There are Worse Places to End Up

I feel stuck. Not just because my car is on the side lines again, but because it feels like I am perpetually standing on one side of a chasm trying to figure out how to get to my life that awaits me on the other side. So if this is my life, then I don't want it. Send it back. Can I dispute the charges on my life visa card? I want my life back.

As a little girl, I never dreamed I would end up where I am. But the hard truth about some lives is that we all too often end up in places and circumstances that we would never want to be. I didn't want to be rained on by Chernobyl radiation. I didn't want to be sexually abused or assaulted. I didn't want cancer. I didn't want the divorce. I didn't want my mom to die. I didn't want my wonderful boat to get shredded. And I didn't want to grow up in a set of family systems so chaotic and dysfunctional that my neuro development was altered in such a way that I live every day with the resultant PTSD that changes everything about how I live my life. So, yeah. . . .I didn't want a LOT of things to happen. . . . but they did. . . . and I can't change them. . . . .so here I find myself at the edge of a life I don't always choose, wondering how to escape the weight of a journey so difficult at times I feel like I'm going to suffocate.

But is this the worst place I could have ended up?

I live at the Grand Canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and I absolutely love my life here. I may not have the big fancy house or the brand new car, but my back yard beats anyone else's hands down! I hike this amazing canyon whenever I want. I have a wonderful little apartment that I love, a home where my furry family is able to live in peace and safety with me (and where the rent is so ridiculously cheap it's almost like living here for free). My bills are paid, my housing expenses are tax free, I'm able to put money into the savings account every month, and I have as much expendable income as when I made more than $40K per year. I walk to work. I have no commute. No smog. The daily traffic jam involves the local elk or deer meandering across the roadway. Snow in the winter. Rain and amazing wildflowers in the summer. Beauty everywhere. Free train rides whenever I want! So, yeah. . . . there are definitely worse places I could have ended up.

Yet I still feel stuck.

I feel stuck because there's no place for me to go. There's no "home" out there waiting for me, no place to look forward to spending my holidays, because that kind of home disappeared for me when my mom passed away. I am like the tortoise. . . .I carry my home on my back, and I am free to move about as I so desire, and as the circumstances of fate and fortune will allow. . . . so why do I really feel stuck? I think I just need to settle in to this amazing life that I have here, feel grateful for the amazing blessing it is to be able to create my home here, and seek God in all that I do. If I can do just these simple basic things, then I will have a blessed life, indeed.

So trudge on, tortoise sister. . . . trudge on. . . . .

Making a Difference Every Day

I created a Facebook Page today called Making a Difference Every Day. I'm tired of feeling powerless to make a difference, so I am doing what I can. I have been reading a wonderful book (Swim Against the Current: Even Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow), and I am finding myself refreshed with the knowledge that I am not alone in my fight, that there really are people AND (more importantly) businesses out there that are figing the same fight that I'm fighting, and I love feeling empowered and connected to the world again.

I once had a dream. Dreams are very important to me, so what happens in a dream holds great signficance. Anyway, I had a dream, and in the dream I am angry and afraid for what's happening in the world, because I can only sleep for so long. (In this dream, the world's healing and protection is facilitated through the dream state of the people who are sleeping.) But then it dawns on me that when I am awake, there is a whole other side of the world that is sleeping, and in fact, there is always someone sleeping to more than cover the 24 hours in a day, so I am relieved and feel free to go about the business of my waking life because of the dreamers on the other side of the world. Profound dream.

I am angry. I'm not an "angry person" per se, but I find that I am angry a lot of the time. If I were angry for no good reason I would think this was a problem. But it's not a problem, because I experience anger about things that a person SHOULD feel angry about, and so I do. Perhaps I feel this anger more intensely than the average person, but I don't care. I refuse to silence my anger when it is an appropriate response to inappropriate circumstances. I rock the boat when it needs to be rocked. I make the hard phone calls when they need to be made. And I rise up in protest when there is no other option left, even when there is great pressure for me to just sit down and "behave myself" like a polite little girl.

I can't be polite when there is foulness afoot, because the anger rises up inside of me like a red hot volcano with no place else to flow but up and out.

But I also find that anger alone isn't enough. Feeling angry without having some kind of resolution just keeps me angry all of the time, which is exactly what happens. I need an outlet for my anger, a productive outlet, and this page (Making a Difference Every Day) is just the outlet that I need, because it's going to connect me in solidarity with other people who are angry about what's happening in the world and are finding creative ways to make a difference in their every day life, too.

It is my hope, that by sharing this information, it will inspire others to think creatively and outside of the box so that there is a sustainable future for us all. . . . .

Sophie's Choice

I love Meryl Streep. . . .and one of my absolute all-time favorite films is Sophie's Choice. I love this film because it so poignantly makes clear how the human drama has a long reaching grip upon our lives, but also because it shows how ignorance shapes human expectation.

When we first meet Sophie, we can't understand her. We can't understand her present condition, because we don't yet understand the past that brought her to where she is now. It is only when Sophie's story is slowly revealed that we begin to understand, and I think that's the same for all human beings. It's all too easy to judge a book by its cover, or judge another person's story by the way our own story has unfolded, but to truly understand we must take the time to learn the personal history that shapes and defines (and even sometimes confines) a person's present life story.

My weekend in Mesa Verde included a side trip to the BLM visitor's center about 10 miles north of Mesa Verde. They showed two different films in a beautiful little theater: one of the films was about the history of Mesa Verde, but the other was a spiritual film of Native American descendents of Mesa Verde and their plea for the rest of humanity to walk through their history with grace and respect. But the one part that continues to stand out the most is how they talk about time. For these indigenous people, they are not even concerned with the future, because they believe that it is their history, their past, that defines who they are in the present.

A person without their history, without the stories of their past, is a story that is completely out of context, thus subject to dire misinterpretation.

I think it's all too easy to judge and pathologize another person's "odd" behavior and ask ourselves what is "wrong" with them. But the truth is that for most of us with "bizarre" behavior, there is actually nothing wrong with us at all; we simply were shaped by invisible and incomprehensible histories that the rest of the world can't possibly understand, and so they sit back in judgment and wonder what is wrong.

On one level I'm very grateful for the way my life was shaped by the dark stories imposed upon mine because I am not afraid of walking through hell with another person. My personal history (and my journey to walk through my own personal living hell) helped me to understand the "emotionally disturbed" foster children on my case load.  I was able to take the time to understand the personal history that shaped and defined their "odd" behavior because I had taken the time to understand my own. And once I took the time to understand the invisibly embedded why to the very visible what, well, their behavior wasn't really all that odd, at all.

There is a statement in the very beginning of the DSM (diagnostic manual for psychological/mental disorders) that makes it very clear that if there are envioronmental circumstances going on in a person's life that better explain the behavioral symptoms, then a diagnosis of a mental disorder should NOT be made. To clarify, this means that a mental disorder does NOT exist. This is all too often never read or understood by clinicians of all professional pursuits, but this single statement was my saving grace in grad school because I scruffed and muggled endlessly over the idea of diagnosing people with mental disorders when I could so clearly understand why they were behaving the way they were. And very often, once the environmental conditions are changed, then miraculously the behaviors automatically change themselves, because they're no longer responding to disordered environmental conditions (which is the real problem in the first place).

