It’s been decades since the dream. I remember it as if it were last night. I was awake, and knew I was “away,” not in my body. Do you call that lucid dreaming? When you know you are asleep in your bed and also awake in this new place? I can’t pretend to understand it when it happens.
But there I was on a hillside looking over a pond, huge old barn on the opposite hill, old white farmhouse behind me. There were a group of us strangers. Somewhere in the Eastern U.S. we had gathered for a writer’s workshop. So early in the morning, and crisply cool this fall day. My head hurt and I was craving coffee.
Patiently we waited our turn to be ferried across the pond in one of two rowboats being piloted by a couple of young men. Students at the nearby college perhaps. The day’s activities would take place in the barn. I was hoping I’d dressed warm enough. Finally, it was just myself and a slightly older woman standing to my left. We approached the boat as it pulled alongside the small platform. Once seated she introduced herself, offering a handshake. “May Sarton.”
As the day went on I would come to find that she was one of the two instructors of the workshop. At some point in time I had the thought, “don’t forget her name when you wake up.” And so without coming fully awake, I reached over to my nightstand and clumsily scribbled m A Y s a R to N and went right back into the dream.
I didn’t remember the dream at all in the morning until I saw the paper. I could barely read what I’d jotted down in the dark. Years before the internet or cell phones, I would have to go the library to research and try to find out if she were actually a real person. Did she exist? If so, was she a writer?
The thing that astonishes me now, remembering the dream, is that I had that experience and still did not realize that I am a writer. I’m only just realizing that, here, today…I wonder if I’ll ever truly believe it.
What is a cottage life? It seems I’ve been fascinated with cottages since I bought my first design book back in high school – probably in the 60’s. We lived in a cottage, albeit a large one. My young parents had five children while still in their twenties. They needed a lot of room for a little money. The house they purchased was a Cape Cod, built by an architect a hundred years previous to house three generations of his family. It was built as three flats, bermed into a hillside overlooking the Detroit River. My parents turned those three flats into a single family home. Sadly when I look it up now on Zillow it has been turned into many small apartments with most of the original charm removed. What is wrong with people? Never mind…don’t answer that…
When I was looking to move closer to my adult son ten years ago, house hunting on a limited budget with elderly dogs in tow, I ended up in a cottage. This house was built in 1955, by an architect who was a professor at Michigan State University, as a summer getaway. It is a style known as Midcentury Modern.
Now if you were to list every architectural style on planet earth, including igloos and teepees and straw huts, I would list Midcentury Modern as my absolute least favorite style. I don’t dislike it. I abhor it. Believe me, I have studied this genre of architecture since moving here – and I can find little to like amongst the best of it. It is not lost on me that I myself am midcentury modern, born early in 1954. And growing up in a highly dysfunctional home might be triggering an adverse reaction. However I like to think it’s much more of an intellectual response as I did study art and architecture in school. I also happened to have gone to school at Kingswood Cranbrook, one of the most artistic architectural communities in the country.
My opinion is considered. I’ve honestly given it a wide berth of time and space. I’ve genuinely tried, okay? It’s just ugly. There is much to like about it’s predecessor, Arts and Crafts style. Think Macintosh, William Morris, Tudor Revival and Craftsman bungalows.
Most of the original style of my house was also removed in earlier renovations, and the one element that I do appreciate about mid-mod remains: the wide roof overhangs. This was quite simply the best house for us, the dogs and I, because of the setting. And remember, I had exhausted the deadline of my government mortgage approval and my exasperated realtor had shown me everything on the market within my area and price range. This was the fourth house I had bid on; the first three sold way over asking price. Most of the houses I could afford were not even livable, let alone move-in ready. Like, they had no heating system or electricity. One house had a toilet in a closet off one side of the kitchen and a shower stall in a closet on the opposite side of the kitchen – and the kitchen sink was where you washed your hands after using the toilet. So…not exaggerating. Almost walking away from this deal twice I had heard in meditation, “you are being placed.” I’m not sure that I will ever know exactly why I was placed here, but it has proven to be a fabulous setting in a desirable location. Tucked behind a sand bluff 400 feet above Lake Michigan, this house will shelter me financially as well as physically.
