Things I've Never Been

I have never been much of a morning person. I usually don't like the way that I feel when I wake up, all disoriented about life with puffy eyes and low expectations for another day just like the last 7,864. Lately, for a variety of reasons, and people, this is changing. Suddenly, early morning walks with good coffee and the sunrise seem like a great reason to wake up. Especially if they are with Somebody.

I realize that there are a lot of things that I have never been that I would like to be, and a morning person is just one of them. I've never been rich, for instance, but I would like to give it a whirl and see how it feels. I have never been with One Person for the Rest of My Life, but I fully intend to. I have never been to Turkey, but that's gonna happen someday (maybe once they get some things sorted out...). I have never been floating in the Dead Sea, I have never been in such good shape that I was proud of myself. I have never been published - like for REAL. I have never been the owner of a Jaguar, or the Mother of Dragons. (Ok, that last one is disputable, right Hal?)

"Never Been" is one of our great excuses. I've "never been" a runner. I've "never been" good at art. I've "never been" good at relationships. I've "never been" into reading. I've "never been" good with money, or organized, or on time. I don't want to "never be" anything, really - I want to always be something, and to be a lot of things at least once in my life, including a runner, and good at relationships, and definitely rich. I hope that if there is one example that I set for my kids it's that we can be the things we've never been as soon as we decide that we want to (KIZZIE!!!). There are so many things that I have never been and so many things that I have every intention of being someday, and now seems like the perfect time to start being.

puffy eyes sunrise

Things About Meditation

So I have been reading all of these books lately that talk about meditation. Meditation isn't something I've really practiced getting good at because well, I'm me and holding still for more than 30 seconds is REALLY HARD if Game of Thrones or Vikings isn't on TV. But It's something I've decided to work on since stillness and focus and direction all seem to be recurring problematic themes in my life.

Today I set the timer to meditate for 10 minutes, which seemed to be the agreed upon reasonable starting point for most beginning meditators according to a variety of self-help authors. I decided to lay on my back because sitting hurts my hip and I didn't need that distraction, so I got in a savasana-type pose with one hand on my heart and the other on my belly to really connect and all of that stuff. The first 5 seconds went really well.

I closed my eyes and practiced the words I had decided to say in my head to help me focus on not focusing on anything. "Air in - air out." I said it a couple times but then I realized I was fighting really hard to keep my eyes closed so I opened them to remove that distraction. That's when I noticed the texture of the ceiling was like a topographic map, but in reverse, where all the low areas are actually raised. Like topography in negative. Then I realized I was not focusing on not focusing and redirected my thoughts. "Air in - air out."

"Air in- air out, air in - air out...my nose... air in - air out... my nose... is so weird. I hate it in pictures." uh oh. the wandering... "AIR IN - AIR OUT. Not that I like any pictures of me, but those ones I just sent with my bio for the articles REALLY make my nose look weird. And they're not very professional. I should look into getting some professional head shots done. Then the photographer could like, airbrush my nose... oh crap. AIR IN - AIR OUT." I could tell I was slipping and I am pretty sure I was less than 2 minutes in. So I laid my hands out to my sides to remove the distraction of contact with my body and decided to switch to the word BLUE instead of all the other words because I was kind of bored with them.

Plus blue feels calm and serene and like the thing I would want to focus on if I was focusing on nothing. Not blue like depression or sadness. But blue like water and air with clouds floating in it... how many minutes I spent reconciling myself to the new word I was going to silently chant, I have no idea.

"Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue like the sky. Like the sky over the ocean on that one beach in Brazil... where was it? Oh yeah, Ilha Grande, when Hal was super hung over and I took 7000 selfies because I was basically alone on the beach all day, but it was fun. The sky and the ocean were almost the same color. Oh crap. BLUE. Blue. Blue. Blue." When I was able to stop the chatter, I could almost see a blue haze behind my eyelids. "Blue. Blue. Blue. Like that Keith Urban song. I don't know if I really like him. I mean, as a person he's ok, but his music... meh. And that stupid song with Carrie Underwood. UGH. Make it stop."

"Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. What size are these underwear? They feel like smalls. They're binding a little. But they're so cute. I mean the fact I can even get into a small... UGH. Blue. Blue. Blue." This is my mind, people. I spent the last three minutes of my "meditation" writing this blog entry in my head. But you know what, it's a start.

Things That Fascinate me: Total Eclipse From the Start

1927 map of eclipse pathways

In 3340 BCE, a bunch of Neolithic Irish Priests documented a series of celestial events onto a pile of rocks. The Loughcrew Cairn stands as the oldest recorded total solar eclipse in human history. These petroglyphs mean that people have been chasing eclipses since about 160 years before the wheel was invented.

Ancient cultures saw the total eclipse as a religious experience, usually a bad omen, a premonition of destruction, or in the case of an ancient Chinese emperor who wanted to know what had caused the sudden darkness - the imminent beheading of some hapless astronomers who didn’t know. What ancient Chinese records DO say about the event in October of 2134 BCE is that “the Sun and Moon did not meet harmoniously.”

Rahu swallows the sun

Whether it was a Chinese dragon, a South American Jaguar or a Scandinavian sky wolf, most early people had some theory about the creature that consumed, and promptly regurgitated the sun in the middle of its daily course. In India, the floating head of the demon Rahu occasionally caught the sun and moon in his mouth, but, lacking a body, they slipped out shortly after, according to legend. Ancient documentation on clay tablets found in a Syrian cave reference an eclipse that experts say took place in March of 1223, BCE. The Holy Bible itself makes note in the book of Amos, chapter 8 verse 9, of an 8th century Assyrian (now Iraq) eclipse that took place: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day."

Fast forward a few hundred years and people started getting wise to the repeating pattern of the eclipse. It probably helped that they started traveling more too (now that they had wheels) and discovered that the once-in-a-lifetime event happened fairly routinely, just not often in the same place. By the time that humankind had graduated into the Anno Domini they were predicting when and where the next total eclipse would be and all making up all kinds of theories that had nothing to do with giant mythical creatures. Less dramatic? Hardly, considering the vastness of the cosmos that were just beginning to make sense to astronomers.

The first photograph of a total solar eclipse in 1860

But what is it about a total eclipse that is so captivating to human audiences? Rarity seems like an unlikely motivator when the event occurs every 18 months somewhere in the world, and yet more than seven million people are expected to make the trek to experience the totality in August of 2017.

Dubbed the Great American Eclipse for the sweeping course it cuts across the entire nation like a beauty pageant sash, the August 21 path of totality makes its first all-American appearance in Lincoln City, Oregon where local law enforcement have issued preparedness warnings that residents should stockpile and prepare to shelter in place before the hordes of eclipse chasers descend upon them.  The shadow will move east/southeast across the country, leaving a path of partiers that some brilliant website analyst describes as “ 20 Woodstock festivals occurring simultaneously across the nation”, before finishing the visit along the beaches of  South Carolina.

Unlike comet-tracking cults and celestial doomsday believers, eclipse chasers appear to be cut from a completely different cloth. You won’t find end-of-the-world gibberish on eclipsechaser.com - rather, the community is a scientifically driven, curious group hailing from every imaginable background who all agree on one thing: there’s nothing like it in the world.

“The feeling of the eclipse when it happens, you can't describe it, it's like magic.” 30 year old Latvian IT consultant Agnese Zalcmane told the Daily Mail in 2015, “One minute the sun is shining then it starts getting darker but it doesn't get dark like it does in the evening or at dusk - it goes dark very, very fast. Within half a minute it's completely black and it is something that is very strange to experience.”

