Author Archives: A Painterly Life

Unknown's avatar

About A Painterly Life

living a small, slow life in a small, slow town and loving every minute of it...please join my journal about aging, overcoming c-PTSD, living with chronic illness, and being creative in spite of it all.
Jan9

driving in the D

Posted on by
Standard

Bitch, please…I’m from Detroit. I have friends who also come from there, and we all agree: we are so entirely grateful that we grew up in Detroit. Don’t tell us Detroit isn’t the greatest city – we are not listening. Because obviously you don’t know what you are talking about. Or what you’ve missed.

For starters, I have always said that if you can drive in Detroit you can drive anywhere in the world. Well. Once again: if you learned to drive in Detroit, you can drive well anywhere in the world. I stand by that to this day. I have been driving for over 5 decades now, not that I needed to be convinced. I have driven in other countries, including on the other side of the road. I have had to intercept the keys from people I was not willing to ride with and then drive in unfamiliar cities – like L.A. and San Fransisco. I’ve driven across farmland where no road existed. Waited for a crew to haul in dirt where the monsoons had taken out the narrow jungle road because there was no way to turn around. I’ve driven through mountains in a blizzard. I have discovered that learning to drive in Detroit prepared me to handle any road situation.

One lazy Saturday afternoon shortly after after getting my driver’s license, I took my mother’s car and my younger sister and headed downtown shopping for school clothes. I worked part time at Saks Fifth Avenue across from the Fisher Building, which meant an employee discount. Waiting at a light on Second Ave., the cars in front of me were going out into the other lane to go around something. I couldn’t see what it was until the car directly in front of me pulled around…a dead body. There was a tall older man lying in the crosswalk across my lane. The other drivers all went around him and continued on their merry way! Maybe they recognized him from the neighborhood and knew something I did not.

I threw the car into park, yelled at my sister not to unlock the doors for anyone but me, and ran into the corner drug store screaming. “Get out here! Somebody help!” Two men casually walked out of the store, picked the guy up and dragged him off to the sidewalk. Apparently he was not, in fact, dead. He was passed out drunk. Good for him.

No two days of driving in Detroit were ever the same. One night driving north on I-75, I noticed the taillights of the car ahead in my lane were doing something weird. They were coming toward me. Fast. As in, this bigass car was speeding directly toward me in reverse. Okay. I pulled off onto the shoulder and let him pass. To this day I wonder if he knew he was driving backwards.

And then…there was the time I was headed to a New Years Eve party at a friend’s house. I had only been there once and knew one route. It was closed. To be specific, it was blocked off by police barricades and officers with rifles. Whatever. I turned off onto a side street and then back north again parallel to where I had been. Now I was driving up a lovely residential street in the right direction. But something was off. The street was covered in cops. Big dogs in vests. Helicopter overhead. Oops. I had driven into an active crime scene. All I thought about was my Mother’s reaction if her new car got bullet holes. Phew….she would be mad at me.

But learning to drive in Detroit is just a small part of the reason it was such a great place to grow up. There is no where else like it on earth. It is so full of art and music and scrappy people. They are my tribe. Of course, I need to qualify this: I was a skinny Irish girl living in an upper-class suburb, attending a private school. But more on that later. Even that was a clusterfuck of dysfunction.

Jan6

here’s the thing…

Posted on by
Standard

Here’s the thing. The thing is, these days don’t count. We haven’t had more than a tease of sunlight in weeks. I think it’s come out twice since the beginning of October maybe? And not for more than 10 or 15 minutes each of those days, weeks apart. It’s just that time of year. Although some years winter is sunnier than others. This year has been dark.

It never gets fully daylight. It’s half day, half night. When the moon is full, like two nights ago, it’s hard to distinguish between the daytime and nighttime. At least the moon throws shadows, which is more than we see throughout the “daylight” hours. The sky is flat grey. No clouds. Just grey. Same color as the unlit snow on the ground and the dull sage green of the trees. Since my teen years I have called it the shoebox effect – “I am living in a shoebox and God left the lid on.”

So, these days don’t count. There is no need to keep track of anything, no need to think in terms of progress. No need to measure or compare anything. They’re free days. No expectations. I have no idea where my motivation has gone, and frankly, I don’t care.

