Atomic Comics/Take Two

Friday today. Things are hectic around here, workmen, Robin showed up to take a look at a spare desk that's taking up space in my front hall and a treat of a surprise visit from Anna this morning - friend and ex-employee. Tonight probably Schaller's although no one but me is going. It will be lonely to go alone but it's really good to get the singing time - Bobby Benson is a great accompanist and if I'm going to do this Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick show, I need to work those songs.

Last night Lucas, Convex, Josh (I really need auto text to assign him a new name if he's going to be part of the posse) and I went to The Mayne Stage to see a comedy review called Atomic Comics and atomic they were - absolutely hysterical! Standup comedy is so hit or miss. I didn't expect much so I was doubly pleased when the routines were terrific. And laugh and laugh and laugh we did and realized during the car ride back how much we haven't been laughing lately. When you lead a sober, responsible life, sometimes laughter is a casualty - shouldn't be. I'm really glad we went. Almost didn't go because an hour before we left I fell down my outside front stairs - I wasn't even being a klutz. When Josh showed up, he was breathless with a warning that enormous hail was on its way. The car was parked outside so I grabbed some old down quilts and covered it but there was still a strip of exposed roof. Looking around inside for something to use, I saw the plastic pad that you use under a chair to protect the floor - just the thing. Cumbersome though, and when I lugged it down the stairs, it slipped under my feet and I found myself hurtling down the metal stairs into a heap on the landing - I landed RIGHT on the bad knee - the one I just had a cortisone injection in. My right leg is now purple from stern to stem and the knee is twice its normal size. But, blessing not to break anything - I'll be fine in a week, I'm sure.

Thought for today that's been rattling around in my brain is "Take Two." Seems like all my initiatives these days start with a false start and require rework. The office is a prime example of an installation gone awry - Victor was my "take two" guy and redid everything - correctly. My knee that's flared up in the past two months, keeping me from exercise, will need further treatment - the cortisone shot provided only modest relief. The astral cord unhooking ceremony - it was a good thing to do, but the objective wasn't realized. So many things requiring a second coat of paint!  

If you're like me, you have a huge list of stuff that's begging to be done - that screams for your attention. And when you finally get to something like the garage door that's not opening properly or the lawn that needs reseeding because of the monster party that killed much of the grass in one crazy night of debauchery, it's a big deal to cross it off your list. Sometimes I write something on my list that I've already accomplished just so I can cross it off!  I love crossing stuff off that much! Anyway, the frustration these days is in what I call action regurgitation - the items you cross off that come back up at you, like the hot dog you ate for lunch that pays you a visit in the evening.

I'm getting really good at coping with Take Two items. These days, my expectation is that nothing is going to be done correctly first time out so, I'm mentally prepared for everything to be a multi-step process. Even Thomas, the fellow I talked with most every night for two weeks, who went dark on me, has reappeared. Got a call from him, sounding so sad. His twin brother died and he not only had a rush of activity with the funeral and arrangements but I think he also just withdrew and didn't want to speak to anyone for a spell. It was really good to hear his voice today - I really like him. We will resume out talks tonight. Yet another, Take Two.

Challenge today is thinking about whether or not you're able to stay the course - get from A to Z with action items that keep regurgitating.  If you ordered stuff on the Internet that didn't work out, have you returned it or has it been collecting dust in a "to do" pile? If you reached out to someone for a job lead, sent your resume and haven't heard back, have you let the opportunity languish or are you on top of  returning the volley? It's really like a tennis game - keeping balls in the air, firing on all cylinders. Almost as soon as you lob one across the net, another one presents.

Have a good weekend, dear readers. I hope to be able to tell you Monday that I had a really good one myself. Lonely these days but thinking there is some lesson here I'm supposed to be learning.  

Peace,

Sarah

Just "swyped" Josh into my cell phone to see what new name it would assign him - he's "Gui"  Think I'll pronounce it "Geee" with a hard "g".  

The Babies Were Gone/Fuel Up

Thursday. Quiet, here in the new home office. Joey here with me. Today planning on further organization - there is still a shitload of stuff that came over from the office that needs to be gone through. And the weekend looms which is stressing me out. That's not right, right? To be worried about the weekend? It's just that they're so hard for me these days - the whole alone thing. Weekends should be about falling into the arms of someone you love at the end of a productive week, physical intimacy, sleeping late, great meals, silly fun with friends. Weekends should not be spent largely alone with only memories. It's not right and I have it within my power to change it - I think. I must.

Writing group last night - sparsely attended - just Lucas, Convex, me and one other. Fun though - James led the prompts. He had us write a great first line and then use that same line as the start of three pieces (we actually only got to two). I toyed with four first lines:

• Look at me.
• When Cecilia was five her mother left her in a restaurant.
• The babies were gone.
• Janet stared in the mirror and couldn't remember anything, even the reflection that stared back at her.

I chose the "babies" one.  Here is what I wrote:

The babies were gone without a clue it seemed. Inspector Morse sealed the scene with yellow crime scene tape that stretched the full perimeter of the old stone building - The Cradle, founded in 1881 was nestled in a quiet respectable part of Evanston, had been there almost as long as the town itself. Those days the pregnant mothers would have been shepherded there under cloak of darkness, their shame palpable. These days, the mothers-to-be held court in the Georgian ante-room, weighing options, making life and death decisions they were too young to make. 

Morse shook his head at the thought of the young girls in trouble - "Little hussies," he thought, thinking of his own daughter, Salina who was kept under virtual lock and key. "My Salina would never grace these steps" he thought as he entered the now empty establishment, ducking his 6'5" body to avoid hitting his head on the ancient stone entryway which was designed for 19th century frames. 

The babies had been taken from the third floor nursery - all eleven of them which couldn't have been any small feat. There was no elevator, so whoever took them had to have made many trips and there must have been at least two perpetrators - maybe more. What was amazing was that all of this happened in the middle of the day. True, the full staff wasn't there - most of them having taken the Memorial Day holiday off. Yet there was Mrs. Rosen, the headmistress, Carl, the handyman/janitor, and Susan and Beth had nursery duty that day. 

Morse walked through the nursery for the umpteenth time, by now familiar with each and every bassinet, even the spit-up stains left by the infants. Nothing had escaped his sharp eye, or so he thought until this fifth look. Maybe it was because the sun, which had been missing for days, reappeared and caught the little key in its glittering rays - a weird little key peeking out from under the rocking chair, the kind you open a can of sardines with. Morse would have to question Susan and Beth again. They had said nothing about eating sardines when he interviewed them earlier. 

The babies were gone and the only clue a smelly little key. Morse doubted its significance but at this point, it was all he had, so he lifted it from beneath the chair with tongs and plopped it into a tiny evidence bag. Sitting at the small antique desk in the corner of the nursery, he read through the dossiers of the parent applicants again. Some were clearly unsuitable and those he put aside in a separate pile - these folks would still be smarting from the recent rejection - perhaps there was one among them who had decided to extract revenge from the snooty agency - someone who decided, "Fuck you all - you won't grant me a child! I'll show you! I'll take them all! 

There was the angry school teacher, Miss Marmane - she insisted on being called "Miss", never had a desire to marry but decided at age 63 she wanted progeny. She was, according to the notes, furious with Mrs. Rosen for denying her application. There was a lonely grandfather whose grandchildren he had become estranged from when his son divorced. He liked children a lot, especially the sweet, soft little girls he rocked back and forth in his lap. His son had stood by him through the accusations, but wasn't talking to him now - said the old man was the reason his wife had left and taken the kids South with no forwarding address. 

And there were more rejects - a thoughtful mother who had not so thoughtfully lost her own daughter - forgot she had put the carseat on the top of the car when she drove off. She wanted a replacement for the flattened baby. Then the energetic eater of plums - a Blue Man Group performer who wanted a baby for his act. The weirdest  applicant, by far, was a tone deaf snake charmer who insisted babies had a soporific effect on snakes - his snakes had become agitated of late - a baby would calm them.

