Hi Karen! Thank you so much for your wonderful supportive comment. I think I've had a breakthrough. I've been working on a new short story all morning and I want to share it with you and whoever else stops by this blog. But first I wanted to answer your question about what I meant by Alana dressing to her best advantage. Based on my mother, Alana's figure would be more of an apple shape than the more classic pear shape for women. So she is narrow at her hips, like a man, but modestly broad shouldered. Dressing to her best advantage meant wearing tailored, sporty clothing, clothing influenced by styles for men, but flattering to women. My mother was a teenager in the 1940s, so think of that style from black and white films of the time. Narrow skirts and jackets with padded shoulders, etc... A nice pair of pumps and maybe a stylish hat.
Anyway, here is the beginning of my short story. The opening scene I wrote over a month ago. It's stuck in my head, so I decided to work on it. Any comments would be most welcome.
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"Cold Comfort"
The moment he touched her his months of planning suddenly became a reality. All he knew was it was cold as death outside and she was warm.
"Money upfront" she said. He dug his hand into his pocket.
"Not here!" she hissed and pulled his arm to get him to cross the street with her. They slipped into an alley and then down a few steps to a door that was slightly ajar.
"In here--we've got to be quiet." There was a small vestibule with a padlocked second door and a sign that read "KEEP OUT!!" She put her back against the outer door to keep it shut.
"Okay, 15 minutes."
John had heard that she had run away from home the year before. She was 16 then. Home life had not been good to her. The word was that her step father had been molesting her since she was 12. Her name was Jamie Chamberlain and he had known her when he was just 12 and she was 8. They had been at the same camp one summer. It was the summer that Jamie learned how to swim. Harry, one of the camp counselors, had paired him up with her because he had become a skilled swimmer the summer before, had won several races. Harry had told him privately that she was afraid of the water because her father had drowned the year before.
"So, treat her gently Johnny. Don't push too hard. I'm telling you this because I've watched you the last couple of years and I know that you are good with the younger kids. Patient and kind. Older than your years. I'll be keeping an eye out for both of you."
The first thing Johnny noticed about Jamie was that she was beautiful. Even as a little boy he had been drawn to beautiful things and people. Sunsets, shells, animals and flowers, but mostly the face of his mother. He learned very young not to talk about beauty and beautiful things because his older brothers had skewered him when he tried, labeling him a "momma's boy". And, in a sense, that's what he was, being the youngest of four brothers. By the time he was twelve he had proved himself to his family by doing well in school and by excelling at soccer and swimming. He still loved his mother dearly, but followed his father's taciturn example. He only spoke when he had something to say, the rest of the time he remained a silent bystander. He learned by watching. He watched his brothers making rambunctious mistakes. He learned not to do as they had done.
If Jamie had been closer to his age, Johnny would have steered clear of her. He had made a habit of falling in love with the prettiest girls in his class and then got tongue-tied with extreme shyness when any of them was assigned the seat next to him. He hated the feeling so much, that feeling of being vulnerable and struck dumb, that he overcompensated by focusing on the work at hand and had gotten the reputation of being a know-it-all. He hid behind that persona and acted as if he were coolly indifferent to girls. Little did his classmates know that he was a closet romantic. So when he saw Jamie for the first time at the lake an hour before lunch, saw the golden brown ringlets of her hair and her wide green eyes, her serious, stubborn mouth, he knew he was safe because she was only a child, a child who had lost a father, a child who needed his help. That suited Johnny; he liked to be of help, especially to misfit kids, those kids who were awkward and tongue-tied, too. If she had been a beautiful, spoiled child, conscious of her beauty, he would have lost interest, but instead she came across as very, very serious, a watcher like himself.
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Okay, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be working on it for the next few days and posting more scenes here. Till then, what do you think John does when he gets Jamie alone in that vestibule after he's given her money to have sex with him? To be continued....
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tinkering With Fiction
This cold has loosened its grip and I felt better today. Quite a relief. I did fiction writing today, some of which I would like to share with you. Just a page. I tinkered with it, but mostly it's in its first draft stage. The main character, Alana, is based on my mother.
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"Alana"
It was nights such as these that she wondered why she had ever married Aidan. They would go to parties and he would drink like a fish. At the end of the night she would have to drag all six feet of him to the car and then drive them home. Quite a feat for a petite 5' 2" woman. She had only just learned how to drive. Aidan had been her teacher, a lousy one at that and again the thought of divorce had crept into her mind. But it was the 1950s and divorce was no easy matter. So she decided to stick it out. He didn't drink like a fish because he was an alcoholic, like his father, but because he had the habit of blindly drinking what was put in front of him. Maybe it was that he was nervous in social situations.
Alana knew how to drink slowly, hard liquor with soda or ice. She had seen her parents get "piss drunk" when she was a teenager and, quite frankly, it disgusted her. She blamed her mother's sister Mae, who had been a flapper as a teen-ager in the 1920s, as being a bad influence on her parents, tempting them to drink. Alana didn't always have the most sympathetic nature. She couldn't see and didn't care that they were trying to have fun to counterbalance their hard, working class lives. The upwardly mobile Alana and her precocious little brother, Billy, had agreed in childhood to stand together against their intelligent, but rather coarse parents. They particularly stood united against their father, an Irish American salesman. Of the two children, he favored Alana and mocked Billy, who was his wife's favorite. But just because he favored Alana didn't mean he was easy on her, far from it. She was a very good student, but if she got an A grade in one class, he said she should have gotten an A+. Nothing she did was ever good enough. She found too quickly, that she didn't like her father. Not only was he outspokenly racist and bigoted, he was clever at it and seemed to enjoy cutting her and her brother down to size, too.
She had chosen Aidan to be her husband because he was nothing like her father. Yes, Aidan drank too much at parties, but the rest of the time he was smart, smarter than her father, and cultured and upwardly mobile like herself. She had been introduced to him by a mutual friend around the time that Aidan was graduating from Columbia Law School. He was handsome and this meant a lot to Alana, who was hyper critical of her own looks. Physically, to her great dismay, she took after her father who had a large head, short neck, a beaked nose and a short waist. Then again, Alana had thick auburn hair, attractive grey/green eyes, shapely hands, arms and legs and she was slim. She learned to dress to her best advantage. Like her father, she had an eye for fine clothes and shoes and was willing to part with a chunk of what income she earned in order to get them. As a child during The Great Depression, her mother had made nearly all of Alana's and Billy's clothes. So naturally, Alana wanted fine store bought clothes, the kind she saw and envied on other little girls in school. By the time she was a teenager, she knew she wanted all those material things she had been denied growing up. Aidan was the first man who had showed the promise of being able to provide for her on a big scale. She didn't think she could go wrong marrying a lawyer fresh out of law school, especially Columbia Law School, which was one of the finest law schools in the country.
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That's as far as I got today. I'm finding that fictionalizing the members of my family is liberating, even though I'm still doing a lot of telling and not showing. It doesn't matter at this stage. The most important thing is to get the words down on the page. But I do want to learn how to write a small, self-contained story and this example is not of that. This example is the very early stages of an autobiographical novel. Lately I've been reading a few short stories by women, two by Grace Paley, one by Amy Hempel and one by Sallie Bingham. All of them were weird and disturbing and they worked. The writing I've done here is much plainer and linear going from A to B to C, and that is because I am a novice. And as a novice I have a lot of reading to do and luckily I have tons of short stories to read by both sexes. So I am hopeful that by reading a lot and practicing myself that I will begin to get the hang of writing a story, beginning, middle and end. As I go along I will write about what I've been reading, especially about what writers have to say about the writing process. Maybe you can comment on the conclusions I come to or share some of your own insights.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Cold Doldrums
I said I was going to write more regularly, but almost 5 days have gone by without a word from me. Bottom line: I have a cold that has been hanging on for over 2 weeks and it's been sapping me of my energy; while I wait it out, I've been feeling sorry for myself, that and sleeping a lot. I have been thinking about posting either a poem or a fiction fragment of a story, but I haven't had the courage. Being sick has made me more vulnerable. I think negative thoughts and remain passive. I'm used to being mentally sick with voices, depression and anxiety, but not physically sick on top of that. I haven't had a cold in a very long time. It will run its course and I will start feeling better, but I miss writing/playing/singing songs. It's an emotional release to sing out, even if my singing and playing aren't particularly good. That doesn't matter so much as that I keep trying to put my heart and soul into the practice of it. It's more therapy for me. So I'm emotionally shut down without it.
There's something I do to myself that I don't understand -- I say "No" to myself, no to reading, no to writing, no to listening to music, no to watching a DVD. The core behind that "No" is fear, fear of making a wrong choice, fear of more suffering. I have so many good books, CDs and DVDs, but they remain in piles all around me, mostly unused. I do read and write but haltingly, not with the abandon I once had before I got involved in an abusive relationship. That appears to be where this monolithic "NO" stems from, a reaction to having been abused. Becoming ill with schizophrenia was like having an abuser stuck within my mind. During the acute stages of the abusive relationship and the acute stage of my schizophrenia, I stopped doing the things I used to love to do. Either I was obsessed with trying to figure out my abuser or I was so caught in my delusions that the focus was not on me but on them. Now, though I'm in recovery, there is still this residual negative reaction that I have to contend with on a daily basis. Perhaps before my reaction served as a temporary protective balm, but now it serves no good purpose; it just keeps me from being a happier individual.
