Dirty Words

All the things you made me

2017-05-14T12:54:00.002-04:00

Today I was picking out my earrings and bracelets to go with my outfit. And as I was going through my dresser, I noticed that I have PILES of things my boys have made me. There are ceramics, paintings, stained glass creations, notes, drawings, string necklaces, 3D printed knick knacks, mud sculptures, Lego creations....and I suddenly remembered something my mom said to me 13 years ago.

We were given a helpful handout from hospice to start crucial conversations which we didn't need at all because we had the kind of relationship that left nothing unsaid. We were still connected by a cosmic umbilicus that meant we shared. And shared. One of the questions was, "What is your favorite gift from your loved one?"

And my mom got choked up and said, without a hint of hesitation, "All the things you made me."

I feel the same way today about my boys. I love all the things they made me, chief among these, being made a mom. But I also love and cherish the ceramics, paintings, stained glass creations, notes, drawings, string necklaces, 3D printed knick knacks, mud sculptures, and Lego creations.

Funny ending to the story: right after this exchange with mom, a toothpaste commercial came on TV and she said she didn't like that show. I started laughing and told her that was fine; she only had about ten more seconds of it, and, realizing her mistake, she started laughing, too. Because honestly it's all rather ridiculous when seen through a microscope. Although tooth and gum health is no joke.

Anyway, look around for all the things your loved ones make you. And feel free to turn the channel if you don't like the commercials.

How long before I'm an adult?

2017-02-19T13:41:00.000-05:00

It'll make sense. Maybe.

Last week, my husband and I had a fight. We don't usually fight; we disagree and we may even have heated conversations, but we rarely have moments of intense anger. Maybe that's why we're approaching our 19th wedding anniversary. Or maybe we're just too lazy to move our things into different houses, I don't know. That's not even the point!

In the middle of my anger I decided to be really enlightened and do what Pema Chödrön always says, which is to make room for the gap. What that means is that I didn't react right away and I spent some time being quiet, letting my anger subside and seeing what was left that I really wanted to communicate. When I came back to my friend and spouse I still got it wrong, because I am a hot mess, but I swear I got closer to the Truth than I ever have in an adult conversation. We had a good talk and yada, yada, yada we'll likely celebrate a 20th anniversary.

Since our conversation I've let the gap remain and I've made even more headway into the Truth. If you've been here before you know that my mom died almost 13 years ago. If you've never had to start living your life without ground beneath your feet, or air to breathe, then spend some time reading blogs about that sort of loss. There's no time today to explain it to you except to say that it changes every day - that some days it's okay and I can bear it, and other days it rips me into shreds of myself. My quiet brain kept leading me back to her and, in a tangential way, my argument with Mister was deeply rooted in this one-sided relationship I now have with my mom.

She was fiercely independent; so much so that she couldn't really figure out how to ask for help. My best guess is that when she did, she was often denied because when someone who is profoundly capable asks for help, it's usually met with some level of scorn. No one likes to have to step in and help someone who clearly doesn't need it. So my mom did most things on her own and I see myself following her footpath. I perceive scorn when I ask for help whether it's there or not, and of course that's on me. But it stops me from asking for help when I need it and I think if mom was here and could see me doing it, she'd likely tell me to get over myself and do better.

I had a dream the other night that my mom magically came back. She'd been dead and then she just came back....in the world of my dream this made sense and we didn't have to question it. My current family pod (Mister, two sons and me) moved in together with her in the apartment in which I'd grown up.The whole dream I was rushing around trying to take care of everyone and it was chaos, and dream-me kept thinking, "This isn't right. I don't belong in this house with her. We belong in our own house because she's not supposed to be my family in THIS way anymore."

What a strange method to grow up and away from a parent, right?? She's not even here and I still have to grow up and evolve separately from her. That's messed up for sure, but it's also a gift if I stand back and give it room; if I allow the gap again. So here she is still teaching me, and our relationship is still growing and changing because we never really leave each other. We leave indelible marks on one another and those don't go away.

This might not mean much to you as you read it, but maybe there's something in it that makes sense on the day you're reading it. If not....well, I'm not the boss of you. You know the rules and no one made you read this far. But I'm glad you did.

Namaste.

And yet....it shines

2017-01-21T12:08:00.000-05:00

Instagram: @justsally

After my grandfather died I remember walking out of hospice and wondering how the birds were still singing. And how anyone possibly cared about a blue dress and cigars. After my mom died I remember wondering how the world could still possibly spin on its axis. Didn't it at least wobble a little? Because I definitely felt it wobble. I hadn't met the Dalai Lama yet and so I didn't understand.

I woke up this morning and sun was streaming into my bedroom. It was annoyingly glorious for a minute and I lay there and looked at it, wondering how it's possible. Remember Sally from last time? She posted a beautiful picture on Instagram the other day about how the sun always rises. And it did, even though I am 100% positive that the earth wobbled. Side note: I should probably rename this blog something like, "Thoughts Sally Made Me Have." But anyway the sun was streaming into my bedroom, just like that. Just like every other similar point in a 24 hour rotation since whenever the earth got here.

The point is that the earth wobbled FOR ME. It didn't wobble for other people.....I mean I'm also almost 100% positive it wobbled for around 64,654,483 other Americans, and from the news I see, a fair number of people in other countries. But it was just us who felt it. You may not have felt it, and that's important here because since all that stuff with my grandfather and mom happened, I met the Dalai Lama and Pema Chödrön. They taught me that my reactions to things create my reality which is, of course, unique to me.

It's how Buddhist monks fear only that they will forget their jailer's humanity as they're tortured. It's how Nelson Mandela came out of a tragic existence and stayed a man of peace. The real struggle is in remembering the pain and the fear that angry people are showing me. It's not so much that I need to find pity for them, but that I need to remember what they are displaying is a state of living that can't be peaceful or wholeheartedly engaged. They're too busy protecting and gathering in and closing the circle ever smaller, without realizing how big we all get when we make the circle big.

It's going to stay difficult for me to see the hypocrisy, to see people rolling over when they should be standing up, when I see that we have become so binary we can't figure out how to fight with compassion. But that's what we have to do: fight with compassion. First seek to understand our adversary, and then approach the conflict from a place of open hearted engagement. If all I'm doing is shouting louder, I'm no different than the person I call "adversary." And maybe sometimes I'll need to disengage, when the shouting AT me has become too loud, because self-care is important. And I will have to demand that my adversaries respect MY humanity and my position, even as they vehemently disagree with me.

None of that is going to be made "easier" by knowing DL and Pema. But they have provided a road map, and I will strive to always remember that my mindset, my emotions, create my reality. And that's how the sun still shines no matter how many clouds we see.

Check out more of Sally's work at her Instagram account.

The Veil, Sally, and whoever God is.

2016-11-13T09:23:00.006-05:00

So here we are at the end of times. It's all very dramatic. The gloating, the hand wringing, the predictions, the smug righteousness....it's everything you've come to expect from every single election the United States has had in the last 75 years. I picked 75 because I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you weren't much interested in elections before 1941.

And of course, the early 40s have figured heavily into this year's election, but we'll get back to that, maybe.

"The Veil" has been showing up in my life a lot lately. People keep referencing that we've torn the veil and the that veil is being ripped from our eyes. Metaphors keep showing up saying that we're looking at everything with open, unobstructed vision. Initially, I agreed with all of it. Things indeed feel cataclysmic right now, like the whole of the United States could rip wide open. But I think back to the Revolution, to the Civil War, to the suffragettes, to the laborers who demanded safe work environments, to the warriors of the early Civil Rights movement....and I don't think I stand on any precipice. I think I am dead center on the path that we've been walking since we set on foot some Native's land and decided, "Um yeah, so we're going to need you to go ahead and move all your stuff down to the reservation room, m'kay? That'd be great."

There's no veil. The veil is what we say when we want to romanticize what we're doing, and please please believe me when I say that I would love absolutely nothing more than to be part of an insanely romantic and high-poetry moment in time when my individual actions would be recorded forever as True and Right and Just. But I really don't think anything new is happening here. (See what I'm doing? We're inching back towards 1941...so if that's making you roll your eyes so hard you can see your own brain, it's okay to stop reading. I'm not the boss of you. I don't even know who you are.)

And anyway, if you're rolling your eyes, I need to bring up Sally. It's her fault we're here. She's my friend who read my mind and she gave me the green light she didn't know I was waiting for to write a blog. So thank her if you're mad, sad, glad or any other -ad emotion I've left out. This is at her feet.

