at the other end of the beach and release all that pent up dog steam he's been storing inside - was starting to worry that he might blow his top like an old fashioned pressure cooker.  Do you remember those?  Scary, right?   A pot sealed tight with a rubber gasket and a metal nipple on the top for a controlled release of steam with this little metal disc that you placed on the nipple.   If the pot got over agitated the little disc would start to vibrate dangerously and you knew you had to lower the heat or remove it altogether.   I kind of always wanted to see an entire chicken propelled through that tiny hole and splattered on the ceiling but it never happened.  Anyway, Joey's inner chicken is safe.   His steam has been released judiciously and he is now exhausted and sleeping at my feet at the office.

I guess what I want to talk about today is that pressure cooker feeling (I didn't intend to write this but cool how the real shit makes itself known when you put pen to paper).  It's also really interesting how solutions and ideas present themselves at the same time.  Perhaps all the resources are there and present all the time and we just make the connections when we need them, or maybe the universe DOES send messages and clues at opportune times.  Do you think it's uncanny that, as I write this, I'm also reminded that just today the Byron nuclear plant had an "unusual event" and steam was released to cool the reactor? As I think about this feeling of internal pressure and worrying about blowing my own stack, I make another connection - the Buddhist daily dharma e-mail that miraculously shows up in my Inbox each morning (OK, well maybe not a miracle - I DID subscribe to it!) today had something to say about the same topic. I quote:

Sometimes people get very rigid and tense trying to be good, disciplined, and ethical. Tension can also arise when we become more aware of the immense amount of destruction—seen and unseen, intentional and unintentional—that our mere physical existence causes.

It's that idea of getting rigid and tense (pressure) and trying to do, do, do everything that you or others tell you should do to be a good person. At the beginning of the year I vowed to grade myself daily on how I was doing on many fronts.  I strove/strive to be the best (fill in the blank) - mother, daughter, partner, dog-owner, business owner, friend, performer, citizen, etc. that I could be.   Every day I start out with a positive head of steam, "the architect of my day" and invariably life steps in and humbles me.  So, the next day, when I give myself a report card, it's never very good and I vow to try harder - and the cycle repeats.

On some days, like today, the positive steam turns bad and the chicken hits the ceiling.  That's what happened this morning.  A covenant broken by someone close to me and I blew my stack.  It's really hard to keep a lid on everything, stay in the game, put one foot in front of the other, show up every day and try and do your best, be the best you can be (I'm almost done with the cliches).

So what to do?  I know what Kaveh would say.  He says the hardest thing to do at times like this when you feel propelled by anger, is to do nothing.  And wouldn't you know it!  Also in today's daily message, the daily dharma says, "Don't just do something, sit there!"  If you're like me, forward moving, forceful and effective, the idea of doing nothing when under pressure is counter-intuitive.  But it's the hallmark of great leaders to know "when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

And if you are like me and feeling under inordinate stress, the challenge today could be to take some steps to reduce the pressure. Take steps like they're doing at Byron - "releasing steam helps take away some of that energy still being produced by nuclear reaction but that doesn't have anywhere to go now that the turbines are shut down.  Even though the turbine is not producing electricity, you still need to cool the equipment."  Cool your equipment.  If you find yourself erupting in a way that is disproportionate to events, it's probably a clue that you're unsuccessfully trying to keep a lid on too much.  At times like this, we should realize that any decision made is probably going to be contaminated by all the other pressures we're under.   Better to remove ourselves to a flat rock at the end of the beach and think of strategies to vent the excess steam in a healthy way.

Peace,
Sarah

Pina/24 Years My Junior

Great weekend....the singing Friday, I went to see my friends Spider and Tommy at Katerina's with other friends on Saturday, then yesterday lunch and a movie with Carol.  We saw Pina.  It was really weird and at first, I was a bit repulsed by the oddness, but then I surrendered to it, gave up the idea that it would make much sense or that it would be over any time soon, so I nestled deep into myself and let it unfold in all its strangeness.  I've never been a ballet person - Carol is.  For me, it's all about the written and spoken word and of course the singing.   None of that with ballet.  How do you feel when you watch impossibly fit people use their bodies in such lithe and athletic ways?  Does it intimidate you?  Does it make you feel like a prisoner in your own less than perfect body that could never move in those ways?  Do you feel inferior?   I felt all these things and hated being a  spectator captured in a body that will NEVER spin and turn and bend and spiral like that.  I had movement envy.