In part, it is my illness that makes it difficult for me to choose what to do with myself, but it is also myself, something about my personality and this is what makes all this so frustrating. I've internalized my abuser even though the abuse has long since stopped. I have become my own puzzle and problem.
Living alone intensifies the problem because I am responsible for all the choices I make, I can't defer to another's choice. But why am I so afraid of making a wrong choice? Life is filled with wrong choices, but from the wrong choice you learn to find the right choice. Nothing is fixed in stone; life is fluid, ongoing. But I act as if making a wrong choice brands me for life as some kind of failure. I'm also still afraid of the dark side of life that gets expressed in books, CDs and films. It's as if I were a little child clinging to the fantasy of happily ever after stories. When I was acutely ill for a while all I could watch were Disney animated movies. I was hungry for the fantasy, just as most children are.
I've decided that I want to write stories, but for a story to be interesting there must be conflict. While I think it is bizarre that we as human animals gravitate towards telling and experiencing stories of conflict, I also realize that it is not just conflict that draws us in; it is resolution of that conflict that we're interested in. Life is a big problem, there's a lot of conflict and then you die and this is true for all your loved ones and for the whole human race. So what we want to know is how do we resolve this problem of life and death? A lot of people place their faith in heroes and heroines who go on a complex journey, but ultimately triumph over seemingly unsurmountable odds. We listen to/watch the stories because secretly we want to identify with the heroes and heroines. So is it back to the fantasy that everyone (except the bad guys) lives happily ever after? Not in the really good stories, the ones where the hero or heroine has human flaws and where the ending leaves open ended questions and isn't just a pat black and white response. Grown up stories that acknowledge that life is tough and we don't know what happens after death.
Writing this out makes me feel better, gives me hope that I can start to say "Yes" to things instead of "No", but it's not so easy when I'm lying down on the couch staring at the ceiling. During those moments I feel stuck inside a self-made prison and too often I give in to that belief and do nothing. Having this cold just accentuates that tendency. If all goes well, this cold will end and I will be liberated. May I make the best use of that liberation and start making more choices, even poor ones. It's not about getting it right. There is no such thing as perfection. It's about doing the best you can with what you've got, and I know I've got a lot.
There's something I do to myself that I don't understand -- I say "No" to myself, no to reading, no to writing, no to listening to music, no to watching a DVD. The core behind that "No" is fear, fear of making a wrong choice, fear of more suffering. I have so many good books, CDs and DVDs, but they remain in piles all around me, mostly unused. I do read and write but haltingly, not with the abandon I once had before I got involved in an abusive relationship. That appears to be where this monolithic "NO" stems from, a reaction to having been abused. Becoming ill with schizophrenia was like having an abuser stuck within my mind. During the acute stages of the abusive relationship and the acute stage of my schizophrenia, I stopped doing the things I used to love to do. Either I was obsessed with trying to figure out my abuser or I was so caught in my delusions that the focus was not on me but on them. Now, though I'm in recovery, there is still this residual negative reaction that I have to contend with on a daily basis. Perhaps before my reaction served as a temporary protective balm, but now it serves no good purpose; it just keeps me from being a happier individual.
In part, it is my illness that makes it difficult for me to choose what to do with myself, but it is also myself, something about my personality and this is what makes all this so frustrating. I've internalized my abuser even though the abuse has long since stopped. I have become my own puzzle and problem.
Living alone intensifies the problem because I am responsible for all the choices I make, I can't defer to another's choice. But why am I so afraid of making a wrong choice? Life is filled with wrong choices, but from the wrong choice you learn to find the right choice. Nothing is fixed in stone; life is fluid, ongoing. But I act as if making a wrong choice brands me for life as some kind of failure. I'm also still afraid of the dark side of life that gets expressed in books, CDs and films. It's as if I were a little child clinging to the fantasy of happily ever after stories. When I was acutely ill for a while all I could watch were Disney animated movies. I was hungry for the fantasy, just as most children are.
I've decided that I want to write stories, but for a story to be interesting there must be conflict. While I think it is bizarre that we as human animals gravitate towards telling and experiencing stories of conflict, I also realize that it is not just conflict that draws us in; it is resolution of that conflict that we're interested in. Life is a big problem, there's a lot of conflict and then you die and this is true for all your loved ones and for the whole human race. So what we want to know is how do we resolve this problem of life and death? A lot of people place their faith in heroes and heroines who go on a complex journey, but ultimately triumph over seemingly unsurmountable odds. We listen to/watch the stories because secretly we want to identify with the heroes and heroines. So is it back to the fantasy that everyone (except the bad guys) lives happily ever after? Not in the really good stories, the ones where the hero or heroine has human flaws and where the ending leaves open ended questions and isn't just a pat black and white response. Grown up stories that acknowledge that life is tough and we don't know what happens after death.
Writing this out makes me feel better, gives me hope that I can start to say "Yes" to things instead of "No", but it's not so easy when I'm lying down on the couch staring at the ceiling. During those moments I feel stuck inside a self-made prison and too often I give in to that belief and do nothing. Having this cold just accentuates that tendency. If all goes well, this cold will end and I will be liberated. May I make the best use of that liberation and start making more choices, even poor ones. It's not about getting it right. There is no such thing as perfection. It's about doing the best you can with what you've got, and I know I've got a lot.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
An Old Friend's Birthday
Thank you so much Jen and Karen, as always, for your intelligent, thoughtful and kind comments. You are part of the reason why I'm going to continue with this blog. You inspire me with your blogs. I think you are exceptional woman and I'm not just saying that to be nice. I'm honored that you continue to follow my blog and that you stay in touch with me as a few of my best online friends. Together I think we set a fine example of what individuals with our disability can accomplish.
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I'm writing this morning because today is an old friend's 49th birthday and I've been thinking about her a lot lately. She was my best friend from high school and I thought I'd like to pay tribute to her in this blog. In real life she has a French name, so I've decided to call her Colette after one of her favorite writers when we were in school. I haven't seen her for over 30 years. In the last few years I've looked for her on Facebook but couldn't find her, then I looked for her on Twitter and I did find her. I knew for sure that it was her because there was this great photograph of her looking away from the camera but smiling broadly. I snooped around a bit and followed some links and got some information about her. I discovered that she's bilingual (French, of course) and a college teacher now working on her Phd. She is the "Deputy Director" of a reputable New York City college and I have no doubt that one day she will become the Director itself. From her language I can see that she is highly intelligent and sophisticated, a real success story. On top of all that she's also the mother of at least one child who is probably around 10 years old now. I found her work email address and in the last two years I've written a couple of emails to her that I never sent. I felt too ashamed of my circumstances to contact her, especially since we didn't separate on the best of terms.
Colette and I had been so close during high school that we nearly became lovers. But then in our senior year a boy I'll name Daniel from the grade below entered the picture. At first he hung out with both of us. He was very bright and funny, Jewish on his father's side only, quite similar to Colette. He was a writer and a film buff, spent hours after school watching foreign films at revival houses sprinkled throughout Manhattan. Sometimes we would all go together. But gradually, he began to single me out; he made romantic advances. I realized that he didn't have a happy home life. His mother was morbidly obese, a smoker and an alcoholic. They lived in a one bedroom apartment. He got the bedroom while his mother camped out in the living room. His mother and father had divorced when he was just a child. It turned out that his father was mentally ill with schizophrenia and didn't see his son very often. I got pulled into Dan's world. He was a little too close to being mentally unbalanced himself and I became protective of him. I started sneaking him into my house at night trying to save him from having to go back to his cramped apartment and his increasingly drunk mother. Sometimes we would skip school together. He became my first boyfriend. Eventually Colette got fed up and rejected me. But before that, for a couple of years, she had been my faithful friend, really, my only friend in school.
During high school Colette had been an uneven student and a bit of a pot head. She was also a good actress (like her father, who was a professional) and a talented modern dancer. Quick and lively, with a flair for the dramatic, she had thick dirty blonde hair, candid blue eyes, a distinctive Jewish/French nose and a small cupid mouth which easily turned into a wide and pleasing grin when she was happy. Our high school was located on the edge of SoHo in Manhattan. Colette lived in a two bedroom apartment with her divorced mother and sometimes her older brother in the East Village. Her father, too, lived in the Village, though in a somewhat more fashionable part of it. Colette would take me on walking tours occasionally stopping by her father's apartment when he wasn't home. She doted on her father. He was a character actor and a good one, but he was not always available. She wanted badly to please him with her acting and dancing. He was the favored parent unlike her mother who invariably got on Colette's nerves.