And now God. Because we always find that people are putting God square in the middle or taking God out and putting Him/Her/It out in some abandoned barn at the end of a logging road on a remote mountain no one's even bothered to name. And the part about God for me is that I really don't care about God. That might be blasphemy, but I'm betting if God's as big and powerful as all the books and preacher-people say, then my opinion isn't much concern. Here's why: my concern isn't for what comes next. I've seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation enough times to know you don't bank on a bonus check that you may or may not get.

Lately I've been doing a crazy amount of reading by preacher-people, especially for someone who doesn't care about God, and it's been pretty fantastic. There are more people out there than I thought who feel that media-Jesus and Gospel-Jesus are two different people. They also feel that lots of preacher-people are taking media-Jesus and presenting him as real-Jesus. (And, I mean, if these preacher-people putting down other preacher-people aren't committing blasphemy, then I think surely I'm okay to have a "meh" attitude on the whole "thing.") But every person I read says something like this: Jesus found the poor people. Jesus found those who were voiceless. Jesus gave to people who could never pay him back. Jesus gave to people who would squander the gift and come back for a do-over....sometimes a few times. I mean, Jesus....get your shit together. Why in the name of your own Dad and Self, would you KEEP offering forgiveness and grace to someone who keeps on needing it? Who keeps asking for more because they screwed it up and made a mistake?

These people I'm reading (full disclosure, most recently, it's Nadia Bolz-Weber and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu) think this is exactly how it's supposed to go. We're supposed to fuck it all up, and offer each other grace and forgiveness because we are each made in His/Her/Its image or something along that line. Keep in mind, this isn't my bag, I'm just telling you the parts I remember. But I like this God. I like the god who gets off the dais and walks right down into the Sinner's lot and sits down and says, "Holy Hell, what are you people up to? How can I help? You need a drink of water, something to eat? A HUG?" This is a Jesus and a God who is your 3am phone call and doesn't judge you for doing [insert mistake of choice] AGAIN and needing a friend to pick you up and help you try AGAIN.

This is the God I wish everyone believed was "out there" in the great beyond and in the astral plane and (gasp) right there at the end of the phone for a 3am call or text....let it be a text. No one likes a phone call.

So at the end of times like today, which really isn't the end of times at all, it's just another mile in the hike we've been doing since we sent the people with the Red Stapler to the basement, I am leaning on my friends and family who either believe in the God who gives hugs and warm food, or else I'm leaning on the people who give hugs and warm food without imitating anyone. All the rest of the people, who are tending towards a smug righteousness and a head-patting patronization (which is not a word) are those who are, sadly, once again going to find themselves on the side of the path. Kind of like the people who are too old to read this from back in 1941 did. They saw a man who could shake up the status quo, to shake up a government that didn't seem at all to recognize their struggle and the way they saw their values being ignored and left behind. They clung to him and all his charisma and promises and the belief that his way would circle the wagons and protect them.

It wasn't okay - and in the end, God showed up. People showed up. Humanists, atheists, agnostics, Christians, and every shade in between, showed up and fixed the horrifying mistake that had been made in fear. I'm going to keep trusting that God will show up (even though, whatever. I don't care) and We will show up and we'll never mind the people who tell us to stop complaining and stop whining. We're hiking a path together, and we're clearing more brush out of our way than we thought we'd have. It's okay. As Glennon Doyle Melton says, "We can do hard things together."

And if not, if it's all a waste of time and breath and my typing, we'll have a long talk with Sally.

Photo Credit: Irudayam Flickr via Compfight cc

The Endowment

2016-04-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

He's worried you'll judge him.

My dog has a dermatologist.

This isn't something completely outrageous in my part of the Western Hemisphere. Lots of people have animals who live inside their homes, who receive medical care better than 85% of the rest of the world's population. (I totally made that percentage up, but you have to admit that it seems pretty plausible.) This past weekend I was so utterly consumed by the amount of accumulated crap in my house that I went to Ikea and bought outdoor furniture to install in my sons' room. My solution for too much stuff was to go buy DIFFERENT stuff. And this can be lumped right in there with the doggie derm. Not abnormal.

It occurred to me how unique the "Western ideology" is on the world stage. I wished for a moment that I could take the time to read the constitutions or manifestos of other countries; that I could ask a broad cross-section of every other population on earth the following question: What right do you feel you have to happiness?

Because it's written in our National "Who Are We" section that we have been "endowed by our Creator," in what is so obvious a Truth as to be "self-evident," with a certain number of "Rights" chief among those are: "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Now, I've made it no secret that I think the Founding Fathers were a bunch a drunken hypocrites, who would probably have been pretty fun to party with as long as you were a land-owning white man. But what a crock of shit they wrote.

It's a set-up for failure!

I kind of think it's why we're the richest, whiniest, most spoiled brats on the planet. From the very beginning, our helicopter founding daddies told us we were special snowflakes. They told us we have an absolute RIGHT to be happy and unfettered. Rules only apply if we agree with them. And honestly, if we think the Dads currently in charge ever get too bossy, you know...."it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." Huh. The Millennials are the only ones who've actually read the Declaration of Independence, I guess.

Okay, but on the other hand, you also know I'm a hippy dippy Buddhist, if you've ever read other blogs. (There are like 180 of them, but hey - read them or don't.....I'm not the boss of you.) And anyway the Buddha says that all beings are searching for happiness. Even the batshit crazy ones. Even the huge mooches, and the drains on society, and criminals, and the politicians. Ha! That's all a description of the same person....but I digress.

Every living thing wants to be happy and that's the root cause of all our actions, whether or not they're correct actions. When we look at other people and we don't understand them, it's really just that we're not recognizing the recipe they're using to create happiness. But if you've ever eaten "chili" or "pasta sauce" or "pizza" or a "sandwich" then you know that those single words don't really describe the details of what you'd be eating. Are we talking chicken chili? Vegetarian chili? Three-alarm chili? And does the sandwich have meat on it, or is a PB&J? The possibilities are endless - but the guacamole is always an extra charge, okay?

So maybe the drunk Founding Fathers weren't quite so in the bag that they got it completely wrong. And someone needs to make sure they weren't closet Buddhists, because what they wrote would indicate a keen understanding of human nature; well, white-landed-male nature, at any rate. We should probably work on expanding those words to include more people and finally finish what their society couldn't: that ALL people are endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if their recipe for happiness includes anchovies on a pizza. Gross.

The brown people, the white people, the dark eyes, the light eyes, the curly hair, the straight hair....the redheads. It doesn't matter. Each has been endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. And you know what? That's why my dog has a dermatologist.

The other day, the other guy

2016-03-01T19:44:00.001-05:00

Honestly, this picture has it all.
A bike, a sidecar, a tiny house, a hipster, a Keeshond!
You're welcome.

This past Sunday was gorgeous for a late February day: blue sky, sun shining, not cold. We drove to my in law's house, which is about an hour away and we take a scenic US Route that winds through small towns and gentle hills and valleys. I mean, I live in the armpit, I mean HEARTLAND of America. The great flyover state of Ohio. So trust me. It's a pretty drive.

Of course all the motorcycle riders were out as well and I had the fortune to be right behind a gentleman out for a ride. He was in no hurry to get wherever he was going, and for once in my whole life ever, neither was I. His happiness with traveling at the posted speed limit was fast enough for me too. And from my vantage point, I saw all the times he extended his left hand down at his side, in the rider's wave, to each passing cyclist.

He passed women, men, groups, individuals, people in jean jackets, people in leather jackets. Some had helmets on, some didn't. Some had close haircuts, some had long hair. Every single person extended the sidelong wave in return. They had an unspoken community.

At some point along the drive, I remembered a time I was on a friend's boat, spending the day on the Ohio River. Boaters have this wave as well. You just don't pass a boat on the river without waving. And my friend looked at me and said, "You know half these people would spit on each other sooner than they'd help each other....except out here on the river. Get us all in boats and we'll do whatever it takes to help each other out."

So here we all are. We're strangers. We're foreigners. We're "us" versus "them" all day every day. We're divided, and we're nasty in tone and in feeling. We have all the answers and "they" are the problems, the enemy: poor people, Muslims, Jews, Evangelical Christians, liberals, conservatives, racists, system suckers.....unless we're on a boat or a bike. Unless we're both driving Jeeps. Unless we're both at the same concert. Unless we both drink the same soda.