Read how a reviewer described it:

They have produced a body of work unique in its dark power and imaginative scale. The pieces are surreal and dreamlike, intensely detailed in construction, and often last for hours. In Arien (1979), the evening-dressed cast is discovered lying in ankle-deep water. In Nelken (1992), women roam a stage carpeted with carnations and patrolled by Alsatian guard dogs. Central to all of Bausch's pieces is the traumatised interplay of its performers, who often seem caught in conflicting dreams. There are excruciating spoken confessions, anguished physical and emotional self-barings, babbling litanies of personal detail.

Today I'm thinking about bodies, my body.  Most of the women in Pina's troupe had grown up with her and  were by now older, faces lined with age and experience, hands and feet veiny and gnarly. And yet they were beautiful and sexy and integrated with their bodies - they weren't, as so many of us, living an out of body experience.  They moved with grace and comfort that probably only comes with using and moving their bodies intensely every day.  Why do I think they rarely plop in front of a television.  When they watch TV, they are probably at the same time doing downward-facing-dog or stretching and moving, always in motion.   I read a funny quote last week from an older woman with arthritis who fought the disease by staying in perpetual motion.   Her motto, "You rest, you rust!"

At the end of the movie, Pina's voice saying simply, "Dance or Die."

Renee Kurz makes this observation about why Pina was important to her:

I don’t believe she created in order for us to see the world as she sees it, but rather for us to see the world as we see it. To really look at our world, and to see the opportunities for movement.  To find the reason to move, to keep moving, to not settle in complacency or apathy.  But to rise, and to search; to keep reaching for that which is just beyond our reach.  To not get stuck or buried, even when dirt is being thrown in our faces.  To recapture the strength of our will – Our will to live.  It is an all or nothing world for Pina.  Take the risk or don’t even bother.  Dance or die!  Or in Pina’s words: “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost!”

Later that night, drinks with a young man of only 31 (what am I thinking?).  Instant chemistry but doubts of course.  We had a fabulous time.  And we both recognized immediately the danger.  This would not be something cheap or anonymous.  We could easily fall in love - we both felt it instantly. And so with restraint we said good night and decided to sleep on it for a few weeks (he is headed to Bejing for a business trip) and then decide, when he gets back, if there is wisdom in making that connection.  I told him, "We can just walk away now and save our hearts the inevitable separation. Now is the time to make that decision."  I am of course remembering that moment with Patrick at the beginning when we both laughed  and said, "What was Karen thinking?"  We knew we weren't what the other person needed.  We could have said, that night, "Let's not," and wished each other a happy life and went our respective ways.

Challenge:  When do we play it safe and when do we throw caution to the wind and just go for it? "To recapture the strength of our will – Our will to live.  It is an all or nothing world for Pina.  Take the risk or don’t even bother.  Dance or die!"  I choose to dance.  Do you?

Peace,
Sarah

Smile/Thrashing Like a Fish on a Line

It's Saturday and I'm in the office to write this blog.   Most of you know that I don't have a computer or TV at home.  It's one of those "know theyself" things.   I can sink to the lowest common denominator and give a whole afternoon over to mindless surfing or watching and there's no time for that.   There is so much to do, to accomplish - I'm jealous of my time and my mind and I don't want to give it over to a box with light coming out of it.

Last night, Schaller's in Bridgeport.  Dorothy and Mike joined me there which was great - Mike feels home at Schaller's having grown up in that South Side neighborhood.  They also love the old songs. And then a guy from the Internet dating site, who I'd never even spoken with, showed up.   He had asked me the name of the bar I sing at on Fridays - I told him and never thought he'd really show.   He was tall and handsome but quiet and with the loud music playing, I'm afraid he and I barely got to know each other.  Was I rude to him?  Maybe.  I can be aloof when I first meet someone.  And then Christ showed up.   I hadn't seen him for almost a month.   We text all the time but no face time. He is the only man I've been animated about since P., but he says he isn't ready to date after a bad split so friends it is.  It was a bit strange to have two men at the table, one whom I really like but....and the other someone new.  Not sure what they thought about each other and not sure what Dorothy and Mike thought - probably thought I was a player! (which I'm not).  Or maybe I am cuz I have a date on Wednesday with Ed, a psychologist who was, at one point, a sex therapist!   He and I had dinner last week and this will be date #2.