I entered ninth grade in this strange, private school complete with a Brooklyn accent, nice clothes and a work ethic garnered from having gone to "advanced enrichment" or AE classes in my public junior high school. No matter how hard I tried to recede into the background, whenever I opened my mouth and spoke, I stood out as different from the more slovenly, generally white, often wealthy, not particularly hard working Manhattanite private school kids. The first time I became aware of Colette was in French class. She might have even been one of the kids to try and cheat off my paper while we took a test. That first year I kept mostly to myself. I was neurotic enough to avoid the cafeteria because I was afraid of interacting with the other kids. I wound up eating my bag lunch on the no longer used back staircase, furtively listening to the sounds of the students below me. During free periods I would either go to the small library on the third floor or outside to wander in the streets of SoHo and Greenwich Village. I didn't fit in this school and, with typical stubbornness, I didn't try to fit. I was even proud of being different. But I was depressed and lonely, too.
I'm not sure why Colette took an interest in me. She was not particularly popular, but she did fit into the school much more than I did. By the time tenth grade rolled around, she had taken me under her wing. She began inviting me over to her apartment after school. She told me many stories about her old school (another private grade school) and her old friends and stories about her family. She took me to her favorite places in the Village. She shared her active imagination and dreamed up fantasies of how we would grow up to be successful, artistic types. She was warm, engaging and vibrant. Neither of us were particularly thrilled with our school or with the students in the school. We went because we had to; we stuck it out together. Pretty quickly, I lost my Brooklyn accent and my nice clothes. I cut my hair short one day while listening to Elvis Costello's song "Pump It Up". I started dressing more androgynously in sneakers, pants, t-shirts and a black oversized man's jacket. Colette dressed more stylishly and more femininely. She fell in love with a pair of cream colored cowboy boots and would wear them with long dresses. Our school was very small, only around 200 students, so there wasn't a lot of choice when it came to boys and so Colette and I stuck close together. I was a little in love with her and sometimes I felt as if she felt likewise. She really saved me from being quite miserable.
But then I went astray and got involved with Daniel. I neglected Colette. I hate to say it but maybe I even betrayed Colette. She began to become friends with other kids from school and became progressively colder towards me. I really hurt her and so she, in turn, really hurt me. That last semester of senior year was horrible. Daniel was pressuring me to be sexual with him, but I was such a virgin and I was scared. I was seventeen years old and I had never been tongue kissed. When he finally got me to try, I was utterly revolted. I wasn't all that sure that I wanted to be with him, but I was so insecure I thought I may not ever have the chance to be with a boy again. And so, I stayed with Daniel...and lost Colette.
I stayed with Daniel all through college, but never made any new friends. After college we broke up amicably. A couple of years later I began hearing voices. Colette and one other friend were the last real friends that I ever had. And that's why I still think of her.
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I'm writing this morning because today is an old friend's 49th birthday and I've been thinking about her a lot lately. She was my best friend from high school and I thought I'd like to pay tribute to her in this blog. In real life she has a French name, so I've decided to call her Colette after one of her favorite writers when we were in school. I haven't seen her for over 30 years. In the last few years I've looked for her on Facebook but couldn't find her, then I looked for her on Twitter and I did find her. I knew for sure that it was her because there was this great photograph of her looking away from the camera but smiling broadly. I snooped around a bit and followed some links and got some information about her. I discovered that she's bilingual (French, of course) and a college teacher now working on her Phd. She is the "Deputy Director" of a reputable New York City college and I have no doubt that one day she will become the Director itself. From her language I can see that she is highly intelligent and sophisticated, a real success story. On top of all that she's also the mother of at least one child who is probably around 10 years old now. I found her work email address and in the last two years I've written a couple of emails to her that I never sent. I felt too ashamed of my circumstances to contact her, especially since we didn't separate on the best of terms.
Colette and I had been so close during high school that we nearly became lovers. But then in our senior year a boy I'll name Daniel from the grade below entered the picture. At first he hung out with both of us. He was very bright and funny, Jewish on his father's side only, quite similar to Colette. He was a writer and a film buff, spent hours after school watching foreign films at revival houses sprinkled throughout Manhattan. Sometimes we would all go together. But gradually, he began to single me out; he made romantic advances. I realized that he didn't have a happy home life. His mother was morbidly obese, a smoker and an alcoholic. They lived in a one bedroom apartment. He got the bedroom while his mother camped out in the living room. His mother and father had divorced when he was just a child. It turned out that his father was mentally ill with schizophrenia and didn't see his son very often. I got pulled into Dan's world. He was a little too close to being mentally unbalanced himself and I became protective of him. I started sneaking him into my house at night trying to save him from having to go back to his cramped apartment and his increasingly drunk mother. Sometimes we would skip school together. He became my first boyfriend. Eventually Colette got fed up and rejected me. But before that, for a couple of years, she had been my faithful friend, really, my only friend in school.
During high school Colette had been an uneven student and a bit of a pot head. She was also a good actress (like her father, who was a professional) and a talented modern dancer. Quick and lively, with a flair for the dramatic, she had thick dirty blonde hair, candid blue eyes, a distinctive Jewish/French nose and a small cupid mouth which easily turned into a wide and pleasing grin when she was happy. Our high school was located on the edge of SoHo in Manhattan. Colette lived in a two bedroom apartment with her divorced mother and sometimes her older brother in the East Village. Her father, too, lived in the Village, though in a somewhat more fashionable part of it. Colette would take me on walking tours occasionally stopping by her father's apartment when he wasn't home. She doted on her father. He was a character actor and a good one, but he was not always available. She wanted badly to please him with her acting and dancing. He was the favored parent unlike her mother who invariably got on Colette's nerves.
I entered ninth grade in this strange, private school complete with a Brooklyn accent, nice clothes and a work ethic garnered from having gone to "advanced enrichment" or AE classes in my public junior high school. No matter how hard I tried to recede into the background, whenever I opened my mouth and spoke, I stood out as different from the more slovenly, generally white, often wealthy, not particularly hard working Manhattanite private school kids. The first time I became aware of Colette was in French class. She might have even been one of the kids to try and cheat off my paper while we took a test. That first year I kept mostly to myself. I was neurotic enough to avoid the cafeteria because I was afraid of interacting with the other kids. I wound up eating my bag lunch on the no longer used back staircase, furtively listening to the sounds of the students below me. During free periods I would either go to the small library on the third floor or outside to wander in the streets of SoHo and Greenwich Village. I didn't fit in this school and, with typical stubbornness, I didn't try to fit. I was even proud of being different. But I was depressed and lonely, too.
I'm not sure why Colette took an interest in me. She was not particularly popular, but she did fit into the school much more than I did. By the time tenth grade rolled around, she had taken me under her wing. She began inviting me over to her apartment after school. She told me many stories about her old school (another private grade school) and her old friends and stories about her family. She took me to her favorite places in the Village. She shared her active imagination and dreamed up fantasies of how we would grow up to be successful, artistic types. She was warm, engaging and vibrant. Neither of us were particularly thrilled with our school or with the students in the school. We went because we had to; we stuck it out together. Pretty quickly, I lost my Brooklyn accent and my nice clothes. I cut my hair short one day while listening to Elvis Costello's song "Pump It Up". I started dressing more androgynously in sneakers, pants, t-shirts and a black oversized man's jacket. Colette dressed more stylishly and more femininely. She fell in love with a pair of cream colored cowboy boots and would wear them with long dresses. Our school was very small, only around 200 students, so there wasn't a lot of choice when it came to boys and so Colette and I stuck close together. I was a little in love with her and sometimes I felt as if she felt likewise. She really saved me from being quite miserable.
But then I went astray and got involved with Daniel. I neglected Colette. I hate to say it but maybe I even betrayed Colette. She began to become friends with other kids from school and became progressively colder towards me. I really hurt her and so she, in turn, really hurt me. That last semester of senior year was horrible. Daniel was pressuring me to be sexual with him, but I was such a virgin and I was scared. I was seventeen years old and I had never been tongue kissed. When he finally got me to try, I was utterly revolted. I wasn't all that sure that I wanted to be with him, but I was so insecure I thought I may not ever have the chance to be with a boy again. And so, I stayed with Daniel...and lost Colette.
I stayed with Daniel all through college, but never made any new friends. After college we broke up amicably. A couple of years later I began hearing voices. Colette and one other friend were the last real friends that I ever had. And that's why I still think of her.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Being Myself, Alone & With Others
Last night, because I was feeling rather miserable with a cold I picked up last week, I watched a comforting film, "Pride & Prejudice" the latest version with Keira Knightley. It had a good cast and was lushly filmed and I've watched it maybe three times so far. Each time I was crying by the end. I thought this time maybe I wouldn't cry, but I did. I'm a sucker for old fashioned romance. Despite all I've been through with romantic delusions, I still want to believe that two people can come together and be "right" for each other. I did think that perhaps I was getting a bit too old for all of this. I'll be 50 next spring and I'm way past believing that I will find a romantic partner. I don't rule it out completely, but, for now, I am content to be single.
