My husband of five years and partner of 16 years died on April 20 of this year. That is still, 8 months later, a very difficult sentence to write. The flat, blunt reality of the sentence makes me angry. And, as I am a writer, I'm writing some essays about his experience, and mine. My experience, our experience, offers one more view into one of the human experiences we both fear and loathe. And our experience, although crowded with pain and hurt and anger and loathing for cells that refused to die, was also filled with some of the better parts of what it means to be human and alive and connected to other people. That surprise, that gift, is longer than a blog post.
But while I am reclaiming my writing table and time, while I am finding my voice and embracing the new gravelly notes in that voice, the planet continues to spin. Life continues.
I've recently read, slowwwwwly, Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. It is the memoir of the year after her husband died unexpectedly. Near the end of the book, Joan Didion writes:
"...I think about people I know who have lost a husband or wife or child. I think particularly about how they looked when I saw them unexpectedly--on the street, say, or entering a room--during the year or so after the death. What struck me in each instance was how exposed they seemed, how raw.
How fragile, I understand now.
How unstable."
And that is, quite simply, how it is.
In July of this year I went home to Michigan to be with my family for a visit. Readers of this post may already know that my sister also lost her husband, Jan, this year. Nine days before Jeff died. It is impossible, and yet it happened just that way. Photographs of me on that July trip showed up recently. I was struck by two things - how much weight I had gained (again) and how much I looked like a survivor of a tragedy. My face in those photos did not, does not, look to me like my own face. I hate these photographs. But in my belly I know that they are simply accurate.
So- more truth. In July, I was more fragile than I am now. I was more unstable, and still so raw that air sometimes hurt. And yet, I put clothing into a suitcase and flew to Michigan so that I could be with people I love at a time that we needed one another. When I feel as though I'm taking too long to regain my footing, I remind myself of this.
It has been a year of change. My family has had losses and new babies and children becoming amazing people and a thousand smaller changes - and we are blessed. Acceptance is an amazing gift, and it makes me take a deep breath and throw open my arms to change, knowing that joy and hope coexist with pain and loss.
In acceptance, that photo with the fragile and unstable survivor's face, my face, is simply the before picture in the story of the life I'm going to build next. It is all a gift, all part of the tapestry. All of it.
My best to all who happen this way.
~plk
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Finally
It has taken more effort than I fully understand to begin sharing myself here again. Thank you to those who reminded me to keep trying.
Life humbles us. We plan and plot and think our way through many challenges. We have trial runs of our most important presentations at work, job interviews and even dates. Yet the truly immense and life changing experiences almost all come without warning, without the ability to pre-plan or rehearse. Lately I've been thinking about what we are left with in such moments. Informed by a series of such moments, this year I've been thinking about the relationships of grief and fear and anger, of love and loss and grace, of fear and acceptance and strength. I will be writing about those, too. But today I'm writing about something simpler.
When I was 13, my parents bought me a horse. She was gloriously beautiful. She was also impossibly spirited and very troubled. I remember the day we were trying to load her into a trailer to bring her home. She leaped over the loading ramp, danced around at the end of the lead rope, swung wildly around to the side of the trailer, her neck extended into a long line glinting in the sunlight, eyes rolling and nostrils flaring. She stomped, tried to rear, snorted. She stood and shuddered with dread, her coat rippling gold in the sunlight. She was a horse, but we understood how she felt, quite clearly. She was scared, she was mad and she was notnotnot climbing into that horse trailer. Not without a fight. Eventually, of course, she was loaded into the trailer. And once she did, she was not a horse that stood kicking the side of the trailer. I truly do not remember any more how she came to be in that trailer's stall, as I've rewritten and reimagined this scene so many times - but in my current memory she lifted her head and walked lightly up the ramp, trusting that it was the path she needed to walk.
I'm like that. Faced with some types of change, with things I do not want to do or things that I fear, I flail and stomp and kick just as that horse did. I have language, I'm sharp-witted and often funny, but I kick like a mofo. I try to avoid the ramp, reroute the ramp, bypass the ramp - just as she did. And, when it is clear that walking up the ramp is precisely what I'm going to do, I shake it off and walk up the ramp with as much grace as I can muster. And as most everyone knows, I don't kick too much in the stall. Once I'm in, I'm in for the duration of the trip.
Prose writing workshops I participated in, especially fiction workshops, spend a lot of time talking about the complexity of character reactions. We sat around conference tables, analyzing a piece of writing and talking about the complexities of emotions. "Love," we would say confidently, "does not come in the package that Hallmark is selling. It is not Lifetime Movie Network love. It is complicated and messy and has elements of so many emotions." And then we would try to imagine a few. An interesting set, a set that seemed true to the character and to the story being told. I remember thinking deeply about characters in love, in hate, in betrayal. I do not remember thinking about characters in grief. Grief was simple. Sadness, regret, a little relief now and then mixed in. I am embarrassed to say that I had always thought of grief as being the most universally felt and understood emotional experience. I was wrong.
Be well and happy wherever this may find you.
~ patti
Life humbles us. We plan and plot and think our way through many challenges. We have trial runs of our most important presentations at work, job interviews and even dates. Yet the truly immense and life changing experiences almost all come without warning, without the ability to pre-plan or rehearse. Lately I've been thinking about what we are left with in such moments. Informed by a series of such moments, this year I've been thinking about the relationships of grief and fear and anger, of love and loss and grace, of fear and acceptance and strength. I will be writing about those, too. But today I'm writing about something simpler.
When I was 13, my parents bought me a horse. She was gloriously beautiful. She was also impossibly spirited and very troubled. I remember the day we were trying to load her into a trailer to bring her home. She leaped over the loading ramp, danced around at the end of the lead rope, swung wildly around to the side of the trailer, her neck extended into a long line glinting in the sunlight, eyes rolling and nostrils flaring. She stomped, tried to rear, snorted. She stood and shuddered with dread, her coat rippling gold in the sunlight. She was a horse, but we understood how she felt, quite clearly. She was scared, she was mad and she was notnotnot climbing into that horse trailer. Not without a fight. Eventually, of course, she was loaded into the trailer. And once she did, she was not a horse that stood kicking the side of the trailer. I truly do not remember any more how she came to be in that trailer's stall, as I've rewritten and reimagined this scene so many times - but in my current memory she lifted her head and walked lightly up the ramp, trusting that it was the path she needed to walk.
I'm like that. Faced with some types of change, with things I do not want to do or things that I fear, I flail and stomp and kick just as that horse did. I have language, I'm sharp-witted and often funny, but I kick like a mofo. I try to avoid the ramp, reroute the ramp, bypass the ramp - just as she did. And, when it is clear that walking up the ramp is precisely what I'm going to do, I shake it off and walk up the ramp with as much grace as I can muster. And as most everyone knows, I don't kick too much in the stall. Once I'm in, I'm in for the duration of the trip.
Prose writing workshops I participated in, especially fiction workshops, spend a lot of time talking about the complexity of character reactions. We sat around conference tables, analyzing a piece of writing and talking about the complexities of emotions. "Love," we would say confidently, "does not come in the package that Hallmark is selling. It is not Lifetime Movie Network love. It is complicated and messy and has elements of so many emotions." And then we would try to imagine a few. An interesting set, a set that seemed true to the character and to the story being told. I remember thinking deeply about characters in love, in hate, in betrayal. I do not remember thinking about characters in grief. Grief was simple. Sadness, regret, a little relief now and then mixed in. I am embarrassed to say that I had always thought of grief as being the most universally felt and understood emotional experience. I was wrong.
Be well and happy wherever this may find you.
~ patti
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Power of Breath
Spring is flirting with me. I can feel the tickle of her warming sun and the sweetness of earth coming back to life in the brisk winds and mercurial precipitation patterns that define March in Idaho. Promise is sometimes enough, but I'll admit to needing something a little more substantive to sustain me just now. So, if you have any power over the weather patterns please send sunshiney spring days to Idaho. STAT.
Many of the people I love most and connect to most readily have lived through difficult things. Months and months ago, I remember a discussion (almost a debate) with one of my favorite people at work. We were at a bar, and I stated this preference and he asked, essentially, is that fair? How can you know that those who have not been tested would not rise to the test with strength and grace?
I don't really have an answer for whether it is fair, but I can tell you for certain that if you have lived through a few challenges you don't react with the same sort of shocked horror when a new one arises. It doesn't become routine for anyone to face difficult things, but the cycle of disbelief gets shorter and shorter. And maybe that is the essence of my connection to others who have weathered storms. It saves so much time, when time maybe matters most, not to traverse the terrain titled "this can't be happening to me" and "I can't do this." Bad things happen to us. They do, they always will. Some we might have helped avoid with different choices, some crash in on us like the springtime snowstorms that put a chill on the warming earth.
And so it is happening to you. Right now, not in some hazy future moment. And you can do it, if you choose to. In all likelihood when bad things are happening whatever the "it" is that you feel you can't do will be only the first of the many things you will do. Later, you will look back fondly at the "it" you can't imagine doing today. You will remember how sweetly naive it was to imagine being unable to do that, when you have done not only that, but a hundred more difficult or unpleasant variants of that.
Yes, I'm aware that some people truly cannot do "it" and that someone else will have to then step in and pick up the messy blechy thing and get it done. I empathize with that, but frankly I'm not usually that person. And selfishly, or in a desire to understand myself, I'm not so interested in them. My interest is directed toward those who look at the new challenge both warily and fearlessly, sizing up the battle.
Lately, I've had too much time to think, but not enough sleep to think clearly. Still, I am struck by the idea that all we really have is how we react, and how we live through things. Sometimes our lives and our world are defined by our choices. And in other circumstances we are not allowed the luxury of choice. In those instances, we have only what we will do about the challenge that has been thrust upon us. And in those situations, our behavior defines our experience, not the other way around. So when a loved one is dying, a marriage is ending, a dream has been erased from the realm of possibility, the person you are at your core will show up and your actions will define how you experience your life. They will either underscore or contradict the person you thought you were, that the world may have thought you were.
As in all things, it's important for us to choose. Take that deep and steadying breath, and choose.
Best to all who happen this way.
~ patti
Many of the people I love most and connect to most readily have lived through difficult things. Months and months ago, I remember a discussion (almost a debate) with one of my favorite people at work. We were at a bar, and I stated this preference and he asked, essentially, is that fair? How can you know that those who have not been tested would not rise to the test with strength and grace?
I don't really have an answer for whether it is fair, but I can tell you for certain that if you have lived through a few challenges you don't react with the same sort of shocked horror when a new one arises. It doesn't become routine for anyone to face difficult things, but the cycle of disbelief gets shorter and shorter. And maybe that is the essence of my connection to others who have weathered storms. It saves so much time, when time maybe matters most, not to traverse the terrain titled "this can't be happening to me" and "I can't do this." Bad things happen to us. They do, they always will. Some we might have helped avoid with different choices, some crash in on us like the springtime snowstorms that put a chill on the warming earth.
And so it is happening to you. Right now, not in some hazy future moment. And you can do it, if you choose to. In all likelihood when bad things are happening whatever the "it" is that you feel you can't do will be only the first of the many things you will do. Later, you will look back fondly at the "it" you can't imagine doing today. You will remember how sweetly naive it was to imagine being unable to do that, when you have done not only that, but a hundred more difficult or unpleasant variants of that.
Yes, I'm aware that some people truly cannot do "it" and that someone else will have to then step in and pick up the messy blechy thing and get it done. I empathize with that, but frankly I'm not usually that person. And selfishly, or in a desire to understand myself, I'm not so interested in them. My interest is directed toward those who look at the new challenge both warily and fearlessly, sizing up the battle.
Lately, I've had too much time to think, but not enough sleep to think clearly. Still, I am struck by the idea that all we really have is how we react, and how we live through things. Sometimes our lives and our world are defined by our choices. And in other circumstances we are not allowed the luxury of choice. In those instances, we have only what we will do about the challenge that has been thrust upon us. And in those situations, our behavior defines our experience, not the other way around. So when a loved one is dying, a marriage is ending, a dream has been erased from the realm of possibility, the person you are at your core will show up and your actions will define how you experience your life. They will either underscore or contradict the person you thought you were, that the world may have thought you were.