Dorothy said something uncanny last night.  She asked me to learn the song, "Smile".  The reason it was uncanny is because I have been giving a lot of thought lately to what people can do to change their thought patterns.  My brain has been stuck for the better part of a year now and I'm starting to worry that, what started out as normal grieving, has become my new way of being - that it's my new norm to spend hours each day wishing and wanting and longing for someone I can't have - someone who left almost eight months ago.   Scary to think that I might never get over him despite everyone assuring me I will.   It IS possible that I won't - there ARE people who never let go and who are haunted for the rest of their days by the loss of a love.

I'm like a fish on a line, thrashing for my freedom, trying this and that, making headway only to be reeled back in by my own obsessive mind.   It just won't do.  And so, I am trying something new (something I haven't shared with Dorothy).  When I think of him, rather than allowing myself to feel bereft and cry, I am smiling.  And I talk audibly to myself as I smile.   I say things like, "Thank you Patrick for loving me. Thank you, thank you. Thank you.  What beautiful memories you gave me.  I am so lucky and blessed to have been in a mutual head over heels loving relationship with you - not everyone gets that.  And I had you for two whole months that, while we were together, felt like years." And if a tear leaks out, I tell myself they are tears of joy.   I can't control his visits to my head, but what I CAN control is how I frame the thoughts.   By welcoming the thought of him and expressing gratitude and smiling, I have to think I can fix some of the sad pathways that have become entrenched.

Today I googled "Benefits of Smiling" and here is a short list of why we should smile:

1. Smiling Makes Us Attractive  We are drawn to people who smile. There is an attraction factor. We want to know a smiling person and figure out what is so good.  

2. Smiling Changes Our Mood  Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There's a good chance you mood will change for the better. Smiling can trick the body into helping you change your mood.

3. Smiling Is Contagious When someone is smiling they lighten up the room, change the moods of others, and make things happier. A smiling person brings happiness with them. Smile lots and you will draw people to you. 

4. Smiling Relieves Stress Stress can really show up in our faces. Smiling helps to prevent us from looking tired, worn down, and overwhelmed. When you are stressed, take time to put on a smile. The stress should be reduced and you'll be better able to take action. 

5. Smiling Boosts Your Immune System  Smiling helps the immune system to work better. When you smile, immune function improves possibly because you are more relaxed. Prevent the flu and colds by smiling. 

6. Smiling Lowers Your Blood Pressure When you smile, there is a measurable reduction in your blood pressure. Give it a try if you have a blood pressure monitor at home. Sit for a few minutes, take a reading. Then smile for a minute and take another reading while still smiling. Do you notice a difference? 

7. Smiling Releases Endorphins, Natural Pain Killers and Serotonin  Studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers, and serotonin. Together these three make us feel good. Smiling is a natural drug. 

8. Smiling Lifts the Face and Makes You Look Younger The muscles we use to smile lift the face, making a person appear younger. Don't go for a face lift, just try smiling your way through the day -- you'll look younger and feel better.

John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons who wrote the song, Smile,  were ahead of their time.  The lyrics express what I'm going for perfectly.   If you come to Schallers' I'll sing this song for you.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

The challenge today is obvious.   Smile.

Peace,
Sarah

Fun=Farkel, Grand Marnier, Carla Bruni and two personal trainers

Today, Friday!  Yay for most of us!  Yesterday another whirlwind day.  Office, last minute finishing up of the dratted IRS report, and then a call from home - Madeleine sounding desperate - third day of hives that come and go and when they come, they cover her from head to toe.  When she takes two Benadryl, they disappear just as quickly.  A mystery - no new environmental things going on.  After waiting for whatever it is to resolve itself, and her symptoms worsening, I spent the rest of the day shuttling her between doctors, first the dermatologist, then the GP, then to the hospital for blood work and urinalysis - she has blood in her urine which is worrisome. I'll provide further reports in the next days as news comes back.