Seasoned eclipse chaser Rhonda Coleman tells the Bend Bulletin, “We depend on our sun for everything. You can’t help but feel a little dread when it starts to lose strength, when it starts to lose power, when it starts to dim in the middle of the day — when it’s not supposed to...For just the short period of time, everybody’s just looking up at once. It’s this beautiful connection to the family of man.” The experience seems to draw strangers together into intimate throngs with one purpose. Author, eclipse chaser and psychologist Kate Russo describes the experience in one of her books on the subject.

“You can literally feel the ominous shadow before it arrives.  The temperature drops.  The wind picks up speed.  The Sunlight slowly dims, bathing the surroundings in an eerie twilight that produces colours with shades rarely seen in the natural world.  Then it is time. Moments before totality a wall of darkness comes creeping towards you at speeds of up to 5,000 miles per hour – this is the full shadow of the Moon.  You feel alive.  You feel in awe.  You feel a primitive fear.  Then – totality.” Something akin to the ghost story your older brother told you late at night in a shadowy tent, the total eclipse haunts the experienced viewer with tenacity.

Hotels, campgrounds and resorts that were booked more than a year in advance are facing scandal after they scratched all reservations and jacked the price up to meet demand. The Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville, Tennessee, falls directly in the path and is hosting an Eclipse Party on the day of the event, showcasing country stars (pun intended) and celestial-themed food and drinks. Google is rife with websites featuring eclipse chasing tips that range from where to get your eclipse glasses ahead of time (or better yet, make your own!), to the best weather pockets along the path of totality. Granted, it’s the first total eclipse in the United States since 1979, but the good news is if all of the eclipse glasses are already sold out and your favorite central Oregon resort is booked up, you’ll likely have another shot on April 8,  2024 when a total solar eclipse will climb the U.S. from Texas to Maine on a northerly route.

For more info, check out this article from Forbes magazine.

Things About Being Famous

 

I am almost there. I can pretty much taste it. It’s a very short matter of time before I close the gap between myself and Jayden K. Smith and become the world famous writer you all knew I would be. I have spent an unreasonable amount of time, sandwiched between reading “You Are a Badass” (highly recommend) and writing stories about Billy Ray Cyrus (don’t worry, he’s not really changing his name), obsessing over how to get people to share my writing on the viral scale that Jayden K. Smith’s hacking threat spread. Maybe if I was more threatening. Maybe if I had hacking skills. Maybe if I had a name like JAYDEN. Then I would be famous by now. I thought about shotgunning out a blog link out to every single contact I have on Facebook. (In case you didn’t know how pseudo-popular I am, that’s about 628 people, give or take the ones that will unfriend me after my most recent blog post wherein I didn’t capitalize The Lord’s Name.) (I apologize.)

If I shotgunned out a blog link with a minor threat of 14 years of bad luck or puppies dying tragically if the material goes unread, or worse - UNSHARED (gasp!), and at least three of my “friends” succumbed to my manipulation by sharing, and another six shared it accidentally because they are Of a Certain Age and don’t know what the Facebook buttons are for, I would increase my audience by at least 13%. That’s a lot when your audience is currently 6.5 people, and at some point, someone’s great Aunt Ruth is gonna share that piece of vital literature with her entire social network and her interweb savvy great-grand-niece would be some super cool literary agent or publishing house employee, or even the editor of a Small and Insignificant Magazine, but she would read me, and WANT me, and I would be FAMOUS. Two steps from a book deal, y’all.

I am dreaming here. I can see it now. In between worrying that Google Docs is going to suddenly realize that I have used up ALL of their internet space with my constant rambling and shut me down, and wondering if I bought a sophisticated pair of booties to wear with skinny jeans if people would take me more seriously, I am conjuring up a picture of where I am headed, and it’s frighteningly exciting.

Ever since I watched Romancing The Stone, I knew I was destined to be an eccentric writer with a messy bun and stacks of random literary starts scattered around my airy, high-rise big city apartment like so many tiny plants, just waiting for the exact right amount of sunlight and moisture to germinate into flourishing specimens of literary AWESOME. Except I would have more dogs than Kathleen Turner.

Of all of the GREAT IDEAS and CREATIVE VISIONS that come to me in my dreams (no, really, they do, but they’re kind of weird), I have yet to settle into the focus that is really the thing that will get me where I want to go. I, in predictable fashion, am all over the place like a ping pong ball in a zero gravity capsule, floating indiscriminately in and out of lost food particles and droplets of drool. I need a weighted vest to hold me down to my couch and brain blinders to keep my mind tracking down one path. THE PATH. I have proven that generating material is no issue at this point, cranking out thousands of useless words every day with no specific mission other than PAY THE BILLS. But it’s time to direct all of that wanton energy into something good. Good enough to get big. Big enough to open doors for All The Things (see video below).

But then I am gonna need things like trendy photographic head shots for my professional portfolio and business cards. I have business cards right now but I am mildly embarrassed to give them out, maybe because they don’t have a trendy head shot on them. Or maybe because I don’t like my phone number. Or maybe because handing out business cards makes me feel too much like a grown up. But only grown ups make the Big Bucks so I guess it’s time to embrace the business card suck.

Anyway, that’s a lot of rambling to basically express my displeasure at how much work it takes to become famous. Not that I am against work, but… If you know of any shortcuts (i.e. literary agents looking for the Next Big Thing, etc), I am all ears. (And feel free to share me with your great Aunt Ruth.)

Things That Are Seedy

When I was a kid, I remember my mom referring to “seedy hotel rooms”. Actually I am not sure if she was referring to hotel rooms, but I felt like when she used the word “seedy” it must be in reference to hotel rooms, because what else can really fall under that classification. For that matter, what in the world does “seedy” even mean? In my juvenile brain I imagined something like a dried up orange, sour and sticking to your teeth, and definitely hard water stains in the bathtub. That is seedy for sure.

I started hashing through all of this on a recent sleepless, yet thought -provoking night at a hotel room that could probably pretty fairly be considered seedy. I was trying to be thrifty since my employers had been reticent to pay for the nicer hotel the last time I needed one for work. There were hard water stains on the bathtub for sure, but no dried out oranges to speak of. If I had to define seedy I would probably say it something akin to the opposite of “classy”, i.e. low quality, unkempt, and questionably legal. The ACTUAL definition of seedy is much better than mine:

Seed·y ˈsēdē/

Adjective

1. sordid and disreputable.

As I lay contorted in a bed with undefinable lumps in it, I decided it would be helpful to develop an identification strategy for anyone who wonders if they might be staying in a seedy hotel room. Here are the parameters I came up with.

1. If you walk into the room and smell wet carpet, it’s a pretty sure sign you’re at a seedy hotel. Chances are also good that where you smell wet carpet there is wet carpet and it will be a relief to discover that it’s mostly from the leaking air conditioner, and probably not from that suspicious stain by the bathroom door.
2. If you find yourself playing the “floor is lava” by yourself, leaping from bed to table to entertainment center to cracked bathroom tiles to avoid carpet stains, you’re probably in a seedy hotel.
3. If the table you lept to from the bed does not support your parcours adventures and breaks into 5 pieces, you’re probably in a seedy hotel.
4. If the paper cups wrapped in saran wrap by the coffeemaker are so biodegradable that they biodegrade during one episode of House with a little bit of ice water in them, chances are good you picked a seedy hotel.
5. If it sounds like there is a middle school game of twister going on above you and they all brought their toddler siblings with them, you might be staying at a seedy hotel.
6. If the guy in the room down the hall has his door open and an ACTUAL boom box stationed to blare into the hallway some unrecognizable cross between mariachi and Celine Dion, yeah, you’re probably there.
7. If the coffee for your room is two scoops of folgers in a zip-lock baggie…
8. If the circa 1987 wallpaper still matches the bedspread and the paint is rubbed off of EVERY CORNER, it’s a good sign.
9. If there is hair in the bed BEFORE you get in it, well, that’s just gross.
10. If there is no discernable difference in color, smell or viscosity of the shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and shoe polish - good chance you’re at a seedy place.

of course I have.

