Wanderlust

The Birth of Venus

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 02:00:00 +0000

It is said that Zeus ate his wife when she was pregnant with Athena. It had been prophesied that the child would be more powerful than Zeus, and I guess he just couldn’t have that. This put an end to his wife, but the child Athena continued to grow inside his body until one day she burst out through his skull.

And Venus, goddess of love, was born from the sea after Zeus’s castrated genitals were thrown into the water. I don’t recall who did the castrating, or why, but I think this too had to do with jealousy. Nonetheless, this tragedy gave rise to the birth of Venus, whose curvaceous form rose from the sea foam, naked and holy, while ecstatic cherubim heralded her arrival.

Athena and Venus are not alone when it comes to unfortunate birth stories. As it turns out, most gods and goddesses are born of misfortune.

I read these stories when I was young, on rainy Saturdays, out of a hard-cover book on mythology given to me by my grandmother. I was barely a teen and yet I wondered at the irony of it all. Zeus and his cohorts were gods, after all, powerful beyond measure. And yet here they were, destroyed by their own emotions.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that this collection of impetuous and tortured gods was all of us.

I think of you now when I read these stories, as you were a man undone by emotion. On the outside, you always appeared so calm and controlled. But I could feel the disquiet just beneath the surface. Perhaps that is why I stayed so long. I thought I could rescue you from yourself.

When I swam in the waters off the coast of Australia, I remember being surprised at how calm the ocean was when I dove beneath the pounding waves. You were just the opposite, like an upside-down storm at sea: deep, roiling waters underneath with a glass-like surface.

After you were gone I found the notes you kept in your planner. Each day you chronicled my faults. Oddly, you wrote of nothing else. Not of work or the kids, no ponderings of life. Just a diary of all the ways I did not appease your needs. I had gained weight, wrote too much, sat the kids in front of the TV, ignored you, went to bed early when you wanted sex, stuck you with the kids when I was sick, gave you a look. It was all there, recorded in your small, precise handwriting. The mundane activities of my day, as seen through your distorted lens.

Given your dissatisfaction with me, I was surprised that you reacted with such vehemence when I finally did leave. You turned on me, like Zeus devouring his lover. It seemed there was no end to the ways you wanted to destroy me.

I figured out much later that it was never me you were fighting. It was all those voices inside – angry, berating, telling you that you were never enough. They circled and dove in your head like angry sparrows. When I left, every black-edged taunt in your mind crystallized and was projected outward onto me. You looked at me and saw yourself.

I’m not angry at you, not now, despite the harm you brought upon all of us. You no longer seem like an affronted god ravaging my world. Just a broken mortal, injured beyond imagine.

I recognize, too, that you were a catalyst for my own healing. You were my whetstone.

Think about it. When I tried to walk away, you destroyed the path. I hid and you smashed in the door. I ran and you cut off my feet. I cried out and you burned my tongue. You put me in a position of having to constantly improve my game: fight harder, run farther, write louder.

You were my midwife, assisting in my birth. I should thank you for that, your contribution to my awakening.

When I saw you recently, I could see that the years in prison had not softened you (but then, how could they?). You walked into the courtroom with that same calm façade. The litigation was a game to you – see if you could hold me under longer than I could hold my breath. What you didn’t realize was that I was no longer playing the game. I gave that up long ago.

I could tell you were shocked by the verdict. I suppose you still expect reality to bend to your carefully crafted illusions. I watched you walk away after the hearing, the anger threatening to break through the surface.

Your history might tell you that pain begets pain. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Sometimes, pain brings love and darkness gives birth to light. I learned, out of necessity, that when we develop the courage to look long enough at our own pain without blinking, it will eventually lift, and then shift into something quite spectacular.

If you look closely at this world, between the folds of darkness, you will find a generous expanse of love just there for the taking.

I wish you peace. I wish you healing. I hope one day you will know what it feels like to be released from your wounds. And I wish you were able to see, truly see, the beauty in this world. If you could, perhaps you would be able to make out in the distance, beyond the ruins of our past, the magnificent glow of light emerging like the dawn.

For behold, Venus rises from the shadow of the sea.

This is my final post on Wanderlust. I shuttered the blog several years ago, but I have chosen to re-open it so the archives are available for those who wish to read them. Shutters are great when you need to close out the world, which is something I needed for a time, but they also keep the light out.

I have a new space where I write now, but it seemed best to post this piece here, where it can act as an apropos full stop to a tumultuous and unimaginable chapter of my life. ~Peace~

I don’t give a rip about Bill Cosby

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sat, 18 Jul 2015 21:44:00 +0000

Bill Cosby is all over the news. You can read the transcripts of his court testimony from 2005. You can read that his wife believes the victims willingly took drugs and had sex with her husband, and that she’s made her peace with that. You can read about the petition to take away his presidential medal of freedom, and how it probably won’t happen.You can read a hundred different dissections on how this has killed his career.

You can read about Cosby all day, every day, whether you want to or not, because it’s in your face.

Personally, I’m tired of it. This amalgamation of newsworthy angles on the topic as seen through the lens of entitlement. Cosby this. Cosby that.

Do you know what I want to read about?

The women.

The forty women who have come forward to report that they were raped by Cosby. The god-knows-how-many more who have yet to come forward, or who will take their silence to the grave because they don’t want to be publicly crucified, or who have perhaps already died and will never bear witness. That, I care about.

I want to know how the experience has affected them. And not just in the obvious ways we are all accustomed to hearing from rape victims: the physical and emotional scars, the self-recrimination, the shame, the PTSD.

I want to read about the stuff beneath that. How many years of therapy did it take to reach a point where they could even date again? Did they stop trusting their ability to make good decisions? What might their careers have been if they hadn’t had that kick to their confidence? How did it affect what they taught their children, both explicitly and in the hundred silent ways they modeled a defensive stance against an untrustworthy world?

How did it affect their health ten or twenty years later? Are they experiencing back problems, pelvic pain, depression, anxiety, reflux, migraines, sleep disorders, heart disease, cancer? How many days of work have they missed as a result of all of it? How much money have they lost? How many years have been shaved off their expected life spans?

And beneath that still, on a level they may not even be able to articulate, do they understand that this was not about sex, but about power? That it happened, in part, because their power was intimidating and confronting to a man, who responded by trying to crush it?

And in the years that followed, as they began to straighten out their crimped souls, breathe deeply again, even voice their stories out loud, did they still carry with them a visceral memory of that equation: that their power causes fear, and fear causes retaliation?

How many years did they walk around with their power center closed up tight like a flower bud, because what good is your own power if it slays you? And did they continue on in their lives, allowing themselves to experience just enough of that life-giving energy to take some tentative steps forward, but not enough to attract too much attention?

If they are introspective enough to recognize that they have responded to this violent betrayal by dimming their own light, will they blame themselves and not the catch-22 conditions of a social structure designed to ensure that exact outcome?

Maybe, just maybe, a day will come and one of them will decide, fuck it, I’m going to stand up tall and put all my gifts on display. Let my power rip. Belt out my song even if I’m pilloried for it. Because what good is a life half-lived? Maybe people will rail against her because they value their own fantasy more than they value the pain of an anonymous woman. But by then perhaps she won’t care. She’s high on her own truth.

So yeah, Bill Cosby. I don't care how he’s dealing with this. He is simply one of thousands upon thousands who have chosen to use their power and privilege to harm another in an attempt to fill a void within themselves. He is just another sorry-assed cliché.

But the women? They have some pretty phenomenal stories to tell.

I'm just sitting here, with half the planet, waiting to hear their songs.

An entire post of upside-down cats

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 23:44:00 +0000

No, I don't need to respect your opinion

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 02:43:00 +0000

Pexels.com

Since the landmark SCOTUS vote for marriage equality there have been a lot of emotional exchanges on social media. Some of it has gotten ugly. I've also seen several pleas for tolerance of differing opinions, and specifically for respecting the deeply held religious beliefs of others.