It takes so little for people to find common humanity - we're hardwired for it! We look for patterns and similarities all the time, on a fundamentally biological level. And so when we see someone who shares even the smallest hobby or interest as us, we identify with one another, rather than divide each other. We wave....and smile....and offer kindness.

I spent the last part of our drive wondering why it's so difficult to assume the similarities. Why do we automatically assume a defensive stance? Was humanity always this way? Because the moment we see a connection, however small, our walls come down and we see each other for the brothers and sisters we are.

It seems to me like there are better assumptions we should all be making about each other. And maybe it's naive to think it, but I don't think anyone would be hurt by supposing that the stranger has more in common with themselves than differences. Ultimately, as my man the Dalai Lama says, every being wants to be happy and seeks fulfillment. How is that not enough of a commonality to bring us together, and offer each other that gentle sidelong wave as we pass?

Photo Credit: juergvollmer via Compfight cc
Photo Credit: oregon ducatisti via Compfight cc

Ginger beer, bourbon, and other necessities

2015-12-12T10:39:00.001-05:00

www.traderjoes.com

The other day I was at Trader Joe's and I saw the most wonderful thing. Someone alert Oprah. It's a really pretty bottle of triple gingered beer. Non-alcoholic, so the kids can drink, and also anyone I might know in recovery or in some weird non-problem-drinker state of abstinence. Seriously, if you CAN drink, why don't you? Leave a comment.

Back to the ginger. It's super spicy, and it kind of burns your lips when you first drink it. Fourteen year old needs a mixer with it, eleven year old wants to guzzle it straight, and I fancy a bit of bourbon in mine. Bit more bourbon, please. Don't be stingy. There you go - that's a good pour. We're ramping up to Christmas in my family and things are getting weird again, as they do every year.

We're spending way too much money on presents, and while that makes us both good Americans who support the economy, it also makes us typical Americans who are buying more crap we definitely don't need. But it's a local custom and I like to fit in.

I've been doing small things to remember my basics this season: I'm trying to read things that are calming, I'm attempting to stay away from media hype because I'm thoroughly over the ratings grab that is any of the news outlets, I'm trying to check-in every day with my boys in a meaningful way about their day. We ask these three questions,

"What was good about your day?"
"What was a bummer?"
"How can tomorrow be better?"

In my own subversive way I am trying to lead them to gratitude and calm understanding in every moment. Some days the bummers will far outnumber the good things. Sometimes we won't really be able to figure out how to make tomorrow better. We'll have to sleep on it; to let the moon-rise give us clarity and the sunrise give us courage to try again. Because it seems like everything right now is more difficult if we allow it.

The Western Hemisphere is in its dark period and the sunrise is a squirrely event to catch if you want your courage. But you have to catch it, and you have to face all the tomorrows with a grateful heart and resolve to fix the bummers. You can do that. Trader Joe's sells a magical elixir to right your spirits for $2.99 plus all local applicable tax.

Pour a ginger beer, toast your day, whether good or bummer, and remember that your only requirement is to show-up. Show-up in all your tattered reality, in all your glowing happiness, in all your blah mundane mediocrity. Every day, no matter what, show up and try to help your fellow human shit-shows understand that we're in this together. We can talk together about what's good, what's a bummer, and what we can do to make tomorrow better.

That's really the only necessity.

**P.S. I lied. Bourbon is also a necessity. But that's just me.

www.smithsonianmag.com

Would you like fresh pepper on your froth?

2015-09-19T11:46:00.001-04:00

Stick with me - this will all make sense. Maybe.

I have generalized anxiety disorder. Of course putting that right there is a violation of my privacy rights, but since I did it to myself, I guess it's okay this one time. My anxiety is not the point of today's batch of useless writing, but is the background for what's coming next; because an even bigger mistake is taking place right now than my own self-disclosure of protected medical history.

I am actively avoiding any and all viewpoints which do not directly align with my own. EEP!

The other day I was scrolling through old things I wrote and a common theme has been emerging over the years in my public journaling, which you may or may not be reading. What do I care? I'm not the boss of you. Apparently I really dislike the manufactured drama, the constant spirals of anger and outrage, and if I type "self-righteous indignation" one more time (after this time) my keyboard might spontaneously explode. But there it is. All that froth is just extraordinarily distasteful to me.

And honestly I can't quite wrap my brain around those who LIKE froth.

Several years ago, my friend Matty T told me that he doesn't enter into debate with people if they are not open to changing their mind. Matty T has shown up in four previous entries (here, here, here and here) because he says shit that gets in my brain and takes up permanent residence. And that whole business of avoiding debates with someone who isn't willing to change their mind has simmered for years in my thoughts and has finally distilled into a kind of paradigm for my life. I can't argue anymore just for the sake of arguing.

It's not fun. Because I have anxiety.

Although I am open to changing my mind on a fair number of things (admittedly there are some closely held beliefs which are absolutely inviolable for me) I usually feel pretty solid in my formation of opinion. I like to read, I like to know things, and like to trust the foundation upon which I build my beliefs. So you can bet I'm relatively self-assured if I do enter a debate. But I'm almost always open to changing my mind or tweeking my philosophy if someones has better evidence, more compelling evidence, or a better reasoned argument.

It doesn't seem like I'm in the majority, though.

People's insta-rage is everywhere in every single thing they say or type or share. So I've tuned them out. I'm not allowing anything to make it through the gates if it doesn't align with my viewpoint. I am allowing no challenge. I wish the whole wide world would simmer down, take one giant step back and look all around the planet. The whole thing.

I wish people could understand on a level that reaches deep into their soul that we are all inextricably connected and that the left hand, which lives very far away from the right foot, does so much damage to the body when it hacks at the foot with a knife. The foot has different demands placed upon it; demands and living conditions that the hand can never understand. But to vilify the foot for its differences is cancerous to the body. The hand and foot don't need to be the same and, in fact, the body won't work correctly if they become the same. The tongue and heart and thigh are all muscles. But you really wouldn't want them to be the exactly the same....and things would get pretty ugly in your daily life if they couldn't work together in concert with one another. The differences are vital to the proper functioning of the whole.

It's a parable for our families, for our neighborhoods, for our cities, states, countries and finally, our global family.

And until my global family understands that we function best because of our differences, then I'm afraid there aren't enough benzodiazepines in the world for me to continuously jump into the froth, fresh pepper or not.

Photo Credit: j-No via Compfight cc

A Celebration (with hate)

2015-08-18T19:24:00.001-04:00

If you take the number 175, which is the number of posts I've published (seriously, that's the number..."Good God," you say, "it feels like 175,000"), divide it by five and then divide that number by seven, you get the number five. And in celebration of that incredible and wonderfully odd number, here are five things I hate:

REPLY ALL:

Look, I understand its function. However, it should be treated like the automatic 18% gratuity for parties of five or more - except opposite. An email sent to any number of people over three should automatically disable "reply all". You should have to confirm that you really, really do want to reply all. Then you should have to follow up with a captcha entry that no human being alive could decipher. You should have to jump through so many hoops that you eventually say, "Fuck it, I'm only telling [insert sender's name here]." Because believe me when I tell you that there is absolutely nothing that YOU need to say to any organization at large. In fact, if we're being honest, there's really almost nothing that the organization at large needs to say to YOU. Delete and move on.

TANGLED PAPERCLIPS:

Yeah, like THIS ever happens.

Come on! Isn't there enough suffering in the world without adding to it the mind numbing MC Escher task of untangling paperclips? At least at Christmas, just before I throw the wad of lights into the backyard and walk away, I'm drinking a stiff egg nog.

LEAVING CLOSET DOORS OPEN:

Get some sleep.....

Of course I don't have to tell you that this is how all manner of spooky things (apparitions, serial killers, clown masks, possessed animals from pet semataries) get into your closet in the first place. Then they hide until you're about to fall asleep and start creaking around just to scare the shit out of you and possibly murder you and/or stomp around in your psyche and suck you into a staticky TV. Just close the doors when you're finished and I'll thank you from the depths of my chest cavity area.

MILK CARTONS WITH 18 µl OF MILK LEFT INSIDE:

What fresh hell is this?

*see also snack bags with naught but dust left inside
Can you just finish whatever it is and throw the carcass away? Because when you put it away, I think there is more. And then it's like drinking water when you were expecting 7-Up (*see also: vodka). It's just a real boner kill.

VIBRATING MOBILE PHONES LEFT ON THE TABLE:

Uh, yes they were.