Things About Loving Myself

The Universe has been talking to me a lot lately about self-love. Self-love is a concept, much like self-forgiveness, that has never sat well with me - violating my self-flagellating conscience with associated character flaws such as Pride, Arrogance, Selfishness and Self-Righteousness. But what I am slowly coming to understand is that self-love, and even self-forgiveness, is a much different thing than the justification of flaws. It is the acceptance and acknowledgement of flaws. It is the graceful peace that come with understanding that I AM WORTHY of love because Someone saw fit to breathe into me the Divine Spark that we all possess, each differently and independently.

I am not worthy of love because I am part of creation as a whole, I am worthy of love because I am A CREATION - unique, specific, flawed, imperfect and 100% ME. These are hard things for me. Hard to get past the guilt of perceived failures and sins and hard to see through the ugly opaque sheen of mistreatment and being told for far too long in far too many ways that I am unworthy. But I have been listening to the wrong voices. Certainly not the voices that created me. Certainly not the ones that matter. But the loud, clamoring voices, the ones desperate for power over their own perceived unworthiness.

So here I am, at 40 years old, learning about self-love. Learning about myself, and how to love it. It’s a tricky thing, because for every thing I can find to love, I can find the ugly underside of that same thing to loathe. I have decades of practice at this. I am a professional at self-disqualification. But I am finally realizing that the only thing that has kept me from BadAssing my way through life is this method of self-destruction in my own head, and I am kinda over it.

So here’s to finding all the things about myself to love. And to loving all the things about myself that I find. When I think about how I love other people, it’s all the little things that make them THEM that come to mind. Like how they sigh audibly when they feel content. Or how they drum their fingers when they think. Or that deep-rooted sparkle and wild eyes behind a genuine smile. So I am trying that with myself - noticing the little things and loving that they make me me. Like the fact that I don’t like to write with my shoes on because it makes it hard to think, or that I feel a compulsion to rinse my hair in cold water, or that my laugh sounds a little like a sea lion with a head cold. Once I start to love the little things, maybe I can move on to the bigger things - like my hard headed unwillingness to ever settle for BLAH. Or the way that I can feel the pain of other people, physically, really, truly. Or the gift of childlikeness that I know I possess when I am not murdering it with cynicism.

Back when I was a kid and believing in all of my fallen darkness, I also believed so much in the redemptive power of faith. I BELIEVED in things unseen. I believed in the Desires of My Heart. I believed in Happily Ever After and True Love. I got bitter when all my believing took a little longer than I expected to pan out (still waiting?), but bitter isn’t a good fit for me so I think I will go back to believing, and it seems like the place to start is learning how to truly love myself. There’s a lot more life in believing. There’s a lot more life in hope and love than there is in fear and loathing. Feels like an upgrade for sure.

what's not to love? amiright?

The Lady of Shalott (1832)

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

The Lady of Shalott - John William Waterhouse, 1888

Part I 

On either side the river lie 

Long fields of barley and of rye, 

That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 

And thro' the field the road runs by 

       To many-tower'd Camelot; 

The yellow-leaved waterlily 

The green-sheathed daffodilly 

Tremble in the water chilly 

       Round about Shalott. 

Willows whiten, aspens shiver. 

The sunbeam showers break and quiver 

In the stream that runneth ever 

By the island in the river 

       Flowing down to Camelot. 

Four gray walls, and four gray towers 

Overlook a space of flowers, 

And the silent isle imbowers 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

Underneath the bearded barley, 

The reaper, reaping late and early, 

Hears her ever chanting cheerly, 

Like an angel, singing clearly, 

       O'er the stream of Camelot. 

Piling the sheaves in furrows airy, 

Beneath the moon, the reaper weary 

Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy, 

       Lady of Shalott.' 

The little isle is all inrail'd 

With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd 

With roses: by the marge unhail'd 

The shallop flitteth silken sail'd, 

       Skimming down to Camelot. 

A pearl garland winds her head: 

She leaneth on a velvet bed, 

Full royally apparelled, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

Part II 

No time hath she to sport and play: 

A charmed web she weaves alway. 

A curse is on her, if she stay 

Her weaving, either night or day, 

       To look down to Camelot. 

She knows not what the curse may be; 

Therefore she weaveth steadily, 

Therefore no other care hath she, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

She lives with little joy or fear. 

Over the water, running near, 

The sheepbell tinkles in her ear. 

Before her hangs a mirror clear, 

       Reflecting tower'd Camelot. 

And as the mazy web she whirls, 

She sees the surly village churls, 

And the red cloaks of market girls 

       Pass onward from Shalott. 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 

An abbot on an ambling pad, 

Sometimes a curly shepherd lad, 

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad, 

       Goes by to tower'd Camelot: 

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 

The knights come riding two and two: 

She hath no loyal knight and true, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

But in her web she still delights 

To weave the mirror's magic sights, 

For often thro' the silent nights 

A funeral, with plumes and lights 

       And music, came from Camelot: 

Or when the moon was overhead 

Came two young lovers lately wed; 

'I am half sick of shadows,' said 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

Part III 

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, 

He rode between the barley-sheaves, 

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 

And flam'd upon the brazen greaves 

       Of bold Sir Lancelot. 

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd 

To a lady in his shield, 

That sparkled on the yellow field, 

       Beside remote Shalott. 

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, 

Like to some branch of stars we see 

Hung in the golden Galaxy. 

The bridle bells rang merrily 

       As he rode down from Camelot: 

And from his blazon'd baldric slung 

A mighty silver bugle hung, 

And as he rode his armour rung, 

       Beside remote Shalott. 

All in the blue unclouded weather 

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, 

The helmet and the helmet-feather 

Burn'd like one burning flame together, 

       As he rode down from Camelot. 

As often thro' the purple night, 

Below the starry clusters bright, 

Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 

       Moves over green Shalott. 

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; 

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; 

From underneath his helmet flow'd 

His coal-black curls as on he rode, 

       As he rode down from Camelot. 

From the bank and from the river 

He flash'd into the crystal mirror, 

'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:' 

       Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom 

She made three paces thro' the room 

She saw the water-flower bloom, 

She saw the helmet and the plume, 

       She look'd down to Camelot. 

Out flew the web and floated wide; 

The mirror crack'd from side to side; 

'The curse is come upon me,' cried 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

Part IV 

In the stormy east-wind straining, 

The pale yellow woods were waning, 

The broad stream in his banks complaining, 

Heavily the low sky raining 

       Over tower'd Camelot; 

Outside the isle a shallow boat 

Beneath a willow lay afloat, 

Below the carven stern she wrote, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight, 

All raimented in snowy white 

That loosely flew (her zone in sight 

Clasp'd with one blinding diamond bright) 

       Her wide eyes fix'd on Camelot, 

Though the squally east-wind keenly 

Blew, with folded arms serenely 

By the water stood the queenly 

       Lady of Shalott. 

With a steady stony glance— 

Like some bold seer in a trance, 

Beholding all his own mischance, 

Mute, with a glassy countenance— 

       She look'd down to Camelot. 

It was the closing of the day: 

She loos'd the chain, and down she lay; 

The broad stream bore her far away, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

As when to sailors while they roam, 

By creeks and outfalls far from home, 

Rising and dropping with the foam, 

From dying swans wild warblings come, 

       Blown shoreward; so to Camelot 

Still as the boathead wound along 

The willowy hills and fields among, 

They heard her chanting her deathsong, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy, 

She chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 

Till her eyes were darken'd wholly, 

And her smooth face sharpen'd slowly, 

       Turn'd to tower'd Camelot: 

For ere she reach'd upon the tide 

The first house by the water-side, 

Singing in her song she died, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

Under tower and balcony, 

By garden wall and gallery, 

A pale, pale corpse she floated by, 

Deadcold, between the houses high, 

       Dead into tower'd Camelot. 

Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 

To the planked wharfage came: 

Below the stern they read her name, 

       The Lady of Shalott. 

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest, 

Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest. 

There lay a parchment on her breast, 

That puzzled more than all the rest, 

       The wellfed wits at Camelot. 

'The web was woven curiously, 

The charm is broken utterly, 

Draw near and fear not,—this is I, 

       The Lady of Shalott.'

Things About Guilt

Two things about me: 1) I live a guilt-saturated existence and 2) I am a compulsive confessor. Both of these things lead me to believe that I am an excellent candidate for Catholicism, and I am seriously considering trying it. I was raised with the deeply held believe that humans are fallen, hideous creatures. My favorite bible verse when I was very young was Psalms 22:6, when David says "But I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people." (KJV, Obviously). Why that verse out of the hundreds and thousands I read resonated so deeply with me, I do not know, but if you read any of my childhood journal entries, they basically say the exact same thing, but less King Jamesy. Self-loathing, self-blame, self-chastisement was the theme of my life. I have always considered myself the black sheep of my family, even back when I was a zealot wearing ankle-length denim jumpers and floral turtlenecks (know you know where the loathing comes from). I always considered myself the chiefest of all sinners, worse even than the apostle Paul who coined the phrase in 1Timothy 1:15 - and he was pretty damn bad.

David — Oh that I had the wings of a dove! For then I would fly away and be at rest by Frederic Lord Leighton, P. R. A. (1830-1896)

I live my life now a little more guilt free. I have not identified whether that's because I quit caring, or I seared my conscience to the point that it became dysfunctional, or because I just decided I was a lost cause and not "fit for the kingdom" anyway. Mostly the last one I think, because if my conscience was seared completely I would not still have the abysmal fits of guilt and shame that overtake me from time to time, like when I drink too much and do stupid shit, or when I wear capri pants. Or when the dogs don't get fed for 18 hours. Dark, deep, guilt. With words like "why are you even alive" "what a waste of skin" (I learned that one from a friend), and "no wonder no one can love you" swirling around my brain for hours or sometimes days.

This is the product of stern, inflexible religion pressed into a developing brain. Like juveniles who learn to binge drink before their pre-frontal cortex is fully developed, I grew a brain groove, a natural addiction to guilt as a normal, necessary part of existence. Out of the guilt stems compulsive confessions. Of everything, and nothing - much of which this entire blog serves to deliver. If I can express in words EVERY POSSIBLE WRONG I have committed, admit, confess, repent in some eloquent fashion, or better yet apologize in the most literal way, then my guilt will be alleviated. Y'all are my priests. Didya even know?

Hester Prynne. So relatable.

I would be willing to bet there are other kids like me who find themselves occasionally paralyzed by guilt and the knowledge that no amount of good behavior can atone for one sin. I'll bet there are even some of those kids reading this. Maybe we've learned over the years to turn our confessions into tongue-in-cheek exposes, or our self-flagellation into relentless physical activity and deprivation, or our penance into all-consuming community service. But it's still there, the guilt, the knowledge of absolute failure, absolute fallenness, absolute wretchedness. It's an ugly beast that rears its head in ultra-defensiveness or ultra-repentance, blame shifting or taking the blame for every.single.thing. That's my MO. I'd rather own it and eat it and be the responsible party if there is even the remotest question of whom is at fault. Give me the lashes. Give me the punishment. Like Hester Prynne, bearing the full wrath for the sins not just her own, I don't mind. Just please, please, give me the forgiveness too.

This is a monster that I wrestle with. Not one I have slain. One who lives in his cave and comes out when I least expect to try to eat me alive. Some days I can beat him back. Some days, he wins. But he's always there. Maybe one day I will find the right weapon to kill him, the silver bullet, the holy water. Maybe one day I will be strong enough to do it with my bare hands.

I watch my children as they grow and I think about how guilt influences them. I see the tell-tale signs from time to time but I think somehow, they managed to avoid the deep programming of their own evilness. Maybe because as they were growing their little brains, I was too busy trying to survive my own to press anything too sternly into them. Maybe because they watched the uncertainty that their grown mother faced life and every decision with, the overpowering fear of doing the Wrong Thing, which, inevitably, I always did somehow in spite of all my worrying. At least according to Them. The Others. The Voices who saw my monster in the cave and learned how to manipulate him. But looking back and seeing my amazing kids, it occurs to me, maybe I didn't always do the Wrong Thing, because all of those Wrongs could not have equalled four beautiful Rights. Get back in your cave, beast, you're not as strong as you think.

Shame - Max Klinger

Things About Being Heard

I met a listener. I am not sure if you know how rare that is, but you probably do. If you're lucky enough to meet a listener, it's a good idea to keep them around, because you never know if and when you'll run across another one. Somehow I got super lucky and the listener I met seems to like me, so we hang out a lot. Being listened to is one of the Best Things In the Whole World, because being listened to is the first step of Being Known and Being Known is the one thing in the whole world that matters, especially if you are, like me, a Tigger.

Being Known is basically the same thing as intimacy, which I have heard comes through discovery, which it turns out is the exact same thing as listening. See how that works? Listening = discovery, discovery = being known, being known = intimacy, intimacy = mattering to someone. So the bottom line is that having a listener means having someone that thinks you matter. This, my friends, is a big, big deal.

My listener is the best kind. The kind that takes the listening and turns it into actions. The kind of listener that actually hears, and then actually does. Some listeners are good hearers but not doers. My listener picks up on the little things that I say, sometimes without words, and believes them, and acts upon them. My listener hears things both with his heart and his ears. He's not a perfect listener, sometimes he forgets the things I say, but with the Really Important Things, which are occasionally the Really Small Things as well, he always remembers. Like if I like marinara sauce and what my favorite socks are and how I feel about turtlenecks. He might not remember if I said I was coming over on Tuesday or Wednesday, but he always remembers how I like my coffee, which is much more vitally important.

I don't think there is a way for me to say how good it feels to have a listener, because it's a feel that they haven't made a word for yet, unless maybe it's love.

Things About Driving

I have had this recurring nightmare for several months. It changes setting and the details are usually different, but the overall theme is the same, and the horrible feeling that comes along with it. In every dream, I am being pushed backwards by some invisible force - like gravity. Sometimes I am in a car, or walking, or some other mode of transportation, some of which I don't remember, but against my will I begin to roll backwards, picking up momentum. No amount of braking, dragging my hands and feet, screaming, or trying to jump off will stop the ride. Into traffic, against traffic, I roll, going faster and faster. In one of my dreams, a friend's young child was behind me and I couldn't stop my car. It was the most horrific, helpless feeling. I woke up in a cold sweat with tears running down my face. I had the same dream last night, but it was me and Aspen, maybe on a bike or something, rolling back down a huge hill with no way to stop. Traffic rushing at us, gaining speed with every second. We were locked on and couldn't bail off. I was completely out of control.

Some days this feels like it's happening to me when I am awake.

I am hearing it now, the message. The voice of the universe is whispering to me about the powerless route that my life has been taking for years. The forces driving backwards against my will into chaos and danger and destruction. I want off of this ride. Last night something in my dream shifted and I began to push back with my hands and my feet and my voice with all of my might. I barely slowed the momentum, but I was doing SOMETHING. This is where I am. I am ready to push back and fight and not be ruled by the bad decisions and fears that have been directing me for more than 20 years. Maybe I won't stop the train right away, but I am gonna create a hell of a drag until I can get it turned around and heading the right way.