As you can see, I didn't finish the story - the above was written in a little over 1/2 hour - really two prompts both starting with the same first line, "The babies were gone."  The underlined phrases or words above were provided as part of the prompts - we were required to incorporate them as part of the exercise.  Fun, right:? Later over tea, Lucas and I mulled over the plot.  "How DID someone steal all eleven babies in the middle of the day - undetected."  Lucas had the great idea of the laundry chute.  Inspector Morris would realize a supply of pillowcases or crib sheets was missing. He would figure out that the the babies were each wrapped up and shoved into the laundry chute to an accomplice below.

The real story of The Cradle, which is a client of mine, is that there IS concern over how to evacuate the babies from the third floor nursery in the event of disaster. Often the nursery workers are significantly outnumbered by babies and the challenge of evacuating more than two babies at a time became a safety concern. Someone had the idea to have special aprons made, into which up to five babies could be safely transported. I never got to see the famous aprons but it captures the imagination. Can you picture a woman, cool under pressure while tendrils of smoke waft around her, placing each baby into a baby-sized pocket of the enormous garment - squirming, crying babies zipped into cramped pockets? Then, can you imagine her carefully picking up the garment which has to weigh almost fifty pounds and carefully, without knocking baby skulls together or against furniture, putting the apron over her head? Then ever so carefully mincing her way to the fire stairs, taking the steps one at a time - the same foot leading and feeling for the stair below while the stairwell fills with smoke? And, despite her carefulness and the thoughtful design of the aprons, the babies who are zipped low into the hem of the garment are bounced against the stairs as she descends. She winces with each thud and thinks, "Better battered and bruised than dead."

All for today.  The challenge for you today is taking your emotional temperature. The end of the week is nearing. It's summer and there is an obligation to enjoy it - to fuel up the sun's rays for winter. Do you have good plans? If not, can you script some that will find you on Sunday night, exhausted, happy and fulfilled?Architects of our own lives, we are.

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is a baby from the Indian Vadi Tribe, legendary snake charmers. Boys and girls (and apparently even babies) must learn to handle snakes. Here's the link to the page with the amazing video depicted in today's picture.  Here is the link.

Zen Home Office, Inc./Friend Safe Word

Wednesday - 7:45AM, things are better today - they got really bad yesterday, but Victor to the rescue. And I'm sure you could feel the Sarah meltdown. It all got too much. It's that whole, "how the hell do you get from A to Z thing when everything in the universe seems designed to thwart you', thing. Mostly frustration over what should be a sweet, simple home office. AND if you could see it now, that's exactly what it is - a peaceful, spacious, well-appointed work space with everything tidily in its place. But yesterday? Oh, my!! The network guy who hooked all my gear up did a functional job - everything worked but it was all attached via a hornet's nest of cables.

And surprising how many devices one needs! This is what I have: desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, laser printer, scanner, color printer/fax, networked postage scale, Ethernet switch, Comcast router, two-line phone, Buffalo backup device, speakers, Cisco Wi-Fi. All of these things have their own power requirement and cabling and, before Victor came over, it was all in a jumbled spaghetti mess on the floor. And I lost it with Shay because the night before we worked on putting together a new piece of furniture to house much of the network stuff - a simple network table but when we opened the box there were 21 steps to put it together and enough parts to build a car. Funny how people operate differently in "put together" mode.  I'm obsessively methodical, neat, a rule follower and as such, it might take me twice as long to get the job done but there are never any surprises - no parts left over at the end - everything perfect. I frustrated Shay with my methodical approach so at Step 9, I stopped micro-managing - we did it the Shay way which was fast, furious and on the fly. BUT, next morning, one critical piece had been assembled backwards and I just lost it - "God damn it! This kind of thing never happens to me!" I yelled. "If we just did it my way!"

With that, the meltdown started. I tried to battle the tangle of devices, tried to hold it together, tried not to just breakdown in tears. If I had had a gun I swear I would have pulled an Annie Oakley and started shooting holes in everything - "Take that you Linksys switch! Putting you out of your misery Comcast router!" After the Shay thing I did something truly bizarre. I didn't want to take my fury out on any innocents. I didn't want to be bitchy and berating even though I was full of fury. I drank a shot of vodka - right there in the middle of my kitchen, just threw it back. Now the reason this is really weird (and yes, troubling) is because that is just not me. A) I've never had a shot of any hard liquor in my entire life - I'm surprised I even found a shot glass because, while the idea of doing shots is kind of cool, it's not in my repertoire. B) I don't drink more than 1-3 glasses of wine a week these days so I haven't been turning to alcohol as a solution. C) I feel like there should be a C because it was just the weirdest thing to do and so out of character as if I was flailing around for some way to not put a bullet through my head.

Immediately afterwards, I texted Victor, "I seriously just drank a shot of vodka." "Stop immediately!" he replied. "I will," I promised. He ordered me to come get him. We stopped at the hardware store for cable taming devices. We got to the house and when he saw the mess he said, "Holy fuck! You weren't kidding!  This is absolutely disgusting!" My regret is that we didn't take a picture of the rat's nest of equipment and cables. For the next 4-5 hours he instilled order and purpose to the office. Shay fixed the piece of furniture. Today everything is beautiful - once I get art on the walls I'll take a picture for the blog. Thinking Victor should make a side business of talking people off the ledge, working with clients to create a vision, spec'ing in components, optimizing the space, installing all the gear in the pristine way he does where every device, power supply, cord is labeled at every end. Call it Zen Home Office - or something like that! Let me know if you want his number.

Today I'm humbled by life, by the obstacles, by the need for help and friends. Yesterday was a bitch of a day and yet somehow things got sorted out. The vodka thing was my way of saying, "I'm in big trouble here. I can't do this alone." And good that I can be so open about it - I'm not ashamed of the action, just humbled by it - thinking we all do stupid, deliberately self destructive things like that once in a while. Kaveh would say, "Nothing human is alien."

Challenge today is to be as open as I have been when you're in trouble - you don't need to do something stupid like throw back a shot of liquor in the middle of the maelstrom or end up in the ER before your friends know you need them. You just need to know when you're in trouble and know it's OK to call in your posse. I'm toying with the concept of a "friend safe word" - a word you agree on ahead of time that stops the presses - that lets your friends know they need to stop whatever they're doing and rush to your side - that saying, "I'm having a bad day" is just not enough information sometimes. Yesterday Christ texted me, "I am having a crappy week." What do I do with that information? Is just sending text encouragement enough of a response, or should I be packing a picnic and taking it to him, or offering to roll up my sleeves and pitch in and do some body of work? Again, it's not enough information.

Safe word. - phrase. "I'm in trouble." If I write it here, or text you or call you and utter these words, please make me a priority. If you tell me the same, I will drop everything and rush to your side. Deal?

Peace,
Sarah

War Path/Strip Away The Artifice

Tuesday and challenges abound.  First off everything about my new office needs getting used to. I'm not settled and that is unsettling. Typing on the new left handed keyboard which is more compressed than I'm used to - disconcerting.  Mousing with my left hand -  makes me feel mentally challenged. Too much gear on my desk - no place to write. Files and files to go through. Yesterday I purged all old employee files, looking for anything with a social security number or private information - plucked those pages and middle of summer found me stoking a fire in the fireplace, burning all that sensitive information. Neighbors must have thought I was loony to have a fire going during a heat spell. To say I'm crabby would be a huge understatement.

When our infrastructure isn't right, it's crazy making, right? I'm on the warpath and taking it out on everyone, including the animals. The cat has decided it's his thing to scream at the door to go outside - over and over and over again so that you want to twist his neck. Solution? Water bottle. I'll break the little fucker of the habit and enjoy myself in the process - he yells, I chase him down with water in his face. Joey has decided he belongs tangled at my feet under my desk with all the wires. Then, when something spooks him (he's easily spooked) like Shay standing in the doorway, he scrambles, getting himself further tangled and next thing the mouse cord is stuck on his collar and the trackball is being flung across the room, while the other cat decides to get in the fray and beat him around the head. I yell. He pees in fear while I drag him to the outside, feeling like an angry shit the whole time. The new phone rings loudly and incessantly - haven't figured out yet how to turn off the ringer and really, shouldn't I be answering the company main number? But really, it's always some old coot looking for Evanston Hospital. It's all I can do to not yell at the people who dial wrong, berate them for calling the wrong number.  I stop short of abuse knowing they probably have a sick loved one. And then there's the Landmark Forum who calls over and over again, wanting to talk with me and prep me for the upcoming seminar.  I don't want to talk with them so I just keep hanging up which makes them call twice as much. I think it's time for the shooting range again.