As in all things, it's important for us to choose. Take that deep and steadying breath, and choose.
Best to all who happen this way.
~ patti
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Choosing
This past week has been one of the toughest I've ever lived through. And I'm through it, and while I'm pretty tired, I am also still standing and able to smile. There are weeks and weeks of challenge in front of me - but for today I am grateful to be where I am. Thank you to those of you who are reading this and helped make it happen. I appreciate it more than you may know.
So of course, when things are very tough, you should start major organizing projects. Yes, that was sarcasm. Here is a question: are your cabinets, closets and storage spaces filled with things that you will never use, wear or display again, but that you keep because they are "too valuable" to toss or donate? I spent most of my afternoon digging through a biiiig cabinet in my house. It contained: nail polish, a truly shocking variety of nail and foot care devices and products, OTC cold medicines, lotions, suntan lotions, bandages (including 14 varieties of neatly-rolled elastic bandage), knee/ankle/wrist braces, a lot of greeting cards, a bunch of wrapping paper/ribbon, a stack of beautiful but not-for-me plates, five big oversized photo albums (empty).....and two more shelves of stuff.
Does anyone want to see how much the packaging has changed for AlkaSeltzer Plus Cold Medicine since 1997? Anyone?
I'm grubby and tired from sorting through 13-year-old documents and 10-years-expired self tanners. And I find myself thinking that the habit of tucking such things into a cabinet is the same habit that has me leaving more important things half-answered until I'm pressed into a corner and must do so.
This is definitely the year that I am focused on committing to each moment fully, living through it fully. I don't have the inclination or the energy any more to tuck things into corners to be dealt with at some hazy future moment of truth. Nope, I intend to simply decide, each moment, and move forward.
If there is one very true gift that comes from experiencing pain, it is the gift of clarity. I intend to put that to work in my life.
Best to all who happen this way!
~ plk
So of course, when things are very tough, you should start major organizing projects. Yes, that was sarcasm. Here is a question: are your cabinets, closets and storage spaces filled with things that you will never use, wear or display again, but that you keep because they are "too valuable" to toss or donate? I spent most of my afternoon digging through a biiiig cabinet in my house. It contained: nail polish, a truly shocking variety of nail and foot care devices and products, OTC cold medicines, lotions, suntan lotions, bandages (including 14 varieties of neatly-rolled elastic bandage), knee/ankle/wrist braces, a lot of greeting cards, a bunch of wrapping paper/ribbon, a stack of beautiful but not-for-me plates, five big oversized photo albums (empty).....and two more shelves of stuff.
Does anyone want to see how much the packaging has changed for AlkaSeltzer Plus Cold Medicine since 1997? Anyone?
I'm grubby and tired from sorting through 13-year-old documents and 10-years-expired self tanners. And I find myself thinking that the habit of tucking such things into a cabinet is the same habit that has me leaving more important things half-answered until I'm pressed into a corner and must do so.
This is definitely the year that I am focused on committing to each moment fully, living through it fully. I don't have the inclination or the energy any more to tuck things into corners to be dealt with at some hazy future moment of truth. Nope, I intend to simply decide, each moment, and move forward.
If there is one very true gift that comes from experiencing pain, it is the gift of clarity. I intend to put that to work in my life.
Best to all who happen this way!
~ plk
Monday, January 3, 2011
Commitment, Not Resolution
At various times in my life, I've felt certain that I knew how to prioritize effectively. No, actually the word I mean to use is not effectively - let's try appropriately. We all need to prioritize, but I have three characteristics that, together, are something of a perfect storm for filling my days with opportunities to do things.
But in the last several years, either I've lost my ability to appropriately prioritize or I've lost my sense of certainty in that ability. I'm never wholly sure that what I'm doing is the very best use of my minutes. I'm never certain that I won't regret or curse the minutes I spent doing X activity or task when Y activity or task is late, missed or simply left undone.
So, that whole paragraph doesn't sound like me. At all. I read that, and I think....who is this person writing at my keyboard? I'm not terribly fond of her. Why? Because what is really missing is the truest, surest priority - that once you commit, you're in. You do the thing you are doing, and you are wholly in it, and you feel every pleasurable or painful bit of it, and then you put it in the memory pile and move on. So yes, it occurs to me that what is really changed is not so much my ability to prioritize. No, it is my ability, willingness or commitment to stay in the moment long enough to truly live it and experience it, to taste, experience and even savor every sweet, salty, peppery, bitter, putrid, awful and wondrous millisecond of it.
How this happened is pretty simply to deduce - when the ugly moments become more frequent, and the demands become more numerous, it's very tempting to hurry through them as glancingly as possible. When I close my eyes, I think of this rushing as being something like the sensation of running through the sprinkler on a hot day, not pausing long enough for the sting of the chilled water to become welcome on your skin. But that's a pretty image. It's not a pretty habit, not really. So here I am, showing you why that is a bad strategy - the habit of hurrying through difficult moments becomes a way of being, not a choice. And before you know it, as quickly as you're running through the dark moments, you're hurrying through moments of beauty, laughter, love, connection -- and leaving in your wake a life half-lived. Worse yet, those difficult and dark moments are far better than the joyous ones at reappearing insistently in front of your nose, demanding that you deal with them.
I'm not in charge of what the world throws at me, but I'm wholly in charge of how I respond, and how I spend each moment. Let's not call it a resolution, because words matter. Let's call it a commitment. To the extent that I am able, and strong enough, I'm all done with "multitasking" my moments. It doesn't work, even when it makes me feel or look superproductive. One moment, and then the next, and each one allowed to have the time and space it needs.
My intent is to wring the sweetness out of the good moments, and let the bitter and putrid ones have their due time, all of it. And not a millisecond more. Count your good moments, and be thankful for your strength in getting through the awful ones.
Best to all who happen this way ~ plk
- I have quite a lot of energy.
- I have an overly developed sense of responsibility.
- I possess an almost-hilarious five-year-old's curiosity about everything I see, touch, smell, taste, hear or in some other way perceive.
But in the last several years, either I've lost my ability to appropriately prioritize or I've lost my sense of certainty in that ability. I'm never wholly sure that what I'm doing is the very best use of my minutes. I'm never certain that I won't regret or curse the minutes I spent doing X activity or task when Y activity or task is late, missed or simply left undone.
So, that whole paragraph doesn't sound like me. At all. I read that, and I think....who is this person writing at my keyboard? I'm not terribly fond of her. Why? Because what is really missing is the truest, surest priority - that once you commit, you're in. You do the thing you are doing, and you are wholly in it, and you feel every pleasurable or painful bit of it, and then you put it in the memory pile and move on. So yes, it occurs to me that what is really changed is not so much my ability to prioritize. No, it is my ability, willingness or commitment to stay in the moment long enough to truly live it and experience it, to taste, experience and even savor every sweet, salty, peppery, bitter, putrid, awful and wondrous millisecond of it.
How this happened is pretty simply to deduce - when the ugly moments become more frequent, and the demands become more numerous, it's very tempting to hurry through them as glancingly as possible. When I close my eyes, I think of this rushing as being something like the sensation of running through the sprinkler on a hot day, not pausing long enough for the sting of the chilled water to become welcome on your skin. But that's a pretty image. It's not a pretty habit, not really. So here I am, showing you why that is a bad strategy - the habit of hurrying through difficult moments becomes a way of being, not a choice. And before you know it, as quickly as you're running through the dark moments, you're hurrying through moments of beauty, laughter, love, connection -- and leaving in your wake a life half-lived. Worse yet, those difficult and dark moments are far better than the joyous ones at reappearing insistently in front of your nose, demanding that you deal with them.
I'm not in charge of what the world throws at me, but I'm wholly in charge of how I respond, and how I spend each moment. Let's not call it a resolution, because words matter. Let's call it a commitment. To the extent that I am able, and strong enough, I'm all done with "multitasking" my moments. It doesn't work, even when it makes me feel or look superproductive. One moment, and then the next, and each one allowed to have the time and space it needs.
My intent is to wring the sweetness out of the good moments, and let the bitter and putrid ones have their due time, all of it. And not a millisecond more. Count your good moments, and be thankful for your strength in getting through the awful ones.
Best to all who happen this way ~ plk
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
On Sunday I rode my bike on our city's riverside Greenbelt for 21.4 miles. (I love my Garmin.) It was a beautiful afternoon, the colors are changing and the softness of autumn light is simply soothing to my soul. The path I rode winds along the river, and through some neighborhoods, and alongside a few large ponds. It was a good workout, but it was also a good way to blow the cobwebs out of my mind, and remind myself of some good things.
I pedaled past a perfectly beautiful tree. It stood in the center of a small wooded meadow at mile 3'ish on my ride, a meadow that the path loops around. I was lucky to notice it as I came around a curve. The autumn light hit the tree with such perfect radiance, the sun shining on and through and around the branches and leaves, which were a riot of color in varying shades of rich burgundy red, golden red, coral, orange.
My pace (thank you, Garmin) was important to me, and so I slowed slightly but kept pedaling. As I pedaled, I thought repeatedly about that tree. I'd decided to stop on my return to take some photos with my cell phone camera. The thoughts I was having were all about hidden beauty, and the way that nature blends unexpected colors in perfect beauty. But when I got back to the little meadow, the light had shifted. The tree, while still lovely, was not an immense radiant jewel glowing in the perfect angle of sunlight. It was a tree, adorned in fall colors.
Take the moments when they are offered.
My best to all who happen this way!
~plk
I pedaled past a perfectly beautiful tree. It stood in the center of a small wooded meadow at mile 3'ish on my ride, a meadow that the path loops around. I was lucky to notice it as I came around a curve. The autumn light hit the tree with such perfect radiance, the sun shining on and through and around the branches and leaves, which were a riot of color in varying shades of rich burgundy red, golden red, coral, orange.
My pace (thank you, Garmin) was important to me, and so I slowed slightly but kept pedaling. As I pedaled, I thought repeatedly about that tree. I'd decided to stop on my return to take some photos with my cell phone camera. The thoughts I was having were all about hidden beauty, and the way that nature blends unexpected colors in perfect beauty. But when I got back to the little meadow, the light had shifted. The tree, while still lovely, was not an immense radiant jewel glowing in the perfect angle of sunlight. It was a tree, adorned in fall colors.
Take the moments when they are offered.
My best to all who happen this way!
~plk
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Course Changes
On Thursday night while I was out walking a few miles, I passed children playing flag football at the nearby school. It was apparently sanctioned and official-ish looking game (relatively, it was flag football, after all) which was only clear because there were actual sidelines marked on the grass and there were parent-type people on the sidelines and a guy with a whistle. The kids were just out there to play. They largely ignored the coaches and the whistle, and basically chased whoever had the ball until it was lost, and then chased whoever picked it up. The group flowed around the field looking like a fleece-and-denim-clad school of minnows. And their laughter was like music.
It is not typical for me to walk or exercise without my iPod. I need something to distract me from the sounds of my feet or my bike tire on the pavement. I would have missed that sweet and lovely sound entirely, had I been wearing headphones.
The moment has stuck with me. I keep hearing that laughter, and watching the effortless turns and spins and reversals of course on that field, seeing the laughter that accompanied the change in direction. It made me wonder when we lose that. When do we stop seeing changes in course as the inevitable result of playing the game, or of living our lives, and become so focused on the original course that deviations to it are seen as failures, or irritants? How many times do we use the phrase "get back on track" (or some variation) in a week? Do we ever consider whether the new course is simply the one that was intended all along? That we might have stumbled over the right course by some magic of alchemy and gravity and pure dumb luck?
It's about goals, I think. The inflexibility of our goals. But it is also about having a rigid expectation of what it means to do the right thing. It is being unable to acknowledge that being on the right path, the one that leads to joy, is every bit as important as meeting our original goals or our personal expectations. For some, it is easy to walk away from a responsibility.
For others, it seems nearly impossible - and this post is for those people. Please remember - our lives are not either/or. Our options are not merely "stay the original course with your teeth gritted against how much it hurts and feel wrong" or "walk away and start a new life." There are a million options between those poles, and our hard work is to find the one that is most fulfilling without losing our integrity.