So, yes. . . .I understand Sophie, and I also love that she has at least one person in her world who loves her in spite of her history, and doesn't judge her pain. But it takes time to understand a personal history, and that is a luxury that most of us do not have, or that many even want to take. And as for me, I have a very small cluster of friends who have taken the time to understand me and the personal history that continues to shape and define who I am, even with my "bizarre" emotional behavior that makes the rest of the world wonder at times what is wrong with me.

God Made the Garlic

There is a new me emerging, a me who wouldn't make a very good southern belle, a me who isn't really caring very much about what the rest of the world thinks about what I think or have to say about anything and everything, a me who is beginning to understand just how important it is to realize that God made the garlic.

Yes, that's what I said. . . . .GOD made the garlic.

In the midst of a trend to conceptualize everything that's happening in the world as spiritual warfare (i.e., the battle between "good" and "evil" or God-vs-Satan), I am grounded by the very real fact that God has made this world to include some very unlikeable things (like garlic, or skunks, or maggots and flies--and even Satan).

The funny thing is that many things get assigned arbitrarily as "good" and "bad" (or "evil"), or as "positive" and "negative." I see over and over again how God is associated with love and sunshine and rainbows and all of the good and positive things we love and want in this world. Typically, what we don't want or don't like or don't want to accept in ourselves or others, THIS is the stuff that gets lumped into a very different set of associations that are labeled as bad or negative or evil. Butterlies and caterpillars are good, but flies and maggots are bad. They are essentially the same thing, but butterlies are good and flies are bad. Flies are even directly associated with evil, which is just interesting to me on so many levels right now. Flies, ravens, snakes, spiders. . . .all associations of evil.

The point of all of this is to say something very important: If God had wanted only "warm and fuzzy" things in this world, that's exactly what would have been created. But it's not. We have garlic and skunks and cactus and an endless panoply of creatures that bite and sting. All of these things were made by God, to live and coexist in one world. God didn't say, "Let there be good things only, and no bad things;" God made things as they are, and saw that they were all good.

And when I look at the world as God has created it, I don't see a very "polite" world at all. There's nothing polite about being hunted down by a cheatah and eaten for dinner, or crawling into your safe cubby at the end of a long day of having escaped the hawks and eagles stalking you from above only to be swallowed alive by a cunning snake that has been waiting patiently for you to return. There is also nothing very polite about having your head eaten off after just having mated, either, but it happens. . . .lol. . . .more often than a male praying mantis would like to think about, I'm sure.

Politeness. . . .social appropriateness. . . .these are all man-made social conventions, not mandates by God so that I can get into heaven like a good little girl. Maybe you don't like that my emotional language is profanity, or that fuck is my favorite word, but that's not my problem, because God made the garlic just the same as God made the gladiolas. So, yeah. . . .some of us are a whole lot more pungent than the average bear, but that just makes us who we are, even if we don't fit inside of the socially appropriate boxes created by man to. . . .what? What actual purpose does politeness serve? Seriously? So that we don't "offend" one another? Good grief!!

Are we really that sensitive as an "evolved" species that we have to hold all of our "negative" thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and feelings inside so that we don't "offend" anyone's sensibilities? I'm not talking about doing or saying things that maliciously or intentionally hurt someone. . . . so I'm clearly not advocating the "death stalk" or "biting each other's heads off" as the new social norm.

But I also don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to keep their mouth shut just so that we can all get along! There is more than one way to coexist in a world where garlic and gladiolas grow side by side! I believe that we can all be who we are, even with our "bad" or "negative" feelings and opinions and STILL get along. We don't deserve to be personally attacked, but we also deserve to be able to speak what is real and true for us in a way that doesn't get attacked at the same time!

And why is it that we watch and listen with rapt attention to someone airing another person's dirty laundry, but when someone airs their own dirty laundry they are being socially inappropriate? Most "news" is really nothing more than a glorified and very public airing of other people's dirty laundry. So I roll my eyes at the idea that what happens to us (if we talk about it publicly) is considered airing one's dirty laundry. Did anyone ever consider that perhaps the laundry remains dirty for so long because no one will ever take it outside to wash it?

Dirty laundry. Holding one's tongue. Socially appropriate. Not talking about what happens in the family to outside people. Polite conversation.

Somewhere I have a comic of a man walking all slumped over in a frumpy trench coat, clearly sad and depressed. But when you look at his shadow behind him, he is very clearly angry and full of rage as the shadow raises its arms up in a vain attempt to shake the rage away. A sad statement about what all of our politeness has done for us where trying to survive everyday life in a crazy mixed up world is enough to make anyone angry. Why do we feel like it makes us a better person if we hold our feelings inside and don't talk about what makes us angry? Because someone has taught us that it's not "polite" to do so?

If God had wanted a polite world, that's exactly how it would have been created. When did we become so damned virtuous?! (And how do we make it stop?)

Follow Your Dreams

I've had a tough week. After waiting for nearly four months for the drive line to arrive and get installed (thus thwarting my summer in Nova Scotia plans), I thought my car was up and running again, and I was back in the game of chasing my dreams. So when my car was towed home from a camping trip this past weekend, I was not only rightfully bummed, I questioned whether I was supposed to be leaving the canyon at all. . . .as if some divine (or less than divine) intervention is trying to tell me something that I clearly seem to be failing to hear or pay attention to.

But then one of my fbfriends posted something interesting that I have continued to think about as this week unfolds. She posted the following quote by John Maxwell: "Follow your dreams...Don't allow the fire of adversity to make you a skeptic. Allow it to purify you."

The part that has kept me thinking is the idea that following your dreams may not necessarily be a path of love and sunshine. . . .lol. I think I've had this notion that if I am following my dreams, I will know that I'm on the right path because it will somehow be wonderful and easy. But that may not necessarily be the case. In fact, it may be the fire of adversity needed to purify the path! (yikes!)

This past weekend a hiker's body was recovered from the Tanner trail. This was an experienced hiker, as they only issue back country permits for that trail if you have a solid history of serious hiking out in the back country wilderness of the canyon. Yet there he was, living his dream, hiking the amazing grand canyon, but the heat overtook him, and in his panic made choices that ended his dream. It's just sad, and a bit terrifying, quite honestly, because it only reinforces this idea that following my dream may have an outcome very different from what I hope or intend.

But I think that's what's so terrifying about following one's dream, because the outcome of leaving the path of safety or security becomes exciting by the unpredictability of the unknown, but can also cause a person to stop at the edge of the known waiting for the outcome to become clear. But I think by the very nature of following one's dream, the outcome can only be known by stepping off of the beaten path and into the wilderness of the dream's terrain. Yet, in so doing, we step out into the abyss of a dream whose outcome is yet to be woven into the fabric of the dream itself. It may turn out wonderful. . . .but it may also take an unexpected and unwanted twist and turn of events and outcomes.

But such is the very nature of chasing one's dreams. . . .

So I need to rethink my belief about the path to dreams being free of debris and danger and obstacles that need to be hurdled. Maybe for some people the path of their dreams is filled with love and sunshine along the way, but for others, the weather is a bit more complex. . . .lol. And I do think my car is an issue to be dealt with, but I am beginning to think that the issue is something completely different from what it first seemed. So I am still in progress with my life. . . .and the following of my dreams. . . .

Mistaken Identity

I have started reading this book, and I absolutely love it! Totally relevant for where I am in my life, except that I thought I had already escaped corporate American by moving to the canyon. That 's what I get for mistakenly identifying one of the seven natural wonders of the world as corporate-free. Not!