While I’m all for both tolerance and freedom of expression, I found myself bristling at some of these peacemaking requests.

At its heart, it’s because I’m uncomfortable with the underlying premise that this is merely a debate about personal beliefs.

Let's look at personal belief for a minute.

You may believe in many things, including the power of prayer, abstinence before marriage, snake wrangling, Coke over Pepsi, and homosexuality as a sin. That’s all fine. In that case, you should feel free to pray, abstain from sex, wield snakes, guzzle Coke and marry someone of the opposite gender. In a free society, those are all choices one has. As long as our choices don’t harm another or break the law, we can pretty much knock ourselves out.

However, this does not mean we can require others to drink Coke or marry only people we personally approve of. And it especially doesn’t mean we can withhold basic human rights from another because they are different from us.

That's not a simple opinion. That's tyranny.

We all get to control what we do. We do not get to control what other people do. That’s the basic teaching in How-To-Be-A-Human 101. If you missed the class, go back and take it again.

Look. It would be one thing if publicly proclaiming that homosexuality is a sin and all gay people are going to hell was just a harmless conviction. But it’s not. Negative attitudes toward LGBT people put them at increased risk for experiences with bullying, teasing, harassment and physical assault. It erodes their confidence and makes them feel like it’s not safe to simply be themselves.

Consider this:

9 out of 10 LGBT teens have reported being bullied at school within the past year because of their sexual orientation
LGBT students report being 5 times more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe after being bullied due to their sexual orientation
About 28 percent feel forced to drop out of school altogether
Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average
LGB youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide
With transgender people, the number is even higher

While espousing a belief that homosexuality is an abomination is a choice you have, it’s one that is actively contributing to an atmosphere which harms others. That’s not just theoretical, it’s statistically proven.

So yes, it’s your choice. It’s just not a very nice one (see aforementioned 101 course).

As if this wasn’t bad enough, these protestations, when met with backlash, are often followed up by cries of persecution. I’m thinking in particular of one person who posted an horrendous anti-gay rant, copped some abuse for it, and then took to her social media page to complain about what she considered to be a mean and horrible backlash.

Intolerance and persecution are bad enough. But when they are delivered in the guise of martyrdom, it really flips my pissy switch.

I think one of the reasons this bothers me so much is because of my work in the field of domestic violence. Let’s talk about the perpetrators of abuse for a moment. One of the hallmarks of the abuser is that he fancies himself a victim. If you see this man in the courtroom he will likely not only proclaim his innocence, but accuse his victim of all manner of injustice against him. It’s a nauseating blend of bullying and cowardice – psychological projection in its most distilled form. I’ve witnessed it countless times and experienced it firsthand.

I see the same thing happening with some of these religious arguments. The intolerant demand tolerance. The persecutors cry persecution.

No go.

You don't get to ask me to respect your beliefs if you beliefs cause harm to others. And you do not get to lob a grenade into a crowd and then proclaim victimhood when people start throwing things back at you.

Why not just stop throwing grenades altogether?

If you keep that up, you’ll never make it out of that basic How-to-Human class. And I hear there will be one hell of a party once we all pass.

A litter of nursing kittens

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sat, 09 May 2015 21:53:00 +0000

Look what I have under my roof at the moment. Pretty adorable, aren't they? Yes, I'm a foster mama again. These kittens are about two weeks old.

This beautiful mama and her four babies kittens were dropped off at a local kill shelter. They did not have room for them and reached out to some other shelters to see if they could find a foster, so they wouldn't have to put them down. This is unfortunately not uncommon in the springtime, during "kitten season". When I got the call, of course I said yes.

The mother, Ophelia, is a small kitty and fairly young herself. I don't know that she's even a year old. She is one of the most gentle, calm cats I've ever met, and very affectionate. She is exceptionally tolerant and will let me get up close to take pictures of her and her babies.

Today I went in the master bath, where the foster cats stay, and l lay down on the floor to shoot some pictures and just look at them. The kittens began nursing and I listened to them purr and suckle and watched them knead their mother's tummy. I felt a sense of peace wash over me. I don't think it's possible to feel stress in the presence of purring cats.

I am not a religious person. I think of god as simply the energy of pure love and compassion and peace. It is oftentimes when I am in the presence of animals that I feel imbued with that energy. I felt that this morning as I lay on the cool tile floor and watched this beautiful mother nursing her babies. Afterwards, they fell asleep against her warm tummy.

Ophelia and all four of her kittens will be up for adoption in about six weeks. If you are interested in opening up your home to one of these amazing animals, feel free to contact me.

Should you think twice before telling your story?

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 04:30:00 +0000

Image Source: www.pexels.com

If you had asked me when I was younger what sort of activity I would find most fulfilling, I would have never said: “Sharing really personal information on the internet, yo.” Even today I’m a bit surprised how quickly my writing edged over into the intimate, and how much satisfaction it provided. Humanoids…we’re so unpredictable.

I’m not alone in this, as there are a number of bloggers who write very openly about their lives. Telling our stories publicly can be a little scary. The world is full of lions and tigers and judgement and internet trolls. Such candor is probably best left for the intrepid and the blissfully naïve. But if your story is about domestic violence, there may be another really good reason to remain quiet: safety.

This was something I thought long and hard about before putting up my first post about DV. I didn’t know how to keep writing without mentioning this huge, life-changing thing that had happened. And I didn’t want to stop writing altogether, especially at a time when I really needed the support of the community I was engaged with.

In the end, I made the decision to talk openly about what had happened, even though I knew that doing so carried a risk. The truth was that I was already in a great deal of danger, regardless of whether or not I spoke out. Staying quiet, I reasoned, was not going to keep me safe.

It paid off for me. There were repercussions, most certainly, but they were outweighed by the benefits. I received enormous support and, ultimately, justice.

One of the other benefits of telling my story publicly is that I’ve been approached by a few people who have asked to include pieces of my story in their books. One of those books is Living Proof, by John Capecci and Timothy Cage. The book originally came out a few years ago and I read it at the time and loved it. It’s a wonderful book for anyone who is telling their story to make a difference. The second edition, due out in a few months, is expanded and has some additional stories, mine included.

I’ll provide a more in depth review when the new edition is released, but today they did publish a short excerpt on their blog, as part of a series called ‘Moving from Silence to Story’, which is where my story is featured. They discuss this issue of safety in their post. You can read it here.

Despite my own experience, I would not necessarily advocate for a victim of abuse to speak out publicly. It could indeed provoke further violence. Every person’s situation is unique and they have to decide for themselves what is right for them. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again and again – I may even tattoo it on my forehead – you have to trust your instincts. Whether you’re dealing with violence or something more ordinary and mundane, your instincts are always your best compass.

All the places I've called home

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 02:11:00 +0000

I grew up in California in a house that sat atop a hill. Tall grass and scrub oak blanketed the surrounding hills. The home buzzed with life. Two kids running hither and yon, a dog and a cat and a bird and various pocket pets that never seemed to stay around for long. The house was alive with joy and energy. The sun shone bright overhead and my heart soaked it all in. I lived there until I was thirteen, at which point my parents divorced. I moved out with my mom and not long afterward, the house on the hill was packed up and sold.

Next was a series of rented apartments that felt like way stations. My mom drifted from place to place, trying on new versions of herself, and I tagged along behind her. This went on until I was on the cusp of adulthood. I learned to hold my breath, to not put down roots. It was a lesson in the impermanence of life.

As long as I was unmoored, I decided, I would travel. I worked temporary jobs until I had enough money to travel, then I took off on some new adventure. I kept my possessions few and lived lightly. I traveled all over the country, and eventually across the ocean. I spent six months traipsing across Australia, going deep into the red interior. I found the land to be inescapably beautiful. I felt at peace there, my soul taking root in the ancient red land. This foreign yet familiar place redefined for me the meaning of home.