And so for that reason, as well as my artistic sensibilities, I will do my best to honor the architectural integrity of this house and restore it as I can. I don’t believe in trying to turn a Cape Cod into a Victorian, and likewise will protect the Midcentury Modern elements remaining here. Someone someday will love it for what it is – and isn’t that the best we can all hope for?
In the rural midwest where I live there are a plethora of vacation cottages of all sizes and shapes. But there are few older than the 20th century. And far fewer specific to the Cape Cod or shingle style I covet. I’d have far more choice in the eastern states, even Ohio, western New York or Pennsylvania. I’ve studied. So when I say that I don’t come across many houses I actually like here, I mean it.
I’m looking for original details like wrought iron door hardware and double-hung two over twos. I don’t like ceramic tile; I want old terracotta. IYKYK. I’m looking for a cottage that you could pick up from northern Michigan and set down on Nantucket and it would appear to be right at home. I’m thinking there are may be about 8 of them – if I’m lucky – within a 300 mile radius. But as I said yesterday, I never give up. I’ve had many beautiful homes in my adult life – none I have liked anywhere near as much as the Cape Cod I grew up in, and not one I would buy again as my tastes have developed, or become more defined. Hence this sense that I’d like one last energetic push to find a home that supports my lifestyle as well as my aesthetic.
While I cannot afford to hire a designer, or to do a remodel in anything other than tiny increments, this Midcentury Modern cottage on Lake Michigan has many of the same elements as my current home, including that brick fireplace wall that runs through the middle of the living area and extends outside. Also like the house shown in this video, my house gets battered all winter with gale force winds. In the summer the setting sun hits the large west facing windows and inside it feels like being an ant under a magnifying glass. But I want to explore the possibilities for making my house the best it can be, and then later this week let’s talk about how to support a chosen lifestyle. Because, unlike the owners of this little beach house, I am not on vacation here.
Yes, I missed an opportunity to move to my little dream house. I didn’t even inquire about it. Don’t know what I was waiting for…the owner to call me? To run into someone in the local grocery store and have them introduce us and strike up a random conversation and be invited over….no. Although stranger things have happened. To me. What I was waiting for was the shame to pass. The shame of daring to dream.
No, I didn’t have the cash to plunk down. No, I hadn’t listed my house on the market or looked into being pre-qualified for a mortgage. Hadn’t done any of that. Just sat here hoping that it would still be on the market when I got around to being ready. Not much is moving here in the local real estate market, but I knew intuitively that house wouldn’t last long. It was for sale by owner and probably under priced to sell quickly, which it did. Inquiring would have forced me to learn where I stood financially. I would have found out what my house was worth, what terms might be available, or that it wasn’t doable at all. I don’t know any of that now. I’m kinda in real estate limbo.
The two people I shared my disappointment with said, “oh well, it wasn’t the right house for you. Something else will come along when you’re ready.” Yes, I’ve taken the loss personally. I take everything personally. Let me walk you through that; it will help you understand the neurodiverse people in your life. First of all, no one who really knows me would ever say that to me. I’ve changed so much in the nine years I’ve lived here that the same criteria for house hunting no longer apply. I’ve changed so much…I would no more buy this house now than re-marry my ex. They are both strangers to me. Once madly in love and intimately related, we no longer have anything in common.
But I never would have called about this house ten years ago, also listed for sale by owner. It was way over my price range. My son called the owner of this house and he encouraged me to come look at it. He was flipping it, and out of money. It had two flat areas of lawn immediately outside the doors, as I said in yesterday’s post, for my sweet short-legged old dogs. It would do. And it had lots of potential – a mistake I will never make again. I’m not moving into anything that isn’t ready for paint and wallpaper.
Yes, I am whining. Feeling sorry for myself. This house will never be finished, short of a hundred thousand dollar lottery windfall – and then I wouldn’t bother. And H O M E is waaaay more important to me than most anyone can understand. It’s the reason I started this blog in 2012. A Painterly Home was never intended to be about my psychological interior. And yet, here we are.