OK, so moving on. . . . .or at least TRYING to do so. . . .

The basic piece of life management that keeps me here at the canyon is that I don't want to go back out into the "real" world by going back to work in the system again--regardless of whether that system be social service or educational--but I haven't yet figured out how to sustain my life if I don't. Hence, I've been willing to work for pennies and peanuts until I figure out how I can fund my life without becoming another corporate cog fighting to change the system from the inside out.

Been there, done that. . . .never want to do that again :)

This book is about creating a successful life while at the same time escaping the corporate tentacles that suck the life right out of the people who work within them. So I am very hopeful that it will help to motivate me to restructure my life in such a way that I can maintain the level of personal autonomy that I need in order to breathe, while at the same time allowing me to have food and at least the basic necessities of life (you know, like chocolate and sunflower seeds....lol....OH! and also the fuel for my new jetboil...lol).

All joking aside, I am suffocated by my work life here at the canyon. So even though the canyon itself has been feeding my spirit, the life sucking is quickly approaching the point of being greater than  the canyon's capacity to feed my spirit. Yes, the writing on the canyon wall is becoming very clear that it's time for me to actively prepare for my departure and hope that the departure will be relatively quick and painless :) and now that my drive line has been installed, I can finally move forward.

In the meantime, I will continue to swim with the salmon. . . . .even when I am surrounded by signs warning that there is no spawning allowed :)

The Pressure to Conform

The solo journey isn't a new concept for me, but the focused "study" of the solo journey is. And I find it more than interesting how right now I am faced with so many different ways that my uniqueness is being pressured to conform.

The word of the day is compromise.

At what point does conformity change from compromise to compromised? I understand the importance and necessity of compromise, that dance between conflicting needs of the one with the other, but there is a point when an essential part of who I am is threatened to be compromised in significant and unacceptable ways. I am at such a point with a part of my world, but my refusal to accept circumstances that are going to actually do great harm to me if I don't stand my ground will have consequences that may not be very warm and fuzzy. And I shouldn't have to make such choices. . . .but it looks like such a choice is going to have to be made.

Compatibility -vs- Pacing

There is a change moving through me. . . .or more correctly, I will no longer be trying to change the me that's moving through. And what I mean by this is simply that compatibility is not the only factor to consider when developing human relationships.

What I am finding in my life is that compatibility is not enough. I can enjoy the same activity as another person, but that doesn't mean that we can enjoy it together. I don't mean personalities, etc. I mean that just because two people enjoy the same activity, that doesn't mean that they enjoy doing it in the same way. . . .or at the same pace.

I wish I would have understood this better when I was married, because I actually DID enjoy the off-road four wheel activities of the jeep club, but I did NOT enjoy the thrill seeking pace my (then) husband enjoyed. This difference in pacing, rather than a difference in compatibility, was a significant source of ongoing arguments between us. So perhaps we could have found a better way to address it than to let my fear speak for me, or for him to say, "You think THAT's bad, watch THIS!" as he kicked the jeep into low gear and jolted up the rocky mountain with me scrambling to get the heck out of that jeep. . . lol.

Yes, an incompatibility in pacing was definitely a problem.

More recently, however, I am finding the incompatibility of differing pacing (more than compatibility itself) to be creating an unwillingness on my part to even want to do social-related events. When I hiked down to Phantom Ranch last November, I was actually doing fine until that couple took me on as their "help a solo hiker out of the canyon" project. Yes, it was snowing. And yes, my calves were clenching up. But I am now certain that had I been left on my own, I would have been able to hike out of that canyon just fine. Had I been able to hike out at my own pace I would have been able to nurse the clenched up calves, and I wouldn't have had the "near death" feeling of experience. . . .lol. Their pace was just too fast for me, and that's what created the problem, not my hiking ability. Just like the slow pace of the hiker I recently backpacked with. . . .it was our difference in pacing that created the stress for me.

I find that it's much easier to find people with whom I am compatible, than to find people compatible with my pacing, and this awarenes changes everything for me.

I am moving into a new place, a place within myself where I'm just not willing to adjust my pace to the world around me anymore. I enjoy life at a slow pace. I enjoy the solitude afforded by a slow pace in silence so that I can listen to what is being said within me, a voice that is more difficult to hear when I am surrounded by the words of the people whirling around me.

Am I destined to journey solo forever?

I'm not really sure what this means for me, but I feel the nature of my friendships changing here already. Some of the changes ARE about basic compatibility, as I no longer find a willingness to be immersed in certain conditions anymore. But it's deeper than just this, and I feel it brewing, even if I can't quite understand or comprehend the changes that I know are still in the process of emerging.

I read recently something about the way to find God is to search the silence, but will I be able to fully embrace the silence of a solo journey?

I guess what I'm really saying is that I want my pace to be compatible with God's pace, and not the people around me. The truth of this stings my eyes, and releases my breath from a deep place within. I am remembering the words of Jesus when he tells the people essentially that if they want to find the Kingdom of God they must forsake all others, even if that means their brothers and sister, or even their mother and father.

Perhaps the journey to God is essentially a solo journey. I don't know. But what I do know is that for now I am moving into a place of deep silence and separation from the world around me.

And I don't normally change my blogs once I have posted them, but this beautiful thing occurred while I was processing through this blog. My friend Nancy read a quote made by Albert Einstein, thought of me, and posted to my profile, which I found upon posting this blog: "The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever seen before." Thank you, Nancy :)

Journey through Mesa Verde

Spent the past weekend at Mesa Verde National Park exploring history on such a grand scale that it's hard to put it all into perspective. I was deeply disturbed on one level that the ancient civilizations were treated as tourist sites with hourly tours by people who had no clue how walk culturally or spiritually sensitive through the past, yet on another level feeling extremely grateful that the Park Service was preserving and protecting these sites for both current and future generations.

My friend Ellen said often this weekend that my first trip to Mesa Verde was a unique trip. My first tour into the ruins was an early morning hike down into Oak Tree House and Fire Temple ruins guided by two park rangers. When we were leaving the Fire Temple site I was overcome by deep sadness, but not sure if the sadness was my awareness of the residual  energy of sadness of the people who were once forced to leave their home, or if the powerful energy of this place magnified my own sadness of feeling homeless and wandering myself. Either way, as I walked along the narrow cliff trail back to the surface of time, I either felt (or imagined feeling) the presence of an ancient shaman walking along with me singing somber prayers of hope for an uncertain future.

Yes, I understand the journey of these people. . .

The day ended with a twilight historical reinactment guided tour down into Cliff Palace. By the end of the day I had already seen more ruins than I honestly care to visit again, but this site brought a different experience. I was tired of being guided through the ruins, and wanted to just be left alone to wander through on my own. I was overwhelmed by all of the words being spoken about something we really don't have language or experience to explain. The words are just theories, because we honestly don't know. Like how the greatest and brightest minds once thought the world was flat, it is hard to know really what life was like for these cultures, or what circumstances might have been forced upon their existence causing them to depart these homes of such impressive magnitude.

As I sat there on the ground of this sacred space, I could smell the earth rising up in the pre-rain air, surrounded by the thunder clapping its way around the carved out stone amphitheater city slowly losing its light. Hot and thirsty, exhausted by the long day's journey, I could feel the energy surging and moving through me, feeling like the earth was shifting and swaying beneath me, except that no one else seemed to be aware of this intoxicating movement of earth and thickly densed air.