In my mid-twenties, I moved to Kansas to be near my mom. I decided to go back to school. I rented an apartment in an old Victorian house and settled in to the rhythm and beat of campus life. It was my first home that was mine alone, a place of blossoming. I filled it with books and travel mementos and quilt fabrics. Light streamed in through the big front window, where my cats perched on the sill, lazily twitching their tails. It was a place of joy and friendship, of creativity and freedom. The stuff of creation. At the end of my first year at school, within the span of a handful of months, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and died. I was bereft. But I stayed on three more years in my newly-made home, and it soothed my broken heart.

My next home was on an island in the Pacific Northwest. I was drawn there by the beauty and solitude, but hadn’t considered what it would feel like to be so alone. I imagined I would make friends, as I always had, but this proved a challenge. It never occurred to me that it might be difficult to meet kindred souls on a remote, rural island. I felt like I lived inside the pages of National Geographic. Bald eagles soared overhead and nested in the tall trees overlooking the strait. Orcas and grey whales breached and spouted. The cold sea lapped the shore. At night I could hear the mournful cry of foghorns and feel the vibrations from the cargo ships cruising silently through the dark passage. It was hauntingly beautiful, but the trees sucked up all the light and my heart grew lonely.

I returned to Kansas and moved into another Victorian-era home. The house was old and friendly and weathered. The dining room floor slanted downward and I had to duck to enter my bedroom closet. I painted the kitchen yellow and filled the house with quirky second-hand furniture. The house was light and hopeful, like my last home in Kansas, but I had carried with me some of the sadness from the island and it settled into the home. I stayed there for two years, feeling about, looking for a path.

Next came the house in the suburbs. I had never wanted to live in the suburbs - beige neighborhoods filled with beige cookie-cutter houses – but I let him choose the house. Life had taught me to bend with the wind, but sometimes I bent too far. I came to the house reluctantly, one eyebrow raised. My travel photos and quilts seemed out of place within its newly constructed walls. It felt like someone else’s home. Nevertheless, it was a place that birthed and grew children. A place where cookies were baked and faces cleaned and floors swept again and again. The house, benign and accommodating, nurtured my kids through childhood and sent them off to school. The seasons recycled themselves and life was pleasant enough.

But then there was the summer when everything fell apart. When violence cut like a knife through our family. His lawyer demanded the house and I, frightened and somewhat relieved, made preparations to leave. I was surprised, however, when the house held fast to us. The horror of that period drew out for another three years and all that time we stayed in the house. She held us there through the longest night, cupped in her hand, cushioning us from a series of sucker punches.

When the storm passed and we emerged, shell-shocked yet intact, I regarded the house with a newfound appreciation. I had never seen the loyalty and strength hidden beneath her beige exterior. This place I had leaned away from all those years.

She holds us now with an open palm, like a good Samaritan setting free a once-wounded bird. She wills us to take flight. I can feel her folding up our family’s history, like a laundered sheet, tucking it into a trunk for shipping. She is making preparations for a new family and some days I can almost hear the laughter of someone else’s children running down her hallways, strewing crumbs across her floors and gathering the oversized leaves from her yard.

When I lie quietly at night, I can feel our next house beckoning to us. I catch the fresh scent of towels still crisp from the clothes line. I hear the wind in the trees outside and the murmurs of my children in the next room. I feel the passage of time, like Fortuna’s wheel, carrying us forward towards the next new place, the framework of a home waiting for us to write our story into its walls.

The 39 Reasons

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 21:23:00 +0000

Image source

I have to write. It is in my blood.
But I don’t have time anymore. My job sucks up all my time.
I’m too exhausted.
Besides, the community isn’t there any more.
I will be writing into a void.
I miss that sense of community so much.
Life has become too heavy and serious.
And what if I don’t write anything inspired?
What if it’s boring?
My writing has bored me lately.
When I write too much, the truth comes out.
The truth is painful.
I don’t want to feel it.
I’m hungry. I wonder if there is any cake left?
I need a cup of tea, too.
You know, there is so much heaviness associated with this blog.
When I open it up, I remember all of it – the ups, the downs, the serious downs.
It comes flooding back.
I need to start another blog, one that is fresh and new, without that heavy history.
But god that’s a lot of work, building a new blog.
Yeah, no. I don’t want to do all that work.
It’s not just the painful memories. I’m reminded of all the dreams I had, too.
I’m reminded that my life hasn’t worked out the way I hoped it would.
I’m still in Kansas.
I feel old.
I’m being morose. I would feel better if I started exercising again.
Actually, I should be cleaning.
I should go get my kids off the computer and do a puzzle with them.
In fact, we should have scheduled family time once a week. No computers, no devices.
What if I write and no one reads?
What if people from work are reading? That’s always awkward.
What if my ex’s family reads it?
What if he reads it?
He gets out in two years.
I don't think Anna fed the cats. They are looking at me like they haven't been fed.
I need to go to bed in an hour.
Seriously, fuck all of it.
I just want to write.
I need to write.

For Kate

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 22:30:00 +0000

Photo credit: dreamstime

I have the Facebook Timehop app on my phone. Every day it delivers back to me the status updates I posted one, two, three or more years ago on that same date. Five years ago next month marks the day my marriage imploded. Four years ago today I was strolling along Bondi Beach in Sydney, preparing or the first Aussie Bloggers Conference (remember that?). Two years ago July I sat eating an ice cream cone a thousand miles from home, waiting for charges to be levied. A year ago last month my ex-husband was sentenced. The dates roll around in a circle, a series of awkward anniversaries.

It’s humbling to see the passage of time. When everything went south in my life, I kept the faith that some sort of salvation was just around the corner. My ex would be arrested. We would move far away. I would run every day and get fit. I would lose weight. I would start blogging regularly again and I would love it. I would write my memoir and get a publishing contract. I would find love again – this time a healthy, worthy love. As I sat wrapped in my pain, I willed these things to happen.

I would even start off down a rickety path towards one of these goals, but I never got far. I would put up an online dating profile, only to meet someone who was embarrassingly like the man I’d just left. I would look for jobs overseas, and get overwhelmed by the red tape and stacked odds. I would begin churning out blog posts, and then have my words thrown back at me in court. I would start running and eating healthier, only to have my progress interrupted when I had to pack up the kids and leave home to find safety. Two steps forward, three steps back. I felt like I couldn’t win for losing.

It pissed me off, frankly. After all, didn’t I deserve a reprieve after everything I’d been through? Hadn’t I earned some good karma? I had endured so much, why must I get more of the same? I figured I must be doing something wrong.

I remember one day, not long after returning home from the summer spent in hiding, I was driving through my neighborhood. I saw a woman out running on the same path I had run on six months earlier. I felt a pang of jealousy and thought, “Look at that woman running, like I used to do. She gets to go home to a house that is safe. She probably has family nearby and a partner to support her. I bet she doesn’t worry about money.” I envisioned a wonderful, successful life for this unsuspecting woman, a life that was the antithesis of mine.

And then, quite suddenly, I felt something inside me shift. I was now seeing myself running on that path, only I saw myself as an outsider might. I saw a woman who had been through some serious shit. Unfathomable shit. She would fashion a dream and then get knocked flat, and then she would get up and fashion another. And look at her out there in the midst of it all, trying to get fit! She keeps getting up and moving forward, spinning hope out of nothing.

The world tilted just a bit and it shifted my viewpoint. Instead of a failure, I saw myself as resilient. I felt compassion for myself. Love, even.

The gift of perspective dropped in my lap.

Today I read a post by a fellow blogger, Kate. She’s been through some pretty intense trauma recently. Several aspects of her story parallel mine and when I see her updates, it’s like that Timehop app -- I am reminded in a visceral way of the emotional journey I was on a few years ago.