When you are in the middle of a trial in life, it is not easy to do the thing that we have not done before, to make the choice that is not the familiar one. But it's the only way to see what new joy might come, what measure of happiness might be returned if we try another tack.
I'm working hard at finding my joy these days. This week I'm going to try to see changes in course like I'm 7 years old and running after a ball carrier on a flag football field. Feel the joy of being able to run and turn, be mindful of the lumpy turf under my feet and keep my eyes on the ball, but laugh with abandon when my plan is foiled by a turnover.
Be well and happy!
~plk
It is not typical for me to walk or exercise without my iPod. I need something to distract me from the sounds of my feet or my bike tire on the pavement. I would have missed that sweet and lovely sound entirely, had I been wearing headphones.
The moment has stuck with me. I keep hearing that laughter, and watching the effortless turns and spins and reversals of course on that field, seeing the laughter that accompanied the change in direction. It made me wonder when we lose that. When do we stop seeing changes in course as the inevitable result of playing the game, or of living our lives, and become so focused on the original course that deviations to it are seen as failures, or irritants? How many times do we use the phrase "get back on track" (or some variation) in a week? Do we ever consider whether the new course is simply the one that was intended all along? That we might have stumbled over the right course by some magic of alchemy and gravity and pure dumb luck?
It's about goals, I think. The inflexibility of our goals. But it is also about having a rigid expectation of what it means to do the right thing. It is being unable to acknowledge that being on the right path, the one that leads to joy, is every bit as important as meeting our original goals or our personal expectations. For some, it is easy to walk away from a responsibility.
For others, it seems nearly impossible - and this post is for those people. Please remember - our lives are not either/or. Our options are not merely "stay the original course with your teeth gritted against how much it hurts and feel wrong" or "walk away and start a new life." There are a million options between those poles, and our hard work is to find the one that is most fulfilling without losing our integrity.
When you are in the middle of a trial in life, it is not easy to do the thing that we have not done before, to make the choice that is not the familiar one. But it's the only way to see what new joy might come, what measure of happiness might be returned if we try another tack.
I'm working hard at finding my joy these days. This week I'm going to try to see changes in course like I'm 7 years old and running after a ball carrier on a flag football field. Feel the joy of being able to run and turn, be mindful of the lumpy turf under my feet and keep my eyes on the ball, but laugh with abandon when my plan is foiled by a turnover.
Be well and happy!
~plk
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Briny Pleasures
I should be in bed. At a minimum, I should be getting ready for bed. But my brain will not slow down enough this evening. Tonight I'm not writing about "current events" in my life or the lives of those I love. Nope. My brain is on another track this evening.
Tonight, the writing life is under consideration. There is a man I "met" on Facebook, a friend of one of my former professors, who is caring for his two elderly parents (think incontinence, dementia and wheelchairs) by himself. Oh, and editing a non-fiction journal. And writing a nonfiction book about eldercare. He is simply impressive. I'm tremendously impressed by writers who write around, or perhaps the better word is through, distractions, who are able to write despite the tentacled fingers of life's demands tugging at them. Of course we all have distractions, but there are some - such as sick, demanding, needy and helpless parents - that anyone must admit are more urgent than the demand to sit at a keyboard and write.
Balancing real and perceived urgency - that is perhaps what I'm fascinated by these days. The truth is that the satisfactions and rewards of writing are so distant when one is sitting at that keyboard. My pleasure in the acts of creation and revision and reimagining - it is real. But achieving that is dependent upon the ability to be immersed, even if only for brief periods, in the world of language and imagination. It is a briny sharp pleasure to consider sounds and careful selection of words, searching for the word with the precise shade of meaning that is needed. It is a kind of pleasure to consider the rhythms of language and construction of sentences, to weave with words, to paint with images and to make the imagined come alive and become real for the reader.
It is difficult for my writing time to compete against the simpler exchanges of time for money, time for joy, time for the healthy glow of sweat from a workout. We have to work through balancing those exchanges - writing competes because it is as important as those things. As an artist, one must also believe that the work matters as much as the other worldly demands. As a result, making time to write is, if you are a writer, an imperative. Good. Done and done. Next challenge, please.
Ah, but as with any good plot, what happens when we complicate this question further? What if our writer has not one but three imperatives to juggle? What if some of the imperatives are practical, such as money to pay the mortgage, and some feel like a commitment that cannot be breached? Some writers would find a way to protect their writing time at all costs. I admire them, but I am apparently not among them. My writing time feeds my soul and keeps me centered and makes me feel as though my life has not jumped the rails entirely, and yet when my life's plot becomes more complicated, I let that time slip through my fingers, eaten up by the other things that tug more insistently, that I perceive to have greater urgency.
As I've written before in these posts - my greatest difficulty is accepting that I can't do everything I want to do. Our minutes and hours are actually finite. Very annoying. And somehow it is related, though I don't have words for it yet, this persistent thought that the element of urgency must be the strangest element of living with and caring for someone who is sick, or caring for an infant or a dependent parent. Everything that they need is more urgent than your own needs. It's hard to remember your own needs, let alone continue to prioritize something as ephemeral as writing prose.
No answers this evening, only questions that I'm tossing out into the night air. I miss my writing self, and for the first time in a long time, I am actually afraid I won't be able to find her again. I'm pretty sure she's around somewhere. She's often found putting together crazy playlists in iTunes, or sitting in the garden smelling green and blossoms and searching her brain for a better way to describe the surprising lemon-sweet lush scent of a rose. If you see her, kick her ass and send her home. I have work to do.
Best to all who happen this way.
~plk
Tonight, the writing life is under consideration. There is a man I "met" on Facebook, a friend of one of my former professors, who is caring for his two elderly parents (think incontinence, dementia and wheelchairs) by himself. Oh, and editing a non-fiction journal. And writing a nonfiction book about eldercare. He is simply impressive. I'm tremendously impressed by writers who write around, or perhaps the better word is through, distractions, who are able to write despite the tentacled fingers of life's demands tugging at them. Of course we all have distractions, but there are some - such as sick, demanding, needy and helpless parents - that anyone must admit are more urgent than the demand to sit at a keyboard and write.
Balancing real and perceived urgency - that is perhaps what I'm fascinated by these days. The truth is that the satisfactions and rewards of writing are so distant when one is sitting at that keyboard. My pleasure in the acts of creation and revision and reimagining - it is real. But achieving that is dependent upon the ability to be immersed, even if only for brief periods, in the world of language and imagination. It is a briny sharp pleasure to consider sounds and careful selection of words, searching for the word with the precise shade of meaning that is needed. It is a kind of pleasure to consider the rhythms of language and construction of sentences, to weave with words, to paint with images and to make the imagined come alive and become real for the reader.
It is difficult for my writing time to compete against the simpler exchanges of time for money, time for joy, time for the healthy glow of sweat from a workout. We have to work through balancing those exchanges - writing competes because it is as important as those things. As an artist, one must also believe that the work matters as much as the other worldly demands. As a result, making time to write is, if you are a writer, an imperative. Good. Done and done. Next challenge, please.
Ah, but as with any good plot, what happens when we complicate this question further? What if our writer has not one but three imperatives to juggle? What if some of the imperatives are practical, such as money to pay the mortgage, and some feel like a commitment that cannot be breached? Some writers would find a way to protect their writing time at all costs. I admire them, but I am apparently not among them. My writing time feeds my soul and keeps me centered and makes me feel as though my life has not jumped the rails entirely, and yet when my life's plot becomes more complicated, I let that time slip through my fingers, eaten up by the other things that tug more insistently, that I perceive to have greater urgency.
As I've written before in these posts - my greatest difficulty is accepting that I can't do everything I want to do. Our minutes and hours are actually finite. Very annoying. And somehow it is related, though I don't have words for it yet, this persistent thought that the element of urgency must be the strangest element of living with and caring for someone who is sick, or caring for an infant or a dependent parent. Everything that they need is more urgent than your own needs. It's hard to remember your own needs, let alone continue to prioritize something as ephemeral as writing prose.
No answers this evening, only questions that I'm tossing out into the night air. I miss my writing self, and for the first time in a long time, I am actually afraid I won't be able to find her again. I'm pretty sure she's around somewhere. She's often found putting together crazy playlists in iTunes, or sitting in the garden smelling green and blossoms and searching her brain for a better way to describe the surprising lemon-sweet lush scent of a rose. If you see her, kick her ass and send her home. I have work to do.
Best to all who happen this way.
~plk
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Brushing off the Dust
My sister sent me an email several months ago. When I read it, I smiled. Ruefully. She wanted to let me know that she would feel better about me, worry less about me, if she knew I had begun writing again.
A few weeks later, one of my former students posed a question on his Facebook page that caught at my heart a little. The question was: is it more difficult to be a writer, or to be a writer who is not writing? I replied that being a writer who was not writing was awful, and Toby asked me to clarify. It took me a while to reply, and when I did, I did so carefully. My reply was this:
As with all things, babysteps. My blog entries are an indication of my engagement with language and words - when they halt it is nearly certain I have stopped writing altogether. So. Apparently I am back to the keyboard with some intention. And a lot of current material. Ahem.
I'm taking a mindfulness meditation course at the Y led by a woman from the Cancer Treatment Center. She repeats this sentence often, "Don't pull away but always go forward, toward the feelings and experiences you are tempted to avoid--and live fully." Difficult advice these days, but necessary.
Face a fear, embrace something you love and be gentle with yourself.
~ plk
A few weeks later, one of my former students posed a question on his Facebook page that caught at my heart a little. The question was: is it more difficult to be a writer, or to be a writer who is not writing? I replied that being a writer who was not writing was awful, and Toby asked me to clarify. It took me a while to reply, and when I did, I did so carefully. My reply was this:
Hey Toby - so I set this in my "tell Toby the truth" file, and am just now back here.
Yes - it is awful. It is always awful to be living in a way that does not align with your true self. I know that much of life is adjusting to what we cannot have, living happily in spite of that. But failing to do that which feeds your soul will break your heart in the thousand small ways that are hardest to repair.
So we have to find a way to balance the life-list of musts (pay the bills, etc) with the heart-list of musts (love, find things to marvel at in the world...and write).
So says the writer who is trying like hell to do just exactly that.
I'm taking a mindfulness meditation course at the Y led by a woman from the Cancer Treatment Center. She repeats this sentence often, "Don't pull away but always go forward, toward the feelings and experiences you are tempted to avoid--and live fully." Difficult advice these days, but necessary.
Face a fear, embrace something you love and be gentle with yourself.
~ plk
Monday, October 26, 2009
No Replays
Lately it seems that using the word "passes" in reference to what happens with time is just a little too wimpy for my tastes. The word "spend" is accurate, but it doesn't seem to capture the urgency or permanency of the act. Sometimes our involvement with time elapsing is passive, those days or hours we allow to slip past us like river water over a stone. And sometimes we want to hold the moments tightly, to live each breath. In either case, though, we are well served to remember that this moment is never coming back. We've spent it, and not in the American sense of putting it on a credit card to deal with later. No, it's gone. Truly gone. And we can't save them up, the moments and hours and years. Once gone, they are in the past. Historical. This is not being written to urge readers to become anxious minute-minders. No, minding minutes in anxiety is precisely the behavior we need to avoid.
I'm writing it because I need to hold tightly to the moment in every moment. Live it fully, then let it go. Choose wisely whenever I can, and if my choices seem bounded by obligation - choose to live fully in those moments, too, because even choosing to meet obligations is a choice. I know, I know...but it is. We choose to meet our obligations, or not to meet them, because we find joy in the completion of those things or because we do not like the consequences. Being conscious of that choice gives me peace even in madness.
Hmmm. Speakng of madness, my job is still quite mad. The way that I feel on Monday mornings is a very good barometer for how well I'm finding balance in my life. Let us merely say that this Monday morning felt a little bumpy, but I chose to put on a smile and sally forth. Yay, me.