And today, Kaveh, which was just what the doctor ordered - oh, wait, he IS the doctor. Ran the whole hypnosis idea by him - he listened patiently and then told me, "no."  He gets to do that - veto me as he sees appropriate. I told him it had been too long - a year has elapsed - that I want to be free of the sadness, just cut it out of me. "A lobotomy, it seems, would be in order," he suggested. "Yeah," I agreed, "a lobotomy would be just the ticket." All kidding aside, he tells me I'm  doing great - the relationship, which was one of the most important of my life, has made me a better person. He tells me a year is not too long to grieve for such a loss. And the loss, he tells me, is about more than just Patrick - it's the love of a good man - something I never experienced despite the three fathers (Kaveh aside). Bottom line, I'm forbidden to cleanse my mind of him - apparently I'm doing better than it feels.

Last night, interesting evening at Petterino's - found me hobnobbing with socialites. I was invited to sit at the table of prominent regulars and I was shocked they intended to buy my dinner - I put up a serious fuss and was shut down - there would be no negotiation on that point. Uneasy, I graciously accepted - I'm used to paying my own way in the world. Then the next table over, a well known socialite and her new fiancee - their table is always reserved just for them whether they show up or not - if they don't show it remains empty. The buzz of the evening was excitement over her engagement ring. She showed it to me - I am not exaggerating a tiny bit when I tell you it was a ruby the size of a silver dollar - not a quarter, a silver dollar. And it was circled by large diamonds. I didn't know what to say - didn't know what one is supposed to say when confronted by such a display so I told her she needed an armed guard to accompany her wherever she went.  Her response was to demonstrate her solution by flipping the ruby around so it looked like a simple band of gold -how she wore it when out in the general population. 

Today, thoughts about her and what appears to be a recurring theme - lives of the rich and famous - remember last week - the philanthropist? This week it was my wealthy benefactors who bought me dinner and my new socialite acquaintance. Doesn't it seem almost cliche - the stuff life dishes you up? Lately I've been writing about embracing a simpler, pared down life. I've been excavating years of possessions, getting rid of 9/10ths of what I own. Therapy has taught me to strip away the artifice, to discover what's really important.  Feels like I'm living a really good book that starts out rough, the heroine hits a wall and discovers her own truths and then after a lot of soul searching and pain emerges wiser and happier - an arc worth living.

And if such a book were written, there would surely be a chapter where the heroine was faced with a crossroads - one path glittering and superficial and the other more plain but hugely more gratifying. So do I aspire to have a driver and a Rolls Royce a doting, dottering fiance, a ruby as large as a golf ball, so many horses I've lost count? Is it sour grapes when I say that stuff doesn't matter to me? Absolutely not. I'm seeing these people up close and they're not looking so very happy to me.

Challenge today is thinking about how you feel about wealth, status and stuff. If you're my friend and reading this blog, I know you are a person of substance - all my friends are. Real substance, not stuff substance. Fun to think about winning the lottery, having a different fur coat for each day of the week, a wine cave like my friend George, driving a car that makes girls swoon. Or maybe you would buy a Monet and have front row tickets to the opera. However you slice it, there is a cautionary tale there. Thinking if we want to get to the yummy chocolate center of our lives, we have to get past all the sugary layers.

Peace,
Sarah

Hypnosis For Sarah?/Burt Bacharach

Our old friend Monday today. How was your weekend? For me weekends are still hard and this one was no exception. Schaller's by myself Friday which was only a bit of fun because these days, it's a diet coke and a plain chicken sandwich which is not a hilarious way to spend a Friday night. Sat mostly by myself and sang mostly well. One thing worth noting is that, when I sing anything Burt Bacharach these days, people respond - clapping, swaying, singing along. Songs like Walk on By, Alfie, What Do You Get When You Fall In Love, The Look of Love, Do You Know The Way to San Jose, I Say a Little Prayer, Always Something There To Remind Me  - all great songs right? So that got me to thinking. I've been thinking about doing a show at Davenports for a while now. I've had an idea percolating for a theme regarding the book Necessary Losses, tied into life's inevitable changes as well as the big weight loss (everyone loves a good weight loss story), but I won't be ready for that for a while, mostly because I want to finish the weight loss. So, how about an homage to Burt Bacharach show? People don't sing his music much, everyone loves it, it lends itself well to my voice, and I could get friends like Pam to sing with me - back up vocals, etc. Mark, my voice coach, thinks it's a great idea. Stay tuned - more to come on this.

Saturday, Lucas, Convex and I went to see Beat The Drum Slowly at the Raven Theater (love that little theater in Roger's Park!) It was very, very good - compelling, touching and really well acted. Sunday, friends Helen and Steve over for dinner which was nice. I made a wonderful Mediterranean shrimp thing with large perfectly cooked shrimp in a casserole of onion, garlic, heirloom tomatoes and topped with feta cheese and Italian parsley. That and a salad and we were happy campers! No dessert - everyone watches their weight these days.

But yeah, really sad these days. The whole astral cord unhooking thing just didn't hold - probably because at my core I"m kind of an unbeliever about that kind of thing - maybe if I'd been totally invested in the concept of energy fields between people I would have gotten more closure from the ritual. As it is, my heart still aches and I'm so damn sick and tired of being sad all the time. It absolutely stinks! Everyone around me is rejoicing in the summer. Mark from downstairs is going out salsa dancing almost every night. My girls are beaching it with regularity. Lucas is bopping here and there with her kids to art festivals, Great America, etc. Me? I am waiting for it to be over. There is too much happiness around me and the contrast between how I feel inside and the euphoria around me is hard to stomach.

Last night Helen got me to thinking. She was describing a recent event where a sister-in-law played a video of her being hypnotized when she was at a show in Las Vegas. 'Twas very funny because the hypnotist chose two women from the audience, convinced one that he was the most irresistible, sexy man on the planet and the other that he was repulsive. The sister-in-law was the one who found him irresistible. On the tape she made a fool of herself, throwing herself bodily at this man while she was under the spell. Apparently hypnosis really does work for the right people. What do you think about me getting hypnotized? Could work, right? I've been Googling things like "hypnosis for a broken heart".

Hypnosis for my broken heart, hmmmmm. Something to think about seriously. I want (I NEED) to be happy again - I have to think that sadness just isn't a healthy way of being - that dragging your heart around like ball on a chain has to have negative health consequences. I have concerns though. Do I want to feel indifferent to, or worse, hate him? It would seem to preclude our ever finding each other again. Do I want to live in a world without loving him?  Just the thought brings me to tears. I think I feel a good book plot emerging - a great love, a heartbreak that consumes, a hypnotist, love replaced by aversion, regret on his part - a realization she was the real deal -that he needs her, his return, her rejection, tragedy.

And what about the singing?  Would we love Billie Holiday so much if she hadn't been riddled with pain? How can I sing I Thought About You and make teenage boys cry if I'm only filled with apathy or revulsion?  It's not a small decision to make and I don't know if it would work, but if it did, that would be it - kapoot. Patrick=yuck.

Funny thing - taught Joey to roll over onto his back with his paws in the air when I ask him, "Joey, would you rather be a Republican or a dead dog?" He's smart - it only took me about 15 minutes and lots of sharp cheddar to teach him the trick. Elizabeth has been showing him off all over town and everyone is loving the trick - she has no Republican friends, I'm guessing!

Sorry for being down today.....as soon as I'm done with this blog post, I'm going to make a happy list - the things I need to do every day to position my life in a happier way. I'll also make a cautionary list - things I need to avoid. Worried about the profusion of ready technology around me and my ability to resist it -remember I'm the one who has lived without computer or TV for years. Now that I've moved the office to the house, the technology is beckoning me and I recently broke down and signed up for NetFlix online and watched season one of Downton Abbey (loved it). I could easily, in my loneliness, just turn to media for companionship - it is calling me. I understand the pull - the TV thing is very seductive. Not sure I can resist. Gonna try.