Kate, I wish I could tell you that it will all be over soon. It might, then again it might not. But what you’re doing is spot on. You’re turning around to face it. When I stopped willing my situation to change and instead sat still with it, the ugly feelings began to dissipate. I sat there a long, long time (I’m still sitting).

You’re getting up each day and getting on with it. You’re traveling an unmapped road and making decisions in each moment about what’s in your family’s best interest. You’re taking a private journey in a sometimes-public way and because of that, you’re leaving bread crumbs for the countless others who suffer in silence. The ones you don’t even know about.

If I have any advice to give, it would be this. Keep following your instincts. Keep healing. Sit down with your pain, say hello, pour it a cup of tea, and it may begin to dissolve on its own. Maybe, when it does, you’ll begin to see yourself as those around you see you: strong, beautiful and full of courage.

There is no timeline. You’re doing it exactly right.

And God commanded: Sit Still Already!

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 22:37:00 +0000

There are a hundred reasons why people don't pursue the things that they love and only one sure way to ensure that they do.

Read on and I will reveal all. The reason I know this is because I've spent the last several months reading books on how to set and achieve goals, how to live your dreams, how to write like a mofo, how to clear your energy blocks, etc, etc, ad naseum. I love reading books like this. Why? Because as long as I'm reading about doing something, I don't actually have to do it. It's one of the most hallowed and advanced forms of procrastination.

However, if you were to condense the advice in all of the books above, it would come down to this: if you want to do something just sit down and do it. Since my goals are mostly centered around writing, for me this translates into: just write.

But wait, there's more. When you take action toward your dreams, life steps up to meet you halfway. The Fates breathe stardust on your work and magic happens.

When I sit down to write, it activates my procrastibrain. I type out a paragraph and then feel an overwhelming need to organize the kids' closets or advance the laundry or indulge my sudden and uncontrollable desire for coffee and a cinnamon muffin. When I finally manage to complete a piece of writing it's incredibly cathartic. I want to cheer and hang a Mission Accomplished banner across my back porch.

If you are doing all these things then, like me, you don't really see yourself as a writer.

When I go into work, I work full stop for a good 8-10 hours. In a given day, I may interview a job candidate, negotiate a contract, create a salary spreadsheet, give a presentation and answer about fifty emails. I don't expect kudos for doing this. There are no celebrations, my boss doesn't high-five me and fireworks don't erupt into the air and light the ceiling tiles in my office on fire. It's just another day at work. I do it because it's my job.

The trick, for a writer, is to view writing as a job. Or so they tell me.

Okay, okay, okay, said I, with a sigh. I will just do it. I signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, which, if you don't know about it, means committing to write 50k words in the month of November. The last time I did this, it worked like a charm. I produced a 52,000 word draft of my memoir (which, incidentally, still sits in draft form). I knew it would be more challenging this year because I am working full-time. But I made the commitment to do it. And then something extraordinary happened.

I was walking out of a campus building on Wednesday after attending a social media training and missed a step. I did a dramatic, ankle-crunching triple lutz onto the pavement which earned me an audience of concerned citizens and an ambulance ride to the hospital. They diagnosed me with a shattered left fibula and sprained right ankle and sent me home with a splint, a bottle of Percocet and instructions to lie flat in bed for a really long time.

So here I lie. Ambulation is near impossible. Even maneuvering from my bed to the bathroom requires fifteen minutes, a rolling chair, incredible tricep strength and the loss of my dignity.

Thus it was I woke up on the morning of November 1st, opened up my computer and wrote 3,000 words out of the chute. I could not stop to advance the laundry, cleaning was a pipe dream and even preparing a cup of coffee was beyond my capabilities (god dammit). I quite literally was robbed of nine-tenths of my go-to procrastination tricks.

One thing I learned from my ordeal of the last few years is that we get to choose our own life narratives. While we can't control the actions of others, we get to define the meaning behind any experiences we have. That is why I have chosen to see my accident not as an unfortunate mishap or evidence of spectacular klutzery, but rather the Universe hearing my wishes and creating for me the time and space to write.

It also means that the next time I find myself procrastinating towards taking action in the direction of my goals, I probably should just go ahead and do it. Because it would be even more fun to be writing full bore with coffee and two working legs.

Lesson learned.

When Scarlett Johansson fell down, she got an awesome meme

Presence

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 21:29:00 +0000

Of all the gifts that trauma brought me, the greatest is the ability to be present.

When my children were younger I was rarely present. They would chatter on to me and my mind would be a million miles away. I would realize, mid-conversation, that I had no idea what they had just told me. My body was there, but my mind was projected into some imagined future, far away from the mundane, discordant and often painful reality of the present moment.

Today, when my children talk to me, I stop what I am doing and focus on them. If I’m in the middle of something that requires my attention, I ask them to hold on for a moment until I’m done and able to be present with them. I don’t want to miss anything.

The shift was not a sudden one, but happened gradually over the past couple of years. The more I healed from the shock and injury of my ordeal, the easier it became to relax into the present moment.

My son is at a beautiful age where he is gaining his independence, but still loves to spend time talking to me. Sometimes he will accompany me to the grocery store and we will walk down the aisles and chat about everything and nothing. He drinks in my company like a thirsty traveler and I drink in his.

My daughter is now in the tween years and is often lost in her own world. I crave conversation with her where she isn’t distracted by a book or video. I find myself planning what I might say to her that will capture her attention for a while. I wonder if that’s how she felt all those years when I was never fully available.

Sometimes, I am struck by their beauty. A gentle smile, a unique idea, a witticism, the curve of a cheekbone, a spray of freckles over the nose. And in that moment I am overwhelmed with emotion.

Every day I wake up and I am grateful for their presence in my life. I write these words with hesitancy, as I know how they sound. Parenting is hard. It can be relentless, exhausting, thankless. But I also know that for a period of several years, I worried daily that they might be taken from me or, more likely, I from them. It was the stark reality I lived with.

Today, I can’t be in their presence without feeling a keen sense of gratitude. It is an honor to make their meals, battle with them over homework and awaken to comfort them in the middle of the night.

If I was granted one wish, it would be to reel back time so that I could be present, really and truly present, with my kids when they were younger. I would give anything to sit again with my four-year old daughter and play mind-numbing board games, or simply sit in the silence of an afternoon and hold my sleeping son, feeling his breath rise and fall against my chest. I did these things with my kids, of course, but my mind was far away. So focused on a distant world that I missed the bounty before me.

I realize that this was my way of coping. To be fully present, I would have had to experience all that was untenable in my marriage. I would have had to listen to the persistent voice of my intuition, telling me all was not right. I would have had to acknowledge, and then act on, the discomfort and fear. I wasn’t yet ready to do that.

Now, the present moment is not such a scary place. It is calm and unexpectedly beautiful. It is sometimes sad, sometimes lonely, often joyful, but never untenable.

It is a place that feels like home and one I don’t want to ever leave again.

Hope in a 30-second sound bite

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:58:00 +0000

I have an app which serves up posts I wrote on Facebook on the same date in previous years (Timehop). It can be amusing and at times cringe-worthy to see what I wrote in years past. Yesterday, it showed me a post I had written four years ago, Sept 13^th, 2010: “Wondering if there’s ever going to be an end to this, truly. I want my life back.”

I shook my head when I saw this. This was one month after the assault and just two weeks into the criminal investigation. Two weeks! I’m so grateful that 2010 me didn’t know that it would be another three and a half years before all was said and done. I would have crumbled into a heap and cried uncle.

What got me through that year, and the next, and the next, was an unwavering and perhaps unrealistic optimism. I always believed that it would all end soon. I held onto a vision of what my life would be like in the after, and I believed this new life was just around the corner.

I’ve done a lot of reading on the psychology of trauma in the past couple of years and one thing I know is this. Of all the things that promote resilience and healing, perhaps the most important is hope. It can help heal mind, body and soul.