I am ready to be in the driver's seat of my life for once, as much as somebody can be. Not being blown around by every landmine and catastrophe that falls in my lap. Not being distracted by the easy outs and hand outs and bail outs and escape routes (beer, anyone?). I want to push through until I crest that hill and gravity takes me where I want to go. I want to quit coasting backwards. I want to quit having nightmares. I look around at my friends and family and realize that I have so much to be thankful for, and we all have things in our lives that are out of our control. It's how we handle the hits that define who we are as people and I have spent many years coasting around my circumstances instead of wrestling them back to the place I want to be. Its the action (or the inaction) that I take that determines my direction. It's time to be the driver of my own life.

Things About Cougars

meow.

So we’ve been watching this reality show on the History Channel called Alone. It’s sort of like survivor, but colder and more… northwestern. These ten guys get dropped off by themselves at super remote locations around Vancouver Island in British Columbia where the wildlife population outweighs the number of humans - by a longshot. The premise of the show is that these guys fancy themselves survivalists, so the one who lasts the longest out in this “temperate rainforest” (read - soggy and barely above freezing wasteland) gets to take home $500K. That’s a lot of beers in dollar money.

Within the first six days, five of these self-proclaimed “survivalists” had tapped out, and most of those were due to close encounters of the carnivorous kind. One guy was sure that he was being “stalked” by bears when the game cams caught a pair of black bears sniffing out his tent one night. He spooked them off but left the next day, sure they just ran home to plan up their feast menu. The next guy heard wolves howling on a ridge near his campsite and decided they were DEFINITELY headed his way, so he bailed. We got talking about wildlife behavior and how much you do, or do not know, about how these wild beasts act, typically, would definitely determine the fear factor. Also, the dark, and also, being alone, but still, knowledge is power.

Maybe it was bingeing the series that inspired it, or maybe not, but we decided to go camping at my friends’ beach this weekend. The beach is located off of a heavily wooded area right along the Columbia River just after it flows out of Canada with all of those wonderful Canadian gifts in it. You know, things like raw sewage, heavy metals and the occasional corpse. Don’t worry Canada, we’re not mad - I mean look at Hanford, how can we point fingers?

Anyway, camping on this beach seemed like an especially good idea since my friends’ neighbors had just sent her a picture of not one, or even two, but THREE nearly full grown mountain lions hanging out in a tree just above the river near the beach. Cougars. Young, hungry, curious, probably still in pre-frontal lobe development stages of decision making, cougars. Giant kitties with vice-like jaws, razors for claws and fangs for days. LET’S GO STAY THERE! We thought. I think secretly, we both wanted to pretend we were on Alone, except we weren’t Alone, and we took a camp trailer to sleep in. As well as guns.

We had a wonderful time on the beach and nary a sign of cat, kitten or otherwise. Maybe we were secretly disappointed. As we drifted off to sleep in our safe little box of protection and screens, we patted ourselves on the back for SURVIVING and talked about the amazing breakfast we would have earned after a night in the wilderness.

This is where I want to talk about cougar safety. This does not involve always having a wingman to make sure you don’t leave the bar with a woman who is twice your age minus seven (I think that’s the cougar formula?). No, the cougar safety I refer to is how to behave in the wild when a 200 pound cat is breathing down your neck. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, these are the steps that should be taken during a cougar encounter:

1. Stop, stand tall and don't run. Pick up small children. Don't run. A cougar's instinct is to chase.
2. Do not approach the animal, especially if it is near a kill or with kittens.
3. Try to appear larger than the cougar. Never take your eyes off the animal or turn your back. Do not crouch down or try to hide.
4. If the animal displays aggressive behavior, shout, wave your arms and throw rocks. The idea is to convince the cougar that you are not prey, but a potential danger.
5. If the cougar attacks, fight back aggressively and try to stay on your feet. Cougars have been driven away by people who have fought back.

This is a great and helpful list. I would improve it thusly:

1. Stop, stand tall and don't run. Pick up small children. Hurl children at cougar and move carefully to a vehicle. Drive fast.
2. Do not approach the animal, especially if it is near a kill or with kittens, unless they are VERY cute and you want to Instagram them.
3. Try to appear larger than the cougar. Never take your eyes off the animal or turn your back. Use your best Angry Eyes on the cougar.  Do not crouch down or try to hide. This would be useless anyway since if you are out in the woods you are definitely wearing some version of neon Patagonia outdoorswear.
4. If the animal displays aggressive behavior, shout, wave your arms and throw rocks. If this is what attracted the cougar in the first place, stop doing it.
5. If the cougar attacks, fight back aggressively and try to stay on your feet.  Cougars have been driven away by people who have fought back and Very Angry Mothers.

Being an expert on speculative wildlife encounters, I feel like there is a lot of useful information in both of these lists. But back to my story.

We had just drifted off into an oblivious slumber when I heard the cat. I woke Everyone Else up with a whisper-yell of “DID YOU HEAR THAT?” which I am sure the cat did. It turns out that the cat I heard was my friend’s housecat named Bob. Bobcat had no business running around the beach yowling like a wild animal at all hours. Now that we were awake we discussed protocol in case Bob had actually been a cougar. That discussion went like this:

“Where is the shotgun?”

“Under the bed.” pause. Possibly drifting back to sleep. “Wait, did you want to know where the cartridges are too?”

Pause. Possibly wondering if I should be strangled. “Yes.”

“Also under the bed. Should we load the gun?”

“No, let’s wait until you are half-eaten.”

“OK. I have my knife.” Pause. Sleeping?

“That’s great.” definite sarcasm.

We went back to sleep. Later we decided that the most efficient thing would have been to just throw the box of shotgun shells at the cat while screaming at each other  in confusion. Fairly certain that would do the trick but if not, check out http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/cougars.html for more information on this.

Things About Limboland

There is always this weird season for me between spring (which is to say, school and sports and parental responsibility) and summer (which is to say, fire season). It's that few days-to-weeks of nothingness when the girls are shifting into either dad's house or the voluntarily exclusion of parental involvement, depending on their age. It's when I suddenly have no obligations to softball, basketball, volleyball, parent meetings for God-only-knows-which-activities, end-of-the-year-barbecues to avoid or schedules to adhere to. It is, in a worth, nothingness. No man's land. Limbo. Here I am. This year is especially nothingful since I got temporarily laid off from my other job and in the next seven days I LITERALLY (not even in the junior high sense) have only one appointment on my entire calendar.

Most people would be basking in the serenity of a demandless existence, but here I am, 7:20 AM, wide awake and restless. Yesterday I went "jogging" and biking, submitted three stories to magazines and cooked four different meals, and was still wandering around the house like a zombie. This morning I started the ONLY LOAD OF LAUNDRY I have left (I was saving it) before I even had coffee. I have no idea why, because now my day is a blank slate: tabula rasa. Nothing.

For all of my complaining and whining about a busy schedule during the rest of the year, when it all falls away and I can hear the sound of me talking to myself echoing off of the empty walls of my brain, I feel lost. Any minute I could get called to a fire and go instantly into panic mode since I have only half packed in case I have to fly to the Southwest. But in the meantime... I don't even know what to do with myself.

So far this week I've doubled my tan at the river, drank a month's supply of Miller High Life and written more words than anybody wants to read. And it's only Tuesday. I could probably do some deep cleaning of my house, but then what will I do tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that? And then I will go on a fire and it will just get destroyed by the teenage invasion, even though they will tell me that Noone was here.

