Dog is Co-pilot

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my dog, Ramona.

That's where I have disappeared off to, this world of dog ownership and the swiftest growing of my heart, expanding with love that increases every day.

I have bonded with other dogs before, notably my parent's newish dog Bea and even more significantly the resident dog on the farm I worked at in 2006, Loki.

Loki

I'll never forget the day that the lunch bell rang and I lingered in the harvest shed with Loki. Normally, the sound of the lunch bell felt so overdue after a morning in the fields that it was all I - and the other workers - could do to not sprint towards the house. Go slowly, look less desperately hungry, I'd tell myself.

This particular morning, I found myself alone in the harvest shed with Loki by my side. Like Ramona, Loki was a dog that was always underfoot, and like Ramona, I often tripped over him, so surprised I was to find him by my side.

That day, I found myself compelled to plop down on the ground and begin to pet him from forehead to tail. I remember gazing into his eyes and thinking to myself, "I am going to try something. I am going to manifest the biggest orb of love I can and try to transmit it from my hand into Loki."

So I sat there in the shed for a good ten minutes, just petting him over & over, with each pet thinking to myself I love you so much, Loki, I love you so much. Finally the lunch bell rang a second time, with more urgency, and I picked myself up and headed to the house.

Interestingly enough, Loki was not at lunch that day, doing his normal graze between chairs for fallen food. I noticed this but didn't think much of it until hours later when I was back in the field.

I was crawling on my hands and knees, pulling weeds (oh the joy of organic farming) in a field at the top of the hill, when I had the distinct feeling that someone - or something - was watching me. Imagine my surprise when I looked up, and saw Loki just a foot away from my face. Due to my position, we were eye level. I looked at him, thinking What the heck are you doing, pup? And then he took a half step forward, maintaining eye contact, and licked me square on the nose, turning afterwards to run off into the distance.

I felt certain this was his acknowledgment of the exchange we'd had before lunch. Love passed back to me in the way he knew how.

I recall this story as I think of the deep love I felt for Loki and how it compares to what is growing for Ramona. I think there is a difference in the love you feel for a creature you are responsible for,  rather than just enjoying.

I look at Ramona and I think of my friend who said, "You are both rescued." I think that is true. In no disrespect to my wonderful life, career, community, Ramona truly gave me something outside of myself and my goals to be connected to: a reason to rush home after work, awake at the crack of dawn to get in a walk, abuse Google with my dog care questions, and build relationships with strangers who share this one thing in common with me: a canine companion.

I have seen those bumper stickers that say "Dog is Co-Pilot" and though they always made me chuckle, I never really got them until getting Ramona.

It's funny, because a lot of my twenties were about existing without a solid co-pilot. I remarked to many coupled friends how often I was alone, taking care of my mundane tasks and errands, looking at the passenger seat with a bit of longing and uncertainty. Towards the end of my twenties I began to see the gift in my independence, and actually found myself cherishing the moments after dropping off a friend when my passenger seat was empty again and I got to drive home with by myself. And in this space of less desperate longing for a companion, I found Ramona, and she found me.

The other day, I was transported back to the harvest shed with Loki, when I found myself petting Ramona one evening. She was curled up in her dog bed at the foot of my human bed, and I was lying at the very edge leaning over to stroke her with my right hand.

I looked at my hand, and it was like as if I could see golden rays of love and light and nurturing transmitting from my hand to her body. Or, to articulate it another way, I saw myself.

As I pet Ramona and poured my love into her, I realized I was pouring myself into her. Though all I could see was my hand petting her, we never really see ourselves fully, right? Even a mirror image is skewed. And in this moment, in just my hand, in just the action of loving this animal, I saw myself so clearly.

I feel so lucky to have found her.

What Was, What Will Be

I've always been the reflective type. Thus, honoring have the start of the new year with some heartfelt reflection on the year ending and the year to come has been my go-to New Year's tradition. Setting intentions for myself feels about as natural as taking a breath in, a breath out. It feels good. It feels like the right way to close one chapter and start another.

So, to my surprise, as 2013 came to a close and 2014 jumped to a start - with my 30th birthday just a few days into the New Year - I've felt no such inclination to step aside and dream of what's next.

Not that I'm not dreaming...

Perhaps starting a new decade requires more concentration or focus. Perhaps reflecting on the year past has felt a bit surprising and so I've wanted to linger there longer. Or, simply put, I have been living into my intentions and felt less bound to the actual ritual of stating them.

When I think about this past year I recognize that I put up a lot of walls - a sort of fortress around myself - to quite literally protect myself. 2012 had a lot of heartache and I went into 2013 a little weathered and exhausted. In my bubble - created through fear, heartbreak, disappointment, and needs I couldn't yet articulate - I ended up digging deeper into self-care and discovered someone I rather like: me.  It was a year of looking back to name the hurt and looking forward to say how it could be different. It was about self-love and forgiveness, which includes loving the bits that will always be broken. It was also a year that ended with serious career transition that put me face-to-face with my walls, fears, BS, excuses AND power, humor, sensitivity, competency, and passion.

It was a year about quoting from Dear Sugar; cooking adventurous and epic meals in my new kitchen; expressing love and accepting rejection; acting courageously in my career; finding support in surprising places; being less surprised when things don't always work out the way you expected but they still work; speaking my own truth; laughing through tears and crying through uncontrollable laughter at therapy; and driving home more times than I can count filled with overflowing gratitude for my community of wise, loving, wonderful people.