Today I came across something called Project Hope Exchange. It’s an interesting project that allows people to either leave or listen to a 30-second message of hope. Curious, I clicked through to the website to learn more.

Once you are on the website, you can choose to either Get Help or Give Help. If you are experiencing a life challenge, you can scroll through their directory and find audio links to a number of short messages of hope left by others who have gone through something similar. Categories include depression, cancer, OCD, domestic violence, addiction, grief & loss, and many others.

If you want to give help, you can call their toll-free number and leave a short message of hope for someone else.

I decided to call in and leave a message myself. I was nervous about the 30-second limit, so I wrote out my message and practiced it several times, editing it to keep within the allotted time. When I called in, it took me three tries before I had a message that I was happy with. In the end, it probably took me half an hour to leave a 30-second message, but it felt good to have done so.

I’m sharing the site here because I know so many of you have gone through difficulties and have wisdom to offer someone else. I also know that some of you may need an infusion of hope yourself.

If you’d like to leave your own message of hope, or listen to someone else’s, you can find their website here. If you do leave a message, let me know. I'd love to go listen to it once it's up on the site.

Do you want to know why? Here is why

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 19:59:00 +0000

Love, guilt, religion, children, shame, hopelessness, embarrassment, loyalty, exhaustion, denial, institutional bias, compassion fatigue and family pressure.

Lack. Lack of money, lack of friends, lack of family support, lack of confidence, lack of energy, lack of transportation, lack of concern shown by law enforcement and/or the justice system, lack of belief in one’s ability to go it alone, lack of a healthy perspective.

Depression and anxiety resulting from years of psychological abuse. Depression and anxiety caused by living day in and day out with a partner who relentlessly blames, minimizes, denies, makes excuses, lies, condescends, withholds and threatens.

Fear. Fear of being alone, of hurting the kids, of not being able to provide, of losing face, of losing everything. Fear of being hurt, ridiculed, litigated, stalked or killed.

Everyone is asking why Janay Palmer didn’t leave Ray Rice. Why did she marry him and why is she still defending him.

Here are some additional questions I think we need to ask about situations like this.

Why is he hitting her? Why does he not show compassion, restraint or remorse? Why are we focusing so much attention on her response, as opposed to his behavior? Why does our society not throw more resources at a major health epidemic that affects 25% of all women? Why is our government not outraged by this threat that results in 2 million injuries and 1,300 deaths in the U.S. each year?

I’ve written before about this very topic. I was a victim of DV. I left immediately after being assaulted. Bully for me. But every woman faces different choices, and often those choices feel impossible.

Right now Janay Palmer is fighting two battles. Once is the fear and abuse she is subjected to in her marriage. The other is the relentless attention, judgment and abuse she is receiving from media and the public. She has to decide where to put her energy and I imagine right now, it’s going towards the latter. Maybe we should all just lay off and give her some space to heal.

#WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft are two important hashtags trending right now. Read them. Tell your friends to read them. They are giving victims a voice.

A conversation with author Deborah Shouse

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 18:33:00 +0000

A while back I had the notion that I would begin a series of interviews with authors. I wanted to talk with people who had written about themes I found compelling – love and courage and growth and self-awareness.

I connected with a couple of writers whose works had resonated with me and asked if they wanted to do an interview. My life is pretty full-on at the moment, so I won’t go as far as to promise this will be a regular series, but you will probably see some interviews from time to time.

The first of these is with Deborah Shouse, who has written Love in the Land of Dementia: Finding Hope in the Caregiver’s Journey. The book chronicles her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s and Deborah’s very personal response to her mother’s disease.

I have some experience with the topic, as my father suffered from dementia before he passed away, and many of my peers are dealing with similar issues with their loved ones. However, what struck me most about Deborah’s book was not necessarily the subject of Alzheimer’s, but her own personal response to dealing with a frightening and emotionally-laden loss.

Instead of feeling burdened by the experience of caring for someone who had previously cared for her, she used it as an opportunity to further open her own heart and accept without judgment each stage of the disease. At its heart, this is a story of courage, connection, deep humanity and unconditional love.

* * *

K: I understand you kept journals throughout your mother’s illness; however, at what point did you make the decision to write a book and what prompted that decision?

Deborah: I started turning my journal entries into essays. I read one of these essays at a literary event and so many people came up to me afterwards, saying: “My mother has dementia… My father…My aunt…” I felt an immense connection with these caregivers and wanted to continue sharing my stories.

K: Each scene in your book is written with such immediacy and detail that I feel like I am right there beside you, experiencing everything along with you. How did you manage, as you were writing this, to put yourself back in that space and capture the emotional and material intricacies of what had happened years earlier?

Deborah: I used my writing to help keep me sane, balanced and enjoying the present moment. I would take notes of what Mom said and I would often journal after I spent time with my parents. For me, it was a way to focus on noticing the gifts and lessons I was so abundantly receiving. It was also a way to record Mom’s last years and share these meaningful experiences with family and friends.

K: You do a beautiful job of describing the effects of Alzheimer’s and, in turn, the effect of those changes on your family. Your mother gradually loses the capacity to perform the simplest of functions we take for granted, such as dressing herself or recognizing her loved ones, and her personality begins to change. While you mourn each loss, you also show an amazing capacity for accepting the changes and simply staying present in the moment and loving your mother as she is. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Deborah: This became my spiritual practice—accepting Mom for who she was right then. Of course, that’s what we all want—it’s the essence of unconditional love. Each time I was tempted to feel sad or upset, I allowed myself those feelings of loss and also looked for something positive. I always found it!

K: In one scene you give your mom a blanket and she stares lovingly at it and coos, “what a sweet baby.” This reminded me of when my own mom was dying of cancer and was heavily medicated. We gave her a teddy bear and she held it to her chest and spoke lovingly to it, calling it Trevor (her grandson’s name). It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. You then go on to say something that really resonates with me: “Maybe this is the lesson we are all to learn eventually. In the end, only love is left.”

Deborah: I learned so much about love from being with my mother and father during those days. My father showed me how to truly love and my mother let go of her rational rules and was really able to receive affection. Being with her, looking into my mother’s eyes for 30 minutes was a deeply connective experience.

Q: I’m a big proponent of the healing power of storytelling, and you mention this in your book as well. In fact, it has influenced your career to some degree, has it not? Can you share your thoughts on some of the gifts of storytelling?

Deborah: The more we share our stories, the more we realize how connected we all are. Caregivers often feel isolated. Ron and I have been able to share our stories all over the world and we’ve learned how deep our similarities are. In Turkey one man said to me, “Your story is my story.” That kinship, that sharing of the heart, means so much. Plus, there’s often a social stigma with dementia. The more we share the richness of this journey, the more support we’ll get for those who live with Alzheimer’s.

K: I know that many people who have been through challenging experiences, such as the complicated loss that occurs with Alzheimer’s, report that the experience changed them in some positive ways. While living through your mother’s illness and death was clearly very painful, did it leave you with any gifts?

Deborah: I feel so lucky I got to travel with my mom on this journey. My gifts include widening my understanding of love, opening myself to slowing down and patience, surrendering into accepting a person just as they are, learning to be in the present and appreciate the gifts of the moment.

K: Writing and publishing a book is a monumental journey. Now that this is behind you, what is next?

Deborah: I am working on a book about creativity and the caregiver's journey. The book will focus on creative activities to do with your loved one who has Alzheimer's and will also offer ways for caregivers to creatively frame this tender and challenging journey. I welcome ideas from your readers. What creative activities have you explored with a person who has dementia? And how do you keep yourself connected and creative?

K: Thank you, Deborah, for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. I wish you all the best on your next endeavor.

* * *

You can find Deborah’s book here. She donates a portion of proceeds to charity and to date has raised over $80,000 for Alzheimer’s programs and research.