Home, any home…like me, is a work in progress. A home is never really done. But I want to be doing the decorative stuff, not replacing the roof and fixing things. Just constantly fixing things. Yesterday I turned on the kitchen faucet and it fell off, spewing water everywhere. Things like that happen almost daily here. But, hey…I have a new roof over my head. Literally. And yes, I am grateful beyond measure.
Yes, I’m good here for now. Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t at least try to purchase the little cottage on Mill Street and begin again. Who knows what I might have learned. No, I’m not giving up. I will never give up on my dreams!
“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” – John Barrymore
Yes, I will continue to dream until I’m living in a little cottage. The kitchen sink is under a window facing east – YES! – I am that picky. But it’s actually about lifestyle, and easier maintenance. And creativity and…J O Y. I’m currently on almost an acre of land and most of it is hilly. Hard to mow. And I’d like to be in a town or village. Walkable. Less isolated. I’d love to have some neighbors. This house has served me well; it was the right place at the right time. But life has changed. I’ve changed. We’re supposed to.
I don’t want to compromise my dreams. They can morph; I hope they will…but not become more obscured. I want them to become ever more specific. Otherwise, nothing happens. See, I think that is bullshit that tells us to “let go.” Sure, change and evolve and constantly update your dreams…but never let them go.
“And then I kissed my fear on it’s crooked mouth and whispered farewell old friend, I’m off to meet The Odds and I hear they may favor me without you.” – JK Kennedy
There is no logical explanation for why having a new roof would make me feel more grounded, and yet it has. In the past couple of weeks the roof of my house has been replaced. In the process some of the soffit overhanging the front porch was damaged. It was rotten, and someone almost came right through the rotten wood all the way to the ground below. Undaunted, the roofing contractor had to come back once they had more materials and rebuild that part – that corner – of the house. That was just finished this past weekend, and I am now painting it. I have leftover paint from nine years ago when the house was painted, and fortunately it is still good. It’s amazing how much the color on the house has faded.
Only this morning did I realize that it has been almost a year since the first roofing contractor climbed onto the roof, inspected it, and gave me a quote to repair the structure and replace the shingles. A week or so later my cat died. And before I could catch my breath it was winter. I picked the process up again early this spring once the snow had melted off the roof. And my former husband died. I was reeling.
Then it took months of calls and applications to find financial assistance. Meanwhile every rainfall meant more leaks. It was obvious much of the roof was rotten underneath the shingles. The integrity of the structure was compromised. It was the fourth application process that resulted in manageable financing. And a few more weeks before the contractor was secured and the process began, and is just now finished. I completed the paperwork yesterday, October 8th. And I will finish painting the soffit today. Phew….
When I woke at three-thirty this morning I happened to glance over and see the torn envelope the final paperwork had come in. It sparked a thought – the past year, October to October has felt like a decade. The thought I had was, “Just think where I will be a year from now….”
A year from now my copies and receipts from this work will be in the back of the filing cabinet. I’m guessing – and hoping – that I will not have given the roof a thought for months. A solid roof is a given in a maintained house. Let’s get back to taking that for granted here. What else might I take for granted, and what shall I be far more aware of not taking for granted?
A year from now life might look quite different. I will be well into my seventy-fourth year, the same age as this house. I may or may not be living in this house. If I am here, it will have been ten years. I had a signed purchase agreement for this house on October 31st, 2016. It was the longest purchase and moving process I’ve ever experienced; I wouldn’t move until almost four months later, during a raging blizzard, of course. With two beautiful elderly little dogs. The cat would surprise us a year later.
I am not the same person I was then. I am not the same person I was a year ago. I suspect you aren’t either. And I don’t know about you, but I am constantly surprised by the changes. It isn’t that we don’t expect change, and even work toward the changes we desire…but there are constant surprises along the way. There are expectations and there are un-expectations, aren’t there?!