All that being the case, I know 2014 has to be about kicking down some of those self-protection walls. It can't all be about self-work: eventually you have to try out your tools in the field instead of just sharpening them over and over again in the shop. This year I looked within and came out on the other side liking who I am, scars freckles and all. This year I aim to be open to new experiences, new people, new challenges, and the possibility of new hurt, if it means new growth.

Seemed like a dog was a good way to start.

Hello, Ramona. 

Go into art

"…go into the arts.

I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living.

They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.

Sing in the shower.

Dance to the radio.

Tell stories.

Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.

Do it as well as you possibly can.

You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. "

-Kurt Vonnegut's words, with my spacing.

Remind me to tell you about the time when I was 12 and I went alone to a Kurt Vonnegut lecture in the gym of a nearby college and sat in the very front row in a room full of twenty-somethings so I could get a good look at the man who confused me- and yet delighted me* - completely with Slaughterhouse Five. I left more confused and without my copy of the book signed and a little bit changed and without my parents knowing where I'd been for those two hours.**

*which in itself confused me

**It is also to be noted that sneaking into a lecture given by a prominent literary figure is exactly how an adolescent book-nerd rebels.

Shaking Off

Sometimes I'm scared.

Sometimes I keep myself awake because the fear of i'll never find love, be loved, be loving echoes louder when I shut down, close my eyes, try to slumber.

Gotta quiet that.

I can spend an entire evening bouncing from one website to the next: a friend's photos, a stranger's popsicle recipe (yum that looks good, I should make that), a self-help list on the 8 things to ask when seeking true vocation... I bounce between things, but not towards anything in particular. I'm avoiding my work.

I never bring work home - except tonight I did - and on a night like tonight that is all about avoidance, I slip into some adolescent self that can't focus and must play.

Or is it play?

I've been spilling over nostalgia lately; since I saw two friends from past lives and marveled at how much we've changed, how little we've changed, how the only change is time's fault, not our own. The nostalgia has been upon me and it causes me to feel jumpy, to feel as if my bones are knocking against skin, as if something is literally stirring in me.

What is stirring in me?

I can't focus. Work is harder when you are seeking something new. Now it takes me longer to do my work - now I bring my work home with me because it takes me longer because I have to spend as much energy trying to care about my work as I am trying to do my work.

This is not me - not ideal, not what I want. But it's who I am right now.

Scattered, unsure. Hopeful to hopeless in a snap. Distracted and distracting. Quiet screaming. An oxymoron on purpose?

I'm on oxymoron on purpose. I want love and I fear it. I want new but fear it. I want change but can't find it. I wonder why it's so hard to put myself out there. I didn't think I was a shy person, but I am learning I'm more introverted than I previously thought. I wonder why when I'm finally trying to put myself out there, I'm not getting clear signs that it is worth it. Is this just a fancy way of admitting I no longer know how to flirt?

I do know how to embrace insomnia though.

Something is knocking at me. It's keeping me awake. I can't pinpoint the problem, but I sense it is a deep and endless yearning. Or, perhaps, what some people call loneliness.

other voices: reflecting on injustice

I can't come on here and write about my improv class, or the pesto I'm making & consuming, or my recent work conference in Atlanta, or - speaking of which - my stupid job, or the flowers in my garden that are getting more beautiful by the day. Or any of the simultaneously important and petty details of my life.

I can't think about anything when my heart is so heavy with injustice and grief.

There are many people smarter than me talking about Trayvon and what the not guilty verdict means about America, our criminal "justice" system, racism and the lives of black folk vs white folk in this "great" country. I encourage everyone to read their words, as I'm still working out mine:

This: When you have a society that takes at its founding the hatred and degradation of a people, when that society inscribes that degradation in its most hallowed document, and continues to inscribe hatred in its laws and policies, it is fantastic to believe that its citizens will derive no ill messaging.
It is painful to say this: Trayvon Martin is not a miscarriage of American justice, but American justice itself. This is not our system malfunctioning. It is our system working as intended. 

This: If Trayvon Martin had been white, he’d still be alive. What better real-world example of white privilege is there?

This: ...fear-mongering represents a deep white anxiety about black bodies on the streets, and echoes Zimmerman’s fears: that black bodies on the street pose a public threat. But the real violence in those speculations, regardless of whether they prove to be true, is that it silences black anxiety. The anxiety that black men feel every time they walk outside the door—and the anxiety their loved ones feel for them as well...

This: Year after year and case after case it continues, with black life viewed as expendable in the service of white fear, with black males in particular (but many a black female as well and plenty of Latino folk too) marked as problems to be solved, rather than as children to be nurtured. 

And can you look at these photos and not have your heart break?

I'm a white, middle-class woman living in America. I don't think it's fair for my voice to drown out the voices that really matter in all this. I should have started here.

the letters you never send: anne

Most importantly: I'm sorry.

I hate that our friendship ended over some careless texts. My therapist says she wishes "young people" wouldn't have actually important conversations over text message. I feel like I am young enough to make this mistake and old enough to have known better.

You asked me if your antiracism rant scared me.

It didn't scare me.

I didn't realize you were the only person of color at the party I brought you to. It made me angry that you were alone in this realization; it is fucked up beyond belief that I didn't even notice until you pointed it out. That scared me. It made me angry. It made me think.

I didn't know what to say when you started to talk to me about racism and how it shows up in all these subtle and not so subtle ways in society. White people were milling around me in afro wigs and dancing to appropriated music and it took your perplexed look and my "what are you thinking?" to see what was right in front of me.