I really feel like anyone in the entertainment industry has missed a great opportunity here. I would love to sit on the sofa and watch television every waking minute. In fact, that might be worth staying awake for. But, nope….we got nuthin’…so I have read four novels in the past 2 weeks. I have re-watched all my favorite television series for the umpteenth time. My sense of humor has become quite warped. I crack myself up. I practice my accents.

But I will say, every single little thing I get done feels like a great accomplishment. A friend asked to meet for coffee a couple of days ago. Heck yeah. I even got dressed (over my pajamas) and brushed my teeth. Bonus!

Jan5

giving up all hope

Posted on by
Standard

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.” – Anne LaMott

Forgiveness has been a recurring theme lately in my thoughts and dreams. Call it the cosmos if you wish. The end of the Year of the Snake. The great shedding of old skin. Preparing to meet the Horse, which is my Chinese astrology sign. It’s a sign alright, and I don’t care what we name it. Bring it on.

I have been in a biglongugly funk. Fortunately, I do know how to get myself out of this: W R I T E. I can write my way out. I can draw or paint my way out, too. So can you. You can do any or all of those things. It has nothing to do with talent or experience – it depends on one thing and one thing only – willingness. Well, and a pen and some paper. I recently saw a quote by Dan Poynter that pissed me off. He said, “If you are waiting for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.” Thanks for that, Dan. As my friend Lyn would say, “well that hurts my feelings.” Doesn’t it just…

So I have to sit my butt in a chair and write. Or draw. Or paint. A combination of the three actually works best for me. Because the alternative is insomnia, nightmares, migraine. Lately I have been raging in my sleep. My anger will not be contained. It shocks me how violent my dreams are. I’m fighting for my life, kicking and biting and stabbing and screaming. I am really angry. Keep your distance.

That has to come before the forgiveness. Because I don’t understand forgiveness. I do not know how to forgive. To give forth. To give it up…to let go.

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks.” – David Foster Wallace

Apparently my body and my subconscious keep excellent records. I assume you also have an inner secretary; mine functions at an executive level 24/7. And there is a thriving Slights Department. I have 70+ years of slights filed here, just waiting for their moment to be justifiably indignant.

In the middle of the night my inner secretary drags out the trauma files and tries to convince me that someone is going to murder me. My nighttime assailant can be any number of people. Usually my father or my sister. They, along with other family members, were prone to violent outbursts. They all spent time in jail for violence against other people. They all weaseled out of more serious charges with the help of a good attorney. As did my former husband, my son’s father. They all drove drunk on a regular basis and never left the house without a gun. I knew what they were capable of, and for anyone who has ever been manipulated by an abuser, that is all it takes. A certain look in their glassy eyes is all it takes for them to back you right into a corner.

To say that I have clawed and chewed my way free of the manipulation of narcissists would be an understatement. The one thing I have not ever done is threaten them back. Oh, I am capable of it, believe me. I, too, have a vengeful murderer deep inside my psyche. I understand them. But I have never actually threatened anyone with any kind of violence at all. I loathe violence. I lived in it’s shadow until I was sixty years old. I had to learn how to walk away and never look back. So I guess I do actually know how to let go. I just don’t know how to make it not hurt.

And, I do swear a lot. Recently my son brought this habit to my attention and asked me to reconsider it. I told him that social psychologists have studied swearing and concluded that it does, in fact, help the body dissipate stress. He said something very wise about it, though. He asked me if it were not a form of violence. And I think it is, yes. I think I will curb my habit of swearing in my effort to live more softly. We’ll see how that goes, shall we? Consider it an experiment.

I have often joked that my obsession with murder mysteries is because I want to know there are people out there more psychotic than my own family. There is always some truth in humor, isn’t there? For the past decade or so I have played with the idea of writing a memoir. But I haven’t wanted to be the angry, confrontative whistle blower of the family. This week, as we begin a hopeful new year, I don’t think I have a choice any longer. I’m tired. I know truth heals. And only truth heals. I want healing. I will be careful and respectful to the best of my ability, but I will tell my truth my way.