It has taken so long for me just to begin to grow up. I’m paying attention now. From here on out, for however long this dream lasts, I don’t want to take a minute of it for granted. It has taken me so long to learn to love my life.
Perhaps you remember that I had mixed feelings about this house right from the get-go. The long, drawn out process had almost fallen apart twice. Both times I heard in meditation, “you are being placed.” I believe that still, with all my heart. I was placed here. I belong here. For now. That doesn’t mean it’s my “forever” home – a term I abhor, btw. Oh, I get the concept of a lifelong home. I will certainly have an address with a dwelling attached to it on the day of my death, whether I die there or not. My forever home is not on this planet.
And I’ve thought now quite a bit about moving. I bought this house for the dogs! Truly, while there were preferences considered, the one non-negotiable was no stairs for the little old dogs. It’s almost laughable, because this house has lots of stairs, even to get to the front door. But no stairs in and out of the doors to the yard. Easy for short legged creatures.
For this aging five-foot-six creature there isn’t much I like here any more. Perhaps I can also belong somewhere else. But this is not the time to be moving, as winter fast approaches. Maybe in the spring. Maybe. Meanwhile, I want to become better at paying attention right where I’m sitting.
When it looked like the roof might actually get replaced months ago, I began to fantasize about moving yet this year. As most of us would do, I began to scour the market to see what was available. Well…anyone who has played with that idea this past year has had an education. That’s why I used the word fantasize…ha!
And yet, Dr. Ned Hallowell says that ADHD people are eternally optimistic; you cannot keep them down. They never give up. I agree. ADHD superpowers intact – still I dream. Here’s the thing about this: I was placed. I’m not leaving until I am re-placed. That means a lot, and it means a lot of different things all at once. It means that I am more committed than ever to living my life faithfully, as in trusting my intuition – my connection to spirit.
It means that a year from now, I will have had a year of attending to my ADHD and learning to work with it. I didn’t like the medication, so I am back to researching natural ways to best manage my symptoms when they rise. And recognizing them faster, before they completely derail me. They have been invoking fear for the better part of 73 years now. Now I see it in all it’s subtle incarnations. Like, in all the circuitous ways it incapacitates my creativity. A year from now I will have been living a more creative life.
So I found my dream house. But I couldn’t make it happen. I prayed about it endlessly. I did everything I could think of to get the roof done here; the project dragged out for months. I did not call a realtor to find out where I stood; I did not inquire about selling my house as-is; I did not look for a new mortgage or even see what I might qualify for. I did not move a cell of my being toward the goal. I froze in fear. And I am not being re-placed there, or anywhere else at this time. There is a pattern here. It has to be drop-in-my-lap easy, apparent, straightforward – or I don’t even try. THAT, my dears, is straight-up ADHD shame.
After all…who the hell do you think you are?! How dare you be so ungrateful for all you have…and on and on. It happens the voice of poverty sounds an awful lot like my Dad. Who am I to want more?! I have been given a low interest government mortgage that made it possible to buy this house. I have been given a grant for part of the roof and a zero percent interest loan for the rest. For a senior citizen living on social security I have got it pretty darn good. I need to be more grateful. Does this mean I shouldn’t want anything more? Or different? Now that I am more aware of how ADHD shows itself, where it limits and where it frees me, I know that regardless of the outcome, the journey toward self discovery is the only dance in town. And you won’t get anywhere by not taking any risks.
“Action is the antidote to fear.” – Jack Boland
A year from now I pray you are still here, checking in to see what kind of magic shenanigans Susan has gotten herself into. I’ll tell you one thing for sure – it won’t look anything like it does today. Let’s dream together, shall we? Where would you like to be a year from now?
“What a mess I have made with nothing but an idea that I am not enough.” – Chloe Frayne
I’m up early in one of my snits again, and don’t see why you shouldn’t have the benefit of my wisdom – insert laughing emoji face here – such as it is. It’s been a busy week. Most of my busy happens inside my skin, but it is happening all the same…although I have also had many external distractions. Wonderful distractions, actually. Those usually show up as friend blessings for me.