I keep telling people that I am trying to view these nothingness days as my pre-fire season "vacation", but I am not vacationing very well. I am staring at walls, wracking my brain for productive things to do. The crazy part is, I am dreading a fire call. I don't even want to go. I want to do life here, now, except it feels like there isn't much life to do. Everything feels unnecessary. I feel unnecessary. I have books to read. I could watch TV. But every time I start I get so bored with the uselessness of it that I wander off to find a blank wall to stare at. I send my friends, who are busy with their jobs and families, texts filled with longing: "Hi." "What are you up to?" Some of them know better than to respond this time of year, for fear of being sucked into the vacuum of my limboland, but some are good sports and go to the river with me and/or help me drink the beer.

It will all be over soon, this blankness, and I will try to enjoy it before it goes. But if you want to grab a beer... Or need help folding your laundry, well, you know where I'll be.

Things About Frank: Eulogy For a (nearly) Good Dog

On Friday afternoon we said goodbye to Frank the Bloodhound. I held his giant, slobbery face in my hands and kissed his big bear-nose and told him he was a good boy over and over as he took his last breath.

He tried to be a good boy. He wanted to be good. But being naughty was just more fun. This is one of the thinks about Frank that made me love him - because I can relate to that. He was so lovable and sweet if you could get past the slobber and the quirks and the dangerous clumsiness. He wanted to please, but deeper instincts drove him - instincts for late night swims in the river and the taste of a whole cube of butter off the counter - these outweighed his need to make anybody happy. He loved food. He loved water. He loved people, he loved other dogs and he even loved cats, in a weird way. Every morning, after waking me up with his big slobbery lips draped on my mattress, he would trot outside and give Jim Halpert a good nosing. Jim learned that running away was much less fun than being nosed somewhat roughly by a giant hound.

On Friday morning, Frank came to wake me up. He must not have slept more than a wink all night because he laid his head on my bed and couldn't keep his eyes open. He was so tired from trying to breathe. He stood in the kitchen and watched me make breakfast, and even though he eyed the (intentionally) unattended block of cream cheese on the counter, he couldn't muster the energy to reach up and taste it. It broke my heart. Choosing broke my heart. I have been having long talks with the Truck Hound about choosing, and how important it is, when his time comes, for him to choose, because I just don't think I can ever do it again.

I don't know if I will ever stop asking if I made the right choice or if there was something else. What if the vet was wrong? What if a miracle? What if... My heart feels like it will never be whole again. We had Frank for such a short time but he made such a big splash in our already messy lives. I feel lucky that he chose part of his short life to make ours so much sillier and more ridiculous. And whatever else, there's no question that he was loved and he was happy here.

I keep listening for him to go thundering through the house. It's painfully quiet here now. I haven't been able to bring myself to wash the muddy slobber stains off of my sheets, or the drool-flings off of the walls yet. I haven't even been able to muster up the will to vacuum the giant dust bunnies of Frank hair that will never be replaced. Maybe tomorrow I will. Or maybe not. Maybe I will keep them just a minute more.

I keep questioning why we do this, bring these creatures with such short life spans into our hearts and love them so much, but when I sat by the river today with Dagny and Old Man Truck I remembered why. It's the simple joy and unconditional passion they have for life. For us, their people. We, humans, complicate all of our feelings and duties and instincts and make everything harder than it probably needs to be. Dogs know better. They know there is nothing so wonderful as a nap in the sunshine or a muddy ball or a treat from the hand of someone they trust. Dogs don't care about baggage and futures and pasts and mistakes and worries. They just live. In every moment. With all of their hearts. Frank was the absolute best at this. We will miss him, but he certainly left his mark on us, on our windows and couches and beds and walls and most of all, on our hearts.

Things About Being 40

Everyone kept telling me that it wasn't a big deal and that I wouldn't feel any different once I turned 40. Everyone is a liar. My parents sent me an Amazon gift card for my birthday and do you know what I got? Dental floss and a LAP DESK. A lap desk like the ones that bedridden geriatrics have for their crossword puzzles. And DENTAL FLOSS. No different my left foot. This is what being 40 is. It's lap desks and dental floss and doctor's referrals for MRIs of old lady hips and taking fiber supplements. Being 40 is going to bed at a Reasonable Hour and getting up even earlier because all of a sudden, when you are 40, the consequences of Netflix binges until 2 AM become Very Real.

Being 40 is mopping my floors three times in one week and folding all of the laundry and even putting it away, something that never, ever happened in my 30s. Being 40 is sadly packing the micro-mini skirt into a box of donations and wondering why you thought it was acceptable way back when you were 39. Being 40 is one and a half beers because two is just a little too much. Being 40 is the sudden realization that you are halfway to 80 and your only retirement plan is a tortilla stand in Mexico but you don't even know how to make tortillas.

But being 40 isn't all bad. Especially if the people who love you help you know what your particular 40 looks like.  When I turned 40, one of my offspring gave me a clay launcher so I would have something to do with my shotgun other than chase zombies, and another one of my offspring gave me a superhero balloon, because somehow, even though I am her mom, and 40, and a lot of beautiful mess, she thinks I am a superhero. My Christy friend gave me leather pants, and we all know old people can't wear leather pants. And Someone I Love gave me Paul Bunyan socks - complete with Babe the Blue Ox. Nothing says Forever Young (other than Alphaville) like Babe the Blue Ox on your socks. I might be 40, but I am not dead yet. In fact, I know that there are so many things I haven't even started yet - other than just my retirement plan. (for your viewing pleasure and a break from my prattling - one of the weirdest music videos to come out of the 80s - which is saying A LOT. Also, if I could get an orange jumpsuit like this for my 41st, that would be great.)

Maybe 40 is just the beginning of the Next Era of Liv. The clay-shooting, practical-shoe-wearing, tortilla-making, bionic-hip Liv. Maybe 40 is discovering new loves like running on trails and writing about things other than kids and dogs and toilet floods. Maybe 40 is the new 20, since my 20 was kind of a train-wreck anyway. I don't feel a day over 18, to be honest, which is why it's hard for me to tell people I am 40. But the compelling urge to wash the dishes in the sink rather than leave them reminds me that I am not 18. Or 20. Or even 30. I am 40. I can still do All The Things, but I can do them with a clean house and a clear mind and wearing Paul Bunyan socks. Maybe this is what growing up feels like. But not growing ALL the way up, because in addition to the lap desk and dental floss I also got a Broncos snapback with my birthday giftcard. #notoldyet

Broncos Birthday Snapback! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Things About Frank

This morning I decided to start a juice cleanse. The explanation for this is a long and boring story with outcomes that nobody wants to read about so I am just going to skip ahead, except I think it's important to note that THIS MORNING I decided I was going to live on nothing except purple juice that tastes exactly like what I imagine a cat's butt tastes like. But I can only imagine.

At 8:36 AM I decided to go on a run. This was probably ill advised for several reasons which vary from a torn labrum in my hip to the way my leggings fit. But the real problem was Frank. One of the big reasons I got Frank, another dog (which was questionable decision regardless of outlying circumstances) was to be my running partner. Out on remote country roads, so he could like, take on cougars and bears and stuff. And my lack of motivation, which is a more ferocious adversary than either of the aforementioned. Frank was a good running partner. He always wanted to go just a TEENSY bit faster than me and just a TINSY bit farther than me. He was good on his leash and didn't argue with me about running music or complain when I sang along to Beastie Boys.

I tried to take Frank on a run with me this morning, but he wouldn't even go around the block. He couldn't run. I knew he hadn't been feeling well lately since he hadn't been eating his food, let alone everyone else's food in a three mile radius. But I though maybe it was just a funk and he'd do better after a run to his favorite spot in the whole world, The River. But he couldn't run. He couldn't even walk. I called the vet.