Anne LaMott also said, when asked about exposing family dysfunction in her memoirs, “you own everything that’s happened to you. Write your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” I admit to you here, now, that I still need to overcome the actual fear I carry that my family will lash out and harm me. My sister threatened me years ago when I began this blog.

Many of my family members also had a great sense of humor. My son certainly does. I will incorporate that into my stories, but I will tell them however they show up. And I will share here what I can of them – not because I need you to know, but because I want us to heal. If I can do this, so can you. It’s time. It’s the year of the horse. We ride at midnight.

Jan4

you can call me Phil

Posted on by
Standard

“The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your image when he or she hates all the same people you do.” – Anne LaMott

I cannot tell you how many times I said to my sisters, “you have created God in your own image,” but they didn’t get it. I had never heard of Anne LaMott at the time. It just seemed obvious to me. They would yell and scream at me – as if perhaps that would convince me – that God hates fags. And blacks? A lesser race. Forget indigenous people. They were savages. My sister told me once that if she had her way all Muslims would be wiped off the face of the planet. To this day I am shocked how such different people could come from the same two parents. I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. That’s how I knew they’d been brainwashed into a cult. We were not raised that way. Quite the opposite; we were raised to be kind to all creatures, and treat every person with the same respect.

In my 20’s I started a tradition of taking my Mother to a summer concert, just us two. It was a manipulative way to get her all to myself for an evening. I would pack us a picnic and we would often sit in our car enjoying it after the concert, waiting for the parking lot to clear out. I’d given up buying the less expensive lawn tickets after being caught in a downpour. But I didn’t want to abandon the picnic part of our date.

Mom was a country music fan and over the years we saw some great concerts I never would have experienced on my own. Neil Diamond…Anne Murray…and when Willy Nelson came to Pine Knob I purchased tickets. But I just couldn’t bring myself…so I asked my sister to take her. They brought me a pink handkerchief as a souvenir. I had it framed and gave it back to my Mother, where it hung in her hallway for many years.

In 1993 we had both moved north from the Detroit suburbs, so I chose from the summer concert series at Interlochen. And I chose to get us tickets to see K.D. Lang…because, well, who wouldn’t want to see that icon live?! My sisters got wind of my Mother’s plans and had a hissy fit. How dare I take my Mother to see a lesbian?! My reply was, “well…we weren’t going to sleep with her…we were just going to listen to her sing.” That infuriated them. As usual, I didn’t get it. Thick as I am. But Mom and I had a great time. I hope she didn’t carry any guilt about going.

My siblings and I have very different gods. Mine doesn’t care what you call her. Theirs is definitively a him. And he cares very much how he is named in prayer. Sometimes I envy them their certainty that they know God. My God is magnificently mysterious and unfathomable. Big as all creation and yet personal, loving and kind. So is my faith.

“Maybe a great magnet pulls all souls towards truth, or maybe it is life itself feeds wisdom to it’s youth…” – K.D. LANG

Dec22

the path of least resistance

Posted on by
Standard

In my last writing, 17 days ago now, I said to myself “take the path of least resistance, Susan.” Suffice it to say that I am terrible at taking my own advice. In fact, I often feel as if I have done nothing but repeat myself here on this blog for over 13 years…I seem to be a very hard learner. This is not new. Dammit. It seems I have been this way all my life.

In the spirit of becoming, as I am trying to convince myself that I can actually live as a verb, ever embracing new habits in the effort to change, improve, evolve….I will once again return my daily routine to the basic practices of self care. I will get out of the shower and put a cotton ball soaked with castor oil in my belly button. I will slather my dry skin with Frankincense. I will write my morning pages, even if it takes me until 3 in the afternoon. Walk. It is cold and icy outdoors. True confessions: I bought myself a walking pad so I can walk indoors. I bought it on sale after Christmas last year. It has never been plugged in. The power cord is around here somewhere…have I ever mentioned that I talk a good game?

There will be no “New Year New You” resolutions declared here for my part. That would be hilarious! If I just stuck to what I know I’d be ahead of the game. When I would challenge my father in my teenage years to walk his talk, he would reply, “do as I say, not as I do…” I wish I didn’t understand that quite so well now as a Mother. I don’t want my child to follow in my footsteps; I hope he surpassed me years ago in every way. Run. Fly.