There's an interesting freedom in being a middle aged and obese woman. There was a time in my early 40s when I wouldn't have said that, a time when looking in the mirror meant instant depression and shame. My feminine vanity had been wounded, not only because of weight gain due to taking the anti-psychotic medications, but because I had reached middle age and was starting to show it. Only a few years earlier, I had been attractive, but now I was ordinary. I had to readjust. Early in my acute psychosis I was the heroine in my delusion. I thought real people were paying attention to me, following me, interested in what I had to say. At first, that was exciting, but ultimately, it was a burden. The trade off in entering recovery when I began to take the medications was that I was no longer the star of my story. I was deeply humbled. I got into the habit of calling myself "fat and ugly". That sounds worse than it was because gradually I came to accept and like myself in my new state. I was alive, relatively sane, and compared to the years of acute psychosis, comparatively content. Gratitude played an important part in my continuing recovery from an illness that, not so long ago, was deemed so severe as to be hopeless. I didn't feel hopeless anymore. What I valued more than my looks was my creative intelligence and my ability to survive something so horrible. It wasn't absolutely necessary for me to be with someone in order to have a meaningful life. I didn't have to be a wife or a mother; I could just be myself.
Living a solitary life is okay by me as long as I continue to have outside connections to my family and a few friends. A few months back an old friend that I found on Facebook asked if we could start to talk on the phone. Since I got sick, I've been nervous about using the phone, but I really wanted to get closer to this friend while overcoming my aversion. And so we've been calling each other once a week for a while now. It's been great. My friend, who I'll call Rita, is presently single and never had children and this is a bond between us. I also remember her when she was a little girl and young teenager. I feel so comfortable with her that she's like family and I tell her this. I tell her I love her. It's easy to love her because she's been nothing but supportive of me right from the start of our renewed friendship. I find myself looking forward to years more of friendship with her. Committing to our connection is a responsibility I want to step up to. She gives me a much needed link to my past and this makes me feel more whole within myself. For years, while living with my abusive boyfriend, I denied that I had a past in New York City because my boyfriend was so insecure about it. Now, years after the abuse and years after the acute psychosis, I can reclaim my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood all through knowing Rita again. Thank you Rita. I would tell the story of Rita, but she's a very private person. Maybe sometime in the future she'll give me permission to write about the successes and challenges in her life.
I've recently made a new friend who actually lives nearby. This is another serious breakthrough for me, one that's got me excited. This new friend, who I'll call Sam, I've been wanting to get close to for several years. In the beginning of the summer I bit the bullet and asked for her address so that I could start to write to her and she agreed. She's a good friend of my brothers and he told me that she is a writer, so I thought we could both get to know each other and bond through our mutual love of writing. That's just what we've done. On top of that she came to visit me a month ago. Virtually no one visits me which is why my house gets messy and I feel disconnected from others a lot. So I cleaned up the house and welcomed her inside. Sam is close to 60 and quite poor, but she's also a rugged individualist. She lives in an old trailer with a wood stove and no running water (her water pump broke a while back and she hasn't had the money to fix it). On her land, which she bought about a decade ago, she has a large pond and has cultivated a substantial garden. She relies on her garden for a lot of her food most of the year and spends a good chunk of her time taking care of it. When she's not working in her garden, she's working in town at a local restaurant and bar three nights a week. When she's not doing that she's either visiting her close circle of friends or writing. Last winter she wrote a novel. During our visit she asked me if I'd like to read it. Right away I said yes. She said she'd get me a copy the next time we met.
In the interim I wrote to her and asked if I could visit her and a week and a half ago I did. It was the first snow of the season, but luckily it wasn't sticking to the roads and I found her place with relative ease. Her driveway is 1/4 mile long, which is good because one, it gives her privacy and two, it keeps her three cats away from the main road. It's also bad because each winter season she gets snowed in several times. She has a friend who sometimes plows her out, but I'm hoping she'll let me pay to help her with that this winter, mainly so she can get to work and to the store when she needs it. She greeted me at the door of her trailer and welcomed me inside. She had already stoked her 100 year old wood stove, so the trailer was nice a cosy. She got me a cup of coffee and one for herself and we sat down in front of the wood stove and talked for over an hour. I felt very comfortable sitting there with her. She told me about the photographs of family and friends that she had tacked on a nearby wall and she showed me the contents of a small medicine bag where she kept precious items like a nearly perfect arrowhead that she had found in the clay dirt of her garden and a black, petrified shark's tooth that she had picked up on a beach in Florida. She then showed me her pond and garden and I helped her bring into her trailer some garlic and potatoes that she had grown. With the fresh fallen snow on the trees and on the grass her property looked lovely and I found myself already looking forward to next spring when the garden would start growing again. I even imagined myself helping her in the garden. At the end of the visit Sam placed her novel in a bag along with some garlic, potatoes, onions, a squash and two glass containers, one filled with homemade applesauce and one with chopped up peaches.
I read her novel within 24 hours, waited a day and then read it again. It was very good! I felt proud of her for writing it and doing such a good job and soon wrote another letter telling her so. Her example has inspired me to start an autobiographical novel. For the last two years I've wanted to write a memoir, but I kept getting stuck. Memoirs that are "creative" nonfiction are very popular these days. What makes them creative is that the authors write using the techniques of fiction: narration, scenes, dialogue, character studies, etc.... I found myself resisting some of those techniques, especially scenes with dialogues, because it didn't ring true for me. I couldn't honestly remember conversations from 30 years ago or more. Also, I didn't know how to narrow down my subject and began tackling incidents from my whole life, making a mess and not having a focus. But I'm finding that fictionalizing my family and my past has given me more freedom to explore my personal history while taking some pressure off me about writing "the truth". In this novel, I can learn the techniques that I was resisting when I was working on a memoir. Until now, I've made some half hearted attempts to write several short stories, which I would like to continue doing, but I never ever approached the idea of writing a novel. I needed Sam's example to give me a little push in that direction.
Part of being myself has been writing in a journal. This blog, though I've been neglecting it of late, has also been important to me by giving me room to practice before a small audience. I think it's time for a change here. I need to write more, not less. I've tried backing away from this blog, but it doesn't feel right and quite frankly, I need the practice not only of writing, but of sharing my writing, putting it outside of myself. I'd like to include fiction and poetry mainly because I rarely share them and could use some constructive feedback. I don't know if I'll have the discipline to write here several times a week, but I want to try again. I need to take the pressure off myself sometimes by writing short entries as well as longer ones. Let's see if I have the courage to change my approach the way I'm beginning to have the courage to reach out and foster friendships.
There's an interesting freedom in being a middle aged and obese woman. There was a time in my early 40s when I wouldn't have said that, a time when looking in the mirror meant instant depression and shame. My feminine vanity had been wounded, not only because of weight gain due to taking the anti-psychotic medications, but because I had reached middle age and was starting to show it. Only a few years earlier, I had been attractive, but now I was ordinary. I had to readjust. Early in my acute psychosis I was the heroine in my delusion. I thought real people were paying attention to me, following me, interested in what I had to say. At first, that was exciting, but ultimately, it was a burden. The trade off in entering recovery when I began to take the medications was that I was no longer the star of my story. I was deeply humbled. I got into the habit of calling myself "fat and ugly". That sounds worse than it was because gradually I came to accept and like myself in my new state. I was alive, relatively sane, and compared to the years of acute psychosis, comparatively content. Gratitude played an important part in my continuing recovery from an illness that, not so long ago, was deemed so severe as to be hopeless. I didn't feel hopeless anymore. What I valued more than my looks was my creative intelligence and my ability to survive something so horrible. It wasn't absolutely necessary for me to be with someone in order to have a meaningful life. I didn't have to be a wife or a mother; I could just be myself.
Living a solitary life is okay by me as long as I continue to have outside connections to my family and a few friends. A few months back an old friend that I found on Facebook asked if we could start to talk on the phone. Since I got sick, I've been nervous about using the phone, but I really wanted to get closer to this friend while overcoming my aversion. And so we've been calling each other once a week for a while now. It's been great. My friend, who I'll call Rita, is presently single and never had children and this is a bond between us. I also remember her when she was a little girl and young teenager. I feel so comfortable with her that she's like family and I tell her this. I tell her I love her. It's easy to love her because she's been nothing but supportive of me right from the start of our renewed friendship. I find myself looking forward to years more of friendship with her. Committing to our connection is a responsibility I want to step up to. She gives me a much needed link to my past and this makes me feel more whole within myself. For years, while living with my abusive boyfriend, I denied that I had a past in New York City because my boyfriend was so insecure about it. Now, years after the abuse and years after the acute psychosis, I can reclaim my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood all through knowing Rita again. Thank you Rita. I would tell the story of Rita, but she's a very private person. Maybe sometime in the future she'll give me permission to write about the successes and challenges in her life.