Was I simply dehydrated and exhausted? Or was I aware of something more than earth and stone? I may never know for sure, but the "truth" of the feeling doesn't change the experience itself, an experience now indelibly etched upon the layers of memory of this great and powerful place.

I grow weary of all the noise created by the endless and meaningless words to explain. . . .

I will most likely never return to the land of Mesa Verde, but the sadness of their homeless migration continues to haunt my own journey as I wander on in search of home and connection to the land of  my own ancient past, a long and overdue homecoming that awaits my return to a far and distant shore.

Stray Cat Strut

I had an interesting conversation this week that started off with my very earliest memory of how before I would go to bed I completely encircled myself with stuffed animals. It wasn't enough for them to be in a circle, they had to all be touching. And the "goal" for the night was to sleep as still as possible so that when I awoke in the morning all of the stuffed animals would still be touching.

I don't remember myself how old I was, but from the description of the bedroom my mom told me that I was about 18 months old. And I never succeeded with this goal, of course. . . .but it didn't stop me from trying.

I used to think this nightly ritual was about "protection," but perhaps not. The woman with whom I was conversing thought the encircling of the animals was more about "nesting" so as to create the feeling of being contained. . . .which I found most interesting, indeed.

Back in 2005, as I sat on the edge of the rim trying to take in the immensity of the grand canyon, I had this weird experience of feeling both insignifantly tiny and large enough to walk through the canyon like a Paul Bunyon giant, both at the same time. It felt as if my spirit was released from the confinements of my body and felt, for the first time, something large enough to contain it in a way that didn't suffocate or bind me or my spirit. It was as if my spirit had been released like a genie from the bottle, and my life would never be the same. This was the experience that drew me back to the canyon.

As the conversation continued, the woman shared her reflections about me and how she sees me live my life, and somehow we ended up talking about stray animals and their relationship to containment. There are essentially two types of stray animals: true strays and abandoned animals. The abandoned animal doesn't want to be separated from its containment, from its home, so it won't run away because all they want is to be back inside with their people, with their human pack/family. But a true stray will run away. Not run away permanently, perhaps, but they are the animals that will dig themselves out of the back yard or bolt out the open door if given even half the chance.

I have known both abandoned animals who were grateful to have the containment of home, and strays who always preferred the freedom of the outdoor life. My dog Shadow was an abandoned animal, as is my kitty Sarra. But Ketra. . . .ah, sweet Ketra, she was a true stray who never quite gave up her "outdoor kitty" to become an "indoor kitty," and I quickly learned to stop trying, even when that meant that I needed to move on without her out of respect for her choice to stay.

Stray cats are just a different breed of cat. . . . the true free spirits of the world.

As for me, I may long to be inside the warmth of home and family, but I'm just not willing to compromise even one piece of my spirit for the conditions that are placed upon me. Nature, wilderness, God. . . .these are the only unconditionals I find in this world. And so I remain free to roam at will, moving from one home to another, from one adventure to another, because I am a true stray cat from the core of my spirit.

I think I've been feeling a little bit like an abandoned animal, displaced from the warmth of family and home against her will, wounded and badly in need of a good vet. But the old stray cat spunk is beginning to move its way through me again, so there's a bit more spring in my step, and bit more swoosh in my tail. Stella may have got her groove back, but this stray cat is getting ready to strut :)

Warrior Rampage! Beware!

This is why my warrior gets activated! All I want to do is live a quiet life, a peaceful life, a life filled with love and sunshine, a life at one with the world around me. But that's not possible when everytime I turn around I am force fed toxicity created by the choices made by OTHER people!

In less than ONE SECOND of the history of the earth, human beings have decimated the planet. ONE FRIGGIN SECOND!

I don't know how to live in peace and harmony when it's nothing but toxic warfare everywhere I turn! The food I eat is toxic! Even supposed "organic" food is slowly being eroded by genetic engineers. The water I drink is toxic. The air I breathe is toxic. How am I supposed to live a peaceful life when my body is bombarded by the consequences of corporate greed mongers?!

The ONLY peace I have is that I did not bring children into this dying world, so at least I can die in peace with that. I can't even imagine the anxiety I would feel to leave behind my most beloved to fend for themselves in this dying, toxic world!

I can't take in any more information about things over which I have no fucking control!

Yet I can't turn my back on it, either. I can only change MY choices, but it's not enough! And it pisses me off that unless I go live as a hermit eeking out a meager life hidden away, I also can't escape the fact that I am also contributing to this toxic chaos!

We are a virus! We are the nastiest, most insidious of all cancers upon this earth, because we are SUPPOSED to have a conscience! We are SUPPOSED to have higher cognitive functions that allow us to understand the laws of CAUSE and EFFECT! We are supposed to be "INTELLIGENT" beings!

Free will sucks, when the "free will" of others rapes and pillages everything and anyone around them!!!

As far as I'm concerned, the earth has every right to erradicate this toxic cancer virus that threatens the existence of all life. Every gd right!!!!

Quantum Leap

Transition is never about just one thing, but rather about many things, some of which sneak up on us and bite us in the ass because we haven't been listening or paying very much attention.

Today I have been asking myself what I would experience, how I would feel, if I were to work along side of my 20-something self, that part of me that was so filled with the spirit of the white bear. The feelings that arise are shocking, actually, because the truth is that I would feel exactly the way that I feel now working with these other young whipper snapping white bears. . . lol.

My 20-something self would roll her eyes at me, mock me (both to my face, but especially behind my back), disregard any contribution I had to make, and would treat me with great disdain as if I were invisible and no threat at all. I would not enjoy working with her, of course. I would think she was arrogant and completely full of herself. I would also think she was impetuous and irresponsible in all of the ways that mattered, especially the way she walked away from family, friends, jobs just because they were difficult or inconvenient. But I would also recall with great joy what it had once felt like to be that spirited and care free, but I wouldn't want to be that way now. I would smile at and admire her bold spirit, but I would feel grateful that I no longer embodied this overwhelming spirit of the white bear.

It's funny how time really does change us.

I haven't gone through life stages the way most of my friends have. I am basically living exactly the same life I was living when I turned 20. . . .single and free to live my life on my terms, in any way I see fit. I was married for a while, but I didn't have children, so I never really had to embrace new and emerging parts of a life progression in stages. So I think that's one of the reasons why I'm having such a hard time with this one. . . .it's a quantum leap progression, rather than in those smaller stages. But the not so simple truth is that even though I may have the same essential freedoms, I'm no longer the person I was when I was 20. . . . not on any level.

I am almost 50 years old, now. I'm gray and wrinkling with eyes that can no longer read without assistive devices and a brain that just doesn't have the same capacity to hold on to trivial pieces of information. I remember what's important. . . .how I felt in a given experience. . . .but I just don't even care to recall the insigificant minutia of details. And the things that were important to me when I was 20 just hold no meaning for this me at all. I've done the party scene. . . .spent too many mornings puking up enough bad memories to last ten lifetimes. . . .lol. I've done the college scene. . . .spent enough money also to last at least ten lifetimes. . . .lol. And I've done the professional scene. . . .spending my own life energy units to save ten other lifetimes.

I think I need a new scene.

One of my favorite animated films is Howell's Moving Castle. The young protagonist Sophie goes through many changes, but her transformation is possible only because a witch has turned her into an old lady, which frees her from all of her fears and limitations. In the form of the old lady she is free to speak her mind with no regard of what people think of her. But there is this one scene when she's sitting at the edge of the lake and she makes a comment how all old people want to do is sit and look at things. I really love that scene. . . .because I can so relate to that now.