In addition to her book, Deborah writes a weekly love story column for the Kansas City Star. Together with her husband, Ron, she travels all over the world to perform her writings to audiences in places as far flung as New Zealand, Nova Scotia, Puerto Rico, England, Ireland, Chile, Costa Rica, Italy, Turkey, Ecuador, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. An amazing lifestyle, to say the least!

To learn more about Deborah’s work, visit her blog or follow her on Twitter @DeborahShouse.

The ties that bind

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:44:00 +0000

In the fall of 2011 my life was in a shambles. It had been blown wide open by domestic violence and the ensuing child pornography case. I was in the full throes of PTSD and walked around in alternating states of fear and numb disbelief.

It was during this tumultuous time that I went out on a routine errand and came across two animal control officers manning a makeshift adoption clinic. They stood in front of the entrance to Walmart, flanked by a folding table and a crate full of kittens. They asked me if I wanted a kitten.

I made the spontaneous, and somewhat dubious, decision to adopt and bring home two kittens. It was perhaps not the wisest thing to do at a time when my life was in upheaval, but as it turned out, it was fortuitous.

The kids fell head over heels for the cats. Their kitten antics brought a levity and joy to our household that had been sorely missing. It was like the clouds parted just a bit and allowed the sunlight to pour in.

The kids loved them in the rough and tumble way kids do -- they hugged them and dressed them in doll clothes and rocked them in the crooks of their arms. The kittens were tolerant of all of it but I half expected, as they got older, they would begin to give the children a wider berth in the interests of self-preservation and dignity.

What happened instead, surprised me. The female cat, Lulu, became closely bonded with my daughter and the male cat, Sebastian, did the same with my son. They stuck with them like glue.

I would often get up during the night and walk the halls. I was too anxious and frightened to sleep. Every car passing by, every creak of the house settling, would put me on high alert. I would walk down to the kids’ rooms and look in on them. Every night – every single night – the cats would be sitting there on the foot of their beds, like sentries.

One night, it struck me. They were watching over my kids. They knew. Somehow, in their cat senses, they knew. My eyes welled up with tears of gratitude for these two protective souls. I began to think of them as guardian angels sent here to help my children navigate this difficult journey.

In May of 2012 things had escalated to the point where I felt we had to leave our home to ensure our safety. I still remember the panic I felt when I had to try to sort out not only a safe place for us, but one for our pets as well. I was fortunate in that the family who took us in was gracious enough to also take in our cats. A neighbor took in the kids’ goldfish.

However, only a couple weeks into our stay in our new “home”, my ex-husband found us. I will never forget the drop of my stomach when I was told that his car was idling out front of the home. By the time the police arrived, he was gone.

The result was that we had to leave again. We were fortunate to find a new safehome, but this time we were not able to bring the cats with us. Sebastian and Lulu stayed behind, in the care of a friend. It felt like an amputation and we all mourned the lack of their presence in our daily lives. I remember my kids, curled up asleep at night, and the empty space at the foot of their beds.

Two years have gone by since then -- two years that feel like a lifetime. Since then, I have learned quite a bit about the connection between pets and domestic violence. I know, for instance, that almost half of pet-owners will delay or refuse to leave a violent relationship because they are unwilling to leave behind a pet. I know that for some, this decision proves fatal.

Many of you know I now work for a domestic violence services agency. I don’t talk a lot about it here on my blog, because I want to keep my professional life separate from my blogging life.

I work for an agency that provides services to several thousand victims every year. We get calls to our hotline all the time from women who want to leave an abusive situation, but don’t want to leave behind their pets. It has helped me to see that my situation was not an exception, but is unfortunately an all too common dilemma.

Because this is such a significant unmet need, our agency has made the decision to build an on-site pet shelter so that women and children who have to flee their homes can bring their pets with them. It is a big undertaking, but a necessary one, we believe.

For the past several months I have been immersed in the planning of the new pet shelter. And for the past week, I have been working furiously, with the help of some talented colleagues, to prepare for the launch of a crowd funding campaign to help raise money to build the facility. It has been a bit like birthing a baby -- intense, nerve-wracking, but very exciting. I have all fingers and toes crossed that the campaign will be successful.

Today, I am stepping across the invisible boundary that separates work from blog, and I am sharing with you the results of that labor. I want to share it because, despite the fact that this is a professional endeavor, it is also a deeply personal one for me. My heart is invested in this.

On our site, there is a short video that gives some information on the connection between violence and pet ownership. You may recognize one of the stories (and a few of the faces) in the video. If you would like to support the campaign, that would be wonderful, but please don’t feel a sense of obligation. More than anything I want to simply share what has been an immensely gratifying project.

You can find the campaign and video here.

It is my hope that this pet shelter will help families, just like mine, who have felt the impossible bind of having to choose between love and safety. It is my prayer that it will offer comfort, safety and hope to those whose lives are impacted by abuse and violence.

Note: If you are yourself needing refuge, please contact a local or national domestic violence hotline for information about shelters in your area. A small percentage of shelters can accommodate pets, but even those that do not can help you locate resources to keep your pets safe while you are in transition.

If you choose to donate to the cause or share the campaign, please know that the funds go 100% to build the pet shelter and in no way impact my job or my compensation.

A heart-shaped hole in the world

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Wed, 28 May 2014 14:48:00 +0000

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Godspeed Maya Angelou. You are gone, but you have left behind your wisdom, grace and phenomenal beauty in the form of words. We can follow them, like a trail of crumbs, so that we may rise as well.

Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Wed, 28 May 2014 04:20:00 +0000

Tonight as I was putting Danny to bed I picked up a framed picture on his dresser and looked at it. It was a family picture taken about 7 years ago at Rocky Mountain National Park. We used to go there every fall and rent a cabin.

Dan told me a few years ago, not long after his dad was removed from his life, that he wanted that picture of the four of us in his room. At the time, I was uncomfortable with it, because everything was so fresh and awful and the last thing I wanted to do was look at that picture. But I set my feelings aside, framed it and put it on his dresser.

For three years I have avoided looking at that picture because every time I saw it, it stirred up so many emotions -- none of them pleasant. Tonight, however, I looked at the picture and felt nothing negative. I simply thought, "That was a fun trip. I miss the mountains."

And you know what? It was a fun trip.

Dan pointed at the picture and noted that I still have the same coat. He asked if this was the trip where Anna threw up in the pool, and I said no, I think it was the trip where he threw up in the car.

Maybe that's what freedom is. To see the ugliness of the past and not be emotionally bound by it, but to simply think, "Yeah, that happened." It was so very painful, but among the broken fragments of the past, there was beauty, too.

Some beauty, some advice and a rant

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 27 May 2014 03:00:00 +0000

If I were a virtuous person, I would have spent the long weekend packing and cleaning and painting the walls. This is what I told myself every five minutes. But then I would turn around and say back to myself, hey, chillax, it's a holiday weekend, sit back and read a book or three. I argued with myself in this fashion until finally, thankfully, I won.

No packing. Lots of reading.

In addition to two books on the neuroscience of happiness and well-being (have read about five or six so far – can’t stop, so fascinating, will share more later), I’ve also read some great stuff on the web. I thought I would share the highlights with you:

This post, called Strong, by Deb at Bright & Precious. Deb’s writing is beautiful and soulful. Here she writes about her years-long struggle to regain her health after cancer treatment -- about having the strength to get up every morning and show up for life, in spite of everything. This piece on being strong because you have to be, because you have no other choice, really hit home with me. Sometimes obstacles are brief and fierce. Sometimes they go on for years, and are still fierce. Deb's a remarkable woman.

This post on Writer’s Block by Chuck Wendig at Terribleminds. Chuck doesn’t believe in writer’s block, but he lists all the things that keep us from writing (and that we tend to attribute to writer’s block) and what we can do to move beyond them. Warning – his writing is full of the swears. Enter at your own risk. But, bonus – he is an amazingly talented and entertaining writer. You may not want to leave.