I've recently made a new friend who actually lives nearby. This is another serious breakthrough for me, one that's got me excited. This new friend, who I'll call Sam, I've been wanting to get close to for several years. In the beginning of the summer I bit the bullet and asked for her address so that I could start to write to her and she agreed. She's a good friend of my brothers and he told me that she is a writer, so I thought we could both get to know each other and bond through our mutual love of writing. That's just what we've done. On top of that she came to visit me a month ago. Virtually no one visits me which is why my house gets messy and I feel disconnected from others a lot. So I cleaned up the house and welcomed her inside. Sam is close to 60 and quite poor, but she's also a rugged individualist. She lives in an old trailer with a wood stove and no running water (her water pump broke a while back and she hasn't had the money to fix it). On her land, which she bought about a decade ago, she has a large pond and has cultivated a substantial garden. She relies on her garden for a lot of her food most of the year and spends a good chunk of her time taking care of it. When she's not working in her garden, she's working in town at a local restaurant and bar three nights a week. When she's not doing that she's either visiting her close circle of friends or writing. Last winter she wrote a novel. During our visit she asked me if I'd like to read it. Right away I said yes. She said she'd get me a copy the next time we met.
In the interim I wrote to her and asked if I could visit her and a week and a half ago I did. It was the first snow of the season, but luckily it wasn't sticking to the roads and I found her place with relative ease. Her driveway is 1/4 mile long, which is good because one, it gives her privacy and two, it keeps her three cats away from the main road. It's also bad because each winter season she gets snowed in several times. She has a friend who sometimes plows her out, but I'm hoping she'll let me pay to help her with that this winter, mainly so she can get to work and to the store when she needs it. She greeted me at the door of her trailer and welcomed me inside. She had already stoked her 100 year old wood stove, so the trailer was nice a cosy. She got me a cup of coffee and one for herself and we sat down in front of the wood stove and talked for over an hour. I felt very comfortable sitting there with her. She told me about the photographs of family and friends that she had tacked on a nearby wall and she showed me the contents of a small medicine bag where she kept precious items like a nearly perfect arrowhead that she had found in the clay dirt of her garden and a black, petrified shark's tooth that she had picked up on a beach in Florida. She then showed me her pond and garden and I helped her bring into her trailer some garlic and potatoes that she had grown. With the fresh fallen snow on the trees and on the grass her property looked lovely and I found myself already looking forward to next spring when the garden would start growing again. I even imagined myself helping her in the garden. At the end of the visit Sam placed her novel in a bag along with some garlic, potatoes, onions, a squash and two glass containers, one filled with homemade applesauce and one with chopped up peaches.
I read her novel within 24 hours, waited a day and then read it again. It was very good! I felt proud of her for writing it and doing such a good job and soon wrote another letter telling her so. Her example has inspired me to start an autobiographical novel. For the last two years I've wanted to write a memoir, but I kept getting stuck. Memoirs that are "creative" nonfiction are very popular these days. What makes them creative is that the authors write using the techniques of fiction: narration, scenes, dialogue, character studies, etc.... I found myself resisting some of those techniques, especially scenes with dialogues, because it didn't ring true for me. I couldn't honestly remember conversations from 30 years ago or more. Also, I didn't know how to narrow down my subject and began tackling incidents from my whole life, making a mess and not having a focus. But I'm finding that fictionalizing my family and my past has given me more freedom to explore my personal history while taking some pressure off me about writing "the truth". In this novel, I can learn the techniques that I was resisting when I was working on a memoir. Until now, I've made some half hearted attempts to write several short stories, which I would like to continue doing, but I never ever approached the idea of writing a novel. I needed Sam's example to give me a little push in that direction.
Part of being myself has been writing in a journal. This blog, though I've been neglecting it of late, has also been important to me by giving me room to practice before a small audience. I think it's time for a change here. I need to write more, not less. I've tried backing away from this blog, but it doesn't feel right and quite frankly, I need the practice not only of writing, but of sharing my writing, putting it outside of myself. I'd like to include fiction and poetry mainly because I rarely share them and could use some constructive feedback. I don't know if I'll have the discipline to write here several times a week, but I want to try again. I need to take the pressure off myself sometimes by writing short entries as well as longer ones. Let's see if I have the courage to change my approach the way I'm beginning to have the courage to reach out and foster friendships.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Something Rich And True
"Find out if there is something rich and true in even the most painful moments." Nirmala from his book Nothing Personal
And isn't it so that there is a rich truth in our moments of pain and sorrow? Poetry, stories and memoirs are filled with it. What would life be like without the darker side to things? I have trouble imagining continual peace and contentment because that is not the nature of my experience. I live moment to moment; there is no other way. The landscape is one of continual change, even when nothing appears to be happening, something always is. A fly lands on the wall beside you, a breeze comes into your house through the open window and each breath is entirely new. The Buddhist practitioners that I have been reading keep pointing to stepping into the present moment just as it is. Some of them go so far as to say that the present moment, regardless of what is happening, is exactly the way it should be. I've heard this sentiment before in self-help books I've read. One book in particular stands out, it's called The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. I bought this book while I was in my relationship with my abusive and alcoholic boyfriend. It's a daily reader for people who have been in codependent relationships and are trying to heal using some of the 12 step philosophy. The foundation of the philosophy seems to me to rest on admitting powerlessness over addictions and other people and a belief in some form of higher power that will somehow guide and direct individuals towards help and healing. Along with this comes the magical thinking that we are all on a journey learning lessons we need to learn, that God, in whatever form we connect with, is giving us just what we need and no more than we can bear.
At the time I bought the book, I took a lot of comfort in thinking that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but that was usually during the moments of quiet. When things got intense and painful, I would lose sight of this idea and suffer. Lately I've been reading this Buddhist teacher Nirmala and I find myself getting pulled back into this magical idea that my life is as it should be, that every moment is somehow perfect and "right", if only I would open to it. Of course I think, but what about the people who are being tortured right now or what about me when I'm frozen by anxiety over the future? Are those perfect moments? I'm pretty sure Nirmala would say Yes. How can that be? Nirmala writes, "...our happiness depends more on our attitude about what is happening than on what is happening." What is happening could be very bad indeed, but often we make it worse than it needs to be. But why does it need to be at all, as in the case of torture? Nirmala writes about the Mystery that is life and about going to that place where we don't know. He writes about Awareness as if it were something in and around us, separate yet joined to us, a living entity. That Awareness exists is at the heart of the Mystery we call life. In some ways it's as if he's saying that Awareness is the higher power. It is always available and always good; there is no blemish on it, no mistake in it. It is completely trustworthy. This awareness doesn't discriminate. It is not meant only for "good" people. It is available to those who are being tortured as well as to the torturers. It is Love. It is Buddha Nature. It is the Holy Spirit.
Nirmala writes that Awareness is in love with everything and devoted to everything. So right this moment this mysterious Awareness is in love with me, with you. It knows you through and through and no matter what you've done or haven't done, it will continue to love you. It is the origin of unconditional love. But we're always so busy trying to get somewhere else or so caught up in our thoughts that we don't tap into what is right in front of us. We get restless, we get bored, we get scared. All that is a by product of our every shifting thoughts and feelings. But thoughts and feelings often misguide us, coloring our world with pain and negativity. Awareness embraces all thoughts and feelings as the sky embraces the clouds and rain. When the weather clears, the vast sky remains. It doesn't come and go; it's always there. And that's what we can return to every moment. Lately I've been noticing that when I don't have a thought in my head, I'm still acutely aware of myself and my surroundings. There is magic in that alone. The silence is pregnant with meaning. Why do we run from the present moment?
We run because we're ignorant and deluded. "God forgive them, for they know not what they do." We are collectively fooled by our thoughts and feelings. How often do we accept the lie over the truth? When I am experiencing deep anxiety I really believe that something outside of myself is threatening me, and yet when I look and listen, all is quiet and peaceful. When I stop and question the validity of my anxiety, I lessen it because I see through the lie of it. Buddhists say that most of us are asleep and that we accept the dream as if it were the reality and because of this we suffer. They also say get curious and question everything. Don't take things for granted; really look. This can be done despite the conditioning we've had since we were infants. Our conditioning tells us that we are separate individuals, alone amongst the many. It tells us that we have a Self that is solid and fixed. We cling to the idea of our individual selves as if life itself depends upon it. We say to ourselves and others, I, Me, Mine. We think our will to advance this I will lead us to happiness, but it never does. If we do such and such, then we will get such and such reward. But even if we get the prize at the end of our exertion, we still feel the hollowness of it, we're still left wanting more.
Buddhists assert that there is no Self, that it is a construct we've developed to try and make sense out of our worlds. The reality is that everything is in flux. I have memories of when I was 12, but I am 12 no longer and that imagined self was changing back then too, as it is today. Yes, I can put labels on my "self" that stick such as college graduate, Democrat, blogger, woman, cat lover, schizophrenic etc... but that is far from who "I" am. Everything that is alive is evolving from birth to death. Nothing is static, even in death the process of change continues. And some of us ask, How can there be no I, no self? Doesn't that mean that existence is pointless? No, existence remains very meaningful because Awareness is meaningful. The truth is you can have no self and still be very aware. Self is way over-rated, just as Awareness is under-rated. And all of us, whether we like it or not, are interconnected in the web of life. When I feel isolated, it is an illusion I take to heart. I am my own worst enemy because I automatically feed my illusions. That is why so many self-help groups stress keeping the focus on oneself, staying very honest and uncovering all the various misunderstandings that have come up over the years. They say, don't try and change others; change yourself. All we really have to work with is ourselves. Like the Awareness in and around us, we are always available to ourselves. This is great news.