And speaking of boners, put that phone in your crotch where it belongs. You think Steve Jobs vibrated it that strongly so it could sit on a table top?? I DON'T THINK SO. He knew better than we what we need and want, so stick it. Of note: It really isn't any quieter when you leave it to vibrate and skitter across the table than if you just left the little dinger noise or bottle cap popping sound on. Enjoy the silence! And shove it into your lady/man parts.

Thanks for celebrating with me! What a thrill ride these past 175 posts of drivel have been.

My cat - and the litter box of life

2015-07-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

He is totally judging you. And you're not doing well.

My cat is an asshole.

He's been peeing in my kitchen in one specific spot for absolutely no good reason. He also likes to pee in empty laundry baskets. Now I admit that on occasion I do let an unfortunate litter box situation occur but as soon as I notice, I correct the problem. This time it's as if the cat is engaging in some sort of showdown with me.

Because he's an asshole.

But I forgive him, because well....he's a cat. And at night he lays on my chest and purrs and it's magical. According to some Buddhist someone or other (I can't remember who) a purring cat in your lap, or on your chest, is just about the most perfect moment of positive energy transfer that you can have. The cat's contentment is literally buzzing on you. So the asshole cat will live to piss another day because he purrs.

I guess it's a quid pro quo relationship. Although I do feel that I give more; he doesn't even have a job.

I'm not so forgiving of others around me, however. I can't seem to extend to people the same amount of compassion or absolution as I do something that lets loose his bladder in the place where I live and eat. A wrong word, a wrong tone, a perceived slight or even a whiff of judgement cast my way...these are transgressions which can cost people their time with me.

Assuming they want it, I'm not very free with my time, or my feelings, and I tend to clam up (idiom!) and retreat into myself when I've felt snubbed by someone. But I extend to my asshole cat a clemency he has neither earned nor deserves. When people say they're a "work in progress" I tend to bristle. Seems like a really great excuse and a nifty way to shrug off any responsibility, doesn't it? It's similar to the phrase, "I'm just keeping it real," which we all know is what you say directly after being a *total* douche.

But if I'm going to "keep it real" then I pretty much have to admit that I'm a "work in progress." DAMMIT. I'm a woefully flawed woman, kind of an existentially unfortunate litter box of a human being. It can't be helped.There is too much wine to drink and food to eat and so very many books to read.

I guess I need to treat others as I treat my cat. Maybe we should all treat each other as we treat our pets, or if you don't have a cat, then you can use how I treat my cat as a guide: he's an asshole. But I like how soft his fur is and sometimes he's nice. The times he's nice make up for the times he's an asshole.

Can it be that simple?

Don't ask him. He doesn't give a shit.

Too Many Words

2015-05-30T12:07:00.000-04:00

This morning the serendipity of one became my own serendipity. In the most unambiguous way, a happy occurrence of events took place. I saw something that shut me up (which seriously hardly ever happens) and made me realize that language and words get in the way of so many of life greatest and most meaningful events.

We usually think that talking is the means to understanding and that talking is the way to resolution or greatest depth of communication. But consider the following:

When saying hello to someone you've missed, it's the hug that conveys the most.
When saying goodbye to someone you love, it's the hug.
When walking next to someone in a moment of anxiety, it's the hand holding that brings comfort.
A baby knows nothing of language but understands the comfort and love being communicated in the cradling and the touch.

I think it's why we love things like Instagram, Vine, even the nefarious Snapchat. We say the most to each other in moments devoid of words and language. This strikes me deeply, since words and language seem to be my gift. What I feel best at is something so trivial; it will never measure up to what I can say with a look, or a touch.

My serendipitous moment came to me this way:

(Thanks, Carrie, for sharing what meant something to you and meant so much to me.)

They say nothing. But you and I both know after seeing this that they communicated something so profound to us. We know more than they could have ever explained with feeble words. At the end, he is unsure that she knows, and so he uses words but I don't think he needed to. We don't know what he says but we do. His words are entirely unnecessary insurance.

If I have one wish for you today, it's that you will think of your language when you are saying nothing. I wish that you will take a moment and reflect on what you really want when it comes to the people you love - friends or family. Because what I would want most, if I could have anything at all from the one I miss in my very core, is a hug.

The rest would be details.

The gifts of grief

2015-03-22T09:54:00.000-04:00

Every year, as the anniversary of my mother's death approaches I start getting dopey and mopey. Decisions are impossible (even decisions like, "what's for dinner") and I don't want to talk very much. I want to smoke ten thousand packs of cigarettes...even though in my usual life I'm a non-smoker.

It will have been eleven years in May since my mom died and what I know is the following.

Losing your mom is a natural part of life. It's not a supreme tragedy when you compare your grief to the family who has lost a child, or any other loss, really....but what I also know is that comparing grief is worthless. Quality and quantity have no business in grief. What you feel is what you feel and it doesn't matter why. I know this.

Some people take a really long time to process grief and some people move through it quickly. Neither one is correct or better or worse. Losing someone or something close to you becomes part of the fabric that makes your life and whether you see the thread every day or not is personal for you. Sometimes I stare at the thread and I feel like it might strangle me, other times I keep it at the periphery. How much time I spend with it is deeply intimate to me alone and it's okay to honor whatever time I spend or don't spend with it. This holds true for all life experiences: the good, the bad and the ugly. How we process our lives is our decision alone.

Everything that happens to us as we amble along this path leaves its mark on us. People we meet, places we see, people we lose and the minutia of our days inform who we become and who we grow into being. Seeds are planted all along the way and when they're ready they sprout. Grieving my mother has taught me so much about myself.

She was my very best friend in a way that still honored her place as my mother. She was my confidante, my role model (sometimes in how not to be, but mostly in how TO be) and she never disapproved of me in a way that made me feel unworthy. In all ways, she lifted me up and inspired me to be the best version of me that I could be. And so her absence is remarkably hard.

But her presence, if I'm willing to see it, is miraculous. It doesn't mater if her presence is because I make it so in my head, or because I choose to see things that aren't there, or because she's really an ethereal guide speaking from the Great Beyond. I see and feel her influence in myriad ways. And it helps me grieve her little by little as I grow and change as a person.

For me, the grieving will never stop, because I am never the same person from month to month and year to year. As I become a different me, I grieve her physical absence anew. But I also know that if I am open to honoring what she left me: notes, cards, friends who hold memories, and memories of my own, then she will help me and guide me along my road.

It's been eleven years. In the blink of an eye.

Photo Credit: [ henning ] via Compfight cc

Memory Lane

2015-02-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

Tonight I was looking through a box of "old things" with my sons. Mr. Ten delights in going through the piles and boxes and bags of things I keep like a good archivist does (read: like one with a moderate hoarding issue does). Whatever. I like to keep things.

Keeping things makes me feel grounded in my own history. I've never been able to get rid of items just because a year passed without using them, or because I didn't actively appreciate them. Sometimes things live in boxes under beds or tucked away in corners of the attic or basement for quite a long time before they resurface, and when they do it's like clouds parting! Tonight in the midst of cold and snow, the clouds parted and we found a box of my old writing - as far back AS THE NINETIES!!!!

"Mama, how old were you then?? Is that from a typewriter??"

The nineties, you guys.

We read a few things I wrote my senior year in high school, for a local newspaper and the very first thing I looked at was an article about a cyclist visiting our fair Village. When they asked me to read it aloud, I got four sentences in and had to stop because all four sentences began with the word "His"....

My dear sons,
Please don't ever have four sentences in an opening paragraph of writing begin with the exact same pronoun.
Love,
Mama

It got a few laughs, I admit it. Not as many laughs as the paper I wrote in college for a class called, "The Sociology of Baseball" however. This one stole the show.

In the first, Mr. Thirteen thinks it wildly hilarious that I took a class in college called, "The Sociology of Baseball." He will learn the beauty of the elective course in due time. I let him have his laughter. In the second, what got us all really going were the remarks of the instructor. I remember this class as being one where I figured I could get an easy A, raise my GPA and maybe grab a date or two. Win, win, win.

All of that happened and I have a paper where the poor old coot teaching the class waxed poetic over my abysmal writing. If memory serves, the class was filled with guys on various sports teams who ALSO needed an easy A and my best guess is that a paper written by someone about to graduate with a degree in English Literature was an especial treat. Well, in fact, it was an "excellent paper - smooth, elegant style with a transcendent air." I was awarded twenty out of ten possible points. My sons were impressed.