Then a quick stop at FoodStuffs because I had invited my tenants up for dinner and birthday cake (Mario's birthday).  No time for the original plan which was cooking soup and making his favorite - red velvet cake.  Store bought food it was.   And a bit awkward at first - just Mario and me (he's 27 - what could we possibly talk about!?)   I had counted on the girls to be a social element, but Madeleine took to her bed under the soporific influence of Benadryl and Elizabeth woosed out and didn't come.  So Mario and I ate and waited for the other tenant Mark to get home from work.

So Mark, he is as exuberant as a mountain dog puppy.   He all but bounded in, on all fours, and instantly the sedate atmosphere was transformed into instant party.   He came hungry and wanting fun.  A food frenzy - the boys laid on the couches and groaned and rubbed their stomachs. They are both personal trainers so whatever they eat, they'll probably burn off the next day.  And you know what I love?  I love it when people feel so at home at my house that they stretch out on the sofa - that's when I know they're like family.

Then an important decision - what game to play?   Scattergories - dismissed.  Yes to Farkel a great dice game.  We take games seriously.  We played and played and played and drank 3/4 a bottle of Grand Marnier which somehow didn't seem like a sissy drink when you were drinking it with young vital, muscled guys.   We agreed it is the perfect drink - straight up, boozy and orangey with syrupy legs that meander down the sides of the glass and an orange amber color that refracts the light in the most beautiful way.   And the smell....well the smell would probably be reason enough to pour a glass even if you never took a sip.

This morning Madeleine said her fitful sleep was interrupted by our yelling.  When was the last time you were so invested in a game that you yelled at the top of your lungs?   And I'm not talking being a spectator and watching a sporting event.  I'm talking about total immersion participation - playing for keeps, a no-holds-barred contest.   Who knew dice could be a contact sport? :)

And then exhausted and drunk on orange elixir, we sat back quietly with eyes closed and listed to Carla Bruni sing incredibly sultry, sexy French songs - probably her own compositions.  Do you know her?  She is now the 1st lady of France, married to the Prime Minister.  She is also an heiress, an actress, model, songwriter, and performer.  She is wow!   Afterwards I sang three French songs and Mark and Mario were transported and so was I - out of body in a way.

So, as my friend Carol would say, "Fun, fun, fun!"  I haven't had fun like that in a very long time - since Patrick.  It was a most unexpected and enjoyable evening.

The challenge today is thinking about fun.   I don't mean a little fun, like watching a comedy that makes you chuckle or playing a game and finding it amusing.   I'm talking about a feeling like when you were a kid on a roller-coaster, or the exhilaration of racing your friend down the beach with your hair whipping and then collapsing on the sand and laughing so hard your stomach hurt and you felt like you were going to pee your bathing suit..  When was the last time you had that much fun?

Peace,
Sarah

The Stories We Select/Icicle Pansies

Thursday and the week is close to wrapping up, as is January.  I'm so grateful for how easy the winter has been so far - what a gift!   Even if it's horrific from this point on, we have been spared enduring an interminable winter.  Doesn't it seem, some years, like winter is a six month season when we get freezing weather and snow as early as the beginning of November?  Until last week I still had pansies blooming on my deck!  Granted they're icicle pansies, but nevertheless, flowers in January!!!

This week was a mixed bag for me.  I said a final good-bye to Patrick (I was finally ready).  I had a date.  I hunkered down at work and got a bunch done.  I started writing this blog again.  I'm reclaiming my healthy habits  (good Weight Watchers week so far and daily walks on the frozen beach with Joey), and I had my writing group last night which was a blast.  I wrote a couple of really cool, creepy things, and the thing with the IRS, which has been hanging over my head like a Damacles' sword, is moving to what I hope is a do-able conclusion.  The "mixed" part of the bag is that the date was disappointing, the stress of the IRS thingy, I also said good-bye to Kaveh - we will have three more sessions and then therapy will be a wrap.  I struggle with feeling alone and long for someone to share things with (I would like to pamper someone other than myself!)