Challenge today could be making your own happiness list along with the cautionary list - these are the things you need and must do every day to keep your balance and creative a fertile flowerbed for flowers to bloom. For me, the big things are: staying on my diet, exercising, not drinking, finding novelty, human connections, creativity. For you, it might be stuff like going to your AA meeting, getting to bed by 10PM, not eating fast food, not playing video games when you're lonely. Being happy, I think, is work.

Peace,
Sarah

Swaraj, Convex and Lucas/Virginia Wolfe

Friday, so disoriented today but things are moving along. Day started with Chris, my network guy finishing up what he needed to do in my home office, adding memory, new backup systems - all systems go and functioning well. Then Victor, my muse these days, who helped me with the move, selling all the unneeded office furniture, helping me to design the new office - today he whisked through the house and helped me decide what to do with what - also removed hard drives from a half dozen old desktop computers that I'm ditching. Then Carmen, monthly house cleaning and the loud vacuum, and a delivery of a new piece of office furniture, and, and and...so much activity - all good but disorienting.

Last night was an evening with Martin - tantra. It was a breakthrough of sorts - we spent a lot of time just "being" together, looking into each other's faces, not saying anything, being still. It's hard for me to be still, and harder still to focus on someone's left eye which is a tantra practice - apparently the left eye is the mirror to the soul. I wept in his arms - first time that happened - something is bubbling up and out. I think it's good. Getting rid of stuff.

And speaking of getting rid of stuff, I have had an image of Virginia Wolfe in my head for days now. I think of her putting on a huge overcoat and filling her pockets with rocks and wading out into the water and drowning herself which is how she ended her life. The thought of being weighted down with stones, struggling with each step is how I feel my life has been for a while now. And I don't think I'm alone. I know I keep harping on stuff and getting rid of stuff, and I'm not sure if that new-found passion resonates with you or not, but the thought that we spend most of our adult lives filling our pockets with heavy stones until we can barely walk any longer is a recent revelation.

For years now, I've been going to my storefront office, 2400 SF of space, filled to the brim with an accumulation of office supplies, network gear, furniture, pandemic flu supplies, overflow of personal stuff from the house, enough binder clips to start a binder clip store, hundreds of boxes of old client files and ancient documents. It was all neat and tidy, everything occupying its own little space and I enjoyed being there, or so I thought. Consciously, it was a good place to go - a sexy pretty space, well decorated, classy and functional. But what was happening at the subconscious level was almost lethal - like all that stuff was pulsing with a heartbeat I could pretend to ignore even though I felt its presence each and every day. I guess what I'm trying to say badly is that sometimes we're just not aware of the psychic toll that we're under when our foundation is wrong. If I were attuned, I would have been aware sooner that going to that office every day was draining my life force. In the last year I was not able to accomplish much there and now I know why - it was toxic - like living in a house built on a graveyard and making believe there aren't dead bodies decaying below your pretty floors. So an absolute YAY! for excavating my life - I'm emptying my pockets of heavy stones.

I'm determined to have some fun this weekend. Schaller's tonight looks dicey - no one else going so I might have to scramble to make Plan B plans if I decide I don't want to go there by myself. Tomorrow, a play at the Raven Theater and Sunday, dinner on my deck with friends Steve and Helen who are a treat. All that, plus Weight Watchers and a voice lesson and some gardening, will make for a well rounded weekend, I hope. I'm also hoping for some face time with my best friends Lucas and Convex. That's what I'm calling James and Liza these days ever since the auto text on my cell phone decided, when I type James and Liza, it won't do - they apparently needed new new names. Mind of its own, that auto text - I type James and what comes out is Convex. I type Liza and it's Lucas. I'm not Sarah anymore but Swaraj. So the three musketeers we remain but with new names, Swaraj and her two sidekicks Convex and Lucas.

I have no lofty thoughts today - still reeling over last evening and the flood of tears that came from some deep river within me. If there is a challenge it's thinking about the idea I had that we risk the fate of Virginia Wolfe if we keep filling our pockets with heavy stones.  Stones come in all shapes and sizes and some we carry as joyful burdens like the relationships we have with loved ones, but others have snuck into our pockets, maybe pretty and useful at one time, but now having long outlived their usefulness.  I'm thinking, when you are on the back stretch of your life, it's time to empty the pockets and decide what burdens you want to carry with you the rest of the way. Today Chris and I looked through an enormous box of old software that had been amassed over fifteen years - almost all obsolete and unneeded - garbage now. I've been carting shit like this around too long. New motto, "When in doubt, throw it out!"

Peace,
Swaraj

Put Yourself on Auto Pilot/I Will Tell Them I Remember You

Thursday today, time to put the weekend social calendar together so I don't have another weekend like last where I sat for hours playing Scrabble on my phone or mindlessly surfed on the Internet, looking at someone's Facebook page way too often to check for updates. By Sunday mid-day, I snapped myself out of it for the most part, deciding I didn't want to be that person. I put my phone and IPad in a distant room, close enough to hear a phone ringing, but nothing else. Sometimes we're our own worst enemies, getting in weird destructive, non-productive, non-happy loops. And when we're "looping" we know it's not right but we can't seem to escape the centrifugal force. These days I'm finding it helpful to role play with myself and to visualize ahead of time what my response will be when faced with choice. If you had glimpsed me in my car last Friday as I drove to Schaller's you would have seen a lady with lips moving, talking to herself.  "Hi, Sarah, Martini with Ketel One? (they still haven't caught on that it's been many months since I ordered one of those.). "No thanks, Patty/JoAnne, tonight I'm going to have a diet coke, a grilled chicken sandwich, hold the french fries and a house salad with dressing on the side." There was something about actually audibly voicing those words ahead of time that made my response automatic when the time came. It's like I was on auto pilot - I didn't have to wrestle with the decision, it had already been made. And it wasn't enough just to think it, I find you have to actually practice saying the words. Try it and see if it works for you.

Last night Shay and I went to the piano bar at Maggiano's in the city (Clark and Grand). We snagged a couple of seats at the piano bar where Bob Salone holds sway on Wednesdays and Fridays. He's a very good performer and accompanist and there is a regular cadre of singers who stop in and sing a tune or two. Good for me that I sang very well after the whole jazz fiasco on Monday. Sang What a Day This Has Been (rare for me to sing a happy, upbeat song!), Walk on By (that one kicks me in my gut and when I sang it I pictured him sitting with a Jameson's listening to me with that loving, concerned look on his face), and finally I Remember You which is such a wistful song. "I remember you, you're the one who made my dreams come true, a few kisses ago. I remember you, you're the one who said, 'I love you too. Didn't you know?'  I remember too, a distant bell and stars that fell like rain out of the blue. When my life is through and the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all, I will tell them I remember you." One good thing that happened during the last year - I became a much more credible singer. Can't sing the blues if you haven't lived the blues!

So funny to be with Shay. The Maggiano's piano bar is usually populated by an older crowd, well represented by older, single, desperate women with too much make-up on and older guys who are trying to keep their swag but they're just trying too hard and drinking too much. It's kind of pathetic in an endearing way. There were a lot of curious questions about Shay and yes, I could have put their curiosity to rest by telling the truth, which is that he is my daughter's ex-boyfriend who lives with and works for me and who enjoys a good meal so he tagged along. But that wouldn't have been fun, right? So, when people asked me if he was a relative, I simply said, "No, he is a friend." And when Bob Salone asked his status, "I jokingly said, "He is my date." Bob responded, "So you are a cougar!" I looked at him straight-faced and said, "Are you implying I look older than him?" He was tongue-tied (didn't know I was kidding). Anyway the evening went on that way with one person after the other wondering and Shay and I just having fun with it. We'll keep them guessing if we go back again. And we DID have fun. He's actually developing an appreciation for the old standards which is amazing for a Marilyn Manson kind of guy. He has favorites he asks me to sing - usually anything Burt Bacharach.

Back to Incognito.  In keeping with my early thoughts about how to prep yourself for future conflict, a chapter entitled, The Brain is a Team of Rivals, discusses things like Christmas Clubs and Ulysses who had his sailors lash him to the mast of the ship so that, when they passed the island where the beautiful Sirens sang "melodies so alluring they beggared the human mind" and who lured sailors to their deaths, they could passage safely. David Eagleman writes:

This myth highlights the way in which minds can develop a meta-knowledge about how the short and long term parties interact. The amazing consequence is that minds can negotiate with different time points of themselves.