Tonight's little jaunt into the ancient ages of the nineties have left these boys with the distinct impression that I was supposed to make something of myself. And Mr. Ten asked me, "So....Mama, HAVE you made something of yourself?"

Oh dude. Probably not. But it's your bedtime now and the Duke game is starting, and I have to finish the application for the mortgage refinance and probably fold some of your clean laundry....I don't know what I've made of myself and maybe it's not for me to know.

Perhaps someone else's memory lane will tease out my worth someday. For now, let's be happy to brush our teeth and snuggle into our cozy beds. We can make more of ourselves tomorrow and the tomorrows to come.

Photo Credit: lovestruck. via Compfight cc

That's Really Something

2014-12-06T09:13:00.005-05:00

I have children. It's December. I'm not religious but I take part in the gift giving that comes with the month. Here are a few gifts that I think are really.....something. I won't place any judgement on them. I leave that to you!

A cleaning trolley. Because every parent wants to clean up the toys made to look like the child was cleaning. Please don't buy it here.

Temporary tattoos are for chumps. Real love lasts forever...or is at least designed so it can be changed later.

Nothing says "I support your disgusting habit" quite like a coughing, screaming lungs ashtray. Full disclosure - I kind of want this.

From the introduction: "A large penis is really surplus to requirements." It's a feel-good book for everyone, really.

Yes, it's a shoulder bag made from a whole toad skin. It appears to open from the ass-end. That's where I like to keep MY chapsticks....I guess?

That's five. You know how I like odd. Happy December.

Is that all there is?

2014-11-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

A long time ago my mom told me that she found herself asking this question all the time, in a state of perpetual discontent. It's a line from a Peggy Lee song, released in 1969. Seriously, if anyone was asking, "Is that all there is?" in 1969 then we stand nary a chance in 2014....age of restriction, political correctness and consuming tolerance.

This is absolutely 100% correct.

Of course we have incredible freedoms these days, should we desire to avail ourselves of them, and we don't have to conform to every single social or cultural constraint every single day. This past weekend saw Thanksgiving in the United States. It's a holiday that can be fraught with historical reflection if we want to be honest about what the Puritans did when they came here, or it can be a day of gluttonous appetite, or it can be a day of consumerism run amok. I guess, for some, it can be an ordinary day - if you're a toll taker, gas station operator, retail employee, healthcare or law enforcement worker..... For me, it was the day of family togetherness and I had a few days off work afterwards. So I've had some time to think.

A few times I've found myself thinking, "Is this all there is?" Sometimes it makes me laugh because it's a tongue-in-cheek homage to my dearly departed mom. Other times it makes me wish Big Pharma would pull right up to my front door and deliver a fistful of time-released all-day happiness in capsule form. More often than not it smacks me into looking to my man Buddha...because if that fat, golden boy addresses anything, it's being happy right where you are.

An incredibly gentle and wise leader in the world has suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. His name is Thich Nhat Hanh and he is a really remarkable teacher if you want to know how to be present in every moment. In today's update on his health, after suffering what is presumably an aneurysm, his attendants report:

Thay continues to rest peacefully with the ticking clock on his pillow, and we sense that he is relying on his deep awareness of breathing, rooted in Store Consciousness, to guide his healing process. Even the doctors have been surprised at the consistent level of oxygen in his blood. Thay is truly is the best breather in the world, inspiring us to deepen our full awareness of the breath. Thay continues to remind us that each day we are alive is a miracle, and that simply to breathe is a gift.

How can I ask, "Is this all there is?" What a stupid question. Of course this is all there is! THIS is living! THIS is life....it's messy and sad and wonderful and perfect and heartbreaking and defeating and uplifting. It's all of it all the time. And all I need for entrance to this incredible show is breath! I should be so bold as to ask if there is more.

Not just around holidays, but everyday, it's kind of important that we stop, remember to breathe, remember that our breath is our life and that this life really IS all there is. I forget ALL THE TIME. I forget probably 20,000 times a day. But I also remember 20,000 times a day. I remembered today when I caught up with an article in The New Yorker from November 26, 2014. In it, Leslie Jamison interviews Charles D’Ambrosio, and what he said that brought me back to my breath and back to my gratitude for daily living in all of it's messiness (and my inane desire to tell you all about it) was this:

What might seem “confessional” from the outside is just an arrangement of facts, the facts of my life, no different, to me, than admitting that I’m right handed. When I’m putting words on paper, the self is more like a perspective, an angle of vision, a complicating factor, a questioning presence. If things are going really well, I forget myself completely, which is a relief, and in a way the forgetting, that loss of self, is a fairly good gauge of how involved I am in the work. I use the “I,” of course, and that slender pronoun offers an intimate register of feelings, thoughts, tones, but I’m so focussed on getting things right that even that “I” becomes impersonal.

The personal isn’t by definition false, nor is confession, but in writing both have to meet this other demand, the demands of language. As a Catholic, I go to regular confession, and to date I’ve spent about nine million dollars on therapy, so I know what goes on in those spaces—and what goes on when I’m writing is very different. That dual allegiance, to the truth of the thing and to the truth of writing, inevitably takes you away from the merely heartfelt, it seems to me. In a way, writing maps a path out of the self. Instead of sobbing, you write sentences.

Thanks Charles.....because now I'm breathing again. And this is all there is.

Waking up to the Dark

2014-11-02T17:03:00.001-05:00

In my part of the world we fell back last night. It was the end of daylight savings and we lost an hour in an arbitrary resetting of our clocks. It will now be darker for longer in the morning and get darker earlier...and I'm so incredibly contented by that.

For someone like me: prone to depressive episodes and random, sometimes crippling, anxiety, you'd think the return of dark would be horrifying. But it's not. I love the dark days and the quiet of the cold. I find the activity of summer and spring to be overwhelming, and it feels like I never quite measure up to all the fun I'm supposed to be having, all the things I'm supposed to be accomplishing and all the interaction that drains me till I could crumble and blow away.

The return of fall and then of winter signals a time when everyone around me softens and relaxes. Society at large slows down, calms down, takes more time and has fewer demands. And I feel myself waking up in the waning daylight. What's better than a crisp, cold night after the snow has fallen?

Today I found a place where a man creates every word that doesn't exist to describe me, and a few other people I know. It's here: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. And the reason I love the dark and quiet and the cold is summed up by his most amazing word: SONDER.

In the stillness of winter, I am the backdrop for fewer people and there are fewer extras in my own

movie. The credits roll slowly by, each name getting more time to spend on screen, and each character becoming a player instead of a shadow.

Sure, when the clock rolls back we know the chill is coming...but so is the fire.

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Frickin' Attitude of Gratitude

2014-10-17T20:25:00.001-04:00

I spend an inordinate amount of time asking my ten year old son to "live with an attitude of gratitude" mostly because he is A VERY GOOD AMERICAN. He lives every single moment of his seriously short existence looking at what's next, what else can he have, what more can he have, and what better thing is out there.

Thanks to Google TV we spend loads of time browsing on our big screen and Mr. Ten feels that his life is generally without purpose, joy, or fulfillment. And so I spend inordinate amounts of time asking him to "live with an attitude of gratitude" and look around him for the riches he can't quantify. But I do the same for myself.

At present I am grateful for so many things in a world gone mad over foreign viruses, over madmen in countries we don't understand, and over every manner of lifestyle, belief or way of living that doesn't fit into a neat Ikea box. These are a few of my favorite things:

*A job, a home and a reliable vehicle. These are first and foremost. No matter how I feel on any given day about the job, or how hovelish my home feels, or how much duct tape the interior of my car contains...all three things rise to the occasion and provide a life for my family.

*Money that I sometimes have leftover from paying for our basic expenses that I can elect to spend on books, martinis, candles, fizzing bath bombs, roomy sweaters to hide my expanding middle because I also spend leftover money on chai tea lattes and bottles of red wine. And bread. I buy bread with the leftovers. And I love these things.

*My children's artwork from school, no matter how wonky or weirdly painted or flat out bizarre...because this leads me to what I'm REALLY thankful for and that's no "thing."

When I tell Mr. Ten to live with an attitude of gratitude, I don't mean to be thankful for our stuff. I mean for him to learn, on a very basic level, to be thankful for so much of what his life ISN'T.