My friend Ms. Mo and I visited a fabric store yesterday. I was looking for harem pant patterns and fabric, because a seamstress I met through my troupe is going to make the pants for a performance in a couple of weeks. After leaving the store, we stood in the parking lot and talked for a long while, standing in bright fall sunshine on a glorious afternoon with the Boise foothills arcing in golden fall tones across our view. I spent those minutes in that parking lot wisely. We could have parted and hurried back to our lives when we left the store. We could have multitasked and team grocery shopped, which might have been fun. But what we did was stand in a parking lot in glorious sunshine and enjoy the women we are becoming, have become.
There is something else I have been thinking about, and it seems related to this understanding that time is finite, minutes all count, our days are our own but the only one we are guaranteed is today. This other idea is that all of the very best people I know are hard on themselves. Be gentle with yourself, and try hard to stop judging every past mistake, reliving every wrong turn or missed chance, replaying every bobbled moment. It's not helpful. Those moments are in the past, and the only benefit we gain from reliving them is to learn from them. Don't sacrifice your precious today-minutes, your life-minutes, in homage to your history.
There is more, there is always more, but for today I think this is enough.
~ plk
I'm writing it because I need to hold tightly to the moment in every moment. Live it fully, then let it go. Choose wisely whenever I can, and if my choices seem bounded by obligation - choose to live fully in those moments, too, because even choosing to meet obligations is a choice. I know, I know...but it is. We choose to meet our obligations, or not to meet them, because we find joy in the completion of those things or because we do not like the consequences. Being conscious of that choice gives me peace even in madness.
Hmmm. Speakng of madness, my job is still quite mad. The way that I feel on Monday mornings is a very good barometer for how well I'm finding balance in my life. Let us merely say that this Monday morning felt a little bumpy, but I chose to put on a smile and sally forth. Yay, me.
My friend Ms. Mo and I visited a fabric store yesterday. I was looking for harem pant patterns and fabric, because a seamstress I met through my troupe is going to make the pants for a performance in a couple of weeks. After leaving the store, we stood in the parking lot and talked for a long while, standing in bright fall sunshine on a glorious afternoon with the Boise foothills arcing in golden fall tones across our view. I spent those minutes in that parking lot wisely. We could have parted and hurried back to our lives when we left the store. We could have multitasked and team grocery shopped, which might have been fun. But what we did was stand in a parking lot in glorious sunshine and enjoy the women we are becoming, have become.
There is something else I have been thinking about, and it seems related to this understanding that time is finite, minutes all count, our days are our own but the only one we are guaranteed is today. This other idea is that all of the very best people I know are hard on themselves. Be gentle with yourself, and try hard to stop judging every past mistake, reliving every wrong turn or missed chance, replaying every bobbled moment. It's not helpful. Those moments are in the past, and the only benefit we gain from reliving them is to learn from them. Don't sacrifice your precious today-minutes, your life-minutes, in homage to your history.
There is more, there is always more, but for today I think this is enough.
~ plk
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fall Away Slowly
I'm back. Pink cheeked since it's been so long.
It's going to be a good weekend. I am holding tight to weekends and free hours and minutes to find solace these days. It's not the best way to live, but it's what I have just now. I'm working on a story revision to send to the Missouri Review contest, which closes on October 1. It's rough going, and slow, and I intend to do it anyway.
This was a good week for finding my rhythm again. I attended a party where there were writers, and where people who love writing talked about why literature and the arts matter. I was reminded of how smart and sharp and lovely the writers I've known often are. How they sparkle, nearly.
I've also been belly dancing quite a lot this week, preparing for a relaxed show at a local festival this weekend. We've added a new dance. Lots of spinning, my first experience with a veil, a very high potential for either mishap or dizziness. So we practiced two hours on Saturday, two hours on Wednesday, and I spent an hour tonight in the quiet dark of my backyard with my iPod clipped to my tank top, spinning to the strains of Tien Afto, the iPod casting an odd glowing light about my face and the shine of the veil's gold edge catching light. It's hard to feel anything but relaxed when you are concentrating on step-together-step, glide.... or on not tripping while spinning. The calm voice of our leader in my head reminds me how I value those who make me feel at ease, calm. Usually these people are those who are centered, and I gravitate to them, am drawn to them.
My bellydance instructor, despite her energy, is calmly centered, as are most of my favorite coworkers. When given enough space and time to breathe, I am very calm and centered. It's one of my favorite compliments of all time, that "you are at once centered and full of life, joy." It was a compliment that made me blush, and that felt like a compliment about something in me that truly matters. I'm not feeling that. Not now.
Just now, I can find that calm only in snippets. There are big questions in my head, and I know because I feel that hot press of urgency against my throat that I should make only tiny decisions. Only small decisions in moments of tension, saving large ones for a time when breath comes easy. I'm not in the right frame of mind to make big sweeping ones. Small. Unhurried. Tomorrow's decision is which costume pieces I'll wear, and how to get myself to the performance (it's at a street fair). It's enough.
Dancing out in the grass, breathing the night air and stretching after each run-through, i was thinking about all the nights I have not spent standing in night air, a bit sweaty from moving in rhythm and in joy. Not thinking with bitterness, or regret, but with clear eyes. We decide every day how to spend our lives. It's my theme.
Best to all who happen this way!
~plk
It's going to be a good weekend. I am holding tight to weekends and free hours and minutes to find solace these days. It's not the best way to live, but it's what I have just now. I'm working on a story revision to send to the Missouri Review contest, which closes on October 1. It's rough going, and slow, and I intend to do it anyway.
This was a good week for finding my rhythm again. I attended a party where there were writers, and where people who love writing talked about why literature and the arts matter. I was reminded of how smart and sharp and lovely the writers I've known often are. How they sparkle, nearly.
I've also been belly dancing quite a lot this week, preparing for a relaxed show at a local festival this weekend. We've added a new dance. Lots of spinning, my first experience with a veil, a very high potential for either mishap or dizziness. So we practiced two hours on Saturday, two hours on Wednesday, and I spent an hour tonight in the quiet dark of my backyard with my iPod clipped to my tank top, spinning to the strains of Tien Afto, the iPod casting an odd glowing light about my face and the shine of the veil's gold edge catching light. It's hard to feel anything but relaxed when you are concentrating on step-together-step, glide.... or on not tripping while spinning. The calm voice of our leader in my head reminds me how I value those who make me feel at ease, calm. Usually these people are those who are centered, and I gravitate to them, am drawn to them.
My bellydance instructor, despite her energy, is calmly centered, as are most of my favorite coworkers. When given enough space and time to breathe, I am very calm and centered. It's one of my favorite compliments of all time, that "you are at once centered and full of life, joy." It was a compliment that made me blush, and that felt like a compliment about something in me that truly matters. I'm not feeling that. Not now.
Just now, I can find that calm only in snippets. There are big questions in my head, and I know because I feel that hot press of urgency against my throat that I should make only tiny decisions. Only small decisions in moments of tension, saving large ones for a time when breath comes easy. I'm not in the right frame of mind to make big sweeping ones. Small. Unhurried. Tomorrow's decision is which costume pieces I'll wear, and how to get myself to the performance (it's at a street fair). It's enough.
Dancing out in the grass, breathing the night air and stretching after each run-through, i was thinking about all the nights I have not spent standing in night air, a bit sweaty from moving in rhythm and in joy. Not thinking with bitterness, or regret, but with clear eyes. We decide every day how to spend our lives. It's my theme.
Best to all who happen this way!
~plk
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Heart Wants What it Wants
Today I'm going to start running again, after three weeks of not running. I expect it will be painful. Yay. Several of the people who love me best have asked why I'm pressing myself in this particular way. If it is so difficult, why do it? And I've pondered that. Because I want to, that's the best answer I have. It has me thinking, though.
The heart wants what it wants, and will not be denied.
I don't know the origin of this phrase, and I despise Woody Allen for using it to defend his attraction to his step-daughter, because I think the phrase is not about taking what you want, but about acknowledging your desire, and to my ear it also implies that pretending you do not desire something does not change what you feel in your heart, or your gut. I believe in desire, in the hunger for something outside ourselves to feel pleasure, or to connect with a piece of art, or to meet some other soul in this big universe who for some shiny brief moment of perfection feels what you feel. That spark of connection sustains. It is the moment of sexual spark, certainly. But it is also the moment when you exchange glances with a person who is looking at an ocean vista, or a child who is perfectly joyful, or a painting - and knowing instantly that they see what you see. It is the moment, as a writer, when a reader feels the world on your page and is moved by it.
To me, the exquisite pleasure of desire is not always about desire fulfilled. I am, after all, a recovering Catholic. Maybe it is because I know and love people who have faced struggles to find their happiness. Or, as my friend Ms. Mo often says, we are governed by our Calvinist impulses in a world that has gone mad for cheaper pleasures. In any case, to me the sharp pleasure of desire is about the cleansing, clarifying and sense-honing experience of wanting something. Appreciating the object of my desire, be it person, place, object or experience. Desire is one of the truest, most pure expressions of life. Breath-catching, heart-pounding, pulse-raising desire. Or, more simply, the hunger for a lovely meal, the energy that fuels us up a long hill so that we can see the view awaiting our efforts. I want. I want, want, want. I want is the opposite of bored disinterest, or of depression. It is part of what makes the knocked-down person stand right the hell up again and shake it off. I want.
Clinical depression robs a person of desire. I see commercials for the drugs to combat depression and hear their voiceover script "...who does depression hurt? Everyone." I hate those commercials, too. Fearmongering. Bah. But it is true that the reach of depression, the circle of it, is bigger than the person who is depressed. "Can't care..." that is the phrase that I "hear" in the voices and thoughts of those I love who fight depression. It's that loss of vital hunger for experience that, to me, makes it difficult for those who are defined by fiery desire and those who struggle with depression to remain connected to one another. When we can keep that in mind, it is easier to separate the person from the condition. It is not that Johnny can't care, it is that the depression makes him think he can't care. Depression is a soul-robbing, joy-stealing thing. I hate it, and I fight to understand it, and I want badly to wave my princessy wand and banish it from my world.
But I can't find the princessy wand. I think it is behind my bookcase.
Thus, in the absence of the wand, I'm guarding all my desires with huge energy. I want to dance in the dark. I want to read and write stories and essays and books that connect me to the world I know. I want to see new sights, and taste new things, and drink wine in places I've never been. I want to meet people I don't yet know, and spend moments with people I know and love. I want to not take dreams off my list.
So, fueled by my delightful breakfast smoothy and coated in sunblock, I'm off to revisit week three or four of the C25K plan, and get back on track with it.
Be well!
~plk
The heart wants what it wants, and will not be denied.
I don't know the origin of this phrase, and I despise Woody Allen for using it to defend his attraction to his step-daughter, because I think the phrase is not about taking what you want, but about acknowledging your desire, and to my ear it also implies that pretending you do not desire something does not change what you feel in your heart, or your gut. I believe in desire, in the hunger for something outside ourselves to feel pleasure, or to connect with a piece of art, or to meet some other soul in this big universe who for some shiny brief moment of perfection feels what you feel. That spark of connection sustains. It is the moment of sexual spark, certainly. But it is also the moment when you exchange glances with a person who is looking at an ocean vista, or a child who is perfectly joyful, or a painting - and knowing instantly that they see what you see. It is the moment, as a writer, when a reader feels the world on your page and is moved by it.
To me, the exquisite pleasure of desire is not always about desire fulfilled. I am, after all, a recovering Catholic. Maybe it is because I know and love people who have faced struggles to find their happiness. Or, as my friend Ms. Mo often says, we are governed by our Calvinist impulses in a world that has gone mad for cheaper pleasures. In any case, to me the sharp pleasure of desire is about the cleansing, clarifying and sense-honing experience of wanting something. Appreciating the object of my desire, be it person, place, object or experience. Desire is one of the truest, most pure expressions of life. Breath-catching, heart-pounding, pulse-raising desire. Or, more simply, the hunger for a lovely meal, the energy that fuels us up a long hill so that we can see the view awaiting our efforts. I want. I want, want, want. I want is the opposite of bored disinterest, or of depression. It is part of what makes the knocked-down person stand right the hell up again and shake it off. I want.