I wasn't scared. You didn't scare me. I was, however, scared of saying the wrong thing. It is okay that I was scared of saying the wrong thing? Can you allow me to be a little bit flawed and a lot human?

I was disappointed that when you opened up to me and shared your thoughts (what you called via text a "rant," and what I would have never called a rant), that I didn't know what to say.

I have so much more to learn and in the moment I didn't have anything of value to say to you and so I froze up and mumbled half-thoughts when you over and over again asked "what do you think?" It made me feel disgusted with myself. I thought about it when we left the party, I thought about it after I dropped you off at your home, I thought about it when I first woke up, and I was still thinking about it when you texted me about it in the morning.

Clearly, none of this came through in my hurried text response to "Did my antiracism rant scare you?"

I am sad that two people who care so much about communication and intentionality around communication stopped talking over some poorly worded, not very thoughtful texts. I wish I had just called you and explained the multitude of things I was thinking, including fear over not saying the right thing. I wish I had felt free enough to show you my flawed, human heart as you had showed me yours time & again.

I wish I had been the woman you wanted me to be instead of the white person you expected me to be.

I have more to learn. I thought we had more to learn from each other.

I know it's not your job to teach me. It's not your job to teach me how to be a considerate, justice-oriented, conscientious white person. It's my responsibility to become that person.

I'm sorry for disappointing you. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry for thinking the multitude of things I feel about you and the depth to which I care about you could forgive some thoughtless text messages. I am sorry for trying to have an important conversation with someone I deeply care about over text message.

This letter has been stuck in my throat for months. Goodbye, Anne.

A Lesson and A Memory

This has been a long, hard week. I've noticed that grief seems to change the nature of time. As I've tried to be very available to my roommate, days have blurred into each other, minutes of sitting together have turned into hours, and my sleep has been deep yet dream-filled. I wake up not sure if I just went to bed or if I have been asleep for days. And I'm still tired either way.

And then there are also the strange moments of learning that some people will and/or can meet you in grief, and some people won't and/or can't. No judgements here, as I certainly remember a time in my life when saying the words "I'm sorry for your loss," felt too scary to utter. I had a friend in college who lost her mom five months into our freshman year (and therefore five months into our friendship) and I carried a certain kind of guilt for years for not saying upon first seeing her after the funeral "I'm sorry for your loss." So much guilt that I blurted it out one random summer day when we had already graduated and she had long-forgotten (or never realized) my friendship fail. Still it's been surprising for me to witness what people in my roommate's life are just avoiding her altogether or are calling me to ask how she is doing. Call her. Ask her.

Then there are the people who ask me from a safe distance how she is, and when I give an answer or react in the way that isn't expected, they remove themselves from the situation quickly. Like for instance, my boss. I consider my boss to be an understanding person, and through our many one-on-one meetings I have determined that we click rather nicely and have a strong professional leaning towards personal relationship. However, when she came over to my cube on Friday morning, I think the weight and depth of the loss had finally hit me. In an attempt to be strong for my roommate, I had only let the experience sink in to the shallowest depth. Friday morning something happened (more on that in a bit) that shook the experience right to my core. I felt Rachael's loss fully.

So when my boss walked over to ask how Rachael was doing, I had just been thinking If anyone asks me how I am, I will surely burst into tears. Don't ask me how I am, don't ask me how I am, don't ask me how I am...

She interrupted this thought bubble and worse than asking how I am - cause it's all relative, I am fine really - she asked how Rachael was, which was just too much. Instead of words coming out of my mouth, tears starting rolling out of my eyes. I have never burst into silent crying so instantly.

Possibly stranger than my breakdown was the fact that upon it starting, my boss hot-tailed it away from me. In fact, it was almost comical how quickly she fast-walked/ran away from me. I had barely squeaked out a "It's hard," when she had already rounded away from my cube and out of sight.

Wow, that's what you have to give, lady?

Interestingly enough, after I got my shit together, wiped away my snot and tears and composed myself just a touch, my new colleague Melissa walked over from her cube 'next door.' Melissa and I have only known each other a few months, and yet she boldly walked right into the storm and asked me if everything was okay as she had "overheard something." (A nice way of saying: I heard your breakdown that made our boss run away.) Melissa coming right over to see what was wrong made me start to silent sob all over again, but interestingly enough she just stood right next to me and let me work it out. She didn't say anything but she stuck around to let me express "how hard" this has been.

And so I have been learning all week who can meet you in grief. Sometimes it's not who you expect.

As for the Friday experience that pushed me into a vulnerable enough space to openly cry in front of my boss and coworker, it's hard to explain, but try I shall.

Friday, May 3rd I woke up and it was grey and snow-raining. I was cold. I wanted real spring. Spring is a season of nostalgia - it makes me long for home and childhood in a very strong way. The grey-snow-rain-nonspring-spring put me in a weird headspace and warped my nostalgia.

Add to this that on Friday, May 3rd I was going to get my blood drawn. For my whole life I have gotten my blood drawn every 4-6 months to make sure my hypothyroidism medication is functioning correctly. As a kid, going to get my blood drawn meant mostly one thing: pancakes with Dad afterwards at Uncle Bill's Pancake House. I think the tradition started as a way to give me something to focus on beyond my fear. Regardless of how or why it started, it transformed an icky experience into one that I actually looked forward to and cherished.