With the end of therapy on my mind, what I thought to write about today, is, what is the best way to effect changes in our lives?   People have strong opinions about whether digging back into one's past is useful in the present, or whether those doors and windows should be shuttered tight.   This is what Kaveh says about why deep therapy is necessary for some, the kind where you go back into the swamp of your childhood.

We believe that symptoms form in an effort to memorialize and communicate our suffering and are often solutions to complicated emotional difficulties. Therefore, understanding and self-acceptance often occur in retrospect, by visiting the emotional injuries that trouble us.When we disown our experiences we are left susceptible to repetition of the very experiences we wish to leave behind. So, we talk and remember in order to work towards meaning, self-acceptance and self-determination.

 Patrick recently wrote a counterpoint to that which I quote:

Anthony Robbins had a great philosophy- the present isn't determined by the past, but by the future. One's attitude is dependent upon how she sees the road ahead, not by what has already happened.

The book I'm reading and digging, The 3rd Alternative, by Stephen Covey has this view:

Our paradigms and cultural conditioning make up the story of our lives. Each has a begining, a plot, and characters.  There may even be heroes and villains.  Countless subplots make up the big plot. There are crucial twists and turns in the narrative. And, most crucially, there is conflict. No conflict, no story. Every great story turns on a struggle of some kind: a hero against a villain, a race against time, a character against her conscience, a man against his own limits.  Secretly we see ourselves as the hero of our own story..the role of the put-upon protagonist locked in combat with the antagonist.  But there is a third voice in the story that is neither the hero nor the villain. This is the voice that TELLS the story.  If we are truly self-aware, we realize that we are not just characters in our own story but also the narrator.  We are not just written, we are the writer too.  My story is only a part of much bigger stories - stories of a family, a community, and a whole culture. I might have limited influence on how those stories evolve, but I am very much in control of how MY story goes. I am free to tell my own story....we are not merely "characters."  We are also the narrators, the ones who choose how the story unfolds.  ...I said earlier that our lives are stories in that they all have a begining.  A story also has a middle and an end.  Most of us are somewhere in the middle of the story.  We get to decide how the story ends.

So, me - perched on the pinnacle with the past on one side and the future on the other.   I think I'm in good shape.  I've done the work, as best I could, to free myself from the dark tentacles that reached up from the depths of the past and threatened to pull me under.  I will never be completely free of those influences but they no longer rule me.  It's time to be done with all the backwards scrutiny - therapy complete.  Now I get to be forward looking and choose my reality lens - how I see the world and my place in it.  And I get to shape my future, to write an honest and honorable script and then inhabit it.

William Faulkner said, "There is no such thing as "was" - the past is always with us.  I would add, "Yes of course, we are the sum of the events of our lives, but we are not puppets.  As my friend, Patricia said, "We are the architects of our own future."  We are the narrator and the writer in addition to being the central character.

Maybe the challenge today should be thinking about that whole protagonist locked in combat concept.  Maybe take a moment to outline the arc and conflicts in your life - sketch the characters. Who are the heroes?  Who are the antagonists?  What is the plot, the conflict?   And then step back and evaluate.  Is there a way to zoom out and re-frame the struggles, assess the trajectory, decide if the current struggles are worthy ones, or should there be a change to the narrative? Remember - you're the author - it's always an option to scrap everything and start from scratch, rip up the script, throw it in the trashcan and write something completely new - and better.  Or for the fortunate ones, maybe just a tweak or two.

Peace,
Sarah

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry/Darker Than Darkness

Hurried today - didn't have a chance to write - still working on that god awful IRS report!   So, I'll cheat and copy here my creative writing from two weeks ago - my meetup.com creative writing group.   If you like to write, come - join us!   We meet in the backroom of Panera Bread in Evanston on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday's of each month.   You can go to meetup.com and then search on "Evanston Creative Writing Group" and you'll find us.   One exception is that we're having a VD cocktail party in early Feb in lieu of the 1st Wednesday.  We usually get to do three pieces of writing, each about 15 minutes long (which isn't a lot of time to think of an idea, get it on paper and wrap it up before the bell goes off!)  If we like what we write we read to the group.   The group is peer led and the leader of the night gives the prompt suggestions.