The vet turned out to be super busy today. I think the entire chihuahua-mix population of northern Stevens County was on hand for their 6 month check ups, including one pug cross that actually had earrings. Blue sparkly ones. I think they were stick ons, but still. They did work Frank in, and after some waiting, and some temperature taking and some concerned looks and HMMMS and HUHHHS from the vet assistant and the vet, they took him back to get an X-Ray of his chest.

Frank's lungs, according to the X-ray, were completely filled with fluid. So full that the vet was unable to see his heart, which was not beating correctly, at all. "A pretty serious arrhythmia," the vet called it. The fluid in his lungs was putting so much pressure on his heart that it couldn't even beat right. He lay there, panting, struggling to breathe. Struggling to keep his heart beating. The vet said the prognosis with lungs like that wasn't good. It could be a tumor on his heart, it could be a genetic valve weakness that ruptured. It could be a trauma like he got tagged by a car on one of his walkabouts. Or it could be rat poison. The only way to tell would be a trip to Spokane and a massive vet bill to try to find out and the slim chance of a fix.

Frank is the young one. He's the big, tough, healthy hound. Truck was the one that was supposed to go to be with Jesus any minute. He's dying of cancer. Frank is fine. Now my house feels like a dog hospice center. The Doghouse. The place where All the Dogs come to have All The Fun. Not come to die. This is a hard one. I drove home, ugly crying, of course, and trying to sort through what I did wrong, what I was supposed to get out of this, how I could have prevented it, what I should do next, with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the panting back of a Very Large Bloodhound.

I don't know the end of this story yet. We will go back to the vet tomorrow to follow up. But Frank The Bloodhound could use your prayers. And me too, I guess. ❤️

Things About Time

"The trouble is, you think you have time..." 

-Buddha

Once, they were all baby monsters...

It's not just that I am T-minus four minutes from being forty. OK, maybe it is mostly that. But I can't shake this sense of time lately. How brief it is. How fast it goes. How quickly it's over. Even the hard times. Tomorrow I get to go watch one of 'my kids' graduate. He isn't really mine but I can claim him by the amount of cookies and English homework we have done together. He's all grown up and graduating now. I remember when he was born. I remember when he was shorter than me. I remember when he was a gangly, awkward 6th grader and not a 6'4" MVP All-Star everything. I remember shaking my head and wondering how "Spock" and his pragmatic look at life would ever survive the real world. But here he is, practicing his Valedictorian speech for me and eating my Jelly Beans, just like he was still 14. Tomorrow I will cry.

It's not as noticeable with my own kids, maybe, because there they are, Every Single Day, getting older and bigger and smarter and more beautiful so INMYFACE that I can't even see it. But with this one, the leaps and spurts and bounds over the very short 18 years of his life have sped by like his breakaway on the basketball court.

Time is funny that way. The time that is happening to us is so much less noticeable than the time that is happening around us. I don't see the gradual changes in my old Truck Hound, but when the girls come back to visit they are shocked by how crusty he's gotten. It's part of life. The gradual changes that sweep from the lows of pooping our pants and the slobbering incoherence of infancy to the highs of valedictorian, MVP and Taking Over The World, and then back down again to the slobbering incoherence of senility. It's the time that makes us ready for the next step. The discomfort of time makes us eager for the changes, but its comfortable rhythms create fear of the unknown beyond. These high school graduates, with every choice and every chance and every hope and every fear are all of us in every moment, it's just never so crystal clear as when they are standing nervously on a paper-covered stage with their mortarboards at an awkward tilt, wondering if they have the tassels and cords on the right way, balancing on the precipice of Real Life.

Some days, like All of The Ones before I turn forty, I want desperately to stop the passing of time with a big emergency brake, screeching my disapproval across the runway of life in big black rubber marks. Other days, I can't WAIT to get to the next moment, because surely it holds more promise than the last one (except maybe when I turn forty). Time is scary. But Scary is exciting, if you have things to believe in. And we all do. Especially all of you under-forties tottering on the brink of forever and hope. Go get it, while you still have time.

Scotty McCreery - Five More Minutes

Things That Imperfectionists Shouldn't Do

I am very, very good at doing things. Granted, those things are often done less than perfectly, which nine times out of ten is just fine for Real Life and Getting By and you know, Survival, which has pretty much been my mode of existence for the last 22 years. But as the years go on and the Survival gets less Survivally because I start to figure how to mostly just do the things that I am good at and shuffle the things I am not-so-good at off on to other people who do them better, it becomes more glaringly obvious when I am doing things wrong.

I have done a pretty good job at convincing one or two people for a very brief period of time that I have All The Skills and know Prettymuch Everything. This leads to the expectation that I can handle shit on my own and accomplish things. But just because I told you that I got signed off by the Forest Service to drive around with a 20 foot utility trailer does NOT automatically mean that I know anything about driving with trailers. I mean, these are the people that let my oldest daughter run a chain saw, for Heaven's Sake. Even so, I have had to make good on all of my bad-ass bluffing from time to time and drive with a trailer. Even a trailer that is loaded down with a loosely stacked, fly-way, wanton pile of trash and a seriously lack of good tie-downs. I feel like at this point I should give myself a pat on the back for having tie-downs at all, or thinking of them, even if I did have to borrow them from my daughter's boyfriend. But still. The thing is, how EXACTLY do you tie down loosely stacked, wanton trash that would just as soon float along the highway as be planted forever in a big smelly landfill? I mean can you blame it?

nailed it.

Well if you're me, you half-ass cover it with a mostly shredded tarp that is more holes than solid, and then you drive fast enough that the cars coming along behind you won't know where the odds-and-ends of carelessly strewn remnants of a former life along the road came from. Because I do things IMperfectly. Certain husbands of friends and relations who occasionally shake their heads at me and repair my toilets and stuff would be happy to know that at least this time, I actually hooked the trailer up the RIGHT way, which is no small feat since the actual ball receiver on the hitch somehow got twisted. As in, perhaps SOME ONE at SOME POINT that I was once married to actually flipped the poor trailer and it still hasn't recovered completely. Anyway, it was hooked up right and completely, if not perfectly, this time. And I made it to the dump without anyone catching up to me to tell me that I lost a broken Rubbermaid tote at mile marker 277.

It was a stressful drive, since I have some trust issues with trailers anyway. But I made it to the dump and I unloaded all of the garbage, without even saving any of it in case somebody could use it for something (once again, a HUGE accomplishment for a Stecker). But the most important part of all of this, and the thing that was causing palpable anxiety for the forty minute drive (other than the gas light that came on right outside of Northport), was Backing The Trailer Up.

All I could hope for was a desolate landscape with no witnesses to the 117 point adjustment it would take me to get the 12 foot trailer backed into a space 20 yards wide. But alas, it was not to be. Some hairy redneck with a stakeside truck was right in the middle of the 20 yards target, throwing out his load of tobacco cans and carpet scraps with questionable stains. I took a deep breath and I did my best. My best invariable involves me chanting instructions to myself out loud, interspersed with curse words. Things like 'wheels go opposite' and 'left is right' and 'next time hire somebody' as I eyed my backwards approach.

But guess what, you guys? I did it. PERFECTLY. Without a single pull-forward-straighten-out. I backed that puppy right into almost exactly where I intended and it was even aligned straightly with the redneck stakeside. I would've taken a picture but I didn't want him to judge be for being superficial while I was throwing away my collection of wine bottles, rain-soaked self-help books, broken surround sound system and mate-less socks. Image is everything, my friends, even if it is imperfect.

Things About Control (or lack thereof)

Turns out, there are very few things over which I have any level of control.

Turns out, this is true most of all when it comes to the people I love.

My span of ACTUAL control goes about as far as what I am eating for breakfast... and even then I have to wonder what is really in the Fruity Pebbles that I am annihilating. Does anyone know?