Despite having gone alone to get my blood work done for the last decade, there was something about the weather, the week, and the winding, labyrinth-like hallways of the hospital, that made my aloneness in this task especially jarring this particular day. I sat alone in the blood lab and waited for my number to be called, and thought about all those lab waiting rooms I had sat in with my dad. I thought about all the mundane details including: the overly confusing parking ramp that always both led us in and got us lost; the sanitized smell of the hospital; the over-the-top childish and cheerful -but actually deeply terrifying - murals in the waiting room; the jar of lollipops I eagerly eyed; the cartoon bandaids that marked the completition of the task. This May 3rd hospital was different, but the biggest difference was my distance from those waiting rooms of my childhood. I felt the distance, the time & space; I felt it deeply like it was a canyon in my chest.

The seemingly most insignificant parts of becoming an adult can actually have the most significance.

I was so overcome with my emotions, that I had to turn away as the nurse drew my blood because I didn't want her to see the tears forming in my eyes and assume I was scared. I never had a chance to develop a fear of getting my blood drawn because my dad was always right there beside me, and pancakes were always my reward for getting through. So the tears forming were not exactly from fear. Rather, I was far from my past, aware of the passage of time, and at the doorway to my own grief for the things we lose when we grow up.

It was a long, hard week. I want pancakes.

On Loss

This weekend I massaged some kale, made my inaugural batch of granola, got a little bit sunburned on the back of my neck while sitting on a porch with my women's group talking about expectations,  walked all the way to the Co-op to buy a can of garbonzo beans, held a two-week-old baby, and arranged bouquets of flowers throughout my house.

And my roommate's mother died.

Have you walked with someone through death, reader? Have you been close to a person who has been reduced to their most basic in-out breath?

Now I have, and it's not an experience I hold lightly.

How to write about a friend's grief? A family changed in one final out breath? I have struggled to find the words to articulate the profound experience of standing next to a peer who is caretaking her dying mother, who is holding on to a life slipping away.

I know: my roommate is strong. She is nurturing. She is a heartbreakingly wonderful caretaker. (How I wish I didn't have to see this firsthand! How I wish this would have been a theoretical skill for most of her life!)

I know she seemed fearless; especially compared to my fearful entry into the sacred space where her mother was dying.

I visited last Saturday, loaded down with bags of groceries and a mountain of fear. Entering the home, I saw the corner of a hospital bed in the room off the dining room. It took me two hours of chopping vegetables, measuring ingredients, and washing dishes to finally take a deep breath and follow Rachael into her mother's room.

I barely recognized her. Though my roommate hadn't been to our shared home for over a month, had been sleeping in her childhood home and spending as much time as possible with her mother, I didn't fully understand how close her mom was to death until I entered that small room.

In a few months time her mother had aged decades: her hair was thin, her body frail, her eyes held tightly shut, and her skin nearly transparent. She wasn't leaving that bed, that house. She would die here, and it seemed imminent.

I watched as Rachael gently stroked her mother's hand and hair. Rachael spoke lovingly to her and mentioned my being there. Her body seemed a bit contorted and uncomfortable, so we slowly and carefully moved her body on the hospital bed. It took us twenty careful minutes. She grimaced a few times, and her eyes blinked open suddenly and then closed: small signs the spirit was not fully departed. Rachael massaged lotion into her skin and used a dropper to give her the smallest bit of water. I stood back and watched, with a heavy heart.

When Rachael walked to the kitchen to get muffins out of the oven, I wanted to lean over to her mother and say, "Rachael will be okay. She has people who will help her. I can be one of them. She will be okay one day. She loves you."

It was the wave of grief banging at my chest that needed to believe the vibrant and articulate woman I knew was somewhere inside that body, and that assuring her that her eldest daughter would get through this was what I could offer, what she had to hear.

In loss, people search for what they can offer to the grieving. Neighbors offered hotdish and groceries; her mother's coworker Sue offered the name of a pianist for the funeral; her sister's friends offered companionship and a sense of normalacy. I felt compelled to offer a promise I can't keep that everything will eventually be alright.

When I went over Thursday, the change was pronounced - her mother was more still, her sleep seemed deeper. When the call came Saturday morning that she had passed Friday night, I greeted the news with much sadness but not much surprise.

And today when I brought just my friendship to Rachael, and hugged her with tears spilling down both our faces, and saw the empty hospital bed, and felt the loss so strongly it was like I could hold it in my hand, I knew the promise I'd made to her mother was a long way off.  But I hope I can help keep it.

Another Day, Another Dollar, Another Way

Despite being completely overwhelmed at work for nearly the entire two years I've been in my current job, and especially the last four months as I fill in for a departed colleague in addition to my normal duties, I can say honestly that I have never felt as busy as I felt this week. I came in early and worked late nearly every day this week and today, on Thank-goodness-it's-fucking-Friday FRIDAY for crying out loud, I actually thought to myself, "To get all this done, I might need to come in Sunday."

No.

No. No. No. No. NO.

It's an awful feeling that I don't enjoy. I've never much appreciated workaholics. I scoff at people who are "so busy." (See: NYTimes Article The Busy Trap.) I've always thought the Work-Life balance is a necessity, not just a nice-to-have.

And I am a hypocrite. Ugh. In most of my "career" I've been that "so busy" person. I have struggled mightily to let go of my work when I am not at work. When I started to realize that people weren't reaching out to me as much to hang out because they thought I was "so busy," I tried to correct my behavior...I don't want to be someone whose community thinks she can only ever pencil them in.