Clinical depression robs a person of desire. I see commercials for the drugs to combat depression and hear their voiceover script "...who does depression hurt? Everyone." I hate those commercials, too. Fearmongering. Bah. But it is true that the reach of depression, the circle of it, is bigger than the person who is depressed. "Can't care..." that is the phrase that I "hear" in the voices and thoughts of those I love who fight depression. It's that loss of vital hunger for experience that, to me, makes it difficult for those who are defined by fiery desire and those who struggle with depression to remain connected to one another. When we can keep that in mind, it is easier to separate the person from the condition. It is not that Johnny can't care, it is that the depression makes him think he can't care. Depression is a soul-robbing, joy-stealing thing. I hate it, and I fight to understand it, and I want badly to wave my princessy wand and banish it from my world.
But I can't find the princessy wand. I think it is behind my bookcase.
Thus, in the absence of the wand, I'm guarding all my desires with huge energy. I want to dance in the dark. I want to read and write stories and essays and books that connect me to the world I know. I want to see new sights, and taste new things, and drink wine in places I've never been. I want to meet people I don't yet know, and spend moments with people I know and love. I want to not take dreams off my list.
So, fueled by my delightful breakfast smoothy and coated in sunblock, I'm off to revisit week three or four of the C25K plan, and get back on track with it.
Be well!
~plk
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
No Surprise
Sometimes I am amazed by how easily we let things that matter to us slip through our fingers, lose priority. This is not a revelation. It is not even the first time I've written about it here. Yet there are moments when the realization is so bright and sharp that it feels new, and surprising, and cutting. I've not been writing. It's not a surprise. One can't work 80 hours a week, manage to do any sort of self care AND write well. Or at all. I'm sick to death of the reasons why, though. It's simple - I am just not making it a priority. I'm in a pact with a coworker to try to work less, to stake out a few nights a week where we do not work, and to try and free time for other things. The things that matter.
My trip to see my family was filled with lots of good moments. I met my grand-nephew (CUTE, and a teensy bit spoiled!), hugged everyone, laughed a lot, floated in the surf and generally enjoyed myself beach-style. When you show up, you're in the moment. That was my big learning. I didn't miss the announcement of the newest addition to the family - Becky and Luke are going to have a baby! I didn't miss the rap-star showdown between Sexy Mike and J-man. I didn't miss the chance to teach Drew how to cut an onion. I didn't miss a bunch of moments I'd otherwise have missed...and that makes me happy.
Airports can be fun. My flight home was marked by a 5 hour layover in Atlanta, where I met servicemen just home from Iraq, and talked with them about their families and a teeny bit about their experiences. I met a couple on their way to adopt a baby in Guatemala and shared their excitement over carryons crammed with baby stuff. And I watched goodbyes - some tearful, some quick and quiet. I've never been any good at goodbye. I avoid the wrench of emotion whenever I can. And as I get older, I realize that this is something I'm getting worse at. I'm ever more aware, as I go in for the goodbye clinch, of how long it will likely be before I see this person I love again. But I'm also more grateful for moments shared, and for the love that abides across long distances.
This week I've been thinking about the lives we imagine for ourselves, and the lives we lead, and how often those lives do not really resemble one another. It's my firm belief that happiness comes from loving the life you are in, and not mourning the imagined life you did not have. Sometimes that is damned difficult. Often it is. It is sometimes easier to give up the big dreams than the small ones, the ones you hold tightest. But this week I've also been thinking about the love of parents for children - and have been considering how much more difficult it seems to be to give up the dreamed-of life for a child and celebrate the life they actually have. But you can't do both - you can't celebrate the moment that is and mourn the moment that is not without sacrificing some joy. I often think of what my parents would see in my life, and what they would either celebrate, scold or mourn in my choices. Not in a maudlin or sad way, simply in a way to connect with their memories (and sometimes to motivate myself to make a damned decision!). I can't know yet whether my life will remain childless, but I know that my wisdom about parenting is deepened by watching the difficult choices of the parents I know. My wisdom about the human heart, and what keeps me believing in people is deepened, too.
The sun is setting in a colorful show on the other side of "my" golf course, and the air is cooling in our city on the edge of the desert. I'm going to have a glass of wine on my deck, and maybe dance in the grass to my iPod.
Celebrate something small this week. Please.
~ patti
My trip to see my family was filled with lots of good moments. I met my grand-nephew (CUTE, and a teensy bit spoiled!), hugged everyone, laughed a lot, floated in the surf and generally enjoyed myself beach-style. When you show up, you're in the moment. That was my big learning. I didn't miss the announcement of the newest addition to the family - Becky and Luke are going to have a baby! I didn't miss the rap-star showdown between Sexy Mike and J-man. I didn't miss the chance to teach Drew how to cut an onion. I didn't miss a bunch of moments I'd otherwise have missed...and that makes me happy.
Airports can be fun. My flight home was marked by a 5 hour layover in Atlanta, where I met servicemen just home from Iraq, and talked with them about their families and a teeny bit about their experiences. I met a couple on their way to adopt a baby in Guatemala and shared their excitement over carryons crammed with baby stuff. And I watched goodbyes - some tearful, some quick and quiet. I've never been any good at goodbye. I avoid the wrench of emotion whenever I can. And as I get older, I realize that this is something I'm getting worse at. I'm ever more aware, as I go in for the goodbye clinch, of how long it will likely be before I see this person I love again. But I'm also more grateful for moments shared, and for the love that abides across long distances.
This week I've been thinking about the lives we imagine for ourselves, and the lives we lead, and how often those lives do not really resemble one another. It's my firm belief that happiness comes from loving the life you are in, and not mourning the imagined life you did not have. Sometimes that is damned difficult. Often it is. It is sometimes easier to give up the big dreams than the small ones, the ones you hold tightest. But this week I've also been thinking about the love of parents for children - and have been considering how much more difficult it seems to be to give up the dreamed-of life for a child and celebrate the life they actually have. But you can't do both - you can't celebrate the moment that is and mourn the moment that is not without sacrificing some joy. I often think of what my parents would see in my life, and what they would either celebrate, scold or mourn in my choices. Not in a maudlin or sad way, simply in a way to connect with their memories (and sometimes to motivate myself to make a damned decision!). I can't know yet whether my life will remain childless, but I know that my wisdom about parenting is deepened by watching the difficult choices of the parents I know. My wisdom about the human heart, and what keeps me believing in people is deepened, too.
The sun is setting in a colorful show on the other side of "my" golf course, and the air is cooling in our city on the edge of the desert. I'm going to have a glass of wine on my deck, and maybe dance in the grass to my iPod.
Celebrate something small this week. Please.
~ patti
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Choices, Decisions and Considerations
I have a great cup of coffee, have stretched the soreness out of my knee and am planning a day of things I want to do and things I need to do. It's all good.
This week was an interesting one in several ways. After months of being very good at making exercise a priority, this week I only walked twice and danced once. And I felt sluggish and out of sorts as a result. But it made me consider the idea that everything is a choice. I know this, it's not a revelatory moment. Every day we choose a hundred times before we even leave the house. What to drink, whether to breakfast, whether to read the news or browse The Onion for humor, what to wear and with which shoes - a series of choices.
It occurs to me that some people, perhaps many people, often recognize those tiny decisions as "choice" but don't recognize that each day we are remaking our life decisions, too. We are all choosing, each one of us, every day that we remain in our job, our city, our house, our relationships, our routines. Routines, after all, are only a set of decisions that we made once and decided not to rethink. Habits are ingrained routines - but all habits began as choices. Maybe 'recognize' is the wrong word. Consider might be better. We tend to see the life decisions as done deals, and the fact is we can rethink and remake any one of them at almost any moment.
This means every single day I choose to be where I am, doing what I am doing. Even those things that feel compulsory are choices - it's just a question of accepting consequence. For me, a hyper-responsible woman living in a world that rewards that particular set of choices with an ever increasing set of responsibilities, this is a very clarifying idea. As my friend Ms. Mo says, some people have heavier donkey burdens to bear. I think a corollary to that is the fact that some people make choices that add weight, and sometimes those choices are not recognized as choices.
Choice is freedom, and freedom is good.
Today I'm choosing to take a walk, work on some domestica and errands, maybe plant some flowers, practice my bellydance and read.
Be well!
~ plk
This week was an interesting one in several ways. After months of being very good at making exercise a priority, this week I only walked twice and danced once. And I felt sluggish and out of sorts as a result. But it made me consider the idea that everything is a choice. I know this, it's not a revelatory moment. Every day we choose a hundred times before we even leave the house. What to drink, whether to breakfast, whether to read the news or browse The Onion for humor, what to wear and with which shoes - a series of choices.
It occurs to me that some people, perhaps many people, often recognize those tiny decisions as "choice" but don't recognize that each day we are remaking our life decisions, too. We are all choosing, each one of us, every day that we remain in our job, our city, our house, our relationships, our routines. Routines, after all, are only a set of decisions that we made once and decided not to rethink. Habits are ingrained routines - but all habits began as choices. Maybe 'recognize' is the wrong word. Consider might be better. We tend to see the life decisions as done deals, and the fact is we can rethink and remake any one of them at almost any moment.
This means every single day I choose to be where I am, doing what I am doing. Even those things that feel compulsory are choices - it's just a question of accepting consequence. For me, a hyper-responsible woman living in a world that rewards that particular set of choices with an ever increasing set of responsibilities, this is a very clarifying idea. As my friend Ms. Mo says, some people have heavier donkey burdens to bear. I think a corollary to that is the fact that some people make choices that add weight, and sometimes those choices are not recognized as choices.
Choice is freedom, and freedom is good.
Today I'm choosing to take a walk, work on some domestica and errands, maybe plant some flowers, practice my bellydance and read.
Be well!
~ plk
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Checking In
If you're reading this, I want to thank you for checking in when I've been so long absent. These posts give me balance when I need it, so I'm going to try, again, to keep making them.
You know what makes me impatient? (That was rhetorical, no need to post a list....I'm actually a very strange combination of very patient and rather impatient.) People who say they are bored. This makes me impatient. Seriously - I have always had a hundred ways I wanted to spend each day, all vying for my attention and focus. I have a hundred stories I'd like to write, a hundred books I'd like to read, a hundred places I'd like to roadtrip, a hundred meals I'd like to prepare, a hundred (okay a dozen or two) people I'd like to spend the day with, a hundred hikes...
Please. Bored? Get out of my sight. So, given that, here is what makes me laugh, ruefully: I know how I need to fill my days to make my soul sing, I know how I need to structure my days if I ever hope to write prose worth reading, I know when I need to exercise to keep myself calm and focused and happy - and yet. Do I do these things? I do not. Instead, I let the world's clamor for my attention distract me from myself, and as a result I am less happy, less effective and less filled with the joy of a life being lived. Bah.
That's what is on my mind today. Babysteps to find that structure and focus are what I'm trying now. Wish me luck.
I apparently never posted the fact that I have braces. Hunh. Well, I do. I've had a gap forever, and it became crooked....and so now I have braces because the very charming and smart orthodontist didn't pressure me, simply confronted me with logic and "the right thing to do..." language. Also he reads literature, so I was sold. And, honestly, he and his office manager are bright spots of warmth and normalcy in the crazy life I've been leading of late. So while I dislike the pain and absolutely LONG to bite into something that isn't cut into small pieces, I'm going to be pleased with the result and I'm going to count the opportunity to meet the good doctor and the lovely Michelle among the gains for the pain.
My garden is beginning to take my energy and time again - and the lack of effort I put in last summer and fall is showing in the lackluster look this spring. I'd planned to hit the dirt this weekend and work a billion pounds of compost into the beds, but instead it rained and instead I cleaned and organized indoors.
I'm avoiding the topic of work. Let us simply say that it is too large a proportion of my life at the moment. And I work with fabulous people who are in the same boat, and we are all trying to find a way to balance it. I think we will.
I'm teaching on Monday nights this semester, and while that seemed great when I first saw the schedule, I've had a difficult time because so many of our university holidays are on Monday. We lost several weeks of class, so the class has been in a bit of a makeup mode all semester. Only a few more weeks and we'll see how they do! But teaching reminds me to read my favorite stories. When I do that, I remember why it is that a story like Dubus' "A Father's Story" is so important in the world.