I think I'm invisibly resisting the natural evolution of my aging self. My priorities HAVE changed. I'm not looking for who I want to be any more, I'm looking for a space to just be who I am already. I think I really am done fighting, because it's really not important any more. . . .not to THIS part of me. What's important now is how I feel as I move through each day. What's important is my quality of life.

The truth is that I have spent my whole life fighting for everyone else, but not for me. My childhood was spent taking care of my mom and my little brothers, but no one was really taking care of me. I made a comment once to my little brother Scotty about how for that year when we lived with our aunt and uncle, that was the only time in our life that we'd had a childhood. He corrected me by saying, "No. WE had a childhood. . . .you gave that to us." It stopped me dead in my tracks, because he was right. While they were outside playing, I was the one who was cleaning and making dinner and taking care of my incapacitated mother from as early as three years old. . . .and yes, I can actually remember that. . . lol.

Even my career choices have been about trying to save other people. During my early college days, I was actually a math major (I have always wanted to be a math teacher). When I got cancer the first time it was during my first year of college, so I changed my major to nutrition so that I could help other people never get cancer. However, after a year of dietetics study I transferred to another university as a math major again because the only class that really excited me was the one unit statistics for health professionals class.

My major quickly changed to art and creative writing when my life started falling apart because it was the only voice I had at the time, and any effort I made to work my way back to math has been thwarted in one way or another. My graduate studies as a family therapist was about helping other families to heal from the trauma and abuse that infected their family life. And my work as a social worker was to help foster kids heal from their abuse and have a wonderful and successful life.

Yes. . . .these choices were also about me, but not about the "me" me.

So that's why this transition is so hard. I have spent my life fighting to change the conditions all around me so that I could live my life in peace, but I've also been putting my own self on hold while I do that. There is a me that never got to be that is rising up inside and begging to be heard. I have a right to be here! I have a voice! she cries out in defiance of the spirit of the white bear all around her.

What I am just in this moment realizing is that the spirit of the white bear gave me strength at a time when I needed to learn how to fight and trudge on until I was strong enough internally to fight in my own way. I think I can finally remove the white bear's coat God so graciously cloaked around my overburdened shoulders as a child. The spirit of the white bear protected me and kept me safe even when the people in my young world could not, and I am ready to embrace this unknown spirit rising up from within.

So perhaps I can envision a post warrior me.

There is a point in everyone's life when we really begin to understand that we don't have an indefinite amount of time to do the things we want to do on this earth. I have fallen through this truth several times, but I am only now beginning to walk through its inevitability, and I have a choice to make: Do I continue fighting for the life I never got to have? Or do I lay down my sword and armor to sit at the edge of the lake and admire all of the beauty that surrounds me?

Post Warrior?

So what does a warrior do when there's no more fight left inside? I am told that it is a good thing that I have no more fight left in me. . . .that all it means is that I am transitioning into a new me. . . .and that's why I don't recognize who I am right now. . . .which is why I have no self-confidence. . . . .and I'm exhausted because I am letting go of the need to fight.

The key is alchemy. . . .or so I have been told.

Maybe this is an inevitable transformation. I don't really know. What I do know is that I can't even begin to imagine a me who isn't a warrior. But maybe that is precisely the problem, because if I honestly can't imagine a post warrior me, then I will only fight the inevitable. . . ..which is exactly what a Warrior self would do.

Fight. Battle. Resist. These are the ways of the Warrior.

This isn't the first time my Warrior self has been confronted. I remember how one of my professors in grad school suggested that perhaps I needed to rest and let other people pick up the fight, that by me always being the one to pick up and carry "the banner" it releases others from needing to do so. My internal response was then (and continues to be), "But if I don't do it, then it won't get done." Hmmmm.....

Without psychoanalyzing the obvious roots of this belief, I need to come to terms with the question this world view begs to be answered: Can I accept the expected chaos that inevitably would ensue if I didn't fight the fight if, in fact, nobody else did pick up the banner?

There is a philosphical belief that we are always living in the best of all possible worlds. It's a very optimistic belief, but one I can't attach myself to, because we do NOT live in the best of all possible worlds. In this world there are children being abused, women being beaten, men being murdered, entire families starving, political corruption, global decay, and the list could go on and on. So, no....I do NOT live in the best of all possible worlds. And someone DOES need to fight for any and all who can't advocate for themselves. But I don't think these are the fights that are exhausting me. . . .

I know what it is. . . .I know exactly what the fight is that has me so exhausted. . . .I just can't say it. To actually say it, out loud, would be to hear a truth so painful, I don't know if I could bear its weight. And I can't walk away from it, either. But which me can't bear the truth? Because it's certainly not my Warrior Self. . . .

The Long Slow Breaking of Spirit

Spent the afternoon resting and thinking about how much I have changed. . . .how when I started out in life I was intrepid. . . .no fear. . . .how I was once filled with the bravado of the white bear and a depth of knowledge that no matter what I attempted I would succeed. But something happened along the way. . . not really a single something, but a long series of somethings that have left my spirit broken. . . . broken and in need of that which ever eludes my exhausted mind.

Where is the spirit of the white bear? Where is the me who wore elf (and chicken) suits just for the fun of it and never, ever cared what anyone else thought about it? Where is the she who barked and snapped at first sergeants and slammed doors when wrongs weren't righted? Where is that woman with more balls than any man her platoon sergeant had ever known? I don't even recognize the me I have become, this anxious, chronic insomniac afraid to snap and growl back at the white bears surrounding me and treating me as an invisible and inconsenquential threat.

I think the word I'm looking for is shellshocked. That is exactly the word I'm looking for. I have had to fight for so long that I have no more fight left in me. I just want to be left the fuck alone so that I can have whatever peace I can find in the solitude of isolation.

That is exactly how I feel.

I touched this place ten years ago when I was coming out of my last cancer surgery. I had this weird experience where my body was under deep anaesthesia, unable to move or speak, but my mind was perfectly clear. As they were trying to awaken me, I was aware of how exhausted my spirit was. . . .aware of how much I did NOT want to fight to come back. . . . aware of how much I wanted to just lie there and let the struggle leave my battle fatigued body. But I wasn't ready to give up, so I fought to rise up out of that dark fog slowing trying to lull me into complete and utter submission.

But now, my spirit is broken. . . .broken with no more fight left. . . .no more fight and just wanting to be left alone in this dank cave with the spirit of the white bear somewhere off in the dense misted fog that has once again wrapped itself around me. I think I will be here for a while. . . .yes, I think I will be here for quite a very long while.

Fable of the Porcupine

(Author Unknown)

It was the coldest winter ever.  Many animals died because of the cold.

The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

After awhile, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.

Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive.

The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

The moral of the story is: Just learn to live with the Pricks in your life!

I think I might just be an alien

Today I feel like an alien, like I don't belong on this planet, and don't even want to belong on this planet. My friend tells me the problem is my expectations, my expectation that human beings will treat each other kindly, with dignity and respect. She tells me that's why I am chronically dissapointed. . . . because of this expectation that I have about the fundamental nature of human beings. She tells me that if I would simply expect to be treated like crap that I would then feel gratitutde and appreciation when I am treated kindly. Interesting perspective. . . .