Prompt#1 –( think of a room from your childhood and place a scene there)

There were usually eight of us for dinner – the five kids, two parents and 94 year-old Pop – his father, who moved in when I was about ten.  What I remember about Pop is scanty – he spent most of his time sitting in his chair, smack dab in what used to be the study – converted to a first floor bedroom for him.  In the morning he was assisted to his chair after a guided trip to the bathroom, nighttime urinal in hand. 

When he first moved in he didn’t need so much help – he even cooked for himself – oatmeal usually.  One morning he got adventurous and looked for something different.  He found what looked like little hamburgers, wrapped in cellophane.  Benny and I watched in astonishment and didn’t stop him from eating a Gainesburger – dog food.

Dinner was about all we observed in our hippy house – my mother’s only nod to her conventional upbringing.  So, when we sat formally at the huge dining room table with the big ball and claw feet that could have easily sat twelve, we were expected to behave -  napkins in our laps, “please pass” manners, appropriate conversation and never singing at the table for some reason.

He only took his place at the head opposite my mother once we were all seated and settled down.  He always made us wait for him.  We quieted as he glowered his way to his chair, typically grumbling about something, his eyes darting around the table for transgressions he could pounce on.

There were dinner manners for us and a different code for him.  To this day, I never drink with a meal – we were not allowed to “wash our food down” – if we did, we were asked to leave the table, and because I was prone to forget, it was just easier to eschew liquids altogether at dinner.  We weren’t allowed elbows on the table, he was.  He chewed with his mouth open, we couldn’t.  So forth and so on – hypocrisy. 

We hated him.  Luckily as soon as he bolted his food, he usually stormed out of the room.  It was then that we could relax and try to be a happy family.

Prompt #2 – First line given

Spray filled the air as the waves crashed against the jagged rocks.  Sandra curled her toes in the sand amazed they had made it.  It had been touch and go to leave and years in the planning.  Exhausted from driving all night, she stretched in the sun and lay in the sand – no blanket, just her rolled up windbreaker tucked behind her head for a pillow.  She felt herself nodding off.

“Marie, don’t go far and watch Brian.  Mommy is going to take a nap.”  Marie was a little mother, sometimes more responsible than her own mother.  Sandra smiled to remember another day at the beach when Marie was just three and a half and Brian, a baby who had just learned to sit .  That was before things had gotten bad with Tom.  Marie had ventured out waist deep into the lake.  Brian was perched at the edge of the water, little waves lapping at his toes, each time bringing gales of laughter from the little beamish boy.  That’s what Tom always called him – “my beamish boy.”  When Marie turned her gaze back to shore, she was horrified to see Sandra and Tom in an embrace, kissing.  Like a Baywatch babe she bolted to shore, arms pumping, to rescue her little brother from the shocking neglect of her parents.

“You must NEVER leave him like this!” she all but wept in fury.  “He could have drowned!!”

Sandra awoke at the very moment it happened – uncanny.  She could have slept through it and never known what happened to them, maybe thought they’d been abducted.  With surreal groggy eyes, she watched her children perched on the ragged rock.  They laughed as the waves crashed upon them, foam going everywhere.  They laughed and smiled still as a gigantic unexpected wave enveloped them and sucked them out to sea.  Their bodies were never recovered.

Prompt #3 first line given.   (I do)

“I do,” I said while thinking “I don’t.”  It was an out of body experience.  I had no volition to stop the proceedings.  And my “I do,” to my own ears it sounded like “I D-O-O-O.” – spoken like a basso bass – like a movie when the parent sees their child dart across the street and they slow the film and zoom in on the parents horror-struck face and their lips yelling, “N-o-o-o-o” – and then the slo mo of the bus swerving – the look on the kid’s face right before he’s hit.

“N-o-o-o, I don’t want to be married.  I don’t want to be standing here in Allison lace, the baby sucked in with Spanx, hiding the bump.

Fred glowed.  It was a great day for him – all that planning.  When I’d told him I was pregnant he seemed so surprised, sad consternation.  He said all the right things.  “Do you want to keep it?  I will support any decision you make.”  He even offered to pay for an abortion.