He isn't living in an area of the world which cannot handle a virus sweeping through its people, nor is he living in a country which unleashes chemical weapons on its sleeping citizens. We don't suffer under the strain of government induced poverty while oligarchs rule from above (no matter what the 24-hour cable news networks say....it just isn't true!) and we don't fear for our safety and freedom when we express our thoughts and feelings.

Mr. Ten lives in the very lap of luxury before he even starts to look at his STUFF. And he has a shit ton of stuff. Thousands of dollars and ten year's worth of Legos, Star Wars memorabilia and toys, Dr. Who apparel, sonic screwdrivers, and oh my God....Netflix! For the love of red capes and four tined spoons, what the hell else does a kid need?!?

Oh right - fresh air (we got it) a safe neighbor for outside play (got that, too) parents who adore him and spend their lives looking to his happiness, health and education (yeah, that's me and Dad). He has it all. And so to not live with an attitude of gratitude is a slap in the face of everyone who works hard around him, and who worked hard before him. His great-grandparents worked very hard to provide a life made better for his grandparents, who in turn worked hard for his father and me.

And Mr. Ten might as well be all of us: every single one. Because all of us need a reminder to live with this attitude of thankfulness - and not just on the third Thursday in November. Even on the second Tuesday in May. And the first Saturday in September. And really the whole month of February, because if you live in the Midwest of the United States, that's when you need gratitude most. It's a spectacularly miserable month.

So I'm thankful right now for my laptop, where I've spent a bit of time doing something that fills my bucket right back up to the top, for Mr. Ten who reminds me to remind him about all we have and forces me to count blessings with him, and for you...because if you're all the way down here on the page, then you've given this whole exercise a deeper meaning.

Thanks.

But, honestly, also this....

My Normal Life

2014-08-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

In the past month something kind of weird happened without my intent. I took a break from social media. I didn't check out, or delete accounts, I just got busy and stopped being glued to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flipboard, Zite.....all the usual icons that I tapped every single time I had more than 45 seconds of quiet or uninterrupted time.

My life just had more tasks than usual and, as my one of my very best friends put it, "I noticed you're sparse."

That's what happened. I didn't stop looking at these media spaces, I just stopped ENGAGING in them and in the long space that is one whole month of human existence (30 DAYS!!!) I actually stopped being invested in them without even trying. Of course I clicked through to links of articles and blogs that I found interesting; I've continued to be informed of the workings of the world.

But the best part is this: in the small spaces where my phone wasn't in my hand, or pocket, or directly in front of my blank, numbed face, I started tapping back into my inner voice. I started NOTICING things around me, and noticing my feelings. My physical being took shape again and so did my awareness of self. For the longest time (a whole year - which is like an EON compared to 30 days!!) I have been sad. And it didn't make sense. I spent all this time over the past several years waking up to myself and spending time going through all the awful and wonderful and exhilarating moments that were showing me to me.

But then I left a job which fulfilled every single idealistic dream I ever had for myself and chose corporate, creature, financial comfort for myself and my family. I have sons who will someday want cars, and college educations and I want to be able to help them. I also want to not die at my desk and be able to retire someday and NOT eat cat food. Money wins. I live in America.

So in the past year, I have gained back every shred of weight I ever lost - and in a fit of divine and cosmic comedy, I regained it in the most horrific and awful physical places. My tummy which carried two lovely and gigantic boys now announces itself before I do. My face is like...well, it's like 3 or 4 faces depending on where the camera is. And I've been really, really NOT me.

A work friend reminded me that in this life we are given lessons. And we are given these lessons as many times as we need them to learn them. I have noticed, when I am open to self-reflection, that I care DEEPLY about what other people think about me. I base many of my decisions on how other people will perceive them and I try to insure that people can never question my integrity or intent. Even when I'm doing a good job I tend to feel stress when those around me might not understand that I'm doing a good job because I don't do it their way. And that's problematic...because eventually I stop caring about the performance and more about the perception. And then, under the weight of "not living up" to people's standards, I run away.

So this time I've decided to stick it out. I have so much gratitude for financial security, job security, and stability. And spiritual paths are opening up to me like never before. Hard lessons are being taught in the gentlest of classrooms. And I am committed to learning them this time.

And somehow....along the way...social media fell off my hippy dippy radar. (Do hippy dippy people even believe in radar?!? Probably, and that's why they wear tin foil hats.) I have spent time reading articles written by learned people on Gaza, and Syria, and Isis, Iraq and Ferguson, Missouri. I've learned more about our economy and what people who approach it from a humanistic standpoint think than ever before. I've added new words to my vocabulary and learned about spiritual practices and beliefs that have endured for over 5,000 years.

All of this has happened without knowing what some fucktard troll in Schenectady thinks about it. No one from the great state of Alabama has questioned my patriotism or intellect as I've formed opinions, read things to challenge them and decide what I feel and believe. No one has made me feel enraged about humanity at large and I've spent the last bit of time in peace. Actual peace.

I've settled in to a life that should be right. And instead of buying into the notion that it's never enough (because not once have I been to Napa or the Turks and Caicos in this time...and I haven't bought a luxury car or new mansion....) I find that IS enough. Ironically, I've found that the whole time that I've been plugged in AND trying to find a simple life, I've been working against myself.

How can I find quiet and peace, or gratitude and appreciation, for simplicity when I surround myself with the constant and overwhelming din of social media?!? It's like complaining you can't get any sleep when you won't leave the nightclub.

Without meaning to....I left the nightclub.

And the quiet walk home has been wonderful.

Photo Credit: Alex Akopyan via Compfight cc

This Land is MY Land

2014-07-03T20:03:00.000-04:00

Bring me your wealthy!

It's no secret that around here my focus is on Buddhism. Honestly, the tenants of Buddhism are so humanistic and so cross culturally relevant. Where Buddhism implores you to connect compassionately with humanity and human suffering, Jesus Christ asks His followers to turn the other cheek and in the Book of Matthew (5:9) we are told "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

Buddhism tasks us with sitting in meditation to connect with giving and acceptance of people in all of their sadness. In every action we take, our goal is to be mindful that every living being wants to be happy and so we must meet even those who torment us and seek our unhappiness with kindness and compassion. It's very similar to what the Bible teaches its followers in the Book of Luke (6:35) "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked."

Even under torture, Buddhist monks have prayed for their tormentors; prayed for their happiness and for a cessation of their suffering. Sound familiar? Read a little further in the Book of Luke (23:34) and you find Jesus on the cross saying, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

In my life, no matter the circumstance, no matter the torment, no matter the pettiness, rival or foe, I seek the path of the Buddha. I try to honor within myself the natural drive to meet with compassion every obstacle I encounter. In most communities in the United States, people SAY that they are followers and disciples of this great man, Jesus Christ. And yet they live lives so far removed from His teachings that the path back to them must surely be obscured with vines and brambles and needles and thorns.

I have been called many names in my life because I attempt to always resist the pull to sink to the level of pettiness and spite that greets me. "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.…" (Matthew 5:39-40) Whether it is Jesus Christ or Buddha who commands it, the message is the same. To fulfill our most supreme reason for being, we must live in love and compassion. That is an inviolable Truth spread across every religion and every humanistic paradigm.

In other countries America is considered the greatest place on earth. People leave everything they know and understand politically, socially, culturally, economically, religiously and financially; sometimes at great physical peril. They cross oceans, deserts, and brave horrific physical challenges as well as crime and destitution. They come here because we are a country that stands on the moral high ground of Love and Compassion. We are a Christian nation at our core. And so we must surely be a nation of people ready to help, to love, to reach out and give what we can to whomever we can whenever we can, even if it means we have to give something up ourselves. It's why we celebrate Christian high holidays such as Easter, Lent, and Christmas on a Federally mandated level. And so why wouldn't a mother want her children to live here, no matter the sacrifice?

Why wouldn't a family send their able bodied son to our border in the hopes of this manna, in the hopes of the riches and joy and safety and health that we PROMISE every other nation on the planet? We are America: and we stand taller, mightier, healthier and richer than every other nation. We call them, invade them, protect them, and promise them. And they respond. They uproot everything they know, they risk everything they have, because we have created a world that prizes US.

But do they find us ready to meet them and help them find the American dream? Do we offer them the compassion and promise that EVERY SINGLE ONE of our families at one time was offered? (Unless you're a 100% Native American Indian, in which case, I'm so, so sorry we raped your entire way of life.....and that's a blog for a different day.) Do we fulfill the teachings of our good man, Jesus Christ? Do we even fulfill the promise of our esteemed and very drunk forefathers, who were ALSO immigrants to this land?