If I were an alien, today's report to the home planet would inform that the humans of this planet are sad and unhappy people who treat each other with great insensitivity. Happy people just don't push and pull people down around them just to make themselves feel better! And yet on other days my report would be how amazing these human beings are to overcome so many hurdles in life by forgiving and accepting those who hurt and offend. The bottom line is that I just don't understand the mean and hurtful things people do to each other.

Perhaps I should stop trying to figure out why people treat each other so badly, and figure out instead why I am so turned upside down like a desert tortoise who can't upright herself when they do. Why can I not very easily let go of the hurtful things people do? Is Gayle right? Is the fundamental human journey the path of forgiveness? Am I failing to walk on my path of forgiveness?

Today I just feel like a pollyanna alien in a world filled with mean, hurtful, and insensitive people. But with enough pizza and Dr Pepper, this, too, shall pass. . . .even this day shall pass :)

Call of the Ravens

It’s another beautiful day at the canyon. Blue sky. Green trees. Feeling good to be alive. As I walk along immersed in the beauty of the day I notice some ravens cawing over across the way, so I turn to look for them as I continue walking on. I can’t see them, of course, but I can tell that there are several of them up inside the scraggly branches of two tall pine trees across the railroad tracks just beneath the village road that loops a complete circle around where I am in this moment palpably pulled into these enlivened trees as the ravens continue to caw.

How many times have I walked past these trees, tall and silent on my way to work in the wee darkness of the eerie walk to my graveyarded shift? Yet now they openly speak to me in the full brightness of day in a way that makes me suddenly very aware of the sun’s heat rising up off the dry brown dirt puffing up around my tennis shoes as I walk along, now fully immersed in the inescapable cawing of the ravens.

The dry path slopes downward now, about to cross a small creek. I don’t even stop to wonder where this tiny flow of water sources itself, I just step across making sure to land squarely upon the large single rock bridge that gaps the two dry sides. My crossing disturbs a lone raven just up the other side hopping like a three legged dog, its mouth full of something dead and fleshy. It’s amazing to me how large the raven is, and I remark to myself the irony of crossing paths with this dark harbinger whose mouth is filled with dead carcass like a symbolic piece of a long ago me, long since dead, perhaps, but not very long forgotten.

I am in love with this moment that has opened up the flow of spirit through what would have otherwise been nothing more than a mundane walk to lunch as I consider the urging of a friend to write down my dark stories and publish them for others like me to read. It’s an interesting and enticing thought, yet something that would most certainly change my life forever. And as I begin the last trudge to the top of this short craggy climb, the invisible ravens continue to caw out to me as if to warn of the dangers that lurk just beyond. . ..yet, I continue on. . . .I continue on.

Only Half of a Face

I finally have words for what I feel.

It's like I only have half of a face on Facebook.

One of my friends talked recently about using Facebook as "smoke and mirrors" to hide what was really going on in her life. I told her that if smoke and mirrors was the only way for us to get through, then smoke and mirrors it shall be. Perhaps it's simply human nature to post only the warm and the fuzzy, but I'm tired of feeling like there is no place for the stories in my life. I have always invisibly felt this, but Facebook is just bringing this truth to the surface.

All throughout the year there are these Facebooking opportunities to post stories and memories of a person's life. I love reading the stories, but they also make me feel. . . .well, they make me feel exactly the way I used to when I was growing up, actually. Hmmm. . . . very interesting. I remember how when I was a young person how envious I felt of the stories I heard from my friends. Not envy for the obvious reasons of a superficial jealousy, but because of how bad my own stories made me feel. My stories made me feel like I was an inferior person, because even from a very young age, I always knew that there was something inherently "wrong" with my stories, something "wrong" with me. I also knew that I was never supposed to tell my stories. I was ashamed of my life, ashamed of the stories that comprised my life, and that made me feel like I was less than everyone else around me. . . .both friends and family alike.

And so I kept my stories to my self.

I was twenty five years old before I started to tell my story, and I think it was only because I had to. . . .my life was falling apart, and the panic attacks were creating an internal prison from which I could not escape. My best friend in high school knew nothing at all about my so called secret life. . . .no one did. . . . not even my mother before she died. When everyone around me was excitedly sharing stories of first kisses and first sexual experiences, I cringed in horror to know that I could never share the truth of my real first kiss, of my real first sexual experiences. And my husband, bless his heart, married a woman he honestly knew nothing about, with a collection of stories that in the end were just too dark and too intense for him to live with. And so he did what I was afraid people would do once they heard my stories. . . .he turned his back and walked away from the damaged wife he would have never chosen had HE known the truth of my stories.

Perhaps the wedding vows should have been rewritten to include, "In sickness and in health, In stories dark and light, 'Till death do you part." Maybe then he would have been able to honor his vows.

I honestly don't blame him for walking away. I've been trying to run away from these stories for my entire life. They're not the stories that I want. I would never have chosen these stories. My life journey has irrevocably been altered by these stories. And they're not the stories that I want to share, either. But I'm tired of holding back the truth of my stories just to make other people feel comfortable.

These stories are like shrapnel inside of my mind and body. . . .and so they need to be released, because they are the very truth of who I am, the very fabric that interfaces every step of the life path I have been forced to walk upon. And, yes, I do grow weary of always having to "put my best face forward," because I'm tired of having only half of a face.

So in the famous words of Marilyn Monroe, "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

Falling through the Cracks...

I have recently come to understand that pieces of my life have fallen through the cracks, pieces that when viewed as a collective whole paint a completely different picture than when viewed as individual pieces. Specifically, the pieces that I'm talking about are the panic attacks, insomnia, ongoing nightmares, and the chronic anxiety that all still plague my every day peace. The question is, what do I do with this bigger picture? What do I do with these four letters that finally explain the collectiveness of experience? And is there a way for the PTSD to rearrange itself into an acronym with less friendly fire?

I can't run from this. There is no place on this earth where I can escape this anxiety, no place where a peaceful night's sleep exists waiting for me to arrive, and no place where the images of my dreamscape are filled with warmth and light. I can not run from what happens on the inside of my existence.

I'm done self accommodating. I'm tired of the distractions. And I'm exhausted by the journey in search of a therapy that will finally heal these wounds and dry up this never ending sadness like a stagnant pool across a deserted oasis. It's all too easy to say, "You need to move on...why do you dwell on the past?" But it's not that simple...because it's not in the past...it's in my every day present like tiny invaders in cells that remain invisibly flowing through me, but ever and always just outside of my awareness.

No one wants to hear the dark stories of childhood filled with real life monsters and silent dualities that leave me cut off still from truth and power. The book of my life sits upon the shelf covered in dust, while the books filled with happy stories and smiling faces are checked out daily by readers in need of the warm and the fuzzy. The little story of a depressed and lonely child just isn't filled with Rockwellian images, so I carry this sad tale tucked far beneath the surface in search of the one who is not afraid to read this dark little book of me. But there's no one to listen, because there's no one to tell. And so the story remains locked up inside my body while the whispers of its truth evaporate through anxious moments and quickly passing thunderstorms through the mind.

I have fallen through the cracks, both above and below, both in light and in darkenss. Is it enough that there is only the One who is not afraid of my truth, or afraid to walk with me as I make my way through the remnants of dust and shadow?

Tough Choices Make the Person

No one said life was going to be easy, and neither are the choices that we have to make, but I tell you with absolute certainty that it's the tough choices that makes us who we are.