Fred was the sweet brother, the one everyone loved – everyone that is except me.  When Ted teased him, Fred took it – just looked the other way even though he was older than Ted by 15 minutes.  Darkness and Light – that’s what their parents called them.  I, of course, loved Darkness.  Ted and I were peas in a pod – two bad kids who only loved one thing – each other.  When he died, I wanted to go with him – wanted to rush into the burning barn, not so much as to save him, but to go with him.  Fred held me back and Fred stayed with me, slowly earning my trust and affection.

If I hadn’t read his journal last night, I never would have believed it.  Turns out he was darker than darkness.  The fire – his doing.  The baby – his doing.  Deliberate holes punched in a condom.

***************************

Sorry for the rush....I have some good ideas for tomorrow.   No challenge today except to enjoy my writing (hopefully) and think about what it is that you do to nurture your own creativity!!!

Peace,

Sarah

Posing as a Cancer Patient/Choose Wisely at the Smorgasbord

Got my first response to the relaunch of the blog, from a dear friend who I've knows for, I dunno, 20 years?  Her words, "you are the architect of your day," are worth repeating.   Isn't that the truth! Every day is a smorgasbord of internal and external stuff.  We can't control what pops into our head or whether a short-fuse-driver gives us the finger, but we can control what we do with those things. We can control what we choose to put on our plates at the buffet table of life.   I recently asked myself, "Sarah, What can you control and what can't you."   I decided that obsessive thoughts were, for me, the big problem - fixating on a person or problem and gnawing at it/them with no peace or resolution.   Is there something in your life that is like that for you? - your worry "go to" place that pops into your brain day in and day out?   I think you would agree that we can't control the thoughts that knock at our door, but what we CAN control is whether we invite them in, share coffee with them, ruminate with them.   These days, I'm working on identifying those thoughts that should be unwelcome guests and when they announce themselves, acknowledging them ("Oh, it's you again!) but then sending them packing.   How do I do that?  By having distractions at hand - magazines, books, changing my venue, calling a friend, sitting at the piano and working on a new song, perfecting an old one, cooking something, planning something.   It's all better than gnawing at a bone with no marrow left inside.

Today, everywhere I went, everyone was so nice to me, nicer than usual.  It was lovely but I was befuddled.  "Why?" I thought, "is everyone in such a sweet mood?"   Madeleine said it's because I look like a cancer patient.  Because I'm having a bad hair day, I clipped it to the top of my head, and because it's winter I put on a stocking cap.  When I looked in the mirror I had to agree even though I have healthy and prominent eyebrows.  Maybe people figured they just hadn't fallen out yet.   So, is it cheating, when I'm having a bad stretch, to put on the stocking cap and go out into the world in search of kindness?   And the bigger question should be, "Why does it take an obvious illness for people to be their nicest?"  I'm guessing that almost everyone we meet could use our finest kindness, not just people with obvious infirmities.

Up against a scary deadline with the IRS.   It's all but paralyzing.  Don't really want to talk about it much except to say, "If I end up disappearing, look for me as a waitress in a Texas diner using the pseudonym, Flora."

Tonight a date with Ed.  Trying not to be jaded.  I had sworn off dating last week, but he called and I relented.  Hope springs eternal.  Finally said a final, final, final (yes there have been lots of finals) good-bye to Patrick.   This time I mean it - pinky swear.

And that's all for today.   The take away for today could be to don a stocking cap with your hair tucked under if you're having a really bad day and just need a little sympathy. Or it could be to treat everyone you meet with the same kindness you would give them if they were wearing a stocking cap with no hair showing.

Peace,
Sarah

She's Back/Lisabeth Salander

I've missed writing this.  And people have missed reading it.   I was surprised and pleased to know that it had value to some.  So maybe I pick up where I left off - but better?   And this time I think, shorter, less of a time commitment and less time to read.

Since October 1st, grim and grimmer but with flashes of fun and living well. Most recently I've taken the time to write to a friend each morning to crystallize my thoughts and challenges of the day.  But I need to not lean on him anymore.  And so dear reader, I hope you will be the recipient of my daily musings.   It's important to know there is someone out "there".