No. No we don't. We meet them with protest signs and cries of, "I got mine!" We turn away sick children because fuck 'em. We are the very embodiment of the cartoon called "South Park" and we face the TV cameras with our Latino heritage, with our Germanic features, with our British-based Puritanical pride, and we say, "GET OUT." We say our money won't go to you. We will not give you our coats, our cast off textbooks, our cast off jobs that pay just enough to keep in you squalor. We will NOT support your children because you weren't born here. And if you were, but your parents snuck in, without going through the years and years of impossible, heart achingly difficult expensive red tape that is the legal route to citizenship, then fuck you too. The sins of the father and all...you know. America is the land free, home of the brave and country of limitless opportunity only if your immigrant family came before 2014.

Sorry suckers. Peace be with you (John 20:21).

Eleven Things I Hate

2014-06-04T18:16:00.000-04:00

Awright, enough with the sentimental hippy dippy crap. I'm over it. I hate these eleven things. (Eleven because I love odd numbers and so do you...market research proves it.)

1 - These kinds of beards. My God. Comb that shit. Groom it. A beard is a glorious indication of maturity, of effervescent, pure concentrated manhood...this display is nothing short of slovenly, unkempt mess. It should be treated with respect and reverence.

2 - Easter grass. You only ever have to buy this once. Because from that single Sunday on, you will never, ever (not once) fail to have Easter grass floating around your home. And thus spoke the Lord: "Ye who buys the Easter grass shall henceforth find it thither and yon, for the grass shall be like the loaves and fishes....and ever multiply." - The Book of Target, Aisle 4: Shelves 1-3

3 - That one rotten potato that fell behind the pantry shelf and took you 9 weeks to find even though it smelled so awful you were fully prepared to burn your home to the ground to get rid of it.

4 - Button batteries....because this is 2014. If you can't use a regular AA or AAA then get your act together and figure out some way to plug that shit in to recharge it. Button batteries are gratuitously expensive and get stuck in kid's throats, according to a cursory Google image search for "button batteries." I am so done with them.

5 - Coconut water. And you know why? Because no matter how cold you make this stuff, it still feels like someone else's spit in my mouth.

6 - Jargon. OMFG just say it.

7 - Cave crickets. Sweet mother of burpees and gluten free toaster muffins....these things are minions of Satan himself. They jump without any regard to the laws of direction or gravity. They just sort of apparate all around you. And I don't normally wish mass extinction on a species, but these right here have it coming. Unless someone can tell me what thing I love eats them...then I will work tirelessly for that particular animal. Because these things SUUUUUCK.

8 - When I Google image search for what it looks like when I bend my fingernail backwards. Initially I thought I hate what it feels like when my nail bends back...and I still do. But it pales in comparison to how I now feel about what I see on an image search thereof. I can't even show you. If you hate yourself and how it feels inside your body to be in a state of relative calm, then go look. I can't stop you.

9 - It's happened in my life that I think I'm going to take a drink of 7-Up but it ends up being water. I hate that. I know for a fact I'd hate it more if when I went to take a drink from a can it was dip spit, but I've only ever ALMOST done that.

10 - Flat thumb tacks. First of all, that's a minefield right there trying to get one out of the box. And second, trying to get the stupid thing out of a cork-board will result in a nail bending backwards. OH MY GOD.

11 - Excessive talking.

So that's it. These are the first eleven things I thought of when I decided to write about eleven things I hate. It only took me 30 minutes to think of them, write about them and find their images....so you know I probably have about 50 more things I hate just as much. And now you also know that I don't really put much effort into these blogs. Do you hate that?

So Much Life

2014-05-06T21:01:00.000-04:00

Oh dear readers...all five of you,

I have been quiet for a bit and I have been trying to find my humor and find my righteous indignation, my satirical slant on all things societal and therefore real. But I can't, because there is just so much life happening to me every day and I can't possibly squeeze words out in the meanwhile.

There have been babies born, friends and acquaintances who've made their exit, stage right or stage left; I'm not sure it matters when the moment is yours and it's time to take that one big step. Because we all take big leaps and the two biggest are at the beginning and at the end....and it's only the one at the end that concerns us in daily living. What's out there? What's next?

The natural cycles are overwhelming in Springtime. We clean away the remnants of the fall, the last remaining, straggling leaves which made their way to Earth after the final sweep. We make room for the seedlings, who've miraculously found their way out of their shells, who've reached for a sky they don't even know exists and ruptured through a ceiling in an act of terrifying, instinctive faith. These small blossoms, springing up from the ground...weeds, intended plantings....they're all the same. They're every day and every minute reminders of "life's longing for itself." And I think that's what makes it so marvelous, and difficult, and tumultuous and utterly exquisite.

Life wants nothing more than life; we really can't deny that and in our final breaths, what else matters? What more is there than the answer to the question: Have we fulfilled Life's own longing?

I believe I'm coming to an age in which days count and minutes and the passage of Time begin to feel full. Where minutes and time feel hollow, I find myself in annoyance and in a state of terrible intolerance. There is no list which shows how many days we get and so what does it feel like as we step ever closer to an unknowable edge, finally understanding that that last step is ours alone to take?

Everyday what impresses itself upon me is that we're all the seedling: waking up to a life we really don't understand. Moving through an existence whose answers aren't provided in full measure. And we're all climbing for the sun in a blind trust; hoping, praying, meditating that the Truth will be provided, "for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

Photo credit to Elizabeth Hartlaub - Sacred Grove Farm
Poetry excerpts from hippy dippy Khalil Gibran in his 1923 publication, The Prophet

Get on the Bus, Old-timer.

2014-03-19T17:31:00.001-04:00

There's this dude I know. Let's call him "Wayne." Wayne may not have been the one who coined a term I use all the time, but he's the first one I ever heard say it, so in the World of Liz it's "Wayne's" term.

Wayne gets "tired head" when things are mentally taxing, emotionally draining, or overwrought with drama. And lately I have been getting tired head quite a lot. When my children have more than one activity on our family plate...tired head. When the bills aren't getting paid and it's not even because I don't have the money....tired head. When I have to catch up on the shit-storm that is social media....tired head.

Some people call it the "Overwhelm," (people like Brigid Schulte, who just published a phenomenal book I'm reading) some people just cry "too busy!" The feeling manifests itself in my world like this: my brain matter feels like it's actually turned into sludge. Like there's no integrity left to it at all and I'm simply an amoebic life form existing on whatever autonomic functions can be carried out in whatever is left of my brain stem.... because everything else has liquefied.

Have you ever had "tired head?"

It's stopping me from doing things that I really want to do! I'm opting out of my beloved Bikram Yoga thanks to this ridiculous feeling. I'm unable to make decisions with any confidence. And whatever part of me that I fancy creative or in any way unique has turned into dull grey ooze. No sparks. No vigor in my mental combustion. It's just....tired. (Thanks, "Wayne!")

So I've been researching what it means to "opt-out" of social media, because that's got to be my number one time suck, emotional drain and point of fury/envy/false expectation creator. People of my age (older than CDs, older than iPhones- my God...that's old) say they're going to opt-out all the time. It's called, "Quitting Facebook" because that's pretty much the only major media we consume in great number. And it's a total lie and adult version of a temper tantrum. You kind of can't do it. At least not forever.

Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Selinger wrote a piece published by The Atlantic, in February 2013. Ancient history, but let's see if we can pull out anything germane to this discussion. In their article, "Quitters Never Win: The Costs of Leaving Social Media" they say that by opting out, we "miss opportunities for self-expression, personal growth, learning, support, and civic exchange." And that's true enough, but half of our collective dismay at social media is self-expression run amok.

In another piece, written by Alice Marwick, on Social Media Collective - a research blog, the notion of opting out is entirely ridiculous from the start. The problem with opting out is that she'd "miss out on 75% of the invitations in my friends group. And I don’t think it’s for anyone else to say that I should expect my friends to cater to my socially abnormal preference, or that I should prioritize my own personal irritation at Facebook over the very human impulses to connect and socialize."

And to that point, I agree. Because my Dad is so disconnected that it drives me to actual anger that he can't just read my status updates, tweets and see my Instagrams to keep up with my life. MUST he insist on a phone call?!? A phone call....he won't even text! I'm overwhelmed dammit ...and my head ....is ...suddenly ...tired .....because talking to my father shouldn't be a factor in the overwhelm. It just shouldn't. Except that maybe I'm getting all caught up in a whirlwind of sludge, because, as detailed by PJ Rey, in The Society Pages article, "Part of our collective insistence that social media is something we opt-in to—or, at least, may opt-out of—stems from an underlying moral conviction that the old ways of communicating are more genuine than the new ways of communicating—the “appeal to tradition” fallacy, if you like."