But a conversation with a friend a few days ago has been playing in my head, and we all know what ADHD does with those, yes? I believe the word for it is perseverate. Gotta love the English language. I certainly do. And that is what the continuing convo in my pea-pickin’ little brain is on about this morning.
In the middle of a perfectly normal, innocent conversation about the tarot something interesting came up. The tarot be like that. It’s a sparkler to my dynamite. The Devil card came up. It’s one of my favorite cards. It’s always a gift. It’s the card of addiction. And if you think you don’t have any of those, well…you just keep telling yourself that. If you are reading this with human eyes, you are in the cult of addicts. You have been programmed since you were forming in utero. But I digress…
Addictions include our persistent attachment to the way things turn out. “My way or the highway” we used to say. It’s one thing to draw a line in the sand, to have healthy boundaries – as long as you are doing that consciously. Sometimes – just sometimes – we are limiting our perception of possible solutions by our automatic reactions to how things can work. That, and I hate to have to tell you this, is an addiction. A behavior so well practiced that it has formed neuro-pathways in your ever-lovin’ little brain and now your thoughts are not creative – they are conditioned. You are operating on auto-pilot. And the Devil shows up to say, “yoo-hoo! What mess have you gotten yourself into this time?!”
My friend is fairly new to the tarot, and as is often the case, certain cards still cause concern. I like that approach, actually. It’s why I have always loved teaching the tarot. Be a skeptic. Always be a skeptic. That’s a healthy approach to any new learning. As Elizabeth Gilbert wisely says, be just 5% more curious than afraid. Unless it’s a bear.
Okay. So, in aforementioned conversation, we came upon the subject of negative energies, or demons. They scare her. They should. They are nasty buggers, and I don’t care if they are “real” or thought forms or narcissists or an idiot with a semi-automatic or fascists or whatever. Let’s just categorize them as anything that doesn’t feel good. I gots ’em…we all gots ’em. They aren’t going away. This week they are stealing my identity and charging shit I didn’t authorize. And yeah, I’m pissed. On so many levels.
Meanwhile, here is what I told my friend, and apparently need to hear myself: they have all the power you sign over. They have no dominion over you unless you agree to it. Believe when I tell you, I have met them. They are not invisible to me. So, how do we deal with them? WE SPEAK. Directly to their ugly faces. Take a breath. Speak AT them. These words – like you fucking mean it! “GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN!”
“IF YOU ARE NOT OF THE LIGHT OF CHRIST, BE GONE NOW!” And to yourself: “I command my spirit into my body in full at this time!” (Thank you, Carolyn Myss)
Repeat after me: I COMMAND MY SPIRIT INTO MY BODY IN FULL AT THIS TIME! And while I’m at it, “Hey Archangel Michael – some help here!”
My friend was taken aback. She had never heard me speak like this before. She knows me as a witch. It never would have occurred to her that I was religious. You could say she was shocked. “Do you have to believe in Christ?” she asked me. I told her demons don’t mess with me anymore. Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and don’t call a therapist when an exorcist is needed. Bitch, please. I’m from Detroit.
I am sorry I did not answer her that day. There were others in our conversation who went on talking and asking other questions, and I never got back around to answering. So I’m doing so now. I will share this with her, as I am with you. I think it’s important in our current sit-u-a-tion.
The short answer is no. Christ does not care if you “believe” in him or not. It is not a requirement. I am not Catholic. I was not raised to be religious. Quite frankly, I don’t believe in religion. It’s a cult mentality. It scares me, in a creepy clown horror film sort of way. Because – and please, if you don’t hear anything else I ever say, hear this – Christ is not a Christian. Actually, the man known as Jesus the Christ was a middle-eastern black Jew…but, anyway…also hear this: CHRIST IS GOD. Period. What is God? God is consciousness. Therefore! CHRIST IS CONSCIOUSNESS!
And consciousness is life force. And if you don’t think it’s smarter than you, well, good luck to ya. And newsflash – you need do nothing to access this consciousness. You’re breathing it. When we are suffering, we are practicing denial of our nature. If you need any help with denial, I’m your gal. I have mastered that routine.