I know this will be a life-long exploration and struggle, but today as I felt physically weighted down by all the work, truly understanding when people describe themselves as buried, I felt very far from knowing an immediate solution to my current situation. 

Couple that with spring being one of my most nostalgic seasons, it's been increasingly tempting to just hop in my car and drive until I find....something. Something is undefined but is definitely not me sitting at a desk, eyes sore due to so much time staring at a bright computer screen, body creaking and aching yet not from the good, hard work a past me enjoyed. 

I dream of the farm with increasing urgency. I remember the way my body felt when it was sore from intense labor rather than from inaction. I think of the peace, but don't romanticize it to the point of forgetting the isolation. I know the many reasons I rationalized not following that path, the many reasons I returned to the city and began to carve out the life I am now living, but I am wondering why such a large part of me still longs for it...

Then I see myself on the back beach at the Bay Area sanctuary I worked at when I was 18, and I crave equally to be and not be that girl again. The pains and awkwardness of being a young woman in the world = no thanks. The freedom and time to figure out who I was and what I loved doing, without judgment or a sense that I need to be there already = extremely attractive.

Life is good. Life is easy. I could possibly be looking for issues where there are none.*

Or I could be challenging my life and my work to be more than status quo. To be more meaningful, thoughtful, creative, inspired, and inspiring. Everything is fine. I just wish it was more than fine. I feel very content in many ways, but also very far from what lights a fire under me. I haven't taken a walk under a full moon on a country road in forever...nor have I had a heart-to-heart with a stranger who with every passing moment is becoming more known...I haven't sat in a cafe in a city I don't know and watched the city's inhabitants pass me by....I haven't looked from a remote trail at a brilliantly blue lake surrounded by fields of wildflowers ...I haven't poured myself into the unknown, the scary, the foreign... What I have been is very removed from the world beyond my slice of it. 

I guess I am realizing in the small and large moments of the life I have created for myself, that I haven't been in love with the big, beautiful, mysterious world the way I once way. It used to make me cry because it was as full of equal parts beauty and potential as it was sorrow and ugliness. It used to make me laugh because it was absurd, ridiculous, kind, hurtful, and complex in so many ways known and unknown. I used to let it surprise me more. I used to let it "get to me" more - no matter where that took me. 

Now I sit at a desk and feel angry and bored and uninspired. A negative feeling grows in me until it's at the point of breaking me, bursting forth. And when that happens, I take it out on my coworkers, my best friends, my frenemies, and myself. Which is no way to live. It's definitely not a happy existence, nor a healthy one. I aim to live a life of "do no harm," and there's no way I am achieving that currently. 

So clearly I need to reclaim some things: my sense of wonder, my sense of purpose, connection with people different than me, an adventurous spirit. But maybe, beyond that, I need to get out a gigantic piece of paper, and a handful of colored pencils, and go wild with drawing out the story of my life: what could it be - if I had no fear or no doubt? How big can I dream if I acknowledge that the only thing holding me back is me?

What do you do when you think you need to make a new path for yourself? How do you recreate your "plan," and does it ever include parts of a plan you thought you had put to bed for good?  Leave a ramble of your own below. 

*A reader of my blog told me it can get rather sad at times. Do not mistake this entry as a debbie downer manifesto. I write to share with myself what is just beneath the surface: I write to discover. Nine times out of ten my ramble is hopeful. If it seems dark or dreary that's a fault of my writing. I promise I'm on my way, and the path is not covered in thorns and spiderwebs. I see a wildflower just beyond the bend; do you?

Funny Girl

February is nearly through, and for the year's shortest month it has been packed. Calligraphy, job rejections, culture-club projects at work, a debilitating cold, super-needed vacation days, phone dates with far-flung loves, a baby shower, and lots of cooking in the new space. As for the last item in that list, I feel lucky beyond belief to have my beautiful, renovated kitchen. It changes the feeling of my entire home, and I love that I have spent numerous minutes in it just reflecting on the beauty of the space, feeling grateful.

While driving to an appointment last night I began to think about how difficult it is to not be hardened by the world. The world can feel so harsh and complicated, cruel at its worst. To remain hopeful and light - as we grow older, in the lowest moments, these things can feel naive and shortsighted. But, oh, how exhausting that perspective is as well. Yes, at times, it may feel like a huge challenge to not let the disappointments of the world make us bitter, but I am so seeking that middle ground that can accept the difficulties while finding the beauty. (Of course, immediately I think about how the art of calligraphy is a perfect analogy for this whole dialogue, but stating that is point enough. No need to wax poeties about calligraphy...yet.)

What I really began to think about as I acknowledged my own difficulty - lately - to not harden and close off because of disappointments, failures, and rejections, is that I used to laugh a lot more. I used to be more playful and light and glee-filled even. Where the hell did my sense of humor go? When did things get so serious, and why?

Work has been difficult. Love has been difficult/nonexistent. Family has been difficult.

But I used to be able to move through some of these realities with a damn good sense of humor. This blog is obviously no evidence to that, as someone reading it would doubt I had one funny bone in my entire body. And yes, my inclination to reflect often comes from a darker impulse, but I suppose one of the skins I'm in the process of shedding (sorry, was that a gross analogy?) is this humorless, cynical worst-case-scenario gal. There's a place for that person, and it's fine to be reflective or heartbroken or processing (or all at once), but sometimes I just need to lighten the load by LAUGHING.