I can make a week's worth of healthy dinners and leave them ready to heat and destroy for my kids and come home to find everything untouched and a case of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese missing from the pantry. (OK, I can't pretend they didn't learn something from me.) But the harder I try, the less control I have. Whether it's making rules and setting curfews and measuring skirt hemlines, or trying to track down 20 year old who's been missing for a week in the Himalayas (don't worry, she didn't die) - the more effort expended, the result just seems to be heightened anxiety on my part and teenage girls dressed like hookers.

I can't stop my adult children from making adult decisions any more than my parents could have stopped me at 23 years old from moving into a straw building with dirt floors and giving birth, unsupervised, to a baby in early January. I know it's the decisions like this that form us into the Real People we will become, ones who know better than dirt floors and arranged marriages and not telling your mother where you are in Nepal for a week. But getting through all of those life choices and the aftermath thereof is way more brutal from the outside looking in than it is as a 23 year old who is making her own damn poor choices.

Worst of all, I cannot fix the broken hearts that I would have fought so hard to avoid. But the fight is always against the windmills of my own experience that have NOTHING whatsover to do with the heartaches that my children will face. I can shape their growing up experience to make sure the results are absolutely different than my own and they will still wreck their own hearts in some magical way that I never thought of.

It leaves me standing on the sidelines with my arms cut off at the shoulders so I can't even cheer effectively. Helpless. Just watching. Unable to close my eyes or look away as they tackle life without the appropriate protective equipment. This, my friends, is why wine was invented. All those middle eastern mothers back-in-the-day finding a way to keep their grapes from molding as they watched their 11-year-old-daughters marry the rich uncles of their husbands. (See, it can always be worse.)

Even the most powerful men and women in the world haven't figured out a way to cure heartache or depression or to protect their loved ones from it - in fact if anything, they've probably propagated more of it than poor simpletons like me - at least I'd like to think so.

I don't like not having answers and not having control and not having solutions and fixes for the things that could hurt my people. I don't like feeling like an accessory to their heartache because of things I didn't warn them about or couldn't prevent from happening. But that's the cost of loving people, I guess. Feeling their pain right along with them and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

Except listen. Or hold a hand. Or just be, quietly, here. So that when they come back from the Himalayas and the dirt-floor-huts and the happily-never-after, they aren't alone. And we can all go tackle our windmills together.

Things About Plans

I used to be really good at laughing at All the Things that didn't go as planned in Life - which happened to consistently be All the Things. Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost this skill, even though All of the Things in Life still do not go as planned. And I guess it makes sense, since the things that are not going according to plan aren't nearly as easy to find the humor in as they used to be. I mean, the kids who used to be pooping in the bathtub and sending their scandalized sister climbing up the slippery tub surround wall are now wandering around developing countries alone and making decisions that will change their lives forever. Not that floaters hiding under bubble bath can't be permanently scarring, but they're also funnier than things like, oh, say, Marriages of Convenience or dying in a Himalayan crevasse. But NOT finding the humor in all of the unplanned things certainly doesn't make them any easier to live with, and the things certainly don't seem to have any intention of going any more according to plan than they always have.

Figure A - the Planning to Plan Planning P

Planning has been thrust into the forefront of my thought process a lot lately. This is due in part to no fewer than three training sessions this spring with the federal government that were super keen on applying the principles of the new Planning to Plan Planning P (see figure A) that someone at FEMA came up with in an apparent fit of brilliance (according to someone at FEMA). It's also due in part to the realization that has been dawning on me that while as Roald Amundsen so aptly states: "Adventure is just bad planning," one can only have so many adventures before exhaustion takes over and everything just spirals into chaos. Another reason planning has become a major theme in my life lately could possibly have to do with the late emergence of a Very Important Person who is not only a professional planner, but also a Reasonable Human Being who is probably only interested in tolerating so much chaos ADVENTURE.

So I have been working on a plan. A good plan. Because I've been very good at bad planning and lots of adventure, but now I would like to try some good planning and see how that goes. And because I have some specific goals that I intend to achieve, like not letting Life get the best of me - which is much more specific than it sounds - and things of that nature. Some French dude once said that "A goal without a plan is just a wish", and for what it's worth, I have dropped my share of pennies in the wishing well.

or just on track, ever.

But in the midst of all the planning I have been forgetting to find the humor in All the Things that don't play out according to plan. And that's an important skill to have because if you can't laugh at Life then you'd better believe that Life is sure-the-hell gonna be laughing at you. I'd like to keep everything even on that playing field. And I think Life knows by now that I can take whatever she dishes out.

Things About Therapy

Because I am a spoiled white girl living in a developed country, I have been having a little bit of a rough time lately. Because I am a spoiled white girl living in a developed country I also have an entire library of self-help books, feel-good movies, meditation strategies and plenty of alcohol. Even so, I have been having a little bit of a rough time lately. I think it's because things are TOO good. Too many jobs, too many kids, too many friends and dogs and obligations and opportunities and decisions and options and responsibilities and priorities. There are too many things going right, these days, and it's wearing me thin. Also, as the Best People in my life like to point out: self pity.

I am usually pretty good about talking myself off of the emotional ledge that threatens to heave me into a sobbing heap at the foot of a Very Tall liquor cabinet. I am usually pretty good at rationalizing all the reasons why I have no excuse to feel sorry for myself at all and how to pull myself up by the bootstraps of my newest pair of Fryes. I am usually pretty good about developing a mantra to chant silently as I drive the 7,896th mile of the week without crying or getting really mad at the 1987 Lincoln Town Car going the speed limit in front of me. Granted, sometimes my mantra is something like: "It doesn't matter. Nobody cares." Which helps in that it keeps me from spewing my spoiled-white-girl-living-in-a-developed-country-self-pity everywhere.

But an emotional last night carried over into a torrential this morning that none of my self-talking or mantra-chanting seemed to be helping. So I moved into the next phase of auto-therapy (it's auto therapy both because I am in my car AND because I am practicing it on myself): music. This is the stage of therapy wherein I let the Universe speak to me by putting my entire music library on shuffle and see what messages it produces.

I should have known I was screwed when the first random offering was Nat King Cole singing Silent Night. Don't get me wrong. I love me some Nat - and we're all aware of my die-hard Christmas Music fandom - but seriously? I skipped it. Then I skipped a Matt Kearney song because I feel like Matt Kearney just isn't connected enough with the Universe to be speaking to me. And then the real therapy began. It was Sinead O'Conner. Because Nothing (ever) Compares To You and it was exactly the mournful fist shaking song that I needed to finish a cry that had started in the HellMart parking lot.

Once I had gotten All Of the Tears out and snotted all over the steering wheel, the Universe sent Garbage to cheer me up. Because what better than a reminder of how not-together your life is than When I Grow Up. Thank you, Universe. Thank you, Garbage. Luckily, this was immediately followed by James Taylor You've Got a Friend. I hate James Taylor. Also more crying - apparently not all of the tears were out. Nothing is worse than crying to music you hate. But I was brave and didn't skip it. I did reach out to one of my besties for a tell-me-everything-is-gonna-be-ok text. Just testing that unconditionality thing. It worked.

The last few minutes of my drive/autotherapy were a combination of Usher (go ahead and judge me) and The Killers. Because there is no better note on which to end a therapy session than Mr. Brightside. Now I am home. I am whole. I am well. I am a spoiled white girl in a developed country writing a blog on a brand new mac with a brand new job and a series of amazing things that have happened in my life in the last few weeks. I am rich in ways that nobody can count or quantify and I have even more amazing things to look forward to in the next few weeks. And best of all - I can handle ALL of it.

P.S. you're welcome for the Garbage. <3