In the Beginning....

I'm having a difficult time posting. There's a sharp edge to my attitude today and I don't particularly feel like spewing bitter venom in the general direction of the select and special people who might read here. On the other hand, maybe I do. Who cares.

Maybe if I go meditate before I type any more . . . let's see.







I turned in all my library books today. Almost all. A boycott of sorts. But not of the library. Of the books themselves.



It is so odd that I've worked at the library for over five years now and I've never read less. Well before I learned to read, I probably read less, but not by much.



I check out more than my share of material. I just never read any of it. Or hardly any. I wonder why this is so.



Before I came to work here, the distinction of 'books I never got around to reading' fell only to those I'd buy. I was a rabid library user. We always had piles and piles of library books, movies and Cd's around the house. When I came across a library book I adored and simply had to own, I'd go to my local book store and buy it. But then never read it again, or never even finish it the first time. There was some thing about knowing it would always be there, that book I bought. No hurry reading it because it had no due date. The piles and piles of library material, on the other hand, had to be returned one day, so there was more urgency to get them read. Therefore, read I did, while the books I paid good money for stood silent on my book shelf, collecting cobwebs and inferiority complexes.

My mind is pretty sharp. Can't slip anything past me. It knew the difference between something I hold for a limited period of time, and something I hold for 'like' infinity.



Then I went to work at the library and my head still knows the difference. It knows that the library is a virtual extension of my own book shelves. I can pretty much get my hands on them whenever I want to. (Assuming we own them to begin with and that they haven't been stolen or 'weeded' away.) So there's no hurry getting them read. No urgency, once again.



Why does my head need some kind of deadline or boundaries before it will jump into action? This confounds me. And frankly, pisses me off.



Another question I have, seemingly unrelated in nature: Why share?



Close your eyes and think back with me....high school, college....remember when someone passed a joint in your direction? Or some other form of some other form of a mind altering substance? That shit was not cheap on a broke college student's budget. Why was every one so eager to share? And if you were not inclined to participate, instead of looking at it as 'more for me,' why would people give you a hard time for not taking part? Suspecting all along that it wasn't genuine generosity, I always thought it was because it made them feel like whatever they were doing must be okay if we are all doing it together. (Boy, that was a bumpy sentence....) That there was a silent social reassurance when people joined in. This is not a judgement on one substance or the next, but there must have been some sub (or even straight up) conscious guilt wafting around the van with the smoke curls. (Is that conscious or conscience?)



If someone declined said invitation, it was an indictment of some sort, on the activity or the user himself. I was known to decline on occasion and I always wondered why people took it so personally.



Now, fast forward three kids, a long marriage and a grandson. Why do I feel the need to share? I'll read a book I find interesting, intriguing or, God Forbid, edgy and the next thing I know, I'm recommending it to someone. This goes for music, movies, restaurants. Why is it important to me that people partake in and approve of the same social, recreational activities as I do? Do I receive my validation this way? I must be okay, if every one I love most is also watching Frasier and listening to The Beatles? Reading Martha Beck or eating at Gasperetti's? Do I judge my friends by how similar their preferences are to my own? Can't I just have my own favorites and leave it at that? Why do we care? Or is it just me?

(TELL ME IT IS NOT JUST ME, RIGHT NOW!)



I recently recommended some reading/listening material to some one I love and then later was sorry because it just wasn't for him. It was an energy drain on his enthusiasm. His natural optimism. Which begs the age old question, what the fuck? (Remember that edgy attitude I mentioned earlier.....) I admit I found the (library) material in question, intriguing, thought-provoking. Even conversation inducing, but they was by no means anything special involved in the writing or the perspective.

Am I a loser if no one else likes the same books as me? (Don't answer that out loud.)

Why are we so eager to be agreed with? Approved of?
Except when we aren't and the last thing we want is to be agreed with and approved of.

Is it out of love that we share? Is it Show and Tell, trying to be the kid with the coolest gadget in front of the class today?

If I play mmorphenpowerranger type games online, why do I feel better if I suck everyone else in with me? Why is it better this way?

I need to be more selective of my recommendations and perhaps, the material itself. This post is my apology....about the inferior reading material....

...and the beginning of some profound cosmic questions, all of which I expect to receive some profound cosmic answers...to.

Just kidding about that Lawrence Welk thing.....

Apparently, I have morphed into a member of my parent’s generation. Or their parent’s generation.

It’s true.
How do I know?