Hilariously my shrink told me -during a paid therapy session mind you - that I should have a sitcom. And then she cracked up just imagining it.  Which feels like the strangest feedback I could ever get from my therapist. Like, you have been enjoying this? This isn't torture to you? You find this - and me - funny?!

She said I should think about creating a pilot wherein single girl explores the world/my world through cooking, gardening, and other misadventures. If anyone knows someone looking to fund this sort of project, leave a comment with their contact information.

love thy self

I realized yesterday that it has been a lot easier to be angry at the woman who "wasn't ready" to date - me or anyone - than to ask myself the question, "Am I even ready to date someone?"

It's amazing how the desire for something to work can blind us to our most basic self truths - that perhaps, as much as on some levels we'd like to be in a place where something can work, we really just aren't there yet.

I have been trying to transition from briefly - but intensely - dating AW to being her friend, and in the process have discovered some rather ugly sides of myself. There is a desperation, a longing, a forceful "be with me! be with me! be with me!" that is utterly unsexy.

And I think it's present in me because I haven't honestly given myself a shot at cultivating the one relationship I need to cultivate before any of that can work out: the one with myself. AW said to me that as cliche as it sounds, we can't attract love in our life until we have it for ourself.

It's funny, of course I've heard that sentiment expressed numerous times over the course of my life, but something about hearing it at that moment, from this person, really nailed me to the spot. Maybe it's that other truth of: no matter how many times others give wise or good advice to you, until you have the capacity to find that wisdom inside yourself, the good advice of others will fall on deaf ears. So, simply put, I finally heard that statement for what it is, and how true it is.

Like, what specifically is it I think I need or am going to get from a romantic partnership that I can't get from myself? When I came home last night after dropping AW off at her place, I sat with that question for a very long time. Much of what I think I want from a partnership comes down to very basic companionship and affirmation of self. Yikes. I think this blog project is deeply connected to this idea of self-love and befriending myself, but it's super easy to go through the day and forget the many subtle ways we are acting in a way that is not self-loving.

I think I am at this crossroads point in my life - I've been feeling it for many months now but have been avoiding facing it - and what the crossroads is begging of me is to be extremely intentional about self-care and self-love.

So why not list that out (as I so love to do)?

The things I think I want from a relationship AND how I will get them from myself:

An activity partner....................I can create more enjoyment from doing fun activities by myself. Not just errands, but movies, walks in the park, a special visit to a museum, etc.

Someone to cook dinner for.............I will cook a delicious dinner for myself as often as possible and eat it sitting down at my table.

Someone to do small, kind gestures for...............I will buy myself flowers, create silly collages just for me, and find other tangible ways to be caring towards myself.

Backrubs...............thank goodness I recently discovered the best massage therapist ever.

Someone to try new things with...........I can continue taking classes and having experiences that are new to me, either by myself or with a friend.

A spiritual partner.............I can continue to explore my spirituality through going to church, practicing meditation, and reading books. Sitting with myself on this part of the journey is key.

Someone who is very protective of my feelings, my journey, my process & vice versa......well obviously, the whole point is it's time to do this for myself.

There is more, but that's a reasonable start.....time to travel alone, but with some true loving kindess towards myself. I don't want to be "okay" at being alone, I want to enjoy my own company. I don't know how I've gotten so far from that part of myself. Yesterday was a bit of a wake-up call. Annoying. Necessary.

goodbye: the art of acting crazy

Years ago a friend gave me a book of Hafiz poetry called I Heard God Laughing. When he handed me the book, I noticed a beautiful wooden bookmark neatly tucked inside the first few pages. When I opened the book to retrieve it, it sat atop a poem called "You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore."

I looked up at my friend - a person with whom I shared a complex history - and I said: "That was on purpose, wasn't it?" His eyes and whole face smiled as he winked out his reply: "Perhaps."

Tonight as I was counting the ways I have been making things more difficult - more insane - for myself, I recalled this poem. It's hard work to feel as fractured as I do; it takes true effort to be this stressed and overwhelmed (by work, family, friendships, etc). It takes effort to keep it all inside, all the while acting the martyr insteading of either asking for help or giving yourself exactly what you know you need. Time. Relaxation. Care. Quiet. Letting go. (And, okay, maybe a massage.)

Last night I went to the gym after an epic cry session with my therapist. I don't normally allow myself to cry in front of other people - even my damn therapist - so I arrived at the gym in little, vulnerable pieces. I did thirty minutes of cardio, a bit of strength training, and then totally came undone in the sauna. 

Which actually translated to me just letting myself feel what I was feeling - a literal sitting with it. I sat in the sauna for nearly thirty mintues - until my eyelids were sweating and I thought okay, that's probably enough - but I stayed because even though the feelings were rough, ultimately I got to a good place. It was symbolic I know, but also something more basic: letting all the toxins out felt good both emotionally and physically. By the time I got up and left, I was drenched in it. I was also ready to wash it all away and let go. 

I left the gym knowing that all I wanted and needed when I got home were a few nourishing rituals. So I did just that. I slowly ate a beautiful grapefruit, took my vitamins, rubbed good lotion all over my body, and crawled into my bed - freshly washed sheets and all. I fell into a peaceful sleep for the first time in a long time. And today at work, I was in a much calmer place. I worked slowly and deliberately, and told many people No, I can't, I have too much on my plate. The honesty of where I was at lifted the weight right off of me. Funny how that works. 

I don't have to act crazy. I also know the ways to be well. 