So. Back to basics. Self care – mentally and physically – is the order of the day. While I’m being honest let me also admit that I am still seriously depressed. I’ve been off antidepressants since my pancreatitis this past summer. I’m trying to stay off of all medications and cleanse my liver and pancreas. Losing Chewy in October has sent me into a tailspin. Grief and the inordinately dark days are kicking my butt. But the real honest-to-goodness truth is that I’m angry. I’m livid. And to explain this would take too long. Where would I start? JesusMaryJoseph, where would I start? I can legit justify my anger into the next millennium, and where does that get me? You got it – sick. It is making me sick.

In my old age I am acknowledging that I have always had an inner knowing that serves me well; that knows the way for me. You have this, too. And that inner knowing has never listened when told, “you need to grow a thicker skin.” No. I have become much too hardened already. I don’t like the world I live in. But I love the earth and the water and the trees, the sentient life; I only want to soften into it as I grow older.

Since I have been grieving I have had a strange companion out in my yard. A lone deer. It’s always by itself and it hangs around close to the house. It sleeps under the Hawthorne right outside my bedroom window. It is different than all the other deer that wander through the yard in large herds. It’s face is darker and it is of stockier build. So maybe the herd rejected it? Maybe it’s somehow disabled? I have no idea. I do put out carrots and veggies, especially now that I can assume the bear is hibernating. Most of the birds have gone with the harsh weather, but the crows remain close. The pair of bald eagles are back.

I’ve lost interest in almost anything I used to be interested in. I’m easily made anxious by any media. I avoid friends and any kind of activity. The poor grocery store clerk says the wrong thing and I’m in tears. I’m a pain in the ass. I don’t care. I’m done trying to be anything but honest, but I know most people will be uncomfortable in my presence. Let me spare them the ugly dissolution of my former self. Let me not pretend to codify their expectations. Something in me has died and I will not attempt to revive it. It’s free to go. I’m okay with not knowing who I am anymore. When I allow myself to sit with anger, it dissipates into grief. It loosens me and I can breathe again.

Awake in the middle of the night, I meditate. Last night I fell back to sleep and had one of those wild dreams where I am obviously visiting another time and place. I asked where I was, and was given a specific name. That isn’t unusual. Neither is getting up at 9am to Google it and finding out it exists, although as an ancient ruin. It was a vibrant community last night in my dream. I can only imagine that I was there for healing purposes. That is the prayer I fell asleep with.

These days I can read good writing. I can listen to good poetry. And I can look to Tiokasin Ghosthorse for inspiration, because he lives his life as a verb. As he wisely tells me, “do not try to heal the earth. Let the earth heal you.” Don’t try to understand your dreams; let your dreams understand you.

Dec5

you can’t steal the things that God has given me

Posted on by
Standard

C’mon…I’m an elderly white woman from the midwest. Descendent of founding fathers. Raised Presbyterian. Well educated. Born into an upper middle class family in a suburb of privilege, I never wanted for anything. I mean, other than a little respect when you get home…

This humble blog has chronicled over a decade of my simple little life. I have shared my story of abuse where no one would suspect it. It’s a universal story. It isn’t special. I have worked through years of accepted and limiting belief systems; I have felt like I’ve overcome lifetimes of fear. I have moved houses three times in this decade since I started this journal. I have been placed high on a hill buffeting against the gales of Lake Michigan. Missing my family of origin. My Mother has never seen this place. My father, my brother, have never been here. I have outlived them. I’ve become estranged from a sister. I’ve buried darling dogs here, and my beloved familiar. I have come a long, long way toward myself. Toward what cannot be dissolved.

Somehow you’ve remained constant when little else has. You’ve witnessed many ups and downs, deep depressions, glorious ah-has. The exchange seems lop-sided; I’ve gotten the better end of this deal. Here’s hoping I have something of value to offer moving forward. I’ll say this again for the record – other than my joints, I feel 24 most days. But now I know what I couldn’t know then.