This weekend I was profoundly alone and trying to get my arms around this whole being alone thing. Most everyone had hunkered down with the storm, in the bosom of their families, cozy and preoccupied.  I tried not to take it personally that my overtures were ignored or overlooked - it's just a busy thing I know.  And there are some of us who, I think, don't do very well with alone - harkens back to the panic and terror of being the one left standing in musical chairs - the shame of it!   Alone I embraced aloneness, did the best I could with it, read, sang, dozed, played with animals, ate carbs, and then repeated that cycle over and over until I could go to bed without it being too early, without feeling like too much of a loser - a cycle that lasted Friday until this morning.

And I read the 2nd book in the Girl with the Dragon tattoo series, The Girl Who Played With Fire.  It was either the wrong book for me to be reading in my alone state or the perfect book to be reading.   Lisabeth Salander is a solitary, introverted character.  She does alone better than anyone.  She doesn't need anyone - she is a bad ass.  This weekend she was my inspiration.   By the time this morning pulled around, I was ready to start some military-style training, put on a hair shirt, pull up the draw bridge and dare anyone to enter my perimeter.  I woke at 6AM and even though it was a wretched thought, I took a long lakefront walk with the dog, through puddles with boots that leaked. I willed myself to embrace the cold wet feet thing - Lisabeth Salander wouldn't have given two thoughts to the discomfort of being dragged through puddles by a dog eager to get to the beach.   And at the beach, I stood apart from the bubbly dog owners who tried to draw me into conversation. Couldn't they see I was a commando in training, that making small talk was not on my agenda?

Home to an austere breakfast, coffee black because the calories in milk are unnecessary and I need to learn to shed creature comforts.  Toast dry, a single egg with half the yolk thrown away.  Perfectly and satisfactorily awful, in keeping with my stony existence.  I only need to eat for fuel, the more basic the better.

But then an uncanny message written by someone I will never meet.  The timing was eerie - as if someone knew exactly the words I needed to hear, knew that I was teetering on the edge of isolation - a heart freezing up.  Years ago my friend Carol forwarded me a daily dharma message from a Buddhist website.   I'm not a Buddhist but I liked the short daily messages and I've been getting them ever since.   Many days I ignore them.  Today this is what it said.

Whatever your difficulties—a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness—you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do—despite your circumstances—are to be present and to be willing to love.

And with that, I made a choice and this is what I wrote to my friend:  

"I really needed to read that.   My heart IS devastated by so many people these days. I guess it just comes with the territory of being a human, a mammal who needs others.  I feel battered and bruised, like closing up shop and making Lisabeth Salander proud, but there is another side of me that says, “You did that before – you went 20 years without singing because singing touched your heart and you didn’t want your heart touched.  You married a man who would do your bidding without ever loving him.   You raised your kids to fear you because fear was more desirable than love.   You needed no one.   And then there was Kaveh who took an axe to your armor.  And then there was Patrick who finished the job.   So now what?  Was it a mistake, to allow myself to be penetrated?  Should I call it a failed experiment and go back to the way I was?  Or, is there a 3^rd alternative, some way of being that combines the discipline and control of the old Sarah with the vulnerability and sweetness of the new Sarah – a person who loves, but does so in moderation, who still has an iron will when she needs it – a person who doesn’t have to cling because she likes herself fine and isn’t worried about being alone. – a person who is less concerned with “I” and more motivated by confident curiosity of other people and the future?" 

Today, I am grateful for everything.   I am grateful to have survived such a lonely weekend.  I am grateful to have had a friend to lean on.  I am grateful for Lisabeth Salander even if she is a cautionary tale - there is still something  to take away from that book - being focused and tough when necessary, having discipline - all good things.  I'm grateful even for the pain because it means I am not numb.

Was this helpful to you at all?  It's the time of year where the cold and grayness can beat down even the jolliest of us.  So many of you are struggling with problems, health, finances, relatives, and more.  The challenge of the day could be to go back and read that daily dharma and remind yourself that despite whatever your challenges are, you can always choose to set the compass of your heart to the best course - one in which you stay in the game, accept what you cannot change and keep your heart open, even if it's gushing blood all over the place.

Peace,

Sarah