He goes on to cite further examples: websites that help you lose weight where you deposit funds and only get them back if you fulfill the contract, Do Not Resusitate contracts which are an example of decisions made during less emotional times, a decision made by a recovering alcoholic to remove all alcohol from the house to prevent relapse at a future stressful time. The Team of Rivals concept talks to the fact that we are of many minds and there is always high level negotiation going on in our brains. In simplistic terms it comes down to the two hemispheres of our brains which in many ways are mirror images of each other, connected by fibers called the corpus callosum - they each form two halves of a team of rivals. For a long time, it was thought that, when the corpus callosum was cut, nothing much happened. It's since been discovered there are medical uses to cutting that connection - chronic epilepsy is an example where severing the connection eliminates or reduces seizures.

It's now recognized that the two halves of our brain have different personalities and skills. Roger Sperry, one of the neurobiologists who pioneered the split-brain studies (and garnered a Nobel Prize for it), came to understand the brain as "two separate realms of conscious awareness; two sensing , perceiving, thinking and remembering systems." The two halves constitute a team of rivals: agents with the same goals but slightly different ways of going about it.

In the '70's a psyschologist named Julian James postulated that early man's minds were divided into two - with the left hemisphere taking direct orders from the right hemisphere. The commands actually sounded like auditory hallucinations and were interpreted as communication from God. As the brain evolved there were more interactions between the two hemispheres and cognitive processes such as introspection developed. When that happened, conflicting agendas had to be worked out - the brain with its different goals had to come to the "table" and work things out.

Challenge for today could be incorporating The Sarah Method for prepping yourself for an event you know is coming down the pike where you may be fraught with indecision and potentially make a bad decision you will regret later. It could be an upcoming performance review with your boss, or making a decision ahead of time that, when you're out on Saturday, you'll switch to Perrier after two drinks. It could be a pep talk you give yourself when you've completed ten reps in the gym and want to take it to fifteen, or how you will talk yourself out of purchasing anything that is not on your list when you go to Costco. Consider being that crazy person who talks to himself. Practice the words ahead of time. You're in Whole Foods. "Would you like to try a sample of our newey gooey sausage deep dish pizza?"  If, ahead of time, you decided grocery food samples are off limits and you actually voiced the words, "Thank you for offering, but I don't eat samples," or something that, magically, voila, those very same words will pop out of your mouth when you need to summon them!

Peace,
Sarah

Tweaking/Brain Burning

Wednesday - 2nd full day of being in the new home office and there is still tweaking going on. Funny to say "tweaking" - when I read this to Madeleine she will think I've adopted a meth habit and be all worried. When she, or one of her friends, says someone was "tweaking" it means, according to the Urban Dictionary "to be under the influence of Methamphetamine 'man I got all tweaked two days ago and I'm still awake'. "  My kind of fifty year old tweaking means the perfect ergonomic placement of my office furniture, computer, monitors, keyboard, etc. And it's important, right? Years ago I had early carpel tunnel syndrome (tenosynovitis). I read a lot about repetitive stress injuries and learned that, for computer power users, it's vital there be an absolutely straight line from the tip of your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. Most people, when they type, cock their hands in some way. Using a natural keyboard, especially if you're large breasted is a way to keep that line straight. And DON'T tilt the keyboard up with the little feet -you need a downward slope to your hands.

A few things I've picked up from recent reading. We talked about the brain's ability, through exercise, to create new cells in the important part of your brain responsible for memory and learning. What I've read recently is that those newly created cells are floating around, unattached - not incorporated into the brain fabric until such time as they're put to use. So terrific to have the new cells - the exercise paid off, but unless you exercise your brain, there won't be any benefit - the unattached cells are not neurally connected and have not been given a purpose. Without the connections they look to your immune system like invaders or garbage cells. The immune cells constantly patrol your body looking to clean up debris - new unattached cells look to that clean up crew like garbage and they're swept away.

So today, with comfort and ergonomics in mind, I worked with Shay on installing an under-the-desk keyboard tray but, because I'm working on a new "L" shaped desk and because I use the over-sized natural keyboard, I couldn't get it so that I could sit looking at the monitors and have my hands perfectly positioned in front of me. I looked at the keyboard, "If only the numeric keys were on the left side, everything would be shifted to the right as I need it."  Then I thought, "Wait I wonder if they make a left handed natural keyboard so that lefties can do their mathematical calculations with their left hand!" (I don't use those keys).  Sure enough they do, so I just ordered the left handed natural keyboard. Problem solved. Sarah=genius!

Office move aside, I'm  feeling very isolated and lonely these days - it's a perfect storm of emptiness. Absolutely no romantic prospects and I've become discouraged about the whole dating process so I'm not reaching out anymore. My friends are busy and out of touch - Liza has whooping cough and viral pneumonia and even when she's healthy the demands of her family have increased. James is busy supporting Liza, running errands for her. My sister has been out of touch - she is going through a tough time that is making her seek solitude. Other friends have taken on big challenges that consume their time, i.e. Carol getting her Master's in Literature. Pam has been out of town. The list goes on and on. I'm not taking any of it personally - it is, what it is, but Sarah has to do something because spending night after night alone after being alone in the home office is going to make me nuts. Confession is that I put "Words With Friends" back on my phone and I've been engaged in more than 15 simultaneous Scrabble games with people I'm starting to get to know - I especially like WyrdNerd, an interesting woman from Atlanta. Hey, you take your companionship anywhere you find it! Desperate times.

Today I decided I need a bunch of new friends who are as available as I am, looking to do stuff. Forget dating for a while - I just need some fun, available friends who are doing interesting stuff and who "get" me. Thinking too often we forget we thrive on novelty. Routine is comfortable and comforting certainly but it's the "new" that gets our brains out of stasis and firing up. Learning new things, meeting new people, reading great books, taking in plays or concerts - anything really to live vividly and not slip into wakeful unconsciousness.

Challenge today is thinking about that - wakeful unconsciousness (just made that up). Whenever we do something over and over again, that action starts to live in the unconscious parts of our brain, laying down hard wiring, becoming part of our rote. Even the feelings we have when we hear the same song sung - a song that thrilled us at first, that fired up our brains, aren't as "fire-y" the second or third or fourth times the song is sung. Or eating - can you remember going to your favorite restaurant for the first time and the wonder and amazement of experiencing new tastes? If the food was good, you gave it your full consciousness, ooh and ahhing over the presentation, the smell and finally concentrating on the subtle flavors, trying to guess at the ingredients. Subsequent visits to that same restaurant may be lovely but it's not the brain-firing experience of the first time when everything was new. Novelty

Today, in trying to solve the keyboard positioning problem, I decided to move the mouse to left of the keyboard. In the past I wouldn't even have considered such a thing - it's going to be a tough week, learning to mouse with my left hand - annoying and frustrating. I realized the added benefit right away given what I've been learning about the brain, it's a PERFECT thing to do, a kill two birds with one stone thing to do - solves my ergonomic problem AND exercises my brain which will be pissed to have to re-learn a task it had already automated. My brain circuitry will have to kick in some extra effort, call up some of those new brain cells I made when I was sweating on the elliptical and incorporate them into the fabric of the hippocampus.

Stuff like this - hard, frustrating, annoying, brain-burning, is EXACTLY what we should be challenging ourselves with - often. Studying piano chords which are a frigging pain in the ass and no fun to learn, untangling jazz rhythms and improving my jazz ear so I can be a respectable jazz singer, stuff that seems impossible to learn and be good at is exactly the challenge my brain (and yours) needs. Rule of thumb - if you're going to be serious about challenging your brain, like I am, the activities we choose should be hard and unfamiliar - unless we feel that WTF feeling where we wonder how in hell we will ever get from A to Z, question our ability to learn whatever it is - unless we feel the uncomfortableness in our head of something hard and foreign, I don't think the connections are being made. If you do Sukoko every day, I'm guessing you're darn good at it by now - your brain is comfortable solving the daily puzzle. That can only mean it's no longer a brain challenge - it's no good for you anymore - no smoke coming out of your ears! Try something new. Maybe tonight you can brush your teeth with your left hand!  Or do what I've learned to do which is write in cursive as quickly backwards (mirror writing) as I write forwards!  Me? I'm going to reignite my Farsi lessons - now that's a cryptic, brain burning thing to do!