And I do like, because my Dad's refusal to use social media is like any other old-timer who refused to drive a car in the past. Once that's how Americans started getting around, I bet it was super inconvenient for all of his friends. Joe won't drive. Edith won't ride an elevator so she's walking up 45 flights of stairs...see ya 'round Edith. We'll be shitfaced at the bar by the time you haul your old bones up those stairs.

So we can't really opt out. This is our social landscape. And it's making me very, very tired.

Photo Credit: khalid Albaih via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Nathan Congleton via Compfight cc

A Battle for Silence

2014-02-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

There are two things I love. Well, I mean, honestly there are about a ka-jillion things I love but for this right here I want to talk about two things. A book and line of dialogue from a different book.

The book: Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton.

The dialogue: "Silence, you talk too much." From the thirteenth century French romance, Silence.

In the journal by Ms. Sarton, you can read about what happens when a woman with an abundance of thoughts seeks quiet and solitude. In her solitude she attempts to find her real life.

And in the medieval romance called "Silence," a girl who is raised as a boy is tasked with capturing Merlin and is eventually unmasked. The play on the word silence and the name Silence is part of the examination of the lives of women in 13th century France. And, since the day in Professor Charbonneau's lit class in late 1995 when I first read that line, I have laughed at the recitation of it in my head every time the din overwhelms me.

It's the buzz of my every day world that leads me to want to lead May Sarton's life of solitude. Sometimes I positively salivate at the thought of a quiet life in a small cottage of my own. Where my writing could take center stage, where every whim and deep seated conviction alike could have a moment of careful examination. Because sometimes what we *call* silence is so loud I can barely stand it!

There are phones beeping, chirping, knocking, and vibrating. There are cars driving three blocks to the coffee store, and TVs on at theater level volumes with no one watching. Appliances in my house make noise, my dogs make noise. Everyone is talking all the time and it's perfectly acceptable to "think out loud" every single minute of the day. It is rarely quiet: actually, truly, definitively quiet.

In the United States, in the unending winter of 2014, snow blankets and blankets and blankets our cities and towns. My own quaint village is currently being covered fresh, fluffy snow. And what I love most is the stillness and quiet of a snowy night. No cars, no dogs barking, no music coming from houses or passing motorists...not even the sound of birds. It is just so silent and peaceful outside. It's almost as if the snow is burying noise.

And I love it.

I want to be on a wooden porch, with heavy woolen blankets keeping me warm. I want a hot cup of black tea in my hands - maybe a touch of bourbon and honey, after all - and I want to take in the quiet. All of it. Because in a normal day we're quite frightened of silence. We fill conversations with chatter to avoid lulls. We say more than we want to say in job interviews if the astute employer knows to let even a 3-second gap occur between question and answer. Inevitably, most people will rush to begin speaking again. Silence is awkward.

Is it awkward because we don't like our own thoughts? Is it awkward because we read negative things into silence? We claim one mark of a good relationship when we boast "comfortable silences" with our partners, but I think the words we constantly spew are far more dangerous. For sure, if we stop talking altogether then we stop growing as a team and we stunt our connections as partners in LIVING, but there is great benefit in the quietude. There are abundant lessons in hearing the sound of only our breath. We can be taught multitudes in hearing only the sounds our footfalls make as we walk along a solitary path.

In the maelstrom of every day life, we can keep "demons" at bay, keep insecurities stuffed and fears smothered by the noise and the chatter. In the quiet we are left with nothing but our monkey minds and frantic anxieties. If we let it wash over us, if we walk right into the solitude, we can find that the Silence really does talk too much....but maybe it's the Silence to whom we should be listening.

A Misguided Notion of Compassion

2014-01-09T21:07:00.000-05:00

Today on my way to work, I listened to an interview on NPR. That's the liberalist, hippy dippy, practically communist (or socialist, whichever you prefer, since in America the two entirely different things are synonymous) and "sheeple" creating radio station. I like it because I'm one of the sheeple. A liberal idiot. It's just who I am. Sorry about that, but I make no apologies.

ANYWAY.

Ishmael Beah was being interviewed and he's a dude from Sierra Leone, who was once a child soldier. And he wrote a memoir. Politics aside, one thing he said was this:

During Sierra Leone's war, there was a lot of amputation going on where people were mutilated in different parts of their body. ... As you see in this character, this old man, he refused to look at his friend, and when he finally found the courage to lift his head, he was checking to make sure if she was intact. And if she wasn't intact, if he was ready to take this burden of what she may look like — what she may be missing — into his memory.

And so I started thinking, which is not something sheeple usually do, but I did it anyway. I attempt compassion towards others all the time; every day. I'm not always successful because I'm a fundamentally flawed human being, like many other people are. I also try to be compassionate toward myself. That's even more difficult than showing compassion to others!

But then this idea floats past - what does it mean when compassion towards oneself means being "less than" fully compassionate towards another. Because the idea that seeing someone who is not intact and taking the burden of that knowledge into one's memory as being somehow too difficult to do, seems to fly in the face of what it means to be compassionate towards others. How can my own self-protection still be housed under the umbrella of "compassionate living" if my actions seem hostile to another?

For a while now I've been on this little path of change. I've written about it in other posts and the details for this particular conundrum are hardly important. But along this psychological hike of mine, I've had to let go of some people and habits which had come to feel like burdens versus positives. Every time something was released, it felt so awful. Each time felt like I was committing a terribly heinous act of extreme selfishness. Sometimes I've questioned whether I'm being narcissistic in my quest for a "best self." After all, who in the holy hell am I to demand the room to be my best self? How VERY American of me....

However, each release, each scuttled burden from my emotional or physical life, has left me freer to concentrate my best self energy on the things and people around me who enrich my life; who give to my life as much as I seek to give to them. All the fine inspirations and quotes on Pinterest and Facebook, which extol the virtues of being the friend who stays no matter what, fail to recognize that a truly enriching relationship is the result of give and give. Taking is secondary - for everyone involved.

I have decided, thanks to Mr. Beah and his one little sound byte, that part of being true to myself means letting go of the absolute responsibility to never sever any tie; that allowing myself the freedom from toxicity, in any form, is totally and in all ways protected by the umbrella of compassionate living.

Because as the flight attendant reminds us before every single flight, you really DO have to secure your own survival before seeking to help the person beside you.

THE New Year

2013-12-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

From the start you should know that I take the New Year quite seriously. It is LITERALLY a changing of the calendar. That I hang on my wall. And it's a whole new number I have to type out in the 4 places left where the date doesn't auto-populate. So yeah. It's a *pretty*big*deal.*

I have thought for a long time (20 minutes to be exact) about what I shall resolve to do in the year 2014. And here is my list, in order of importance:

1 - I will shave my legs at least weekly.

2 - There is a giant box of Pez dispensers somewhere in my attic. I'm going to find that box and bring it downstairs and then put it in the closet. Every time I open the closet I'm going to think, "I need to find some way to display those...because they're kind of cool." That's all I'm going to do.

3 - I will play Candy Crush more often.

4 - The desire for "work-life" balance will be all I talk about on every third Wednesday and on the 14th of every month. If by some strange Julian coincidence the third Wednesday falls on the 14th of a given month, I will attempt to discuss the merits of an electively gluten-free diet. I will have to explain that gluten does NOT give everyone explosive diarrhea, but that there are benefits to just choosing not to eat gluten. It's going to be hard. Because bread is AWESOME.

Hint: You DON'T store gluten-free bread.

You throw it away.

5 - I will vacuum twice as often as I shave.

6 - Recognizing that the path to spiritual and self-enlightenment is never ending, I will make every attempt to stop judging other people's failures. I will focus more on *remembering* other people's failures to point them out during their successes. You know....to remind them of how far they've come. In this way, my own self and spiritual enlightenment will be increased. I think.

So that's it. I'm going to do those six things.

Usually I like to have odd numbers, but in 2014 I'm going to go for an even, since it's an even ending year and that has to mean something cosmic, or conspiratorial or must have something to do with the Lincoln/Kennedy connection. I leave that sort of thinking to the scholars, though.

They're practically the same person.