I discovered Chuck’s blog because of his viral post Not all Men, But Still Too Many Men, written in response to the Santa Barbara shootings. Oh. My. He addresses the entitled assumption that pervades our culture (so many cultures) that women exist to fulfill the sexual and emotional needs of men. On a rantypants scale of 1 – 5, it's about a 26. I posted it to my Facebook wall and some people took issue with it. I loved it. I work in an industry whose very existence is to serve the women who’ve been hurt by this sense of entitlement, and of course, I’ve personally been at the receiving end of it. Most days I simply get up and quietly deal with the fallout of this craziness (see Deb's post, above), but occasionally it makes me want to swear and rant (or at least nod vigorously while reading someone else’s sweary rant).

Finally, as long as I’m sharing links, I was interviewed a few weeks ago for The Pixel Project’s Survivor Stories. They spoke with women from all over the world who have survived sexual or domestic violence, and have been posting an interview every day during the month of May. You can tell my interview because there is a ginormous picture of my head.

If all this talk of violence and long-suffering is too much, go here to see some adorable kitten pictures.

Finally, thank you for your lovely comments on my last post. Heart-warming and unexpected.

Endings

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Thu, 22 May 2014 21:09:00 +0000

Today was a bittersweet day. Right now there are so many things coming to an end -- some joyful, some sad. I’m usually pretty even keel, but today, in a moment of sentimental indulgence, I cried for all of it.

For living in a house that is packed with moving boxes.

For my boss, who encouraged me to stay home today so I could be there to greet the kids when they came home from their last day of school. (Celebrate with brownies and ice cream, she said.)

For the memory of sitting my kids down and telling them that we could no longer afford to stay here, that we would find another place and it would be lovely and they could help me pick the house.

For having to choose my words so carefully -- never mentioning that their father had emptied out their trust.

For the recognition that I’ve stood on this precipice for so many years, and now that I’m finally stepping off, it’s only to land back on Kansas soil.

For the privilege of sitting in a metal folding chair in the school gymnasium to watch the end-of-year awards ceremony.

For my daughter, who was called to the front of the auditorium five times.

For the many children, my son included, who sat expectantly and whose names were never called.

For the teacher, who leaned over to me during the event, to let me know that my daughter had waited until the last of class to tell her classmates she wouldn’t see them next year, and that the tears streamed down her face when she told them.

For the realization that she had borne this news silently for so many months.

For all the awards ceremonies and field trips and class parties and field days I couldn’t attend because I was working or ill or simply trying to hold it all together. And for the times I took off work and did attend.

For the loss of that dream – the always-there mom I wanted to be, the hearth-and-home family life I had imagined, the freedoms and choices I assumed I would have.

For my amazing, gentle children, who have brought me joy which surpasses anything I might have imagined in my youth.

For the graduating fifth graders, who held the privileged seats on the bleachers in the back of the room, who walked out of the auditorium for the last time ever, smiling and reaching out to high five the younger kids sitting cross-legged on the floor.

For the fourth graders, who hooted and jumped with joy as they were called to rise and take over the bleachers in the back.

For that one small boy, who was accidentally pushed to the ground in the melee, who got up and walked uncertainly to the bleachers and took a seat by himself on an empty stretch of bench. (Don't worry small boy, it gets better. It really does.)

For the sadness I felt at leaving behind this school, the teachers and staff who have been with my kids through all the crazy-scary-heartsick years, who kept an eye on them and scanned the parking lot during recess and checked in with them daily and hugged them and knelt down to their level and spoke sweetly to them.

For the one teacher especially, who believed in my son.

For the middle-aged woman in a purple sweatshirt who smiled kindly at me as I stood in the grocery aisle, looking at boxes of brownies through tear-filled eyes.

For the sunshine that warmed my face and make me blink as I walked out of the store.

For all these things my heart swelled and broke.

For a moment I stood there in the parking lot -- a woman on an ordinary day in a no-name town in the middle of a big expanse of prairie -- and reveled in the full force of all these emotions. Then I got in my car, drove home, made brownies and sat on the porch, waiting for my kids to come home. My beautiful kids.

Today was a bittersweet day.

Then and now

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A blog makeover!

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 13 May 2014 03:19:00 +0000

Well, THAT feels better.

Have you ever gone through something really unpleasant -- like a divorce or a root canal -- and every time you drove by the attorney's office or the dental clinic you inwardly cringed? And pretty soon you started taking a different route to work just so you wouldn't have to drive by there any more?

Well, that became me and my blog.

I'm out the other side of my unpleasantness and I'm feeling lighter and freer. I'm feeling like I want to have fun with my writing again, as opposed to chronicling all the heavy stuff. But every time I opened my webpage...BAM. It all came back. Suddenly I didn't feel so light anymore.

So I decided I needed a new place to write. One that was bright and airy and a little irreverent.

Many thanks to my lovely friend Marianne, photographer and photo-editor extraordinaire, and the talented web goddess Kelly Exeter, both of whom helped to design the header. I am indebted to you and have left you each a kitten in my will.

All right, then. Let's get this party started.

Holding a community in love and light

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 23:24:00 +0000

Just hours ago there were two shootings in our community - at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park and at Village Shalom, a senior living center down the street. Five people have been shot and three are dead, according to news reports. It appears to be an anti-Semitic attack.

I worked inside the JCC for four years and many of my friends still do. None of us yet know the names of the victims, but our whole community is bracing itself. There were a couple of community events going on at the time and the center was filled with children and teens.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around what happened. I have no eloquent words to share right now. I just wish so much peace and love and comfort to those whose lives were forever changed today.

As news of the tragedy was filling our feeds, a severe thunderstorm rolled through the region, knocking out power and cable. My dear friend Celeste, who worked in the office next to me all those years, posted this picture tonight. It seems the skies are mourning along with us.

Why doesn’t she just leave? A view from inside the trenches.

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 00:58:00 +0000

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was late at night. The room was dark and I was lying in bed. I had just fed our two-week old son and my husband was changing his diaper at the end of the bed. We were both bone tired.

He removed the diaper and was reaching for a clean one when our son did what little boys all over the world do when you take off their diapers. He peed. We were usually prepared for this and had perfected a technique of covering him up with a cloth until a new diaper was secured in place. However, in his half-asleep state, my husband had forgotten to do this.

His reaction was swift and fierce. He slammed his fist down on the bed, inches from our son’s head. He accused our newborn of deliberately peeing on him. He was livid.

For a moment, I sat frozen. Then I reached down and grabbed my son, who was now wailing, and held him close to my chest. My heart was racing. My mind was racing. I wanted to scream back at him and tell him that he was crazy. That this was a biological reflex and who the hell assigns hostile motives to a two-week old infant? But I didn’t do that. My instinct told me to remain quiet. My instinct told me to lie there and hold my son, to quiet his cries and remain still until my husband fell asleep.

* * *

Yesterday, there was an emotional confrontation in the Australian media over some proposed legislation that would impose a harsh sentence on mothers with violent partners if they failed to report child sexual abuse. I have a lot of friends in Australia and the story has filled my news feed. Kerri Sackville wrote a beautiful post about it, if you’d like more information.

The story naturally caught my attention. I was the wife of an abusive man and he was convicted of sexual crimes against children. I reported him and cooperated with police. Doing so made my situation even more unsafe.

The exchange in question was between Joe Hildebrand, a Sydney columnist, and Rosie Batty, the mother of a young boy who was recently murdered by his father. Mr. Hildebrand said that fear for one’s own safety should never be an excuse for a mother not reporting child abuse. He said women need to leave abusive relationships, full stop. Ms. Batty (who, by the way, showed remarkable poise and clarity of thought for someone who has recently lost a child) said he was misguided and that the law should punish the abuser and not victims of abuse.

Mr. Hildebrand’s comments reflect a very common view of domestic violence: It’s wrong. It’s bad. Women should just leave. They are fools for staying.