Peace,
Sarah

Years after I mastered mirror writing I learned that Leonarda Da Vinci was also adept at it. Smiling to think I have something in common with Leonardo!

Testimony of the Senses/Crossroads

Today, first day sitting in the home office - things are hooked up more or less although the final configuration has yet to be tweaked.  Last night sang well and terribly...well at Petterino's, two songs, I Thought About You, and also Walk on By.  But then went to Serbian Village to the jazz jam session and I sang the same song, I Thought About You, but this time as a jazz swing number versus a ballad. Remember when I told you what could go wrong with a jazz tune when you have the whole jazz ensemble behind you? Sure enough, I got behind and unlike in Cabaret-land, they don't wait for you! Discouraged about jazz singing - it's so damn hard. Driving back home, I had to admit to myself that I'm just not good at it. Shock! Sarah not good at something! Boggles the mind, right? I had a friend once that bemoaned that I'm really good at everything I do. I reminded her that I ONLY do things I'm good at! At least that was then - now, it seems I do stuff I suck at, like singing jazz. So what to do? Crossroads. I can either give it up and save myself further mortification or I can get good at it. What's not an option is continuing to do it and not be adept.

And at Petterino's last night more unattractive behaviors witnessed. It seems to be, for me, a Petri dish kind of place for observing human interactions. I sat next to a largish party of about eight, two men and six women.  There was a locally famous philanthropist I recognized sitting at the head of the table, within arms length of me (his back to me so I could observe unnoticed). This guy looks like an old country bumpkin - in his '70's: unruly wiry hair, leathery wrinkly skin, poorly dressed (always seems to wear checked or plaid shirts), and his voice is goofy too - he guffaws. Really, if you were unaware of his Chicago status, you wouldn't give him a second look, and if he hit on you, you would demure - he's that unattractive. But he's fabulously wealthy and generous with his wealth (he's purchased drinks for all the singers from time to time).

So this is what I witnessed as I sat there as a social scientist. Most everyone kowtowed to him: the waiters who hovered, the sound man who was told the speakers were a bit loud and positioned disadvantageously pointing at their table, the emcee who fawned over them singling them out in the room - asking him to stand and be feted and then later, further obsequious comments. There were even orchids placed on his table - maybe he had requested them, maybe not. Each of the singers who walked by him, sought his eye and if he nodded his approval, all but swooned. And the women at the table were all young and beautiful, 30-40 years his junior. It was his wife I studied most - she is stunningly beautiful with a knock-out figure. When I Googled him this morning it seems they are fairly newlyweds (a few years). Body language is always telling. She sat too far from him, leaning more into the space of her friends. He was a toucher, couldn't keep his hands off her even though it was a stretch for him to reach her. She smiled benevolently at him  from time to time, just enough to assure him. Wealth and beauty wedded - to this casual observer, it seemed an uneasy, insecure arrangement. In his private moments he had to know she was with him only for his money - he is an old troll of a man. In her private moments, she must shudder with repugnance for having sold her soul for the almighty buck. Ugly, ugly, ugly. And who am I to judge? I could be wrong! They could be blissfully happy! Don't think so, though - it was the body language that was telling.  

So the book, Incognito - still thinking about it.  This morning over coffee I reviewed it and jotted notes in the margins of the pages. There is a significant chapter entitled, The Testimony of the Senses, that gives example after example of how our senses are easily manipulated - what we think we experience is often a "party trick of the brain".  Here's a quote:

So the first lesson about trusting your senses is: don't. Just because you believe something to be true, just because you know it's true, that doesn't mean it is true. The most important maxim for fighter pilots is "Trust your instruments." This is because your senses will tell you the most inglorious lies, and if you trust them - instead of your cockpit dials - you'll crash. So the next time someone says, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?", consider the question carefully. 

After all, we are aware of very little of what is "out there". The brain makes time-saving and resource-saving assumptions and tries to see the world only as well as it needs to. And as we realize that we are not conscious of most things until we ask ourselves questions about them, we have taken the first step in the journey of self-excavation. We see that what we perceive in the outside world is generated by parts of the brain to which we do not have access. These principles of inaccessible machinery and rich illusion do not apply only to basic perceptions of vision and time. They also apply at higher levels - to what we think and feel and believe.

The vision examples were profound.  How does a brain that is "encased in absolute blackness in the vault of your skull" construct vision? Turns out the nerve signals the brains uses to construct pictures can come from any of the sensing organs. And for people whose optics don't function normally, the solution is to deliver the pictures through another organ - substitute one sense for another. A neuroscientist named Paul Bach-y-Rita proved this concept by attaching a video camera to a blind person's forehead  and then converting the incoming signal into tiny vibrations on the person's back. After a week or so, the brain got it and now it sees exactly what the video camera inputs to it.

The most amazing example of seeing with another organ is the mountain climber Eric Weihenmayer - the first and only blind person to scale Mount Everest. He did this by use of a electronic grid in his mouth that "translates a video input into patterns of electrical pulses." Turns out, the tongue is a sophisticated piece of "machinery" that can be re-purposed to "discern qualities usually ascribed to vision." Proves that we see with our brains, not our eyes!! The same technology has been used commercially to equip soldiers in nighttime combat with 360 degree vision and divers to be able to "see" in deep murky water.

So throw away everything you've ever thought about the feeling and sensing world you live in. All of what we perceive is a creation of our brains and much of it is ego-centric - not the world as it really is. The benefit to a book like this is to shake us out of perceptions of self and world and see things more creatively and broadly. Consciousness is something I've never consciously given much thought to in the past (ironic to say that, right?) Are you like me in feeling pretty cozy that the world you experience in your waking hours, with the senses you possess, is the real deal? I know we need to be anchored but being myopic and not examining this stuff is being tethered not anchored.

The challenge today is to think bigger in an effort to understand our place in the universe(s). I'm starting to wonder if consciousness is wasted on the mundane - seems to me it might be the fuel of the universe - it might traverse time and space - it might be that ours and other sentient beings' consciousness is what's divine. There may be others out there waiting for us to figure it out. Just trying to think bigger.

Peace,
Sarah

Incognito/Dethronement

It's Monday and the move really was a success. Thank God for Shay - he made it all look easy. Thursday found Catherine and me lunching at Blind Faith while Shay and helper did the big shlep. Friday Comcast came and moved the network and I took the day off. Today my network guy is here setting up my home office - working at the coffee table on Madeleine's computer for the day.  

But the weekend, arg. Friday Schaller's was fun - sang great as did my friends. Saturday voice lesson, just fine, but I was in a funk because it happened again! A guy with whom I had a budding relationship - Mike, the engineer/entrepreneur, jazz lover, published novel writer, went dark on me. Second time this has happened in about a month where someone has captured my interest only to disappear. In both cases, we hadn't gotten to the meeting stage, so it wasn't a physical attraction thing - I will probably never know what happened and for me the person who always wants to know everything - it's crazy making. Thinking I need to take a step back from this dating thing - cosmos' way of telling me not to be pursuing love.  Kaveh says two things must be in place: readiness and luck. I'm ready to love again, can't control luck. 

Finished the book Incognito - The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman. Oh, my - I am speechless - don't know what to think and certainly am finding it hard to write about it - there is just so much there. Thinking it should be be an ongoing discussion between "us" - there is a lot to chew on and think about. And much of it is discouraging - I was hoping for something else within those pages. I was hoping this book would give me a clear recipe on how to reprogram my troubled brain - encouragement anyway that we have the power to change our thoughts and ourselves. What I got instead was the most humbling understanding of how little free will we actually have. I kept waiting for the chapter that would say, "Not to worry, you are still in the driver's seat!" And there were some nuggets of hope that I underlined and dog-eared the pages - I will revisit those and see if I can extract some course of action - cuz these days I'm all about change and transition.

The final chapter is called After The Monarchy, title chosen to depict the "dethronements" of man, the most recent being that our conscious minds are not "driving the boat". Other major dethronements in history have been Galileo's sun-centered theory of the solar system, James Hutton's challenging the Church's estimate of how old the Earth is, Darwin's discovery of natural selection, and the discovery of DNA which reduced humans to the equivalent of Lego pieces. 