The Couch to 5K plan was going swimmingly until my knee began to bother me, and that led me to the foot doctor/knee doctor, who concluded that I have either an overdeveloped quadricep or an underdeveloped hamstring from biking so much. Blahblahblah....net/net, the direction is to run VERY SLOWLY to build the hamstring. Argh. I hate running slowly. So much that I want to not bother and just go back to my walking routine. Except I am too stubborn. My bellydance class is now much more fun - we have more women, the sad/cranky/angry woman left the group and a bunch of fun and energetic new women joined, and it is just a lot more fun now. I missed class ONCE, and came back to news that "we" might be performing at an event in July. Now....I've always said I wouldn't perform, this is just for fun, just for me, just to make myself at least look with kindness on my abdomen. But it has turned into something else, I think. It's the first "group" I've been a part of that was not about debate, speech, drama or singing. It's a performance where none of my verbal skills or IQ points matters a bit. It is a celebration of women's bodies and of movement. And in some ways this is the same impulse making me want to run a 5K race, or train for a sprint triathlon - I want to test myself in a different way. So, maybe I will do it. We'll see.
Miss Allison, if you read this please know that I'm thinking of you and that I wish I'd thrown caution to the wind and bought the damned ticket. I SO wish I could hug you on your day.
It is spring, and we are in the season of unfettered growth, of plants bursting nearly fully formed from the soil. Harness some of that energy!
Let the priorities rise.
~patti
You know what makes me impatient? (That was rhetorical, no need to post a list....I'm actually a very strange combination of very patient and rather impatient.) People who say they are bored. This makes me impatient. Seriously - I have always had a hundred ways I wanted to spend each day, all vying for my attention and focus. I have a hundred stories I'd like to write, a hundred books I'd like to read, a hundred places I'd like to roadtrip, a hundred meals I'd like to prepare, a hundred (okay a dozen or two) people I'd like to spend the day with, a hundred hikes...
Please. Bored? Get out of my sight. So, given that, here is what makes me laugh, ruefully: I know how I need to fill my days to make my soul sing, I know how I need to structure my days if I ever hope to write prose worth reading, I know when I need to exercise to keep myself calm and focused and happy - and yet. Do I do these things? I do not. Instead, I let the world's clamor for my attention distract me from myself, and as a result I am less happy, less effective and less filled with the joy of a life being lived. Bah.
That's what is on my mind today. Babysteps to find that structure and focus are what I'm trying now. Wish me luck.
I apparently never posted the fact that I have braces. Hunh. Well, I do. I've had a gap forever, and it became crooked....and so now I have braces because the very charming and smart orthodontist didn't pressure me, simply confronted me with logic and "the right thing to do..." language. Also he reads literature, so I was sold. And, honestly, he and his office manager are bright spots of warmth and normalcy in the crazy life I've been leading of late. So while I dislike the pain and absolutely LONG to bite into something that isn't cut into small pieces, I'm going to be pleased with the result and I'm going to count the opportunity to meet the good doctor and the lovely Michelle among the gains for the pain.
My garden is beginning to take my energy and time again - and the lack of effort I put in last summer and fall is showing in the lackluster look this spring. I'd planned to hit the dirt this weekend and work a billion pounds of compost into the beds, but instead it rained and instead I cleaned and organized indoors.
I'm avoiding the topic of work. Let us simply say that it is too large a proportion of my life at the moment. And I work with fabulous people who are in the same boat, and we are all trying to find a way to balance it. I think we will.
I'm teaching on Monday nights this semester, and while that seemed great when I first saw the schedule, I've had a difficult time because so many of our university holidays are on Monday. We lost several weeks of class, so the class has been in a bit of a makeup mode all semester. Only a few more weeks and we'll see how they do! But teaching reminds me to read my favorite stories. When I do that, I remember why it is that a story like Dubus' "A Father's Story" is so important in the world.
The Couch to 5K plan was going swimmingly until my knee began to bother me, and that led me to the foot doctor/knee doctor, who concluded that I have either an overdeveloped quadricep or an underdeveloped hamstring from biking so much. Blahblahblah....net/net, the direction is to run VERY SLOWLY to build the hamstring. Argh. I hate running slowly. So much that I want to not bother and just go back to my walking routine. Except I am too stubborn. My bellydance class is now much more fun - we have more women, the sad/cranky/angry woman left the group and a bunch of fun and energetic new women joined, and it is just a lot more fun now. I missed class ONCE, and came back to news that "we" might be performing at an event in July. Now....I've always said I wouldn't perform, this is just for fun, just for me, just to make myself at least look with kindness on my abdomen. But it has turned into something else, I think. It's the first "group" I've been a part of that was not about debate, speech, drama or singing. It's a performance where none of my verbal skills or IQ points matters a bit. It is a celebration of women's bodies and of movement. And in some ways this is the same impulse making me want to run a 5K race, or train for a sprint triathlon - I want to test myself in a different way. So, maybe I will do it. We'll see.
Miss Allison, if you read this please know that I'm thinking of you and that I wish I'd thrown caution to the wind and bought the damned ticket. I SO wish I could hug you on your day.
It is spring, and we are in the season of unfettered growth, of plants bursting nearly fully formed from the soil. Harness some of that energy!
Let the priorities rise.
~patti
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Let the Priorities Rise
Today as I was running my baby-steps-but-someday-a-5k-will-be-possible workout, I found myself quite happy. It has been a rough couple of weeks, and I still have a lot of backed up tasks and to-do's on my plate, but as is usually true in such times the important things are small and physical and real.
Let the priorities rise. That's my mantra this week, and for the next several.
A friend of mine died this week. Suzie was a friend I'd made at work a number of years ago, a friendship complicated by the heightened tensions of a workplace that was very psychologically unhealthy, and by my role as her boss. Until recently, she and I had not spoken for years, not since I left that job and she found that her loyalties were divided (inappropriately, and I feel partially responsible for that) because of the circumstances around my leaving. It was an ugly time, and it was not a time I'm proud of. But we are humans who screw up, and leaving that job was one of the best things that has happened to me as a person - I learned so much about myself, and it freed me to realign my goals and realize several of them.
But I digress. Two weeks ago, after Suzie received her final diagnosis from her doctor, she phoned. I returned her call, and as easily as we had halted our friendship, we resumed it. There were apologies, and tears, and laughter. The next night I went to see her, and she was so sick - but her eyes were the same huge pools of blue and her laugh was as easy as ever. She told me her stories of that workplace I'd left, and they were predictably maddening. She told me her plans for her service, in some detail. She lit up like a lantern when she described her grandchild. And now, it's days later and she is gone. Quietly, in her sleep. She was 57.
Do you ever feel the universe is trying to tell you something - insistently? Do you ever feel that you are stubborn for not listening, or stupid for not obeying, or dense for not understanding? Do you ever wonder if all the time we spend trying to figure out the connections, the message, the lesson, would be better spent simply picking up the phone and reconnecting with people we've let slip from our lives?
As is my wont these days, all of the moments that are difficult i am also finding clarifying. There is clarity in seeing pettiness, in recognizing mistakes I've made, in opening myself to the reality that this life is the only one we're assured of.
Be well, and let the priorities rise in your own lives.
~ patti
Let the priorities rise. That's my mantra this week, and for the next several.
A friend of mine died this week. Suzie was a friend I'd made at work a number of years ago, a friendship complicated by the heightened tensions of a workplace that was very psychologically unhealthy, and by my role as her boss. Until recently, she and I had not spoken for years, not since I left that job and she found that her loyalties were divided (inappropriately, and I feel partially responsible for that) because of the circumstances around my leaving. It was an ugly time, and it was not a time I'm proud of. But we are humans who screw up, and leaving that job was one of the best things that has happened to me as a person - I learned so much about myself, and it freed me to realign my goals and realize several of them.
But I digress. Two weeks ago, after Suzie received her final diagnosis from her doctor, she phoned. I returned her call, and as easily as we had halted our friendship, we resumed it. There were apologies, and tears, and laughter. The next night I went to see her, and she was so sick - but her eyes were the same huge pools of blue and her laugh was as easy as ever. She told me her stories of that workplace I'd left, and they were predictably maddening. She told me her plans for her service, in some detail. She lit up like a lantern when she described her grandchild. And now, it's days later and she is gone. Quietly, in her sleep. She was 57.
Do you ever feel the universe is trying to tell you something - insistently? Do you ever feel that you are stubborn for not listening, or stupid for not obeying, or dense for not understanding? Do you ever wonder if all the time we spend trying to figure out the connections, the message, the lesson, would be better spent simply picking up the phone and reconnecting with people we've let slip from our lives?
As is my wont these days, all of the moments that are difficult i am also finding clarifying. There is clarity in seeing pettiness, in recognizing mistakes I've made, in opening myself to the reality that this life is the only one we're assured of.
Be well, and let the priorities rise in your own lives.
~ patti
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Living Well
I've missed writing these. My commitments are excessive, and I need to make this a priority anyway.
On Valentine's Day, we lost someone unexpectedly. Tom Otto, my brother in law, died unexpectedly while visiting Arkansas. His funeral was last Tuesday, and it still seems surreal to imagine him gone. I spoke with Denise, his wife, on Saturday, and in her voice I could hear how unreal it still feels, despite the fact that she is now home. She was telling me of several other calamities, and one other death, and we both laughed a bit ruefully - it's enough, already. Tom's humor and his stubbornness, his chuckle and his wry humor when dealing with things that frustrated him, those are the things I will remember. His smile was contagious. He lived well and raised a beautiful daughter who will make him proud forever. He leaves a big hole, and the world a better place for his having passed through it. And though I know the adult in me made the right decision in not racing to Arkansas for a whirlwind trip, I wish heartily that I could hug Denise, and Katie. Denise in a crisis reminded me of the many strong, capable, get-it-done women I love so much. The ones who just take care of business and then make potato salad for 30, because it needs done.
There are two things that I want to write about tonight, thinking of this. One is that we never know when we will be taken, and so we all need to live without regrets, and especially without delay. Do not delay your life until it is a more convenient time, a "better time" - do it now. Do it now, not out of fear that you may not have the chance, but out of pure hungry desire to live every day fully. Not out of fear, though. Never from fear. Follow your heart, make space for what makes your heart sing. Don't wait for the world to arrange itself so that you can, just make it happen.
The other thing I want to write about is the act of facing a fear. I've been on a bit of a journey the last few years, on a mission to face down the things that I avoid out of fear. Most of those things, in my little head, are physical. I've long trusted my brain, my ability to speak well and easily, to argue effectively, to make others laugh, to solve difficult problems. My fears are around physical things - dancing "with intention" as I do when I bellydance is one fear I'm facing. It is also mixed up with the fear of being judged for the way I look. And another is running. I'm all good with hiking, walking, biking and now with bellydancing (though NOT yet with performing). But running...it was off my list. I was too uhm...curvy. Too heavy and too curvy and my knee might get hurt and I'm not the athletic one and....yeah.
So when I realized my stock statement about running ("I'm just not built for it.") was actually a copout, since I have never actually tried to run, I decided it had to go on the blasted list. Dammit. So I started this program called the Couch to 5K. I'm not a couch person. I've been walking 3.5-4 miles a day most days since...a long time. But this program is very gradual. It mixes running segments with walking segments, gradually increasing the time you spend running until, by the end of the 9th week, you are running 5K, or 30 minutes. Yay! I'm not going to make it in 9 weeks, let's just get comfy with that reality right now. I'm running, though. A tiny bit, but I didn't give up even when my knees hurt and I really wanted to give up. So I'm on my third iteration of week 1, and I think by next Saturday I'll be ready for Week 2. It turns out I need more walking and much more stretching before the walking/running segments.
How is this important enough to be in the same post as losing Tom? Easy - this is one less missed opportunity on my lifebook, and one less fear standing between me and the clarity I'm trying to find.
Be well, and make some space this week to let your heart sing.