The past few days here have been daunting. I’m going to try to get out today, but it will be an adventure. We’ve been waiting days for a snow plow. My son has done his best to shovel out enough of the icy boulders left across the bottom of the driveway so that my car might be able to get through. There is a momentary reprieve in the snow, so no time like the present. I haven’t been out of the house in about 12 days. How’s that for a small life?! Even today, I won’t go far. Just the basics – bank, grocery store, library, post office. They are all within a mile loop, but it isn’t always doable. It’s a 30-degree-downhill mile through a tunnel of snow and ice. As I said, daunting. Always with a shovel and kitty litter in the back in case you slide off into a snowbank. At least you can try to extricate yourself, but more likely you’ll hitch a ride home until the tow truck gets around to you.

I am one of a few houses this far out of town (1 mile) that is inhabited year round. This is a summer resort area. My neighbors are from all over the country, but they only come regularly 3 months of the year. Yes, I stay because financially I cannot afford to leave. I don’t have a second home or the means to fly out to warmer climes. But I also love this isolation. The quiet is priceless. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Sitting here now at my kitchen table, I can look south through treetops and see about 2 miles to a distant hill. I can look west down to the neighbor’s closed up house an acre away, and beyond the mature pines to a snowy valley. East I look down through a valley to a stand of pines a few acres away. That farm has a small rustic barn across a field. Deer feed there in the evening, and the occasional bear or bobcat wander through. A large rafter of turkeys are coming and going – no extra charge for the entertainment. A pair of bald eagles has returned to nest somewhere in that stand of trees. They fly overhead daily back and forth to the big lake. I say “big lake” meaning Michigan. There are several smaller lakes nearby.

The scenic 2 lane road I live on is called a highway, but there is almost no traffic this time of year. Before moving here I was taken on an out-of-body flight one night, and shown this highway was built where a native trail had already existed. This isn’t unusual here in Michigan, of course. The natives had found the natural openings in the trees, probably following the organic paths animals frequented. But what I was taught that night was that this natural pathway was also a highway for witches, and for spirits that simply followed their lead. The path of least resistance for centuries, it seems. Okay, I thought, and shrugged, not knowing what that information meant.

Now that I am learning to live in an expanded reality, I realize this is a hilarious metaphor. Take the path of least resistance, Susan. Stop being defensive, angry, or even knowledgeable. Can’t you see there’s more to me than my mistakes? Let the ancestors serve me. They won’t take me somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

Maybe life could be a bit easier. Maybe. Maybe I can begin to enjoy the magic of this. I need something, give me something wonderful.

Dec2

faith

Posted on by
Standard

Let me explain what faith is and how it works. Because your life depends on it. And you are not going to grow, have peace, or live any life worth living until you get honest with yourself about this.

Let’s start with what faith is not: it is not religion. It has little or nothing to do with religion. It is, however, a basic and essential element of your spiritual, emotional, and psychological makeup. It is your connection to God, the divine, life force, intuition – whatever you want to call your inner knowing. There is no inner knowing, or even ability to connect with your authentic self, without faith. It’s the connective tissue of spirit. Without it you’re screwed. You had best become comfortable with it sooner rather than later.

I’m addressing this today because I am in a pissy mood dealing with other people’s lack of faith. No less than four people reached out to me this morning for advice they won’t use. Specifically, half dozen family and friends who want to cry, whine, and vent about the narcissists who treat them poorly. Who undervalue them. But they don’t really want to change anything. They don’t want to let that relationship go, to be precise. They don’t want to quit the job or the marriage. They don’t want to face their fear. They want the other person to get it and change.

Now, lest you think I might be flip or impatient here, let me tell you that I have been listening to the same sob stories for years from these few loved ones. Many years. Maybe decades. Same story, different day. But when I offer some fairly mature, sound advice, they balk – and become immediately defensive. There we go with that defensive shit again. They explane ‘a me…for the umpteenth thousanth time, why they can’t leave. And my mind just tunes it right to the station it is – faithlessness.

I don’t care what you think is the perfectly justifiable reason you cannot leave the narcissist. There is only one reason: lack of faith. And it is costing you your life. Own that decision.

When I decided to leave my narcissistic husband, I had no money. We had less than 5K in equity in our home, which we would split. It wouldn’t cover moving costs. I had no job. No income. Nothing worth selling. No savings. I was 60 and not yet eligible for social security. Nothing. So, your excuse of not enough money doesn’t hold sway with me. I left with nothing. Myself and two dogs to support. NADA. But IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. I jumped and the net appeared, not the other way around.