Even in the most painful moments, there is something good at hand: space, awareness, love, breath. We do not need a separate Self to give our lives meaning, the meaning is already there, every millisecond. But we do need to understand that we are sometimes more in love with the illusions we create than with the ordinary Awareness that is all around us and in us. Waking up is about gradually stripping the lies from the greater Truth. Part of stripping the lies is retraining ourselves to see with clarity, openness and love. But first you must question and experiment. Don't assume that you know. Assume that you don't know. We're living inside a house of mirrors that we have made with our own two hands. The mirrors certainly reflect some of the truth, but the core of it is within you.
And isn't it so that there is a rich truth in our moments of pain and sorrow? Poetry, stories and memoirs are filled with it. What would life be like without the darker side to things? I have trouble imagining continual peace and contentment because that is not the nature of my experience. I live moment to moment; there is no other way. The landscape is one of continual change, even when nothing appears to be happening, something always is. A fly lands on the wall beside you, a breeze comes into your house through the open window and each breath is entirely new. The Buddhist practitioners that I have been reading keep pointing to stepping into the present moment just as it is. Some of them go so far as to say that the present moment, regardless of what is happening, is exactly the way it should be. I've heard this sentiment before in self-help books I've read. One book in particular stands out, it's called The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. I bought this book while I was in my relationship with my abusive and alcoholic boyfriend. It's a daily reader for people who have been in codependent relationships and are trying to heal using some of the 12 step philosophy. The foundation of the philosophy seems to me to rest on admitting powerlessness over addictions and other people and a belief in some form of higher power that will somehow guide and direct individuals towards help and healing. Along with this comes the magical thinking that we are all on a journey learning lessons we need to learn, that God, in whatever form we connect with, is giving us just what we need and no more than we can bear.
At the time I bought the book, I took a lot of comfort in thinking that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but that was usually during the moments of quiet. When things got intense and painful, I would lose sight of this idea and suffer. Lately I've been reading this Buddhist teacher Nirmala and I find myself getting pulled back into this magical idea that my life is as it should be, that every moment is somehow perfect and "right", if only I would open to it. Of course I think, but what about the people who are being tortured right now or what about me when I'm frozen by anxiety over the future? Are those perfect moments? I'm pretty sure Nirmala would say Yes. How can that be? Nirmala writes, "...our happiness depends more on our attitude about what is happening than on what is happening." What is happening could be very bad indeed, but often we make it worse than it needs to be. But why does it need to be at all, as in the case of torture? Nirmala writes about the Mystery that is life and about going to that place where we don't know. He writes about Awareness as if it were something in and around us, separate yet joined to us, a living entity. That Awareness exists is at the heart of the Mystery we call life. In some ways it's as if he's saying that Awareness is the higher power. It is always available and always good; there is no blemish on it, no mistake in it. It is completely trustworthy. This awareness doesn't discriminate. It is not meant only for "good" people. It is available to those who are being tortured as well as to the torturers. It is Love. It is Buddha Nature. It is the Holy Spirit.
Nirmala writes that Awareness is in love with everything and devoted to everything. So right this moment this mysterious Awareness is in love with me, with you. It knows you through and through and no matter what you've done or haven't done, it will continue to love you. It is the origin of unconditional love. But we're always so busy trying to get somewhere else or so caught up in our thoughts that we don't tap into what is right in front of us. We get restless, we get bored, we get scared. All that is a by product of our every shifting thoughts and feelings. But thoughts and feelings often misguide us, coloring our world with pain and negativity. Awareness embraces all thoughts and feelings as the sky embraces the clouds and rain. When the weather clears, the vast sky remains. It doesn't come and go; it's always there. And that's what we can return to every moment. Lately I've been noticing that when I don't have a thought in my head, I'm still acutely aware of myself and my surroundings. There is magic in that alone. The silence is pregnant with meaning. Why do we run from the present moment?
We run because we're ignorant and deluded. "God forgive them, for they know not what they do." We are collectively fooled by our thoughts and feelings. How often do we accept the lie over the truth? When I am experiencing deep anxiety I really believe that something outside of myself is threatening me, and yet when I look and listen, all is quiet and peaceful. When I stop and question the validity of my anxiety, I lessen it because I see through the lie of it. Buddhists say that most of us are asleep and that we accept the dream as if it were the reality and because of this we suffer. They also say get curious and question everything. Don't take things for granted; really look. This can be done despite the conditioning we've had since we were infants. Our conditioning tells us that we are separate individuals, alone amongst the many. It tells us that we have a Self that is solid and fixed. We cling to the idea of our individual selves as if life itself depends upon it. We say to ourselves and others, I, Me, Mine. We think our will to advance this I will lead us to happiness, but it never does. If we do such and such, then we will get such and such reward. But even if we get the prize at the end of our exertion, we still feel the hollowness of it, we're still left wanting more.
Buddhists assert that there is no Self, that it is a construct we've developed to try and make sense out of our worlds. The reality is that everything is in flux. I have memories of when I was 12, but I am 12 no longer and that imagined self was changing back then too, as it is today. Yes, I can put labels on my "self" that stick such as college graduate, Democrat, blogger, woman, cat lover, schizophrenic etc... but that is far from who "I" am. Everything that is alive is evolving from birth to death. Nothing is static, even in death the process of change continues. And some of us ask, How can there be no I, no self? Doesn't that mean that existence is pointless? No, existence remains very meaningful because Awareness is meaningful. The truth is you can have no self and still be very aware. Self is way over-rated, just as Awareness is under-rated. And all of us, whether we like it or not, are interconnected in the web of life. When I feel isolated, it is an illusion I take to heart. I am my own worst enemy because I automatically feed my illusions. That is why so many self-help groups stress keeping the focus on oneself, staying very honest and uncovering all the various misunderstandings that have come up over the years. They say, don't try and change others; change yourself. All we really have to work with is ourselves. Like the Awareness in and around us, we are always available to ourselves. This is great news.
Even in the most painful moments, there is something good at hand: space, awareness, love, breath. We do not need a separate Self to give our lives meaning, the meaning is already there, every millisecond. But we do need to understand that we are sometimes more in love with the illusions we create than with the ordinary Awareness that is all around us and in us. Waking up is about gradually stripping the lies from the greater Truth. Part of stripping the lies is retraining ourselves to see with clarity, openness and love. But first you must question and experiment. Don't assume that you know. Assume that you don't know. We're living inside a house of mirrors that we have made with our own two hands. The mirrors certainly reflect some of the truth, but the core of it is within you.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Some Recent Artwork
Just got some new markers and am trying to tempt myself back towards the visual arts. These images are pretty sloppy because I couldn't get the right white balance in my photo editing program (which is very simplistic and all I know how to use...sort of). And so white has turned into purple! Nonetheless, you can get a feel for what I've been working on the last couple of days. It's all about experimental play and yet, in some ways, it's more serious because I am stopping, assessing, making a new mark all very gradually. Invariably, I'm scared to make the very first mark. Scared because I don't have a working plan of action, so then I jump into it. All I know is that I want to vary the marks on the page and work intuitively.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Home Alone Again
This is the first day in about three weeks that I've had free to slow the pace down. For the most part, I have not kept up with my online friends. I apologize for that, but I can only seem to focus on one thing at a time. Also, before I have to do something with my family I need half a week to a week to prepare and then afterwards I need a half a week to a week to recover. That's the nature of mental illness for many people I'm afraid. I can appear relatively normal with my family for a week or two, but then I need to withdraw back into my solitary space.
This was probably the last trip my parents will make to visit Rob and me in New York. From now on we will visit them only. My father turned 85 this trip and my mother is 83 and they are visibly slowing down. The day before I picked them up at the airport my brother had a small fire in his house; he fell trying to put it out and hurt himself and so he didn't come with me to pick up our parents. It was very good to see them and a day and a half later to see my uncle. My uncle recently turned 80 and yet he drove from Chicago to Western New York in a couple of days. I thought he looked great, more energetic than my parents. He is my mother's younger brother and she hadn't seen him in six years or so. Despite living a long distance away from each other, they love each other and keep in touch by phone, but, as my mother has often said to me, it's not the same as seeing a loved one in person.
I arranged for my parents and uncle to stay in a B&B nearby. It was only after a day or two of them staying there that I heard from my family that the owners were conservative Christian Republicans. My parents and uncle are staunch liberal Democrats and confirmed atheists to boot and so it was a bit awkward for them living in such close proximity to their hosts. Each side was certainly polite, even friendly, but my family had to restrain themselves and this made them uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the house they stayed in was nice and safe and they didn't complain too much to me.