Earlier today I distinctly heard myself think these words: “They just don’t write songs like that anymore.” Then without passing Go, I proceeded directly to the logical conclusion that later when I got home, if I looked hard enough I could probably find a Lawrence Welk rerun somewhere on cable. If I’m lucky. Not really.

But I did have this telling, generational, elitist, ageist, narrow-minded thought:
“They just don’t write songs like that anymore.”

I was driving in my car listening to Michael Bublè remind me that “The Best is Yet to Come” at the top of my lungs. Soaking up the truth of this energy. Imbibing the words as I drove. Amazing, shiny power. With clarity and certainty he sings, “You think you’ve seen the sun but you ain’t seen it shine!” I believe this. “The Best is Yet to Come.” Indeed.

In 2007, my very first blog post EVER, brimmed with The Best is Yet to Come commentary. My certainty and motivation has dipped some since then. It's waxed and swayed, this way and fro. It will rebound for awhile, getting my hopes all dancy, then I'll slump, leaving me feeling a little bit like the stock market.

How is it that such positive energy is so fleeting? Yet discouraged and defeated can be so consistently in-house? Me constantly trying to sweep it out of the way. Who created this system? It leaves me feeling weak and vulnerable, like I don't have anything to say about it at all. Without power.

How is it I can 'know better' yet fail to 'do better?'

Wow, this blog post certainly took a sharp left turn.

Asked and Answered

This morning I woke wondering why I keep expecting other people to treat me better than I treat myself. I know the universal truth involved here. I know it intellectually. But in other ways I must still not get it. Because I keep driving full speed off this cliff.

It is crazy to expect other people to treat me any better than I am willing to treat myself. Could someone please make me some flash cards? Please.

This is crazy.

When I find myself irritated with some one's disregard (or worse) in my specific direction, I have to ask myself: Am I treating myself with disregard (or worse)? The answer is often 'Yes.' This is also crazy.

I think we are raised this way. Raised to think there is virtue in self-sacrifice. That I'm a good person because I put other people first. Taking authentically good care of myself only on very few days.


Instead, what's actually true is that if you will sacrifice yourself, other people won't hesitate to do the same. That if I put myself last, I should not be surprised when other people do also.

I am admittedly quick on the trigger when the barrel of my pen is pointed in the direction of the male gender and today is no different. (You've been warned.)

In our world, run by men for thousands of years now, women especially, are trained from very early, to put their own needs last. (Wow, pretty convenient system for approximately half of the population.....)

Even though I am known as a relatively verbal, outspoken, opinionated and bitchy-type person, I still have the most difficult time saying, "Yeah, I really don't feel like putting your needs ahead of my own today. Check with me again tomorrow. Or next week. Or, here's an idea, learn to take care of yourself in a manner that does NOT walk all over my basic needs and rights. And feelings." How 'bout that?

Instead of politely, confidently and yet firmly speaking up for myself, advocating on my own behalf, I get pissed and pissy. What men might consider BITCHY!

My theory here is that women are taught, in a very subtle and insidious manner from birth, that we do not deserve to behave in our own best interest. We are to be compliant and quiet, maybe not literally, as you begin your very mental list of loud, controlling women, but as a cultural, sinister undercurrent of programing. Subliminal encoding. This is the only explanation I can come up with. Women are taught that it is our role as women to 'give' at our own expense. To bend over and take it.

That we'd be selfish and unladylike if we were to say, "Um .... BULLSHIT!" I'm not sure I like our commonly held definition of ladylike. I'll get back to you with some other suggestions on that.

I wonder if I'm brave enough to be selfish and 'unladylike' from here on out. I wonder.

PS: In case you were thinking of writing me here reminding me that 'ladylike' is not exactly how you would have described me on any given day even before now.... Don't! Just keep it to yourself.

My Painful Pillow Fight

I live life on a cushion. This might not be apparent to the untrained eye.

Because I look as if I'm consistently at the end of my rope, said cushion might be undetectable.

Be not deceived.

I can think of several very basic, trivial ways in which I protect myself this way, so there must be deeper, more profound ways about which I'm in complete denial.

• My clock radio is set forty-five minute ahead of the actual time. On those mornings when I need my alarm to wake me, I hit the snooze button at least six times.
  
• I have money in my checking account that is not reflected in the balance written in my register. My 'invisible' cushion.
  
• The clock in my car is set ahead. Sometimes ahead plus one extra hour, depending on what half of the year we are in.
  