There are many, perhaps most, people who would never leave their hated job until securing a replacement. I’m talking to you. I have lost more friends over this issue. I do not want to hear about you hating your job. Quit. Now. STOP MAKING EXCUSES. Pick up your coat and walk out RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Or stop complaining. Do not tell me what your bills are. That is entirely irrelevant.

A (now estranged) old friend, who happens to be a PhD. psychotherapist, would tell me that this is black-and-white thinking, and that it is dangerous. But she remains married to a narcissist, so I will aver that she, in fact, has nothing of value to offer her codependent clientele. She doesn’t walk her talk. She makes excuses. Because…no faith. And then, I must tell you that black-and-white thinking IS THE ONLY APPROPRIATE WAY TO THINK in this culture. In a dualistic environment all energy is divided by good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, right or wrong, love or fear. In a dualistic environment black-and-white thinking is the only appropriate response. If you want to outgrow that limitation, you will have to exercise…guess what?

There is NO justifiable reason to put up with any kind of abuse. And let’s define abuse while we are at it. I adopted this definition from a therapist I met in my 20’s, because I have never been able to prove her wrong: ALL THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED IS EITHER NURTURING OR ABUSIVE. Period. There is nothing else going on here. Are you being nurtured? No? You walk away. Next question.

If you are rationalizing and adapting to anything that does not serve you well, you are making excuses. You are 100% willing to compromise your health and well-being to accommodate someone else’s agenda. You cannot be free from there. You are enslaved. Whether you physically can’t leave (you are in a body cast) or you are feeling obligated to stay, or guilty, you are not free. And you are willingly participating in a dysfunction that is harmful to everyone concerned.

Faith is your spiritual muscle, and either you exercise it or it atrophies. And just like charity, or compassion, it starts at home. With you. Right now. So cut the crap. Stop waiting for the knight on a white steed, or your one dollar lottery ticket to make you a billionaire. Muster up some courage. Grow a pair. Take a chance on yourself. Show some faith. Don’t look backwards for guidance to chart new territory. Take a leap of faith and then ask God what’s next. “Lead me.” And know that you will get an intuitive hit, an idea, an inkling – and then you will act on it. Do not reason it away. Do it. No matter how insignificant it seems, or how crazy it sounds. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t run it by four people. Do it.

You don’t hear intuition like that? You aren’t just quite sure…? Well, duh. How do you expect to hear God if you won’t trust? The trust comes first. The faith comes first, by it’s very definition. You don’t find the right job until you leave the wrong one. What if you make a mistake? You’ll learn how to be discerning about what is and isn’t intuition. You’re exercising your faith muscle. You are hard-wired for faith. It won’t take long for you to see tangible evidence.

I’m gonna tell you something else that sounds radical: lack of faith is mental illness. Prove me wrong. And let me close with this thought: that this awareness requires my forgiveness, for I, too, lack faith at times. I, too, am just practicing here.

Nov30

the true fact of everything

Posted on by
Standard

Yesterday I talked about overcoming my defensiveness, because it is oppressive and debilitating. It keeps a contrived distance between you and life, between you and everything you want and need to feel safe.

Turns out grief is the key. The only authentic, meaningful way we are going to experience life is to spend it preparing for death. Our culture taught us to think that is obscene. That we deserve to be “happy” all the time. Suffering is optional. It isn’t.

There is a new shift in interior design language (remember, ultimately it will be the artists who save us) – which replaces the term “age in place” with “die in place.” The ultimate goal of all good design is not that you can age in your own home. It’s that you can die there.

We are going to have to include death and loss and grief in our common language. We are going to have to talk about it. Normalize the subject. Befriend that demon. It has to happen. Turns out, it’s the only dance in town. Step right up.

Only now, fast approaching 72, am I realizing that I have carried grief since early in childhood. There were many losses, and none of them were addressed, or “processed,” whatever that means. I acutely remember waking during the night as a child, maybe 6 or 7. I came down the stairs into the living room looking for help. I was afraid and sad. Mimi, my grandmother, was sitting on the sofa, and I ran to her and burst into tears. “What’s wrong, honey?” “I miss Blackie!” Blackie was my Cocker Spaniel who had simply disappeared one day. I was 5 or 6 when I named her, so, don’t judge.