I love that peace that over takes me once the choice is fully resolved. I have been vacillating back and forth (should I stay or should I go), and this morning the options were fully laid out before me: I can stay here (with single status), but not with my cat, and that simply isn't an option for me.

For some people their pets are just that. . . .their pets. But for me, they are my furry family, a part of my life that comes with me or I don't go. I have reordered my life many times so that my furry family can remain a part of my life, and trust me when I say that it is NEVER the lesser expensive of options. But since Sarra will not be able to continue living with me here with my new housing option, then I will not be able to remain myself. So the packing and purging continues :)

Well, it's finally off to Nova Scotia for the summer. . . .and who knows what will happen while I'm there!

Dichotomies are so Passe

So which is it? Half empty? Or half full? If you say "half empty" you're a pessimist. If you say "half full" you're an optimist. But there is a third option to this dichotomy, and that is called the realist. . . .the person who can look at this glass and say, "Well, it's half empty and  half full, both at the same time."

That's me. I tend to see situations in terms of contingencies based on all possibilities, or at least as many possibilities that I can identify. I don't like surprises (so no surprise birthday parties, please...lol).

My friend Gayle thinks I'm thinking negatively if I consider the possibility that my request may be denied. She tells me to bend my entire thought on the outcome that I want, and if I do that, then it will manifest the way I want it to be. The universe responds to what you focus on, she will tell me. While I appreciate this kind of optimism, to me it's magical thinking and not realistic, because I know that it is actually possible that even though there is no legal basis for denying my request, they may still do so. That doesn't make me a pessimist. . . .it makes me a realist.

I can hope for the best, but I'm still going to prepare for the worst.

As a realist, I anticipate all possible outcomes (as many that can be anticipated, both positive and negative, both wanted and unwanted), because I need to know that I have a plan in place for whatever decision is made, regardless of which path is laid before me. I really don't like surprises. . . .I tend to be much more reactive to surprises than what I have planned for and anticipated. Also, if I can anticipate the possible contingencies, then I don't feel so anxious about a given situation, so it's all about anxiety management. . . .lol.

However, I also recognize that I create a LOT of extra work for myself. By anticipating multiple outcomes, and having contingency plans in place for each possibility, I hold all of these ideas as potential outcomes, too. I think this is why I slide between life plans so easily. . . .lol. In a moment of reactivity I already have several potential plans worked up, so I can change gears quickly. . . .very often too quickly, I'm afraid. Another reason why I enjoy living a solo life. . . .lol. Changing gears like this doesn't usually settle well with another person who's involved in the plans. . . .lol.

So this week I am anticipating several life altering outcomes of this meeting on Friday. But I most definitely have contingency plans for each one, of course, because I'm a realist. . . .so I may be hoping for the best, but I have definitely prepared for the worst :)

Home

All I can think about these days is my home. My home that's on the verge of being invaded by someone I do not want to live with. But these are the rules here. . . .and that is precisely what the sacrifice is if I choose to remain here. So yeah, all I can think about lately is my home.

But if I pull away from the angst of this current dilemma, I feel the truth that I have actually felt homeless ever since my mother passed on some twenty five years ago now. She created my home for me. I was living on the other side of the world stationed in (what was then) West Germany in government barracks when she died, but my home had always been that place where my mom anxiously awaited my return. It wouldn't have mattered to me where she lived. . . .that still is where my home would have been.

So, yes. . . .I've been homeless for a long time.

I have tried to create home here at the canyon, but it's been one long fight, so home feels more like a battle ground than a safe haven right now. Is it worth the fight? And what does that mean for me if it's not worth the fight? Do I leave the canyon? Do I find alternate housing more locally? These are no simple or easy questions to answer because there are both practical and emotional components to what a home means. Home is where we store our personal belongings and pieces of history. Home is where we eat and sleep and cleanse our bodies. Home is where we socialize and connect with the outside world via TV, phones, and computers. Home is that safe place we come home to at the end of a long day, that place where the hearth fires burn for us until we return.

I've started reading Waldon  by Henry David Thoreau, and it's resonating deeply with where I am in my life. He believed that the masses lived lives of quiet desperation, which he did not want to do. So he conducted a personal experiment where he built a log cabin out in the middle of some New England wildnerness and examined his life and its relationship to the outside world of creature comforts for more than two years. People of the day thought him to be crazy, but he wanted to understand his place in the world in a self-examined way. Very few people ever do that.

I have also conducted such experiments. I once shaved my head to understand the role that my hair had in my personal power as a female. After that I wanted to understand why I kept toting around all of these "things" from place to place, so when I moved into my home in Riverside I kept everything in boxes just sitting in the middle of my living room for what turned into many, many months. Nothing could be touched, not even the dust balls that were collecting in the corners. I wanted to sit with and study everything within my personal space until I understood why I paid to store what I felt compelled to own and possess. Neighbors probably thought I was crazy, too. . . .lol. Others asked when the house was going to be vacant, believing that I was packing to move. . . .lol. But I am beginning to think that it just may be time again for another critical self-examination of my life, specifically what "home" means to me.

I woke up this morning and sat here looking around at everything I have in this space, wondering why I am fighting so hard to maintain the space to house it. I haven't touched an art supply in probably nine years, yet I still have them, and pay to house them. The same with my books and trinkets. When do I actually look at them or utilize them in some meaningful way? I walk past them a hundred times in a day, but I don't ever really see them. They fill the negative space, the empty space of my home, but once they are placed, when do I really interact with them again?

There is an entire genre of paintings from antiquity where the wealthy aristocrats would commission an artist to paint them with all of their belongings. This wasn't done to document belongings for insurance claims, but rather to document their wealth and status. What would it say about me. . . .to view this kind of painting of me and all of the "stuff" I have? That's how I feel today looking at all of the "things" I have. . . .not as an aristocrat, but just wondering why I feel the need to provide space to maintain it all? Why do I have so much stuff? The more stuff I have, the more space I need to house it.

My friend (and sister by Edmondson adoption) Stacey posted something recently about how God's plan isn't so much for us to be happy as much as it is to be holy, and more like Jesus. I have been thinking about this a lot, because Jesus lived the most simplest of lives. Jesus didnt have a bunch of "stuff" to tote around from place to place. No. . . .God wants us to be holy, to be spiritual.

Things are things. . . .and I feel so burdened by all of these things I have right now. I also don't like that my home has become a fancy prison of sorts, because it is all of this stuff that forces me to have a home in the first place.

Healing

The human body is amazing. I once read about benefits of deep cleansing, and how if we don't have everything we need at the time of an injury to heal a wound, the body will do the best it can with what it has. But later, no matter how many years later it takes, when the body has the time and resources to do so, it will go back and break down old tissue (even scars and adhesions) and rebuild new tissue in a way that creates a healthier and stronger body. It is painful. But in the end the body is stronger. . . .and healthier.

I beleive that the human psyche does exactly the same thing. When we are too young to know how to heal psychological wounds, the mind will heal itself as best it can with what it's got at the time. That doesn't mean that makes us "functional" lol...but it does make it possible to continue on in the journey. . . .until we find or create the healing that we need.

We do the best with what we've got. . . . and we heal in layers, as we are willing and able to do so.