And over the past century, neuroscience has shown that the conscious mind is not the one driving the boat. A mere four hundred years after our fall from the center of the universe, we have experienced the fall from the center of ourselves. In the first chapter we saw that conscious access to the machinery under the hood is slow, and often doesn't happen at all. We then learned that the way we see the world is not necessarily what's out there: vision is a construction of the brain, and its only job is to generate a useful narrative at our scales of interactions (say with ripe fruits, bears and mates). Visual illusions reveal a deeper concept: that our thoughts are generated by machinery to which we have no direct access. We saw that useful routines become burned down into the circuitry of the brain, and that once they are there, we no longer have access to them. Instead consciousness seems to be about setting goals for what should be burned into the circuity, and it does little beyond that.

It's that last sentence that I will cling to and think about.  And really it's something I've been dancing around, playing with for a while now. The other day I ran across my equivalent of Ben Franklin's evening checklist.  He was always working on gaining mastery over his life - writing lists of initiatives and then grading himself daily on how well he did, only eliminating the item from his life when he felt it was a new good habit.  I looked at my own initiative list and saw with approval that all the things I struggled with back in January were now pretty much rote: no martinis, exercise, diet, not communicating with Patrick, etc.  

So if free will and conscious choice exists it's the tip of a very large iceberg. If you're lucky, your iceberg is a good one - genetics, environment, intelligence, brain chemistry. You stand on the top and look out to sea and chart a course that you hope is a good one. You nudge and suggest and maybe even start a little fire to see by - you set a goal and hope the iceberg gets on board with the new course, you pray for good currents and prevailing winds and then hold on and pray.  

Challenge today is getting this book and reading it then calling me so we can talk about it.  I'm lonely these days and the move to the house is scaring me - extroverts don't do well in isolation. And it occurred to me today, that for some of you, you might feel caught up with me because you read me every day - and with that there is no need for further interaction.  But I'm not caught up with you! I need to see you and talk with you.

Hugs,

Sarah

I'll write more about this book over the next week or so.

Father Letter #4/Honor Your Father

Bonus posting. I don't usually write on Saturdays but tomorrow is Father's Day and I wanted to share with you Charlotte's fourth father letter - the one written to the man who stepped in and assumed the role of re-parenting her.  Matters not that he's actually younger than her. It's never too late to get good fathering.

June 21, 2009 Dear Father, OK, so you’re not my father but certainly in the last ten months you have played the part of the good parent as I struggle with childhood deficits and losses. I am grateful to you; it is to you that I owe the rest of my life. 

 I never thought I’d be OK.   In my most honest moments I resigned myself to feeling fractured, confused, angry and incomplete. But most of the time I joked I had few regrets – I was satisfied with my life achievements and that, if I had been a Pilgrim, I would have been dead by now.  I maintained that my life was good and I was ready to die having accomplished what I set out to – that any more days on this earth were just icing on the cake - a bonus. 

And I had myself convinced until I met you. When I met you I was, at first, skeptical, then I was impressed, then I was scared.  Finally I admitted to myself that you were my path and if I could learn to trust you I could be well.  And who are you?  How could a man seven years younger hold the key to my happiness?  It seems so unlikely.  Shouldn’t you have a long beard and be sitting on top of a mountain waiting for me to complete a journey and come to you? 

Our relationship amazes me.  Perhaps we passed each other on the street before now, not knowing that we would share such a bond – two people born on different continents, years apart, from different cultures who have found each other and who are now part of each other’s lives in the most caring and wonderful way. 

And Kaveh, I will love you always.  Each day I say a prayer, thanking the universe for bringing you to me.  Your steady presence in my life has filled in the fractures and bolstered me.  Your unconditional love has helped me learn to love others in a better way.  Your ability to embrace a full range of emotions (even the ugly ones) gives me courage to do the same.  Your carefulness in how you express yourself and how you measure others’ feelings before acting and speaking inspires me to do the same. 

Dear Kaveh have a Happy Father’s Day and know you are treasured beyond measure. 

 Charlotte

Thanks good readers for letting me share the father letters with you.  It was three years ago that I struggled greatly with the father thing. Writing these letters helped a bit, good to get my feelings elucidated on paper. I actually printed and mailed the letters to a nonsense address, except the one to Kaveh which I mailed to him.

Challenge today is just to enjoy the weekend, honor your father in whatever way that feels right, whether he's alive or passed on. These days I'm less angry and angst filled about fathers - the fire feelings have died down.  I'm glad for you if you have a dad who loves you.

Peace,
Sarah

Father Letter #3/Five Grams, Seriously

It's Friday and the office move is done (OK, I'm assuming it's done - writing this in the future - it's actually Wednesday). Power of positive thinking = if I say the office move is done and it went swimmingly, then that is sure to come true, right? So, "it's Friday" and the move is behind me, I'm well situated in my new home office, eager to dig my teeth into a new, simpler chapter of my life, chaos behind me!

Where did we leave off? Oh, right - the father letters. Sunday is Father's Day, a dastardly day for me given my jaded history with three missing in action or worse, cruel fathers. Tonight Schaller's - a good crowd going and I'm going to sing my heart out. Gonna stay in the moment, enjoy my friends, gonna flirt with the old Irish guys at the bar, trying to take care of myself. Confession. I'm missing the martini days - especially when everyone around me is drinking heavily and getting fun and silly. It's such a mismatch to stay sober and responsible when everyone around you is kicking up their heels. I really feel it when Mark and Mario and friends come up to play dice. They polish off a bottle of Grand Marnier or Tequila as we play and the more inebriated they get, the louder they get until the place is full of their loud laughter and shouting. I used to be right there with them, pushing the boundaries. Now, it's a single glass of wine for Sarah, if that.

And interesting that just last week guidelines were finally published about how much wine provides a health benefit versus a health detriment. We've heard for a while that people who include a judicious amount of wine in their diet actually live longer than teetotalers. The unanswered question until now is, "how much"? Where is the crossover point where the problems associated with alcohol consumption outweigh any health benefit. A credible research study just provided that long awaited answer and it's going to surprise you. Drum roll, please. The answer is eight glasses of wine per day! We should all be downing the stuff at every meal including breakfast! OK, I'm lying....the real answer is much more "sobering." Just 5 grams a day which equates to two glasses of wine a week!  That's a shock to most people who were expecting to be told they could drink a glass of wine a day, guilt-free. Good news for Sarah, though. These days, I'm a 2-3 glasses of wine/week kind of gal. Proud of myself.

So where were we with Charlotte? Oh, right - she had written two of the three letters to her MIA fathers in the hope of realizing a cathartic healing. Today, her third letter and this one is angry.

June 21, 2009 

 (Not so) Dear Father,  

I no longer call you dad as I was required to do.  You are Henry and my brow darkens when I think of you.  To say that I am angry would be an understatement.  I am beyond angry and I should have taken you to task when you were alive. I hate the expression, “I/we/he did the best they could.”  When I hear someone say that I invariably think, “No they didn’t” or “If that’s the best, then that’s a pitiful effort.”  People have excused you by saying you did the best you could do.  You did, after all, marry a widow with four children and support us in a fashion. But, we both know you did not do well, don’t we?   You lived a selfish and fraudulent life.  And you were cruel and built yourself up by knocking down “small fry”.  You always put your needs and desires first and our only purpose was to satisfy your narcissism. 

And I loved you for some perverse reason and always tried to please you and have you see me and love me.  To your dying day, I hoped for your affection and when you threw me a bone and complimented my cooking or something like that, I would hang onto those words.  Why I loved you is a mystery – maybe because it was a natural thing to do, to love your father. But now I hate you.  If you were here I would lock you in a room with me and make you listen to a list of all the horrors you heaped on us.  I would make you see yourself as the monster you were.  I would expose you as a fraud.  I would hit you and make you beg God for me to stop.  I would violate you.  I would make you beg for my forgiveness. 

That one man could do so much damage is sad.  Your abusive legacy will live through many generations; there are children yet unborn who will feel the sting of your cruelty. I’m not sorry you died; I just wish it had been in childhood. 