Blackie and I had been sitting on the floor playing fetch. I was rolling the ball to her and teaching her to return it to me. She dropped it near my feet and it rolled under the sofa, and when I bent over to reach for it, she bit me on the face. I doubt she did it out of any malice. She was also reaching for the ball. I just got in the way. She was gone shortly after that. I can look back now, of course, and realize that my parents weren’t going to let that happen again, so she had to go. Where she went I will never know. I don’t remember the story I was told, but I was devastated. And it would never be spoken of again.

Neither would Mimi’s death years later. There was no funeral. Was she cremated? Is she buried somewhere? I’ll never know. The subject was forbidden. Certainly my dear Mother spent her lifetime grieving. Among so many losses, she lost her sister, her closest friend, in a car accident on my 23rd birthday. I never wanted to celebrate my birthday again, but my Mother wasn’t having it. She showed up wherever I was in my life, presents and cake in hand. By God, we were having a party. And Barb was never spoken of. She was my loss, too.

There are too many stories like that to tell. Just in my life alone. I’m sure there are in your life also. How did we get this so wrong? And we wonder why we’re a culture of addicts?!

Nov29

under new management

Posted on by
Standard

Life as we previously knew it…yeah…you feel it. I don’t want to write these days. I don’t want to talk. I seem to switch back and forth between two states: crippling grief, or a vaguely definable altered reality that I can only call pure awe. Joy. But not an excited ecstasy; not bliss. Calm knowing. A peace like nothing I have ever known. Nothing else registers – terrifying grief or cellular peace…for lack of the language to adequately describe it.

After weeks spent in terror and grief and yet surprisingly, not dying, I think I might be coming to terms with what is happening. Maybe. I’m not certain of anything right now. I do trust my intuition, the currency of life.

If I were a betting woman, which I am not – but wait – I am! I am betting my life. I am betting my life that this shift is planetary, it is cosmic, it is being universally experienced by everyone, and it is real. This is happenin‘, baby.

It isn’t aliens. It isn’t astrological. It isn’t your diet causing this wobbly reality. It’s your heart – and I do not mean the organ in your chest: I mean the intelligence in every cell of your body. I mean your spirit. Everything is psychic now. It always has been, but we are now becoming critically aware of that. And as of yet, I do not have enough language skill to explain this phenomena, but I will share with you what I can as I can.

The planet you are currently living on has transmuted. We are now living on the surface of a 5th dimensional being, no longer in a 3rd dimensional reality. In the event that you wish to stay in your comfort zone, you will need to learn to transform gold into lead.

In this mornings’ meditation, I asked for help to keep my heart open. The world is closing in on me. I don’t want to harden back up. That would feel like all this pain had been in vain. How do I remain soft in the face of terror? How do I embrace being defenseless?

The opposite of defensiveness is not safety. It is not vulnerability. Don’t you believe the people selling you vulnerability. They are telling you that vulnerability is somehow noble, or will get you where you need to go. It’s a halfway measure. You can still tether yourself to the past with vulnerability and avoid truth. Don’t settle for that.

The opposite of defensiveness is forgiveness. And I, for one, do not know how to do that. I do not know what forgiveness is. I know some things it is not. It is not acceptance. It does not mean that you accept the people who have wronged you back into your life. It does not mean you accept bad behavior in any form. It doesn’t mean you allow yourself to be treated poorly. That much I know.

Forgiveness is a concept to me; I don’t really know it in practice. I’ve grappled with understanding it for decades, held onto my righteous anger in order to survive, whether I was the recipient of the abuse or the self-righteous abuser. So I can’t fault the usefulness of my defenses; they got me this far. But I didn’t come this far to come this far. I have to take the lead shoes off now. I have to learn to forgive.

This awareness has blindsided me, as awareness often will. Moving forward with this new information will be an adventure; an experiment. I don’t really know where to start. I know that I will have to muster all the curiosity possible. And I know intuition, holy spirit, never leaves us alone here. And so I will begin with prayer: “show me how to forgive.”

“If it is impossible for you to go on as you were before, you must go on as you never have.” – Cheryl Strayed