• I always have a compulsive back up supply of shampoo, tooth paste, toilet paper, chocolate and salsa in my home at all times.

For years I've looked at this behaviour as prudent. I'd blow on my polished nails and sweep them smugly across my chest. Just seems smart to cover my bases with cushions of time, money and provisions. Right?

Well, I don't think so anymore.

It's not being smart; it's being afraid. It's obsessive compulsive base-covering. Plus it's bullshit. Because no matter what my clock or checkbook register may say, I KNOW the truth. I am not fooled and then pleasantly surprised with an extra forty-five minutes of unexpected free time. I know before I even look in the direction of the clock that it's ahead. (Then I'm having to do some speedy quick math in my head to calculate the actual time. That's a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on the little 'math in my head' man.)

So at this realization I set my clock radio to the correct time. It feels good but I still want to keep hitting the snooze button at least six times. (Which has always been crazy since it just isn't good sleep when every nine minutes I know that some Air Supply song is going to be hitting me over the head trying to get me to wake up.)

I reset my car clock. But it's still four minutes fast. Why do I do this? Why can't I just live in real time?

I moved some of my balance into the running total in my checking account register. Some but not all. Call me chicken shit the next time you see me. What am I afraid of? (My left brain is screaming out the answers to these questions but only I can hear it.)

Yesterday someone was reading a passage from a book he found laying on a desk nearby. The point was that either we go through life afraid of what we don't know that's ahead. Or we go through life excited by the unknown to come. Embracing uncertainty. (I think my left brain is now breaking out in hives.)

I should sea kelp.

And Who I'm Not

(You just knew I wasn't done yet on this topic, didn't you?)

The opposite end of that "This is who I am" thing is the "This is who I am not."

You might say, 'Why go to the negative side?' but I think this may be just as important as the positive.

When my daughter came to the age of full employment, school choices, career decisions I reminded her that when she makes a choice and it turns out to be the wrong one, she needs to be grateful. That learning what isn't the right thing for us is valuable information.

When this happens to me, I try to think "Okay, good to know." "Lesson learned." "No need to continue along that particular path since I've discovered that this is quite obviously the wrong way for me." I'm not as good as practicing this philosophy as I am preaching it, but I'm working on it.

I'm getting better at recognizing when something is "Not who I am." When I'm enjoying a hot cup of tea, I can feel "This is who I am," on a very small tea cup sized scale. When I'm scarfing down a McDonald's cheeseburger between one shift and the next, I know "This is NOT who I am" in an 'over a trillion billion sold' sized scale. I love when it is as obvious as this.

But mostly I find myself struggling with things not so clear-cut. When I need to decide, 'should I do this? Or this?' I wish it was as black and white as eating fast food or not. In fact many times, neither choice is 'Who I am.' But instead, both choices are different forms of 'Not who I am' and it's a matter of selecting the lesser of two evils. This post is fast approaching a depressive tone.

I think it's important to search for this sense throughout our daily life. Our to-do lists. Our mental clipboard of tasks. Is this choice who I am? Does this chore reflect me, who I am? I'm afraid I spend a good deal of energy on things that do not reflect me or what is important to me. This is a crying shame. I intend to work on this with some ferocious determination.


In the mean time, better to dwell on Who I am....

A woman who wiggles her toes on the grainy beach.
A woman who sips warm mint tea by the corner window.
A woman who finds her creative heart in the art of words.
A woman who loves the feel of a smooth stone in her hand.
A woman who prefers the gray skies to the blue.
A woman who revels in solitude.
A woman who values deeply her feminine energy.
A woman who thinks it's good luck when she finds a shiny paperclip on the ground.
A woman who believes in magic.

01.01.10

Do you remember where you were on 01.01.01? Ten years ago today.

There had been so much made of the calendar turning past 1999 and all current and future computers on the planet riding off into the sunset muttering,
"This is not what we signed up for...."

Ten years ago today I was making my bed. Most of the day, in fact, I spent making my bed.

Let me explain...(like you have any choice since this is my blog and I get to do what ever I want to....*evil laugh*...).

In preparation of another emotionally empty New Years Day, I had spent the week prior to the dreaded beginning of another year purchasing new bedding.
Sheets, blankets, comforter, dust ruffle, shams, little snobby pillows that matched.