~patti
On Valentine's Day, we lost someone unexpectedly. Tom Otto, my brother in law, died unexpectedly while visiting Arkansas. His funeral was last Tuesday, and it still seems surreal to imagine him gone. I spoke with Denise, his wife, on Saturday, and in her voice I could hear how unreal it still feels, despite the fact that she is now home. She was telling me of several other calamities, and one other death, and we both laughed a bit ruefully - it's enough, already. Tom's humor and his stubbornness, his chuckle and his wry humor when dealing with things that frustrated him, those are the things I will remember. His smile was contagious. He lived well and raised a beautiful daughter who will make him proud forever. He leaves a big hole, and the world a better place for his having passed through it. And though I know the adult in me made the right decision in not racing to Arkansas for a whirlwind trip, I wish heartily that I could hug Denise, and Katie. Denise in a crisis reminded me of the many strong, capable, get-it-done women I love so much. The ones who just take care of business and then make potato salad for 30, because it needs done.
There are two things that I want to write about tonight, thinking of this. One is that we never know when we will be taken, and so we all need to live without regrets, and especially without delay. Do not delay your life until it is a more convenient time, a "better time" - do it now. Do it now, not out of fear that you may not have the chance, but out of pure hungry desire to live every day fully. Not out of fear, though. Never from fear. Follow your heart, make space for what makes your heart sing. Don't wait for the world to arrange itself so that you can, just make it happen.
The other thing I want to write about is the act of facing a fear. I've been on a bit of a journey the last few years, on a mission to face down the things that I avoid out of fear. Most of those things, in my little head, are physical. I've long trusted my brain, my ability to speak well and easily, to argue effectively, to make others laugh, to solve difficult problems. My fears are around physical things - dancing "with intention" as I do when I bellydance is one fear I'm facing. It is also mixed up with the fear of being judged for the way I look. And another is running. I'm all good with hiking, walking, biking and now with bellydancing (though NOT yet with performing). But running...it was off my list. I was too uhm...curvy. Too heavy and too curvy and my knee might get hurt and I'm not the athletic one and....yeah.
So when I realized my stock statement about running ("I'm just not built for it.") was actually a copout, since I have never actually tried to run, I decided it had to go on the blasted list. Dammit. So I started this program called the Couch to 5K. I'm not a couch person. I've been walking 3.5-4 miles a day most days since...a long time. But this program is very gradual. It mixes running segments with walking segments, gradually increasing the time you spend running until, by the end of the 9th week, you are running 5K, or 30 minutes. Yay! I'm not going to make it in 9 weeks, let's just get comfy with that reality right now. I'm running, though. A tiny bit, but I didn't give up even when my knees hurt and I really wanted to give up. So I'm on my third iteration of week 1, and I think by next Saturday I'll be ready for Week 2. It turns out I need more walking and much more stretching before the walking/running segments.
How is this important enough to be in the same post as losing Tom? Easy - this is one less missed opportunity on my lifebook, and one less fear standing between me and the clarity I'm trying to find.
Be well, and make some space this week to let your heart sing.
~patti
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Choose
It's snowing in Boise! We had a little skiff of snow yesterday when I went out for my walk, just enough to blow about a little. But when I was a block from home it began snowing more heavily, and soon I was abominable snow Patti. I stopped every half-mile or so to brush off the flakes and shake out my hair, and it was very smile-worthy. And I walked 8000 steps, which is a bit over 4 miles for me. Today the snow is really falling, we have accumulation and the world is frosted in white. Sigh.
Yes....I have a step counter. I'm not sure I mentioned that here. I'm wearing this bodybugg thing that measures your calorie burn and steps (which for the most part is not all that effective for me). The very accurate step counter IS motivating.
So. On the deck at the moment is my Christmas tree. It is a fake. I'm mildly morally opposed to fake Christmas trees, but I'm also very very aware of not pushing myself too hard. As a result, I went Christmas tree shopping yesterday, and came home not with the fresh smelling fir that I normally select, but with an artificial, pre-lit fir in a big box. I was trying to wrestle the damned thing into my Explorer in the parking lot when a nice guy nearby came and saved me. Probably he was laughing on the inside, but he was just plain helpful on the outside. And that experience made me smile, too.
Don't overcommit. That is my current motto. Choose. It's hard to do that everywhere, maybe hardest to do at work. At work there are so many competing needs, and I am relatively certain that those needs would not be equally prioritized by everyone who might want to vote. But...I still need to choose. And I am. In my personal life, choosing is clearer, if I stay mindful of the fact that a choice exists. Fancy dinner, or take that time to exercise? Read a book or watch a movie? Decorate for Christmas, or not? It is amazing how the awareness of choice calms me. Amazing.
My bellydance classes are now at the studio. We are putting together step combinations, not so much a scripted dance (though that will come, I am told) but step combinations that work. It's so very much fun. I find myself dancing all the time now, hearing the correct rhythm pattern in a song on my iPod and dancing - three-quarter shimmy to Melissa Etheridge, or Bryan Adams, or....well, almost anything. It is goooood.
But I digress. The studio classes are smaller, and that means more chitchat with the other dancers. The woman who knocked me down last week is 28, it turns out. She was surprised by my age, and the other (supertense!) woman standing nearby said "you don't have kids - and anyone who doesn't have kids has no idea how hard life can be." My eyebrows hit my hairline, and I opened my mouth but did not say anything. Supertense woman is an interesting case. She is in her 40's, married, very tense and her parents buy her things that she shows us - like her new Cadillac SUV. She is...unhappy. Visually, clearly and in every line of her body unhappy.
Her comment reminded me of a Thanksgiving I once spent with my friend Carol, her mother and her now-ex husband. I was in a great mood, and I was making everyone laugh. He was laughing as hard as anyone, but at some point he said - "only someone who is deeply unhappy can be as funny as you are." And I felt defensive, and then I felt sad for him. The truth is something else, I think. Difficult things happen to you, and you can choose to stretch your schema a bit. You can either shift your whole "potential for happiness" range down, to allow for the new bad thing that has happened to fit in your range, or you can stretch your range. In other words, if something that bad can happen, there must be an even higher high that can happen. That is what I believe. I think my earliest life, with parents who truly believed I could do anything (except sports!) and who made me believe it, too - that set me up to be the person I am. And, too, I am of the opinion that the experience of loss or hurt or pain can give you a fresh and sharp perspective on what is at risk, what you should celebrate having in your life. Nothing is permanent, everything changes. That hurts, and at the very same instant it reveals opportunity and joy in every tiny shift.
So, to that cranky now-ex-husband I say - I'm sorry that you could not believe sadness could transform someone into having a greater capacity for pure joy. To supertense woman I say - stretch a little and own some of your unhappiness, so that you can change it. To the charming 28-year-old-with-THREE-left feet I say - life will send you dificult things, deal with them and let them sharpen your appreciation of good things. And to the universe? I'm thankful that my experiences have made me perhaps sometimes-tired, but not bitter. I'm grateful that somehow, despite everything, the way I look seems to suggest to others that I've led a life without pain or loss.
So while it has been a very rough year for everyone, I am very very lucky in many ways. So while I'm decorating my well-lit and unscented Christmas tree, I'll light a "glistening snow" candle and practice some threequarter shimmies to Celtic harp music. I'll wish I could hug the people I love who are far away, and bake them brown sugar shortbread cookies, or other buttery delights. I'll send them good thoughts.
Hug 'em if you've got 'em. :)
~ patti
Yes....I have a step counter. I'm not sure I mentioned that here. I'm wearing this bodybugg thing that measures your calorie burn and steps (which for the most part is not all that effective for me). The very accurate step counter IS motivating.
So. On the deck at the moment is my Christmas tree. It is a fake. I'm mildly morally opposed to fake Christmas trees, but I'm also very very aware of not pushing myself too hard. As a result, I went Christmas tree shopping yesterday, and came home not with the fresh smelling fir that I normally select, but with an artificial, pre-lit fir in a big box. I was trying to wrestle the damned thing into my Explorer in the parking lot when a nice guy nearby came and saved me. Probably he was laughing on the inside, but he was just plain helpful on the outside. And that experience made me smile, too.
Don't overcommit. That is my current motto. Choose. It's hard to do that everywhere, maybe hardest to do at work. At work there are so many competing needs, and I am relatively certain that those needs would not be equally prioritized by everyone who might want to vote. But...I still need to choose. And I am. In my personal life, choosing is clearer, if I stay mindful of the fact that a choice exists. Fancy dinner, or take that time to exercise? Read a book or watch a movie? Decorate for Christmas, or not? It is amazing how the awareness of choice calms me. Amazing.
My bellydance classes are now at the studio. We are putting together step combinations, not so much a scripted dance (though that will come, I am told) but step combinations that work. It's so very much fun. I find myself dancing all the time now, hearing the correct rhythm pattern in a song on my iPod and dancing - three-quarter shimmy to Melissa Etheridge, or Bryan Adams, or....well, almost anything. It is goooood.
But I digress. The studio classes are smaller, and that means more chitchat with the other dancers. The woman who knocked me down last week is 28, it turns out. She was surprised by my age, and the other (supertense!) woman standing nearby said "you don't have kids - and anyone who doesn't have kids has no idea how hard life can be." My eyebrows hit my hairline, and I opened my mouth but did not say anything. Supertense woman is an interesting case. She is in her 40's, married, very tense and her parents buy her things that she shows us - like her new Cadillac SUV. She is...unhappy. Visually, clearly and in every line of her body unhappy.
Her comment reminded me of a Thanksgiving I once spent with my friend Carol, her mother and her now-ex husband. I was in a great mood, and I was making everyone laugh. He was laughing as hard as anyone, but at some point he said - "only someone who is deeply unhappy can be as funny as you are." And I felt defensive, and then I felt sad for him. The truth is something else, I think. Difficult things happen to you, and you can choose to stretch your schema a bit. You can either shift your whole "potential for happiness" range down, to allow for the new bad thing that has happened to fit in your range, or you can stretch your range. In other words, if something that bad can happen, there must be an even higher high that can happen. That is what I believe. I think my earliest life, with parents who truly believed I could do anything (except sports!) and who made me believe it, too - that set me up to be the person I am. And, too, I am of the opinion that the experience of loss or hurt or pain can give you a fresh and sharp perspective on what is at risk, what you should celebrate having in your life. Nothing is permanent, everything changes. That hurts, and at the very same instant it reveals opportunity and joy in every tiny shift.
So, to that cranky now-ex-husband I say - I'm sorry that you could not believe sadness could transform someone into having a greater capacity for pure joy. To supertense woman I say - stretch a little and own some of your unhappiness, so that you can change it. To the charming 28-year-old-with-THREE-left feet I say - life will send you dificult things, deal with them and let them sharpen your appreciation of good things. And to the universe? I'm thankful that my experiences have made me perhaps sometimes-tired, but not bitter. I'm grateful that somehow, despite everything, the way I look seems to suggest to others that I've led a life without pain or loss.
So while it has been a very rough year for everyone, I am very very lucky in many ways. So while I'm decorating my well-lit and unscented Christmas tree, I'll light a "glistening snow" candle and practice some threequarter shimmies to Celtic harp music. I'll wish I could hug the people I love who are far away, and bake them brown sugar shortbread cookies, or other buttery delights. I'll send them good thoughts.
Hug 'em if you've got 'em. :)
~ patti
Friday, December 5, 2008
Clearing the Fog
Four signs that your life needs to be reordered:
What was important about this week? I accepted a few things that I cannot change. I made time to walk, and made moving my body a priority. I danced, and it was fabulous, and bought music for my Ipod so I can dance with abandon wherever I might be, whenever I care to. My black boots that were once too tight are now not. Yay. My shimmies are faster and more sure, and my egyptian basic steps are snappppy now that the swivel feels easy. Yay.
Last weekend I watched the Kurosawa film "Ran" - it's very interesting. It's a retelling of King Lear, in Japan, with amazing costumes and complicated, bloody battle scenes...and quieter, more chilling scenes of a scheming woman who brings the brothers to their deaths. The film feels long, but certainly worth the investment of minutes. What I am still thinking about, a week later, is the intense and impressive way that Kurosawa used colors - the scenes are saturated with the colors of the landscape, the uniforms of the armies, the blood of the fallen.