I discovered quickly that I had over planned the trip. I was anxious and eager to please my mother in particular. Both she and my father are great planners, but this time they realized that they didn't have the energy to do as much as I had anticipated. And my uncle had the awkward responsibility of following my car with his while transporting my parents while I drove my brother because we couldn't all fit in the same small car. And then on the birthday day (my brother was born on my father's birthday) as we were beginning the 45 minutes drive to a state park to have a nice lunch at a restaurant in an inn there, my "service engine soon" light came on. Because we were an hour early, my uncle and I drove to the nearest service station. It was lunch time, but the owner said that as long as the light wasn't flashing I could still drive the car to the restaurant and back. And so I did. The next morning I drove my car with my uncle following to my usual repair shop and dropped off my car. It only needed a new sensor, but the part was expensive. So I thought the car was good to go, but several days later, when we had driven to Ithaca, New York, an hour and forty minutes away to have lunch at a Thai restaurant and go to the theater there I encountered another car problem.
It was after we had eaten and after we had finished watching the play that when I tried to pull out in the parking lot, I found I could only move a couple of inches and when I did it made a terrible sound. I immediately got out of the car and saw that the front driver's side tire was totally flat, but it didn't feel like a normal flat because normally you can still move the car a bit and I couldn't. I sent my uncle and parents home and stayed with my brother after calling triple A to get a tow nearly 100 miles back to home territory. Luckily I had gotten triple A plus which covers the cost of a tow up to 100 miles. The tow truck came in an hour. The man diagnosed the problem right away, said part of a coil in the front of the car had cracked, broken and sprung into the tire. My brother and I quickly realized that we had averted serious injury, even death: if we had been driving at 65 miles an hour on the highway hours earlier with my uncle following close behind me who knows what might have happened to all of us? And so, despite the inconvenience we were very grateful.
My uncle stayed an extra day and drove my parents to the airport and then headed back to Chicago while I had the work done on my car. I prayed that they all get home safely and as it turns out, they did. So the visit was a mixed bag, some good days and times and some not so good. Last year, when my parents stayed at my house, we had a better time, were somewhat closer to each other than this visit. Still generally speaking it went okay and I was very happy to see them all and spend a little over a week with them.
So here I am back to being home alone and I'm relieved, but it will still take me a couple more days to get adjusted. A great thing that happened while my family visited was that I got a long letter from a woman I've been wanting to be friends with for several years. She was responding to a three page type written letter that I sent to her. She said she really enjoyed my letter and went on to write candidly to me about a few things in her life. What's particularly cool about this woman is that she is not only a very interesting, individualistic person, but she lives close by. In her letter she offered to do some work for me fixing my cat pen fencing so that my cats can finally go outside. My friend Richard created a wonderful cat pen, but cut through the fence months ago to do some work on the back of the house and never got around to fixing it. Right now he is very busy. So I'm gearing up to ask this woman to come and visit me. And I hesitate, not because I have any reservations about this interesting person, but because I have reservations about myself. I'm so self protective that I don't often take chances. Still, now is a good time to invite her over because my house is in moderately good order due to my family's visit. Normally, I used my messy house as an excuse not to have anyone over, but right now I don't want to do that. This woman is a private person with only a few close friends and I'm finding that I would like to become one of those friends. So my next order of business is to write a good, long letter back to her. I'm looking forward to doing that.
This was probably the last trip my parents will make to visit Rob and me in New York. From now on we will visit them only. My father turned 85 this trip and my mother is 83 and they are visibly slowing down. The day before I picked them up at the airport my brother had a small fire in his house; he fell trying to put it out and hurt himself and so he didn't come with me to pick up our parents. It was very good to see them and a day and a half later to see my uncle. My uncle recently turned 80 and yet he drove from Chicago to Western New York in a couple of days. I thought he looked great, more energetic than my parents. He is my mother's younger brother and she hadn't seen him in six years or so. Despite living a long distance away from each other, they love each other and keep in touch by phone, but, as my mother has often said to me, it's not the same as seeing a loved one in person.
I arranged for my parents and uncle to stay in a B&B nearby. It was only after a day or two of them staying there that I heard from my family that the owners were conservative Christian Republicans. My parents and uncle are staunch liberal Democrats and confirmed atheists to boot and so it was a bit awkward for them living in such close proximity to their hosts. Each side was certainly polite, even friendly, but my family had to restrain themselves and this made them uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the house they stayed in was nice and safe and they didn't complain too much to me.
I discovered quickly that I had over planned the trip. I was anxious and eager to please my mother in particular. Both she and my father are great planners, but this time they realized that they didn't have the energy to do as much as I had anticipated. And my uncle had the awkward responsibility of following my car with his while transporting my parents while I drove my brother because we couldn't all fit in the same small car. And then on the birthday day (my brother was born on my father's birthday) as we were beginning the 45 minutes drive to a state park to have a nice lunch at a restaurant in an inn there, my "service engine soon" light came on. Because we were an hour early, my uncle and I drove to the nearest service station. It was lunch time, but the owner said that as long as the light wasn't flashing I could still drive the car to the restaurant and back. And so I did. The next morning I drove my car with my uncle following to my usual repair shop and dropped off my car. It only needed a new sensor, but the part was expensive. So I thought the car was good to go, but several days later, when we had driven to Ithaca, New York, an hour and forty minutes away to have lunch at a Thai restaurant and go to the theater there I encountered another car problem.
It was after we had eaten and after we had finished watching the play that when I tried to pull out in the parking lot, I found I could only move a couple of inches and when I did it made a terrible sound. I immediately got out of the car and saw that the front driver's side tire was totally flat, but it didn't feel like a normal flat because normally you can still move the car a bit and I couldn't. I sent my uncle and parents home and stayed with my brother after calling triple A to get a tow nearly 100 miles back to home territory. Luckily I had gotten triple A plus which covers the cost of a tow up to 100 miles. The tow truck came in an hour. The man diagnosed the problem right away, said part of a coil in the front of the car had cracked, broken and sprung into the tire. My brother and I quickly realized that we had averted serious injury, even death: if we had been driving at 65 miles an hour on the highway hours earlier with my uncle following close behind me who knows what might have happened to all of us? And so, despite the inconvenience we were very grateful.
My uncle stayed an extra day and drove my parents to the airport and then headed back to Chicago while I had the work done on my car. I prayed that they all get home safely and as it turns out, they did. So the visit was a mixed bag, some good days and times and some not so good. Last year, when my parents stayed at my house, we had a better time, were somewhat closer to each other than this visit. Still generally speaking it went okay and I was very happy to see them all and spend a little over a week with them.
So here I am back to being home alone and I'm relieved, but it will still take me a couple more days to get adjusted. A great thing that happened while my family visited was that I got a long letter from a woman I've been wanting to be friends with for several years. She was responding to a three page type written letter that I sent to her. She said she really enjoyed my letter and went on to write candidly to me about a few things in her life. What's particularly cool about this woman is that she is not only a very interesting, individualistic person, but she lives close by. In her letter she offered to do some work for me fixing my cat pen fencing so that my cats can finally go outside. My friend Richard created a wonderful cat pen, but cut through the fence months ago to do some work on the back of the house and never got around to fixing it. Right now he is very busy. So I'm gearing up to ask this woman to come and visit me. And I hesitate, not because I have any reservations about this interesting person, but because I have reservations about myself. I'm so self protective that I don't often take chances. Still, now is a good time to invite her over because my house is in moderately good order due to my family's visit. Normally, I used my messy house as an excuse not to have anyone over, but right now I don't want to do that. This woman is a private person with only a few close friends and I'm finding that I would like to become one of those friends. So my next order of business is to write a good, long letter back to her. I'm looking forward to doing that.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
A Few Summer Activities
My brother and I returned early from a four day music festival called Grassroots. It had been very hot from Thursday to Sunday--hot, humid and practically no rain. I got some sunburn, which I rarely get and both of us only got minimal sleep, so by Sunday we were burnt out and decided to skip the last day and head home. The music at the festival was good, but there were virtually no headliners which disappointed us. Usually when we go there are several A+ bands or singer songwriters like Los Lobos, Lucinda Williams, The Avett Brothers, Burning Spear, etc... so there are high points to the experience. This time it was hot and mellow, though Fela Kuti’s youngest son Seun was there heading his father’s band (Fela died an AIDS related death in 1997 when Seun was still a young adolescent). His father was a master at a style of African (Nigerian) music he dubbed “Afrobeat” partly influenced at points by James Brown, very funky and intense and political. That got Fela put in prison for 20 months. Seun is definitely following in his father’s footsteps. One of the things he championed at the festival was the decriminalization of marijuana. He was also touching on other political topics, but I couldn’t understand him. Perhaps I’ll get one of his CDs and listen closely. I think it takes courage to get up on stage and fight through music and communication some of the injustices in the world.