Upon waking in the new millennium, I stripped all the old stuff from my bed and in the most ceremonial fashion I could muster all by myself, I spent the day creating my perfect dream bed. (Hey! Floral was in big ten years ago, don't laugh.)

After the bed itself was perfected, I cleaned, organized and prettified the rest of my bedroom for hours.

Dusting old candles that hadn't been lit in ages, cleaning the windows, washing the curtains. I did my best to create the best sanctuary I could.

In general I shared this room with someone completely absent and uninvested in such things. Understandable, I guess. But this type of thing was not the only thing he choose to dismiss regularly as 'too much work.' Aside from creating a comforting home, emotionally speaking, I was on my own, as well.

The computers did not crash as feared. The power grid managed to maintain power. There was no apocalypse or planet-wide prison break out. Yet it was still a pretty sad New Years Day for me. It was my futile attempt at finding peace without. As opposed to within.

Ten years later, I sense a slight shift. Or a continental divide.

A few weeks ago someone told me of
a local Polar Bear Plunge in a near by community. The seed was planted.

Okay from exhibit A and B here, 'plunge' may be a bit of an exaggeration. But STILL!

I wiggled my toes in the sand under the
water of Puget Fricking Sound today!

It was GREAT!

It was cold and slippery. But great is not a big enough word.


Unlike most previous News Years Days, this was emotion filled. Taking off a few layers, approaching the gray water, the first touch. Emotional. I walked down the algae covered stone steps into the water until my toes walked on the sand. The cold took my breath away. Emotional. I looked across the vast sound at the highest tide I'd even seen here. Emotional. I scanned the land in the distance. Emotional. I climbed back into the warmth of the 40 degree air and my eyes filled with tears. I was overwhelmed.
I didn't attend a public 'plunge.'
It was personal.
Today, I did a number of things I've never
done before. (Okay, it appears it was only up to my waist but almost none of you were there so most of you don't know for sure....)

I love this NEW year, don't you?


Mark my words:
Two Thousand Ten. This will be
a very good year.

Who I Am

There's this thing that sometimes happens. It's difficult to articulate. At least, until just recently.

For a good bit of time, I could feel it, sense its occurrence but not express it. It is a wonderful feeling for a few minutes, maybe more. But I had no name for it.

The first time I tried to explain it to someone, trying to find common ground, hoping for an "Oh yeah, that same things happens to me," type moment, I stumbled and struggled briefly in my explanation. Then the phrase 'rings true' came to me. Not that I invented the saying 'rings true,' although how sweet would that be?

It's a phrase that tends to be used quite literally. Rings true. An auditory phenomenon. Like when one hears something said that rings true. It just sounds 'right.' But I think you can get that 'ring' in a feeling as well. And this is more what I'm talking about. It's not something I hear in my ears but something I feel in my cells. A sense of truth. When something feels so right that it speaks to your soul. Your spirit emits a perfectly pitched tone within your self. Like radar set to pick up your universal truth.

A moment in time, an unexpected turn of phrase, a casual touch and suddenly there's perfect peace within you for a moment. And no one else in the area may even notice. Like a whistle that only a dog can hear.

I'm getting better at recognizing these moments. And I try to grab hold. A song will penetrate my everyday-life-induced coma and my heart will swell, my eyes will water. Someone will throw out a casual thought and an absolute tone rings in my head. I just know it's right. It's truth.



I know. My heart knows. My toes know.



A fine musical gossamer thread hums within. It resonates. 'Genius,' the tone says. Or 'Home,' it rings. Or 'Truth,' it sings. It can be a moment in a movie, a line from a book, a place, the look on a face.

I think when something ring true in my life, it's a part of me saying "This is who I am!" Something right here is who I am. In large part or in small part, "This is who I am!" When I am remotely near salt water, a small part of me sings "this is who I am." When I stand on the very edge of this continent with my bare feet in the sand and the Pacific ocean air against my face, seagulls calling above as they ride the wind, a very large part of me cries "THIS is who I am!"

When a chocolate truffle melts on my tongue, I know "This is who I am."
When my toddling grandson runs across the room toward me with his arms stretched wide, "This is who I am!"
When my eighteen year old daughter calls me from the middle of her day and wants to know what I think of this or that, I'm grateful that "This is who I am."
When someone says "Barbie, write a book!" I nod knowlingly and breathe deep, "Yes, this is who I am."


When something rings true for me, I experience a long moment of "all is right with my world." In a Barbie's Absolute Life Truth kind of way.

I love when that happens.