This week I went to the orthodontist to have him do impressions of my teeth. I have this gap, see. And of course, he sees other issues, and he wants to make my mouth perfect. Which would require two years of braces, probably. Ehh. I made him laugh (he reads literature! I quizzed him!) and by the end of the appointment he agreed that he would give me not two quotes/treatment options, but three. The right way, the maybe not so perfect but still clinically pretty great way, and "a twist and orthodontic bondo." See - I kind of like my gap. But I don't like that it has become crooked since one of my wisdom teeth was extracted. It should be interesting, both hearing the options and whether I go for it or not.
Have you ever had someone thoughtlessly hurt your feelings, unintentionally, and had a flash of shame that YOU had certainly done that to someone else at some point? Something in my personality makes people feel comfortable enough with me to let down their guard, and let me just say, sometimes that's not all that great for ME. With some people, I'd like to see that guard stay up. High. Because the things that come out of their mouths make me like them less, or make me like me less, or make me like the reality of my life less - well, you see the pattern. For some reason, I do not always kick those people out of my life. Do I keep them around to remind me to be careful with the feelings of others? I truly do not know. But I'm not sure that it's a healthy habit.
It seems to me that my criteria for allowing people into my life is skewed, that I need to rethink the process I use to decide who will be invited into my life, to gift with my time and care. Basic "niceness" aside, these are essentially decisions about how we spend our lives. Those decisions should be active - people I choose to give my minutes should be selected, the way I once decided actively how to spend my days at work, and after. The people who only take, who remember to give only when prompted, who are too insecure or greedy to give until they get - they may be familiar personalities to me, but they are not good for me. Not at all.
The clarity of that realization was my gift this week. Something in the way Kurosawa aimed his camera, the unblinking and relentless view of truth - it reminded me that not looking is a decision we can't afford to make. Clearing the fog, recognizing the truly required and what only clamors to be so - that was my gift.
Have I mentioned that it was a brutal week?
This weekend is going to be one to recharge and regroup. Wish me luck!
~ patti
- You feel as though your life is seriously out of sorts, but you can't find even an evening, or an afternoon, to sort it.
- The bookshelf has a stack of unread and promising titles, and you literally cannot choose one.
- You find yourself so frustrated that you well up.
- You can't remember the last time you didn't feel behind. Very behind.
What was important about this week? I accepted a few things that I cannot change. I made time to walk, and made moving my body a priority. I danced, and it was fabulous, and bought music for my Ipod so I can dance with abandon wherever I might be, whenever I care to. My black boots that were once too tight are now not. Yay. My shimmies are faster and more sure, and my egyptian basic steps are snappppy now that the swivel feels easy. Yay.
Last weekend I watched the Kurosawa film "Ran" - it's very interesting. It's a retelling of King Lear, in Japan, with amazing costumes and complicated, bloody battle scenes...and quieter, more chilling scenes of a scheming woman who brings the brothers to their deaths. The film feels long, but certainly worth the investment of minutes. What I am still thinking about, a week later, is the intense and impressive way that Kurosawa used colors - the scenes are saturated with the colors of the landscape, the uniforms of the armies, the blood of the fallen.
This week I went to the orthodontist to have him do impressions of my teeth. I have this gap, see. And of course, he sees other issues, and he wants to make my mouth perfect. Which would require two years of braces, probably. Ehh. I made him laugh (he reads literature! I quizzed him!) and by the end of the appointment he agreed that he would give me not two quotes/treatment options, but three. The right way, the maybe not so perfect but still clinically pretty great way, and "a twist and orthodontic bondo." See - I kind of like my gap. But I don't like that it has become crooked since one of my wisdom teeth was extracted. It should be interesting, both hearing the options and whether I go for it or not.
Have you ever had someone thoughtlessly hurt your feelings, unintentionally, and had a flash of shame that YOU had certainly done that to someone else at some point? Something in my personality makes people feel comfortable enough with me to let down their guard, and let me just say, sometimes that's not all that great for ME. With some people, I'd like to see that guard stay up. High. Because the things that come out of their mouths make me like them less, or make me like me less, or make me like the reality of my life less - well, you see the pattern. For some reason, I do not always kick those people out of my life. Do I keep them around to remind me to be careful with the feelings of others? I truly do not know. But I'm not sure that it's a healthy habit.
It seems to me that my criteria for allowing people into my life is skewed, that I need to rethink the process I use to decide who will be invited into my life, to gift with my time and care. Basic "niceness" aside, these are essentially decisions about how we spend our lives. Those decisions should be active - people I choose to give my minutes should be selected, the way I once decided actively how to spend my days at work, and after. The people who only take, who remember to give only when prompted, who are too insecure or greedy to give until they get - they may be familiar personalities to me, but they are not good for me. Not at all.
The clarity of that realization was my gift this week. Something in the way Kurosawa aimed his camera, the unblinking and relentless view of truth - it reminded me that not looking is a decision we can't afford to make. Clearing the fog, recognizing the truly required and what only clamors to be so - that was my gift.
Have I mentioned that it was a brutal week?
This weekend is going to be one to recharge and regroup. Wish me luck!
~ patti
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Nearly December
It is a gray November day in my corner of the world, cold but not frigid. Soon I need to drag my buttkus out and walk, but I'm enjoying taking a Saturday to do as I please. French press coffee, a novel, curled up in my still-feels-new study on a comfy chair with my spoiled rotten fluffball of a feline on my lap and quiet Celtic music on Itunes. Yay.
I finished readng the Ondaatje novel Divisadero this morning. It reminded me of some things. That fictional memories, to feel true, have to be about some small moment that surprises us and feel real, if inexplicable. Plot turns on big moments, but people are created in small ones on the page. I forget that, and remember it, and forget it again. My own natural voice is for the vivid small moments, my stories contructed around wafer-thin plots. I am picking apart the Ondaatje in my head, determining how he moved the story lines forward without having his plot obliterate the small lovely moments he renders.
It feels pretty fabulous to be thinking about plot. Whew.
It would have been nice to take the long weekend, but instead I worked yesterday and finished some things that I wanted to. Not as many as I would have liked. I'll likely do some work tonight, or possibly tomorrow. Here is the thing: there are not only too many priorities in my life (writing, working, household minutiae, working, dancing, weight loss....did I mention working?) but there are too many priorities within each category. The number of priorities I'm juggling in my job is becoming a source of almost-hilarity - or is that hysteria? But if I can nudge a few of them forward this weekend, maybe sometime soon I can hand a couple over to someone ELSE. Yay. Here is the other thing: if you are good at juggling priorities, it seems to me that someone is always willing to hand you a couple more. It's like watching a juggler with three balls in the air - don't you feel almost compelled to say, "can you add one more?!" There is something odd in that impulse, isn't there? Something like rubbernecking at an accident scene. And the truth is, only the juggler can say "nope, three's my limit."
Yes, I'm aware that I don't say "nope..." very often. So shoot me. Or give me a megaphone. :)
This year the holidays will be a season of reflection and celebration for many of us, with more of an emphasis on reflection than we often manage. That's my prediction, anyway. It seems to me that the world can't help but benefit from that. I was thinking this morning about the idea of writing as an act of hope, about the question of whether the work of writing stories is "important enough" to be a life calling. And then I read the Ondaatje, and remembered why I love books. He quotes Nietzsche. "We have art so that we shall not be destroyed by the truth." It is art's expression of hope, of shared experience, an empathetic connection across miles and ages and lives - that's the magic, for me. Anna, arguably the heroine of the novel, goes on to say that "A paragraph or an episode from another era will haunt us in the night, as the words of a stranger can."
I am not often haunted in the night. Some who know me best might say that I make myself too busy, drive myself too hard, so that I will not be. Meh. I simply think some are haunted, while others accept and move on; it is a behavior driven by some quirk of personality, or some unmapped fold in the brain that houses a cluster of neurons devoted to such work. So while Anna is haunted, I am merely endlessly fascinated by the intersection of life episodes, and what they mean. I'm fascinated by the tricks of fate that cause some people's lives to be more heavily burdened with loss and difficulty than others. Ye olde questions of fate versus free will versus divine intervention. To quote that other great artist, Bryan Adams (come on, I can't always be quoting novelists and big thinkers!), "some get the silver spoon, some get the heavy load." Indeed. I think the haunted souls often focus on the question of why this is true, while those who are more resilient perhaps focus more on now what? It's a continuum, not a category.
There are so many expressions of hope that go unnoticed, while we seize on the expressions of fear and bitterness that we feel "typify" our world. I'm trying hard to keep my eye on the quiet, small expressions of hope. The fact that on a cold dreary day in November, you can still find a few dozen people at the Food Bank, sorting donated goods onto shelves. The fact that resilience is still celebrated in our world. And, yes, the fact that novelists, essayists, poets and short story writers keep writing, and keep sending us their artful expression of the world, despite the obstacles between their conception and any hope of publication.
Be well, and of good cheer as we enter the madness of this season.
~ patti
I finished readng the Ondaatje novel Divisadero this morning. It reminded me of some things. That fictional memories, to feel true, have to be about some small moment that surprises us and feel real, if inexplicable. Plot turns on big moments, but people are created in small ones on the page. I forget that, and remember it, and forget it again. My own natural voice is for the vivid small moments, my stories contructed around wafer-thin plots. I am picking apart the Ondaatje in my head, determining how he moved the story lines forward without having his plot obliterate the small lovely moments he renders.
It feels pretty fabulous to be thinking about plot. Whew.
It would have been nice to take the long weekend, but instead I worked yesterday and finished some things that I wanted to. Not as many as I would have liked. I'll likely do some work tonight, or possibly tomorrow. Here is the thing: there are not only too many priorities in my life (writing, working, household minutiae, working, dancing, weight loss....did I mention working?) but there are too many priorities within each category. The number of priorities I'm juggling in my job is becoming a source of almost-hilarity - or is that hysteria? But if I can nudge a few of them forward this weekend, maybe sometime soon I can hand a couple over to someone ELSE. Yay. Here is the other thing: if you are good at juggling priorities, it seems to me that someone is always willing to hand you a couple more. It's like watching a juggler with three balls in the air - don't you feel almost compelled to say, "can you add one more?!" There is something odd in that impulse, isn't there? Something like rubbernecking at an accident scene. And the truth is, only the juggler can say "nope, three's my limit."
Yes, I'm aware that I don't say "nope..." very often. So shoot me. Or give me a megaphone. :)
This year the holidays will be a season of reflection and celebration for many of us, with more of an emphasis on reflection than we often manage. That's my prediction, anyway. It seems to me that the world can't help but benefit from that. I was thinking this morning about the idea of writing as an act of hope, about the question of whether the work of writing stories is "important enough" to be a life calling. And then I read the Ondaatje, and remembered why I love books. He quotes Nietzsche. "We have art so that we shall not be destroyed by the truth." It is art's expression of hope, of shared experience, an empathetic connection across miles and ages and lives - that's the magic, for me. Anna, arguably the heroine of the novel, goes on to say that "A paragraph or an episode from another era will haunt us in the night, as the words of a stranger can."
I am not often haunted in the night. Some who know me best might say that I make myself too busy, drive myself too hard, so that I will not be. Meh. I simply think some are haunted, while others accept and move on; it is a behavior driven by some quirk of personality, or some unmapped fold in the brain that houses a cluster of neurons devoted to such work. So while Anna is haunted, I am merely endlessly fascinated by the intersection of life episodes, and what they mean. I'm fascinated by the tricks of fate that cause some people's lives to be more heavily burdened with loss and difficulty than others. Ye olde questions of fate versus free will versus divine intervention. To quote that other great artist, Bryan Adams (come on, I can't always be quoting novelists and big thinkers!), "some get the silver spoon, some get the heavy load." Indeed. I think the haunted souls often focus on the question of why this is true, while those who are more resilient perhaps focus more on now what? It's a continuum, not a category.
There are so many expressions of hope that go unnoticed, while we seize on the expressions of fear and bitterness that we feel "typify" our world. I'm trying hard to keep my eye on the quiet, small expressions of hope. The fact that on a cold dreary day in November, you can still find a few dozen people at the Food Bank, sorting donated goods onto shelves. The fact that resilience is still celebrated in our world. And, yes, the fact that novelists, essayists, poets and short story writers keep writing, and keep sending us their artful expression of the world, despite the obstacles between their conception and any hope of publication.
Be well, and of good cheer as we enter the madness of this season.
~ patti
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