---

You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore

by Hafiz

You don't have to act crazy anymore -

we all know you were good at that.

Now retire, my dear,

From all that hard work you do

Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart.

Look in a clear mountain mirror -

See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior

And the Divine elements

You always carry inside

That infused this Universe with sacred Life

So long ago

And join you Eternally

With all Existence - with God!

Post-holiday

Thankfully, unlike other home-for-the-holidays, this visit was not the usual. I spent most of my break  just snoozing in various sunny spots around my childhood home, petting my parent's very cute pup, but mostly existing in a state of tuned-out/turned-off. And when I did leave the house, I avoided all questions from family friends regarding my love life. I certainly did chuckle to myself a few times as I reflected on my recent discovery.

I'm back home to my little blue house and an almost completely renovated kitchen. It's so beautiful and I cannot wait to cook something with quinoa in it very soon. (Or maybe an old favorite.) I imagine a lot of my happy moments will occur in this gorgeous space that so many individuals have helped me create. I bought this century home with the deep hope that I could be an owner who made it better. Try as I might, I can't put into words how it feels to be achieving this dream of mine. It's sunshine on my face. It's hearing the laughter of my beloved nephew. It's the first lilac bloom of the spring.

A week from tomorrow I start the last year of my twenties, and so I imagine the next few entries of this here blog might be a touch over-analytical. I am a bit of a goal-setter, a balancer of the small and big picture aspects of my life, and especially at the start of a new year I get really into looking backward and then looking forward.

Intention-setting starts soon.

First, though, a poem.

Year's End
by Ted Kooser

Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red feather on the wind.

The World of What If

Yesterday morning, I sat in my cold car, on a street that's not my own, and watched the ice on the windshield crack and melt from the heat of my warming engine. In this strange, wonderful way it was beautiful: the warm air hitting the cold glass made formations that were like algae or fungus, blooms growing and shrinking before my tired eyes.

Just beyond the algae blooms, I watched this beautiful person, whom I've known only a short while, walk away. She stumbled over chunks of ice, her small dog skittering around her. It seemed unlikely I would see her again - or at least not anytime soon. Unlikely that this idea of "us" would go any further than this moment - which happened to consist of me shivering in my car and she shivering a few yards away on the sidewalk. It seemed terrible that we were both shivering alone. I suddenly wished I'd looked at her for one moment longer than I had. I wanted to jump out of my cold car and hold her, so at the very least we could be shivering side-by-side.

Even if you sense something is ending, there is a moment of panic in the moment you realize it's crumbling: have I gotten my bearings? Have I taken in this last moment? Can't I just look into your eyes one more time before you walk out of my life? Maybe it's the cartographer in me: the part of me that needs a map to look back on, a map to see where I got off course, but also where the views were noble.

So there I was in my car, about to drive off, looking at my own little tragedy, unaware that across the country small, innocent lives were coming to an abrupt, violent end.

Life feels very sadly poetic in this way.

I've held off on putting to paper my feelings about this new person in my life, not because I was doubting what was so unexpectedly occurring, but because I was just simply enjoying it for once and wanted to do nothing but enjoy it. Oh, to just share time with someone witty and smart! Time feels so limitless and yet so full when the company is good. Holding hands and drinking tea, sending flirty, careful texts, making snowpeople together in the fast-falling flakes, laughing wildly in bed, whispering our hopes, and talking about who we were and who we could be, as individuals mostly, but also, possibly, together.

Today I've spent a lot of time not wanting to be out in the world. I haven't wanted to face a world that can be so cruel on such large scales and also so heartbreaking to individual lives.

I've been living in the world of what if. What if past relationships didn't bruise and challenge and destroy us a little? What if we felt free and open to letting love in, despite...? What if family baggage didn't haunt us and past failures didn't follow us? What if the timing was always right? What if everything could just work out for once? Does the world actually operate like that? What if it did?

I've been wondering, also, what it means to be ready. She and I chatted this morning and she said I'm sorry I came to your door bearing gifts and a big maybe. I should have left the gifts at home and met you on the sidewalk.

Is that the simple truth of the matter? Timing and what we bring are everything? I am wondering if things that don't work out are simply a matter of one or both of the individuals not being ready.

All I know is, today I awoke in a soul-crushingly sad world because of the tragedies beyond my own life. And I felt that today would have been a really nice day to have had someone beautiful, and warm, and real, and lovely to curl up next to and say Honey, the world can be a terrible place, I'm grateful for this simple moment together.

But since, for now at least, that reality isn't available to me, I spent the day remembering and enjoying my own company. I cried alone about the tragic events on the east coast, but I also laughed alone at small acknowledgments of kindness and beauty that too exist. I walked through my house and took note of all the pieces of a life that come together to create a deeply nourishing existence. I've done this single thing well for a long time, and just because I got a brief taste of what is possible, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy what I already had.

And I suppose, the nice part about not getting too used to what things are becoming, is that then it is easier to go back to the way things were.

There are no words

I know it's strange to call a blog entry "there are no words," when clearly it's writing I am called to do right now, but I have been sitting staring at the computer screen for so long that truly it is starting to feel like there are no words. Or perhaps, they just feel so limiting.

A week ago I wrote about a coworker on the eve of her husband's too-soon death, and just now I learned that he "passed on peacefully" this afternoon.

Though "peacefully" is one of those words you use to lessen the initial, raw grief, because how peaceful is the death of a 41-year-old man who should never have been sick; who should never have died? Peaceful with the last breath, perhaps, but soul-crushingly sad and unfair for him and his loved ones. 