Over the course of the past eighteen years I have done a lot of "healing" work, one layer at a time. Personal therapy, art therapy, recovery, acupuncture, reiki, massage, bio-feedback, grad school, self-help ad infinitum. But parts of me (unfortunately) still feel broken and beyond repair, and I don't want to live in this psychologically "crippled" place any longer. I'm not "broken" per se, but the way my mind has healed from the life-trauma wounds leaves me with a high maintenance life of having to manage the never ending anxiety and panic and inability to get a good night's sleep. I don't want such a high maintenance life, and I also don't want to simply medicate these symptoms away. I want to be rid of these limitations. . . .once and for all.

It is possible. . . .I have seen PET scans and SPECT scans of brains that have healed. Dr. Amen's ground breaking book, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" is an amazing road map into neuro-psychology, and cutting edge therapeutic modalities are now able to document the concrete evidence of how the mind can heal, even after living many years with disordered and chaotic hardwiring caused by abuse and trauma. It takes a lot of time, but it is possible.

As for me, I love the person my life has forged me to be, but I do want a better way of responding to life's challenges. And sometimes when a bone (whether physical or psychological) does not get set right the first time, you have to go back and rebreak that bone so that it can heal correctly and make the body/mind functional and strong again.

So I have some more layers of healing work ahead of me. It will be painful, of course. . . .but  the pain will be worth it. . . .the pain is always worth it when you gain a stronger, healthier life on the other side. . . .

It Is What It Is

One of the things I love about life is how unpredictable it can be. When I came to the canyon more than a year and a half ago, I thought I was coming here for a "working vacation." Turns out there was very little vacation about it. . . .and the "work" part turned out to be more emotional than occupational.

There was something I needed to learn. . . .and I believe that's why the canyon called me here. When I sat on the edge in 2005 and felt my spirit stand up and walk through the canyon like Paul Bunyon, it refused to squeeze back into the box my psyche had created to protect it. But it has taken all of these six long years to understand what that really means.

Evil Kneivil broke 433 bones during the course of his life. . . .they healed, left scars, imposed limitations, and probably hurt a LOT....but they never stopped him from doing what he loved. Evil Kneival is the epitome of the Phoenix in human form (or is it the epitome of human stupidity? lol). Regardless of which he best embodies, I think the more broken and beat up we are by the journey, the more courage and strength it takes to rise up again and again out of the ashes of personal tragedy and lost love. But I also believe that the struggle and pain help to make us appreciate the journey from a deeper place of gratitude because of  the never ending obstacles needing to be overcome in order to simply continue on. But we do. . . .because the Phoenix spirit in all of us rises up to live and love again.

My life has left me deeply scarred. . . .with parts still feeling like they are broken beyond repair. But my journey here at this amazing canyon has helped me to accept this truth about my self without apology for these scars that bind and blind me.

It is what it is. . . .I am what I am. . . .and I still deserve to live, love and laugh my way through the journey. . . .

Mother's Day from the Edge

Today is Mother's Day. It's been 25 years since my mom passed on, and I have many mixed feelings on this day. For more than a week I've been reading all of these happy posts about everyone's wonderful mothers and their gratitudes and appreciations. Trouble is that for some of us, our relationship with our mother was/is complex and difficult. . . .and it feels like there is no place for this truth on what is supposed to be a "happy" day. So this is my mother's day post to my mom, written from a personal truth that's real for us. . . .

Mom, I love you. . . .even with your flaws and imperfections. But when you died, there was still so much conflict going on between us, and after 25 years there is still this great big hole in my heart and in my life from your absence. I don't know what to do with this gaping black hole. What do I do with all of the guilt for feeling so angry with you? Not anger for leaving, but anger for being so sick and perpetually absent in my life.

I have needed you every day since you left. My bearings are still off, like my compass can't find its true north, can't find its home. . . .because you were my home. . . .you were the hub that grounded me no matter where I was in the world. . . .even when I was angry and indifferent. . . .and now I just feel bereft with no place to find safe haven any more. I'm still lost, even after 25 years, lost without your unconditional love for me.

I don't even remember. . . .mother's day 25 years ago. . . .did I even send a card home? I was half way around the world trying to deal with my own craxy mixed up life. . . .did I tell you that I love you? I can't recall. . . .I can't remember. . . .would it have made a difference had I told you? I had only a few short weeks left with you, but I was half way around the world with no clue about what was about to happen. . . .would I have made different choices had I known? I was so indulgent then. . . .indulgent because I thought I had a lifetime of happy mother's days ahead of me. . . .my selfish ignorance made me indulgent and carefree. And now I must live with how utterly alone that indulgence has left me.

I'm sorry that our relationship growing up was so complex and difficult. I'm sorry that I couldn't be more supportive when you were sick and I was so angry with how sick you were. But mostly I'm sorry that we didn't have enough time to work through the long distance still between us when you passed on from this world. I feel "stuck" in that moment, like a part of me remains blacked out in the shock of the finality of your loss. And so I don't know what to do with this black hole that remains. . . .

. . . .except to tell you that I love you. . . .I'm glad that you were my mother, even with your flaws and imperfections. . . .I appreciate how you loved and believed in me so completely unconditionally. . . .how you gave me the strength of confidence to believe in myself no matter what anyone else thought, especially when it was "you and me against the world". . . .and I miss you more than you could possibly imagine.

So, Happy Mother's Day to the woman who chose me to be her first born and only daughter. My life is possible only because of you. . . .may our relationship one day find the peace we both need and deserve.

Change and Permanence

The problem is perspective. I came to the canyon with the hopes of being able to make a life, to settle down and enjoy a wonderful working vacation. But that's the problem. . . .I have been working hard to create a permanent life in a temporary reality. It's not set up for long-term permanent here. . . .that's why they force us to have a roommate, even in our own tiny apartments. I would have to be here for 10 years before I would be allowed to live here on my own. . . . TEN years! That feels unbearable. . . .especially given other personal limitations. . . .

But the problem as I see it now is perspective. . . .my perspective. I want what I can't have here. And the bigger problem is that I don't think I'll find what I want anywhere else, either. Then the even bigger problem from there is that I think about this stuff way too much. . . lol. But it's who I am. . . .I am a creative observer to life. . . .and I think deeply upon what I see. . . .especially when what I see changes with perspective much like how the canyon changes depending on the light. Perspective changes everything.

I once read this amazing book about the mind of an artist, I think it was called Creating Minds. Yes, that's what it was called. The author looked at a small collection of iconic creative minds that revolutionized a part of the world. . . .Albert Einstein. . . .Picasso. . . . Martha Graham. . . .Freud. . . . .Gandhi.. . .and I can't recall the others. But the basic premise of the book is that the artistic mind is essentially not a "normal" mind, but rather is fueled by some form of mental/emotional angst or imbalance of sorts. A mind in balance doesn't seek to make sense of the disorder. It's an interesting premise. . . .one that I am holding near and dear right now. . . .lol.

My journey is constantly changing as I seek to make sense of the disordered fragments within my life, yet I long for permanence and stability, which makes no sense. I am a walking paradox. It's a good thing my friends love me for who I am, because I honestly don't know from day to day what I will do or where I will end up. Every day is a potential opportunity for me to turn my life upside down and head off into the middle of a grand adventure. Every day is also an opportunity to leave myself only to return finding that everything has changed.

I feel a bit like Siddharta right now. . . .ever searching for truth only to find that truth changes depending on one's perspective on life in a given moment. Nothing is permanent, not even personal truth. So for now, I am here. . . .and that is all I know for certain. . . .