SO. In conclusion – why do these words work (and they do)?! Because words are how we exercise power. Words. Language. Would those words work in Farsi? In German? In Bantu? In French? I expect they would…but I don’t know those languages. I speak English.
And, so, when I speak those words, I am speaking a ritual that has been practiced for thousands of years. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Or, as I “heard” this morning in meditation, “who told you life had to be decoded?’
Just in the past week I’ve had three different friends ask me why I seem angry all the time. I’m not angry. I’m enraged. But I did not respond. Each time I was taken aback. Had I responded, there could only be one thing to say: “why aren’t you?” My recently triggered rage is both personal and collective. Isn’t it always? Isn’t it always…
There are sometimes weeks on end when I think I’m doing just fine. No rage in sight. Although it’s been months and months and endless months now of this confounded sadness. And then my dear friend, listening intently to me rage on and on, asked me what was beneath all this? And bless her, she listened to the answer. Not what she was expecting, I’m sure. To her credit, she didn’t say what most say. She’s so way smarter than most people I know.
Go ahead now, tell me life isn’t fair. Life was never meant to be fair. And then, you rage-less enlightened soul, you – you tell me why that’s okay with you. Go ahead. Just stand over there when you say it.
In the mid 1970’s I bought a paperback copy of the Gnostic Gospels at the Mayflower Bookstore in Berkley, Michigan. Might have actually paid my (now) friend as, come to find out, she was working there about that time. I remember reading the passage where Christ teaches the Lord’s Prayer, telling his disciples that it is the only prayer they need to know. Something in my body knew that was the truth, and I have said it every day since. I am not a religious person, but every line of that simple prayer gives us direct instruction as to how to live life, not least of which is “on earth as it is in heaven.” Now tell me again how life is not fair. And again, for all we plebs in the back, why is that okay with you?
Do not ever say that again. Not to me, not to anyone. It smacks of shallowness and a complete and utter negation of responsibility. You have a responsibility here. ON EARTH. As it is in heaven. Behave accordingly.
Easy for me to say. I talk a good game. I’m still struggling to give up bacon. But here’s the thing I’m just waking up to: creating heaven on earth isn’t complicated or even difficult. Can I change the world? Can I make an impact in my lifetime? Can you?
The answer is yes, but it doesn’t mean what you believe it means. It has nothing to do with protest marches or changing the government or saving polar bears. That is not your department. You are part of the problem itself, not the solution – unless you show up free, as in: “in the world but not of it.”
Heaven is not waiting for you to get your shit together. It is not waiting for you to make enough money or find the right partner. You’ll be glad to know heaven is not waiting for you to realize you are enough. It isn’t waiting for me to get my roof replaced, although it feels that way when it rains. Heaven doesn’t care if you are Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler. And it sure as fuck is not waiting for you to fix it. It IS waiting right here on the lee shore, waiting for you to surrender. Anytime I am feeling attached to any outcome, I am holding heaven at arm’s length. Or as I say, “I’ll be with you in a moment…” Take a number, God.
The way to experience healing, yours and ours, is to be entirely present. My friend did that with me on the road trip to Detroit. She breathed in my rage and she breathed out compassion. In…and out…and it had nothing to do with the injustices I was reporting. I was telling her about the things foremost in my mind, about the horrible abusive unfairnesses of my life. It isn’t that they aren’t real or didn’t happen or don’t matter. They matter to me a great deal, and she knows that. She has her own injustices swirling around inside her. They’re in our blood and our DNA, and they are personal – as they should be. Let’s not pretend we aren’t in this mess together, and let’s stop pretending this isn’t personal.
On earth as it is in heaven means all sentient life has equal rights. PERIOD. No stipulations. We all have clean water, plenty of food, the best healthcare known to man. Can I make this happen? Of course not. But I can choose to live free of fear. I can choose to live in a state of possibility. And so can you. And I swear to you, it is our only hope. It is the only way we will ever realize heaven. I have some questions for you: what if life WERE fair? What if it were meant to be fair? What does that look like? What is life like on that earth?