It’s an understandable view, but it shows a real lack of comprehension of what abuse really is. It’s not simply violence. Abuse, at its core, is about power and control. I wonder how the conversation would change if we stopped talking about violence and started talking about control.

If you are a man in a bar and you get into a fight with some random stranger and he threatens you, then yes, leaving will probably put an end to the threat. He doesn’t want to control you. He’s just pissed off.

If you are a woman in an abusive relationship, leaving will absolutely not put an end to the threat. It will, in fact, increase it. Women are 75% more likely to be killed when they leave an abusive relationship than when they stay.

The thing is, both Mr. Hildebrand and Ms. Batty have valid points. Child sexual abuse should be reported. But women should not be held accountable for their partner’s crimes. A woman who reports abuse may have a lot to fear. Often, reporting child (or any) abuse will set off a dangerous chain of events that may further threaten the safety of both the mother and her children.

While there are laws in place to hold perpetrators accountable, the enactment of those laws is often inadequate and painfully slow. Laws alone will not keep a woman safe from an ex-partner intent on hurting her.

In my case, it took three years from the opening of the investigation of my ex-husband’s case until he was convicted and imprisoned. Three years. That’s a long time to feel unsafe.

I was lucky. I had the means to front a legal battle to protect my children. I had savings and a retirement fund I could deplete to pay the mortgage and utilities on my home while I couldn’t live there, while I was hidden away in a safehome because I was afraid if he found us, he would kill us. And when he did find us, I had a friend who slept downstairs with a gun, and other friends who made sure the kids and I found another safe place to go. I had a network of supportive people who loved me and believed me.

For those reasons, I am able to sit here today and write this post.

But most victims of abuse don’t have that. I am the exception to the rule.

When my ex-husband slammed his fist down on the bed, I did not have those means. I was not working and had no income. I had a newborn and a toddler. I had a cancer diagnosis. Both my parents were deceased. Shortly after the incident, I told him I would leave him if he ever touched one of the children. I had no idea how I would do it, but a line was drawn in the sand. I was lucky that it would be years before he crossed that line. And by then, I was prepared.

There it is again. I was lucky.

That moment after he slammed his fist down on the bed, I say I was frozen, but that’s not entirely accurate. It wasn’t that I was incapable of action. I was simply doing what women in abusive marriages all over the planet do every day. I was assessing the situation, trying to simultaneously read a hundred silent clues and predict the safest next step. It wasn’t a deliberate or even a conscious process. It was primal and intuitive. It was a survival instinct.

If you have never felt that kind of fear, if you have never had to protect your child from someone who exerted financial, emotional and physical control over you, you have no right to tell a mother what she should or should not do. Because, honestly, you don’t even know what you yourself would do.

A Sentencing Verdict

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 22:08:00 +0000

I just received news this afternoon that my ex-husband, who was convicted of possession of child pornography in May of 2013, received his sentencing.

He has been sentenced to 4 years in prison, followed by 5 years of supervision after release. He has been fined $12,500. He will be required to attend sex offender classes while in custody and must register as a sex offender for life.

The sentencing was originally scheduled for August of 2013, and has been continued seven times since then.

I really had no idea what the final sentence would be. The original sentencing guidelines called for 5-10 years, however he pleaded early in exchange for a shorter sentence. I had heard he might get as much as 4.5 years and as few as 18 months. I can live with this verdict.

I have been an absolute wreck leading up to this. I was hoping for the best and fearing the worst. I feel like I can breathe again.

Thanks to my lovely Facebook friends for holding my hand through this.

The Silence that Speaks Volumes

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 19:56:00 +0000

I have a goal of writing more often. I’ve had this goal for a long time, and yet I continue to post only sporadically.

There are some obvious reasons for my silence. I have a demanding job. I’m a sole parent of two kids. My list of things to do is never-ending.

But the truth is, all these things existed a few years ago when I was writing full bore. I wrote anyway, because writing was something that brought me satisfaction and connection and a measure of hope in a world that had become very dark. I needed to write. It kept my head above water.

So what happened to change that?

The truth is that somewhere between then and now I became afraid to write openly and honestly.

When I began writing about my experiences with abuse, I broke a decade-long silence. Abuse is about power and control, and when I started speaking out, my then-husband fought to silence me. With a restraining order preventing him from having any direct contact with me, he had to find another arena to exercise his control, and that became the courtroom.

Whatever brought us into a shared courtroom, whether our divorce proceedings, hearings to determine custody and visitation, or his criminal trial, he used it as an opportunity to attack my writing.

I never quite figured out why his attorneys kept weaving my blog into their arguments. It was never made explicitly clear. I didn’t understand what my writing had to do with whether or not my ex-husband was guilty of possessing child pornography.

The best I can figure is that it was a red herring. He had no credible defense. I was a key witness, responsible for discovering and handing over evidence to the police. At the very least, it was in their best interest to discredit me as a witness.

The other factor which contributed to my silence was that during the couple of years that I backed away from blogging, the blogging world underwent a change. In Australia, where I was most closely connected, the blogging scene exploded in growth. With that growth came increased competition and monetization and jockeying for position. What had once felt like an inclusive and supportive community now felt larger and more impersonal.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle from my ordeal and I consider writing freely again, it is into this changed atmosphere that I venture.

My experience taught me many things. It taught me that life is a gift not to be squandered. It taught me to take risks, to speak out, to embrace my truth and not back down. It taught me to open my heart and love fully, because a partially-closed heart offers no protection, only the illusion of protection.

However, it also taught me that there are often legitimate reasons to feel fear. I am now slower to trust and quicker to assume a defensive posture.

It is this mixed bag of gifts that I carry forward with me as I consider my next steps.

Not long ago I was contacted by a man who is writing a book on post-traumatic growth. He had come across my blog and wanted to include my story in his book. He was interested specifically in how blogging, and the community support that came from that, was instrumental in my healing.

In my conversations with him, I shared how much that support had helped me. It lifted me out of the emotional chaos of my marriage and provided me with clarity and a perspective that was grounded in compassion. It helped me bridge the isolation. It was a hundred sets of hands holding the corners of a net that caught my freefall.

I remember sitting in my room, a week after the assault, debating whether I should write about it. I wanted so much to simply tell the truth, but I feared the repercussions. I feared exposing the messy and unpalatable truth of my life. I worried that it would impact my safety. Once I hit publish, there was no going back.

In the end, of course, I shared everything. The whole excruciating and liberating truth. In the words of Anais Nin, the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to blossom.

There is some irony that now, three years later, I sit pondering essentially that same choice. The risk of speaking openly versus the (perceived) safety of silence.

The trial is over, but I still feel the resonance of the fear and intimidation that hovered over my shoulder for so many years. The lingering ghosts of abuse are often as insidious as the abuse itself.

Brene' Brown, author of Daring Greatly, tells the story of when she was waiting backstage to give what was destined to become one of the most popular TED talks ever. She was terrified of baring her soul to an audience of strangers, of failing to adequately entertain or enlighten them. In the end, as she walked on stage, she asked herself, "What's worth doing even if I fail?"

Thank you for showing up and catching my fall when I needed it most. Your concern and support was a point of light in what turned out to be a long and very dark night. And thank you for your patience as I venture back onto the stage and find my voice again in this new landscape.

Because for me, writing honestly and openly is that thing that is worth doing even if I fail.

Ten Signs of Psychological Abuse

noreply@blogger.com (Wanderlust) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 01:24:00 +0000

I have a new gig. I'm a contributing writer over at The Imperfect Mum, an Australian parenting website.

My first article is published there today and is all about helping you recognize psychological abuse.

If you've ever been at the receiving end of these ten crazymaking tactics, you may feel like you've been hit by an invisible truck. Being able to recognize them, however, is the first step on the road to empowerment.

Click here to read about these Ten Signs of Psychological Abuse.