Charlotte 

Tomorrow, the fourth father letter, written to my real father, the man who loves me best, who finds me adorable, lovable, interesting and beautiful. I am an apple in his eye.

Challenge today is giving serious thought to your alcohol consumption - are you in line with the recent guidelines? If not, should you amend your drinking habits to take better care of yourself?  I'm just saying not nagging!

Peace,
Sarah

Father Letter #2/Abraham Lincoln

Thursday, (OK, it's really Wednesday but I'm going to be without a computer for a few days while I break down my office and relocate to the house so I'm writing Thursday and Friday's blog ahead of time - I can publish them from my IPad on the appropriate days).

Yesterday I shared the first of the three fathers letters with you - plucked from a book I'm writing in which the heroine herself writes a book. In her book, there is a surreal chapter where her therapist summons her three dead fathers into his consultation room. They are confused to be there. Charlotte has written three letters, one to each of them and they are asked to read the letters which they do. This book is a very thinly disguised memoir that mirrors my own wishes - that I could find peace with each of my three fathers, get to spend some quality after-life time with each of them in an effort to understand why they each failed me so badly. One went and died on me. Another didn't own up to his paternity of me (I have to think he wondered if the baby his lover was carrying could have been his). The third belittled and abused me.

And I'm holding out on you because there are actually four fathers as you will see when I publish the fourth father letter (a bonus posting on Saturday). The fourth father is the one who stepped up and didn't abrogate -  the one who loved me best. And if I think more creatively and broadly, there is yet a fifth father I lean on when things are rough. Is there someone in your life you mentally turn to (a special teacher, coach, scout leader) when you need guidance - "What would X tell me to do?"  For me, that person is Abraham Lincoln. In the absence of a present father, you make due and, because I'm a history nut, he's my "go-to" inspiration. There have been times in my life when I've been faced with crossroad decisions. It's rarely failed me to ask myself what Father Abraham would do if faced with the same decision - amazing man who holds up to the scrutiny of history - my proxy father.

I have a friend I don't mention much in this blog who has been a stalwart friend to me through this office move. He has stepped up, swooped in, with humor and focus, and helped me make this transition. I owe him big - there will come a time when I will repay the swooping and help him through whatever it is he needs help with. I'd probably marry him if he didn't play for the other team - we joke we should still consider marriage despite the sexual preference thing. Hey look at Liza and David Gest, right? Oops that didn't work out all that well - didn't he accuse her of beating him?

Here is Charlotte's father letter #2 - to her biological father.

June 21, 2009 

Dear Father 

I stare at your picture.  I see myself in your face.  I wonder how we may be alike.  But most of all, I am so very sad not to have known you.  Even now I cry heaving sobs when I think of that missed opportunity. All my life I wanted my father and all the time you were there.   You died when I was 33, a grown woman.  We should have been in each others’ lives. 

And this is my fantasy:  It was always a source of sadness for you that you couldn’t have children.  You reconciled yourself to it and threw yourself into a different life – culture, art, society, pleasure.  And these things were satisfying to a degree – they made for an interesting life.  But in your quiet moments you longed for a child, someone who would love you unconditionally, someone who belonged to you.  And especially as you grew older and your family moved away, that longing and regret grew. I belonged to you and you belonged to me; you were mine and I was yours. 

Why then didn’t we know?  We should have known.   You would be proud of me.   I overcame many obstacles to be a worthy woman.  I have worked hard and honestly.  I have lived unselfishly in the service of others.   And now as the last third of my life approaches, I am striving to be even better so that I can live out the rest of my life with joy and appreciation. 

It will, though, always be a source of great sadness to me that you and I didn’t have time together.  I would have sung to you, cooked for you, picked out your clothes, darned your socks, taken you to the doctor, made sure you took care of yourself.   I would have taken your face in my hands and kissed you on each of your eyes and on your nose.  I would have loved you passionately. And you would have loved me; I am sure of it. 

Your Charlotte

I know these letters are sappy but they were written when I was reeling from the paternity discovery and I was very raw and over-emoting. Keep in mind as well, they were written in the voice of a simple naive character in a book within a book. They weren't intended to be sophisticated and nuanced.

Challenge today is thinking about your own father(s). Do you struggle as I do? I don't know too many happy father stories. Seems like most of my friends have troublesome relationships with their fathers, even if they love them - one who is convicted felon/gambler, another an immigrant who shamed and physically hurt his kids, another a womanizer who broke my friend's mother's heart and who now enjoys the love of his daughter whether he deserves it or not, another a narcissistic businessman who put his own needs ahead of his family's - the list goes on. Good fathers, it seems, are rare. My friend Tom is one. Carol's dad gets a prize. Alan's dad grew into the role. Abraham Lincoln was one. There are some.

Peace,
Sarah

Father Letter #1/June 13th, Anniversary of Sorts

Today, Wednesday - just two more days in this office. Shay is here helping me shlep things around - I don't know what I'd do without him!  The cruise on Lake Michigan was a lot of fun last night - Joan and Bill good company and their daughter Debbie, lovely. Sunday is Father's Day in case you forgot! We could talk about fathers today. For me, it's a very loaded topic! There were three of them - fathers that is. There were also none of them - they were all MIA. So, Father's Day is, for me, a difficult hateful holiday - a sad and jealous time. If you have a father you love or loved, I am very envious of you.

My father story is long and convoluted.  I was born Sarah Linn Frisbie to Joseph Calvin Frisbie, the third boy in an Irish/English family in Connecticut. He died when I was sixteen months old and my mother remarried when I was three. About five years ago, my sister and I started connecting some dots - things she remembered about our childhood, which led us to do a sibling DNA test. Turns out I'm the child of my mother's lover, Aldei Gregoire. I never knew him and to my knowledge he didn't know he was my father. And if he did, according to my mother, he would not have wanted a relationship with me - "he hated children" according to her.  He died "childless" in Western Massachusetts when I was a young woman (32) with no one to even write him an obituary. I'm thinking he and I would have had a relationship of some kind. Even if he hated children, I'm guessing he would have loved his own, especially in his old age.

So, one dead father, one biological father who was never told, and then a complex cruel stepfather. They all failed me in one way or another - fucking fathers. A few years ago, right after the DNA test, I sought catharsis by incorporating the three fathers into a book I was writing.  In the book, the heroine herself writes a book. She writes a chapter where her therapist (Kaveh of course) summons her three dead fathers to his office to discuss his struggling patient - she needs their help. They're confused to be there, not sure where they are, having been summoned from heaven and hell, and they're also angry to be in a room with each other. They are each given a letter written by their daughter that they read with varying reactions. The heroine of my book who in turn wrote her own book that included this surreal scene with her dead fathers also seeks catharsis. Following is the first of the three father letters - this one is to the father that died.

June 21, 2009 

Dear Father, This year a note to tell you I’ve been struggling with thoughts of you. I spent my entire life wanting you, wondering what you were like, and wondering if you would have loved me and protected me and understood me. 

When I was a little girl it was taboo to speak your name.  We were ashamed to want information about you, and we didn’t speak about you even among ourselves.  Now and then, our mother would say the same thing about you, “If Joe Frisbie (see she didn’t say ‘your father’) could see us now, the buttons on his shirt would burst with pride.”  And sometimes she would tell us that your dying wish to her was that we not get “slummy”.
 
So she married a man she thought would take care of us.  Instead he competed with us for her attention, belittled us, hurt us and ignored us. And if you did have a way to look down on us, your buttons would not have been popping.  Your eyes would have filled with tears and your fists would have been clenched, wanting to even the score. I am sorry my mother was not true to you.  I am sorry you didn’t get a chance to see us grow.   I know from all who knew you that you were the most loving of men and that you adored all children and your own especially.  

And I’m sorry I didn’t belong to you – that I wasn’t yours.  I should have been yours. But I also know that even if you knew, or came to know I was Aldei’s, you would still have loved me and raised me as your own and I would have loved you for it.  I wish you had lived. Why didn’t you live?  I still want you.  

Charlotte

Today, cutting the blog short because I have so much to do to get out of here. Tomorrow, I'll publish the second letter.  No challenge today except not forgetting about Father's Day if you still have an active father in your life.

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is how I feel today - an empty void in my life even a full year later.  Today is the anniversary of the day we broke up.