I am older than you know, and I will be waiting for you on the lee shore.
“We get to keep all the limitations we defend.” – unk
Well, I think I’ll post this video on a Sunday…because church. This is my church. Actually, every day is my church now. I do so love Carolyn Myss when she yells at us. Preach. Here she teaches us about animals communicating…like DUH.
And yes, I AM humiliated by humans who don’t understand animals. I’m embarrassed by and for my species. And for all of us who don’t see or grapple with our addiction to being superior. You know, like we were taught in school – top of the food chain. And it stood to reason we would next be taught that some humans are superior to others. Definable. A noun. As Tiokasin Ghosthorse (well, and The Indigo Girls) teach us, we are healthier when we define ourselves as verbs.
“The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” – The Indigo Girls
I listen intensely when the birds are singing outside my window. I desperately wish to understand what they are saying – because I know they are saying something important. And I don’t speak the language. Every once in awhile I catch a word, an idea, a meaning, on a soul level….and I know. Ahhhhh. Yes, that. Ooohh. Uh-huh, yes. And I have only one response: “thank you.” Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for allowing me, despite my deeply flawed humanness, to eavesdrop. Thank you for staying near.
The birdhouse outside my front door is part of a display I made in a planter box. Under the wide roof overhang of this mid-century ranch, it defies the modern aesthetic and alludes to country cottage, the style I much prefer. The French iron planter is stuffed with coir and small branches from the Hawthorne tree it faces. A few flowers drape over the side closest to the door in the shade. I rarely use this door. A chickadee has taken up residence and hatched her eggs in the little house. Those babies are gloriously loud! She hangs out in the Hawthorne tree, watching intensely, and sings the sun up. She is so happy and proud of her brood. That’s what I imagine she is saying, “look, listen…see us. Aren’t we beautiful?” I assure her that I, too, am made happy and proud that she has graced us with her family. I leave a small makeshift bath on the porch for her, worried how they will cope with the wildfire smoke.
And I sit inside and listen to Carolyn Myss for hope, for us all. The time stamp on this video is very deceiving – it was recorded over a decade ago. This is actually about healing, yours and mine and the worlds. And then how to…fill in the blank. Live. Be in the world and not of it. That’s always my goal, because that is where freedom is found. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you, despite my deeply flawed humanness…for allowing me to accompany you on this journey.
When you are reading this I am on another journey. I’ve been asked to accompany a friend on her business trip to the Detroit Book Festival. Let’s go see what the paperwork has to say. I’ll share my experiences with you next week. Thanks for being here.
And so, home now with the day ahead free of obligation, I can sit here and review my week. Something I have yet to define has me feeling like something big just happened. Something life changing, just in the past 72 hours. And I know what started it: the book I am reading – Permission by Elissa Altman. Specifically, the chapter titled The Magic in the Mundane. It – she – has given me permission to be mundane.
“In the most mundane stories lie humanity. It is where the magic is, where the stories lurk, where the most stunning and affecting art is waiting to be made. It is where joy and sorrow and the absurd and the human are plaited together in a tight braid…forget perfectionism: the mundane reeks of imperfection, and that imperfection is what makes for beauty of a human sort.”
If you read the last few days posts you’ll know that I walked out on my job last Thursday. There wasn’t anything wrong or bad happening there. There wasn’t much happening there at all. I didn’t need to be there. It was a distraction from what I need to be doing. I need to be here. It has taken me 73 years, 5 months and 4 days to get here.
You may begin to see a theme running through all the posts of this week. Perhaps it will continue, but I am not about to predict the future – I still have the rest of my life ahead of me, after all.
In January of 2012 I participated in a 13 week group study of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It would prompt me to start this blog. A woman I had never met before sat across from me in the circle and commented on something I had said – or maybe written – in response to one of the exercises. She exclaimed, “Oh my gosh – you’re a writer.” For some reason I thought of that today, and what it meant to me at the time. I was shocked and somewhat confused. I didn’t believe her. Until this past Thursday. Fourteen years later. Is it too late? Apparently not. I’m still here. Or perhaps I should say, I’m here now.