For the rest of us, the day was like any other. We "fell" back as autumn instructed us to wind our clocks back an hour. We cleaned the house, visited the gym, said hello to the neighbor, read a book, made a cup of tea...it was just any other day.

All weekend I have been trying to catch glimpses of what makes life worth living. I could pretend it was an unconscious exercise, but honestly it was a forced one. I have a friend going through a hard time right now - heartbreak to be specific - and I've found myself compelled to send him bits and pieces of the beautiful. So I'm always on the look-out for inspiration.

On Saturday I was taking a shortcut to get where I was going, and I found myself on a street I've never driven down in the ten years I've lived here. I noticed a red heart in a tree in the boulevard. Funny, I thought to myself. And then I noticed another in a tree nearby. Suddenly, I realized many of the trees lining this particular block were filled with red hearts. It was a quiet, nearly missed art exhibition or conversation between neighbors. Whatever it was, I felt blessed to have stumbled upon it.

I later saw two young kids and their Dad making what I can only imagine was the best, biggest leaf pile EVER. If it hadn't seemed super creepy, I probably would have pulled over my car to watch then jump in the pile - they seemed just on the verge - but again, that's a little weird. So I just drove on and smiled to myself as I thought about my own fall memories.

Later I texted my friend, in a way to remind him, but I also think to remind myself - that yes, the world can be ugly and heartbreaking, but if you don't venture out into it you will never remember how much good and beauty it also contains.

Tonight I am thinking of my coworker and how she might be seeing the world right now. It must seem so dark. I am sending her my version of prayers - wishes that this tragedy won't make life's many and unexpected beautiful moments seem less. I hope one day when she is ready, she finds the strength to venture out into the world again. There is so much good amongst the heartbreak.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: I live my life in widening circles, that reach out across the world, I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it.

And what about you? What do you give yourself to in this one beautiful life you have to live?

Hello: Living Without Tragedy

A strange couple of words have been echoing through my head this week: "Okay-dokey."

These are not words that I use myself, nor words that many people in my circle find themselves exclaiming.

But this week they are the words the husband of a coworker of mine uttered when he learned the cancer in his body has metastasized to his brain and that he should start hospice care. "Okay-dokey" he said to the doctor delivering the news. "Okay-dokey" he said to the certainty his days are numbered.

I've thought about him often this week - and the matter-o-fact way he is facing his mortality - and I've thought about his wife (my coworker) who is likely walking down a path in her marriage that she never thought to plan for. I also thought how this woman just lost her mom, also to a freak illness that came out of nowhere and wiped away her life in the blink of an eye.

Likely, she will have lost both her Mom and her husband before Thanksgiving, just a few weeks apart from each other. She will be forced to sit down to a feast and reflect on what she is grateful for, two noticeably empty chairs at the table, death hanging in the air.

The unfairness of it all just takes your breath away.

Her tragedy has me thinking about the ways personal tragedies inspire us or motivate us in ways that "normal" life often doesn't.

When someone passes away, their family and friends (usually) mourn their loss and speak to how important and wonderful the deceased person was. This is what a eulogy is - a moment to reflect, celebrate, honor, and love the life that is now gone.

And when someone dies too young or in a freak accident, you read in the paper how kind or generous they were, what a good friend and sibling they were, how they had so much potential.

When people are diagnosed with an incurable disease or have a near-death experience, you hear about "bucket lists," or the ways they will change for the better, the things they are now inspired to do. People who've gone through something like this are often more open to those in their life about how much they cherish and love them.

I don't think it should take tragedy for us to be honest with those in our lives, to express our deep love and gratitude for our relationships, and to be the person we want to be.

Thus I am spending some time thinking about living without tragedy, but still living the life we want and still being the best friend/sister/coworker/girlfriend/daughter/etc we can be.

Tonight I was driving to a friend's house for our Sunday night newish tradition of watching The Walking Dead, eating popcorn, and making fun of the bad writing and each other.

As I was driving, I got this overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Suddenly the day washed over me: sleeping in, an hour at the gym, raking up the blanket of leaves in my yard, going to the Co-op, watching an episode of Sherlock, baking some scones, making lunch for the week, and now heading to a friend's house. Honestly, pretty mundane. But as I drove the half mile to his home I was grateful for so much: living in a place where I have friends in my "hood" and can drive over on a Sunday night just to hang for an hour; having a yard to care for and beautiful leaves to rake into colorful piles; having a kitchen to make food in; having a great grocery store a mile away; having the time to do a lot of little nothing tasks that actually make me quite happy.

It reminded me of these moments I experienced while portaging in the Boundary Waters, when I would have the very heavy canoe on my shoulders and I would just start to think I couldn't go any further, when suddenly the canoe would almost feel weightless. It was always sudden and brief, but having just that tiny moment of relief made me push on a few more steps. It made me realize it was possible to have that moment of clarity and comfort during a very difficult time.

I was brought back to this moment tonight as I drove to my friend's and felt myself fill with gratitude, out of the blue. It was like the world had been pushing on me all week, and suddenly something opened up to remind me the little ways I have nothing weighing on me, the many ways I am blessed.

To live without tragedy and still be able to be grateful for the leaves you are raking, the scones you are burning in the oven, the coleslaw you are making up as you go, the day mostly spent alone until you find yourself laughing next to a friend...this is when I feel truly lucky. To live without tragedy and still be able to see the gift of my not-so-extraordinary life.