Elissa Altman pulled me aside last Thursday in the bookstore, in that little back tarot-card-reading-room closet. Families of tourists scurried outside the mysterious curtain that provided no privacy for my tears. She let me know quietly that, yes, my family also taught me that perfectionism was the only way to avoid shame. And she let me know that it wasn’t working. It wasn’t keeping the shame at bay. Not the grief. Not the sorrow. “Go home,” I heard her whisper.
And so I am home now. I slept all day Friday. And all night, until the nightmares woke me. This morning, Saturday, my son asked if I had been having nightmares last night. “Why, yes. Why do you ask?” “Because you were standing outside my bedroom door early this morning calling out to me for help.” I wasn’t there physically. But my spirit was.
I used to write poetry. In high school my English teacher submitted one of my poems to a student contest with The Atlantic and it was published…I guess I could say I’m a published author. But I won’t. That same year I also won my second honorable mention in The Detroit News Scholastic Art Awards. And then I left school. A couple of college teachers acknowledged my writing, encouraged me. One invited me to skip a year. But then I left school again.
Schoolwork was too difficult to maintain with a full time job and a baby and a household to run. And an abusive husband who was closer to my abusive family than I had ever been. If I were to believe them, I was crazy still and again. That pattern had begun in the very early years of my life. And it would continue until last Thursday.
I’ve lost most of my family now. Divorced more than once. I’m estranged from most of my remaining family and many well-meaning friends. I am not easy to get along with. Most perfectionists aren’t, especially the ones wallowing in the shame of unexpressed creativity.
My father was not a good man. He was funny. Creative, charming. He was brilliant but uneducated, gay in a time and culture where it was never to be revealed, or even remotely tolerated. Permission was not granted him. And he was enormously gifted as a musician. He was also married at nineteen and had 5 children by the age of 29. He would enter the family business whether he liked it or not. All of his rage would come out sideways. It always does. Of his 5 children I have fared the best, with the least damage. I am the eldest by more than 3 years, first grandchild on both sides. Not only was I adored as a young tot, but my parents addictions were not yet in full swing. The dream was still intact.
The opposite of perfect is not flawed. The opposite of perfect is free. This is not a story about what could have been. It is a report about what is becoming. A PSA of sorts, a heads up. It is a story of endless curiosity and hope and never ending love. It’s my story. Maybe some part of it is also yours. I say we tell it, no matter how long it has taken us to get here.
My dear fiend has been ill. I texted her yesterday and she responded to tell me she was in the ER. It’s that horrible parasitic yuk going around western Michigan right now. Kinda scary. She called me back later once she was home and feeling better, after a few hours on a gurney with IV fluids. And sick as she was, she still managed to be her usual gracious self. I admire her so for that. I am not that, especially when I am sick. Or stressed, which has been much too often lately.
She always seems to have a gift for me. Yesterday it was a great big juicy gift. Infinitely useful. I told her I was losing my wits, and she assured me I will be okay. Told me I have “hippie wits.” “What?” Did she just make that up? Yes, yes she did. How wonderful. I will always have my wits about me now; I can keep those. I’m not crazy. I’m just a hippie. Which is to say that I have solid values. Trustworthy values.
And then, just coincidently (if you believe in those) Terry Tempest Williams shows up in my feed. Talkin’ about how we – women of a certain age – have been culturally programmed to think we are crazy. Witless. For most of my life it was the most powerful word used against me as a gaslighting technique. No…no no no no…anything but crazy. Crazy people are unacceptable. Weird. Never okay. Unloveable. Broken.
But it turns out that not only are we not crazy, we are fabulous. Smart. Creative. Genius. And spectacularly alive. We are good, we are beautiful, and we are true. We are very certainly sane and we are transforming an insane world. It turns out we are the holy ordinary. Albeit, unemployable.