My brother and I have a whole routine we go through preparing for the festival, going and then coming back. We stay at the same Indian run motel just outside of Ithaca, New York, which is about a 10-15 minutes drive to the festival in Trumansburg. We park in the same spot near an off site camping ground. Most people park in a large sectioned field and then wait for a shuttle bus to take them to the festival several minutes away. We too get the shuttle, but we park by the side of the road. We do this because in past years when we’ve parked in the field we’ve gotten stuck in the mud after it rained. We go to the same Chinese Buffet restaurant on Friday and Sunday before heading to the festival. Saturday is special because we get to go to a very good Thai restaurant. We get gai tom ka soup, which is a coconut milk soup with chicken and mushrooms, then he gets a green beef curry and I get a noodle dish with chicken called pad thai. Why do we get the same thing each year? Because we don’t get to go to Thai restaurants very often. But it’s more than that, we obviously get comfort from having a predictable routine. The routine, which allows for knowing generally what to expect, reduces potentially stressful situations. I get stressed driving and a bit stressed being around so many people when I’m used to being mostly alone. Then again, some of the people watching is fun. This time I took my camera on two of the days and took pictures of people and the fairgrounds. I got a few nice shots. It’s been a long time since I was into photography. I was a film photographer and I’m still not used to digital photography. With a digital camera, you have to learn the small computer that is your camera thoroughly and I never do it. I’m intimidated by computers, though I rely on them for information and communication.
My brother was more subdued this year. Usually he is making conversation with fellow festival goers, often shedding a critical but humorous view on what’s strong and what’s weak at the festival. This year he said he was surprised that he didn’t see many people that he knew. It was also in the 90s and humid and as I said, we both didn’t get as much sleep as we would have liked. Despite the heat and only some breeze, it was good to be outside, good to be around people, good to listen to live music and good to have each other for company. It was a mostly Caucasian crowd with just a sprinkling of African Americans and Asians. Having grown up in New York City, I think the best type of crowds is a multi racial, multi cultural crowd. So this wasn’t the most interesting crowd to me, but there was still a lot of variety. Within the crowds amongst the young people and the parents with their children I saw the salt and peppered hair of middle-aged people like myself and even a few rather old people. Not too many very unusual people except for a man walking on a prosthetic leg, which I thought was wonderful just that he still had his freedom and could partake of the festival. A few people were even dressed up in costumes with large afro-like wigs. Some women and children wore butterfly wings. There were a lot of tattoos on both men and women and a fair number of men with shaved heads. The women wore all sorts of skimpy dresses in their desire to look good and stay cool. I wore shorts, a t-shirt and Teva waterproof sandals that fit snugly around my feet. I didn’t particularly look good, but I stayed comfortable. So far, my obesity is in the extra large normal range. I still fit into a bus or car seat and am not aware how heavy I am until I go to the bathroom somewhere and see myself in a mirror. At the festival, there are many attractive women. I used to be one of them. Now I am out of that loop and partially I feel relief at that. The other part of me wants to look better, not in order to compete with other women, but just so I can feel more normal and healthy.
This Saturday my parents will arrive by plane from Florida for a 9 day visit. My uncle will arrive from Chicago by car on Monday for a 6 day visit. I haven’t seen my uncle for four years. He just turned 80 at the end of June and my parents are in their mid 80s. For now, they are all in good health, but I still worry. It will be very good to see them all, but I’ve got a lot of house work to get done this week and a lot of driving and finding entertainment the following week. Last year, before my parents visited, I did an internet search for things to do in the area. My planning and preparing was mostly successful and I’m hoping I can pull it off again for the first week of August. The main problem is that there is not much to do around where I live and so we will have to travel by car one to two hours in each direction. I’ll have to lead with my car and my uncle will have to follow in his car. This makes me nervous because we’ll be going to places that I’ve never been to before and I’m afraid of getting lost or worrying about whether my uncle is still following me. At least now we both have cell phones and can keep in touch even if we do get split up. My family will be staying at a local bed & breakfast. Last year my parents stayed with me, but that put some pressure on me to clean up and I didn’t quite get it done and let my mother come upstairs only a couple of times to see the cats. This year it is just too hot, especially since I don’t have air-conditioning. Now the cats need to come downstairs from time to time because it is 10-20 degrees cooler...but my father is allergic to cats. So I suggested the B & B and my family agreed. Their rooms will be air-conditioned. Still, I have to get cracking cleaning up my house as best I can because they will visit. I have four days. I can get a lot done in four days, if I pace myself. I might have to change my sleep cycle to the daytime and work at night and early morning, just because it is so very hot.
Climate change is affecting the whole planet. This is the first year that I got snowed in by a blizzard at JFK airport last December and the first year that I can remember the heat changing the atmosphere at the music festival. Normally we have at least one thunder storm there, but this year not one. The days when so many people can own one or more cars each and are free to give birth to any number of children must be coming to a close. We are guzzling our resources and leaving people to starve to death due partially to overpopulation. If we don’t change rather drastically, I’m not sure we’ll survive. What can we do? People in the US say they really value their freedom, but won’t we all be required to make sacrifices and pull together due to this common environmental threat? Shouldn’t we be doing it sooner rather than later? At the festival they were promoting an anti-Fracking position, trying to enlist people into their cause by signing a petition. Our governor, Andrew Cuomo, is backing the Fracking movement before tests have been done that prove that the procedure is safe for humans. Business people are frantic and greedy to find an alternate energy source so that we can continue living in excess, even if it means some people will get ill or die because of it. I’m not against an energy source that’s safe to use for people and the planet, but Fracking doesn’t sound safe. There needs to be more research done and more regulations put into effect. Whether we can cobble together various energy sources to survive is unknown, but what we can do is to change our lifestyles all over the planet. Increase and extend public transportation, even build newer small city/towns that utilize solar and wind energy to the max, possibly return to a more commune like communities where people work together to preserve or extend resources, to recycle, to farm, etc... There are small communities like that sprouting up all over the US. Let’s see if they have the right idea over time.
My brother and I have a whole routine we go through preparing for the festival, going and then coming back. We stay at the same Indian run motel just outside of Ithaca, New York, which is about a 10-15 minutes drive to the festival in Trumansburg. We park in the same spot near an off site camping ground. Most people park in a large sectioned field and then wait for a shuttle bus to take them to the festival several minutes away. We too get the shuttle, but we park by the side of the road. We do this because in past years when we’ve parked in the field we’ve gotten stuck in the mud after it rained. We go to the same Chinese Buffet restaurant on Friday and Sunday before heading to the festival. Saturday is special because we get to go to a very good Thai restaurant. We get gai tom ka soup, which is a coconut milk soup with chicken and mushrooms, then he gets a green beef curry and I get a noodle dish with chicken called pad thai. Why do we get the same thing each year? Because we don’t get to go to Thai restaurants very often. But it’s more than that, we obviously get comfort from having a predictable routine. The routine, which allows for knowing generally what to expect, reduces potentially stressful situations. I get stressed driving and a bit stressed being around so many people when I’m used to being mostly alone. Then again, some of the people watching is fun. This time I took my camera on two of the days and took pictures of people and the fairgrounds. I got a few nice shots. It’s been a long time since I was into photography. I was a film photographer and I’m still not used to digital photography. With a digital camera, you have to learn the small computer that is your camera thoroughly and I never do it. I’m intimidated by computers, though I rely on them for information and communication.
My brother was more subdued this year. Usually he is making conversation with fellow festival goers, often shedding a critical but humorous view on what’s strong and what’s weak at the festival. This year he said he was surprised that he didn’t see many people that he knew. It was also in the 90s and humid and as I said, we both didn’t get as much sleep as we would have liked. Despite the heat and only some breeze, it was good to be outside, good to be around people, good to listen to live music and good to have each other for company. It was a mostly Caucasian crowd with just a sprinkling of African Americans and Asians. Having grown up in New York City, I think the best type of crowds is a multi racial, multi cultural crowd. So this wasn’t the most interesting crowd to me, but there was still a lot of variety. Within the crowds amongst the young people and the parents with their children I saw the salt and peppered hair of middle-aged people like myself and even a few rather old people. Not too many very unusual people except for a man walking on a prosthetic leg, which I thought was wonderful just that he still had his freedom and could partake of the festival. A few people were even dressed up in costumes with large afro-like wigs. Some women and children wore butterfly wings. There were a lot of tattoos on both men and women and a fair number of men with shaved heads. The women wore all sorts of skimpy dresses in their desire to look good and stay cool. I wore shorts, a t-shirt and Teva waterproof sandals that fit snugly around my feet. I didn’t particularly look good, but I stayed comfortable. So far, my obesity is in the extra large normal range. I still fit into a bus or car seat and am not aware how heavy I am until I go to the bathroom somewhere and see myself in a mirror. At the festival, there are many attractive women. I used to be one of them. Now I am out of that loop and partially I feel relief at that. The other part of me wants to look better, not in order to compete with other women, but just so I can feel more normal and healthy.
This Saturday my parents will arrive by plane from Florida for a 9 day visit. My uncle will arrive from Chicago by car on Monday for a 6 day visit. I haven’t seen my uncle for four years. He just turned 80 at the end of June and my parents are in their mid 80s. For now, they are all in good health, but I still worry. It will be very good to see them all, but I’ve got a lot of house work to get done this week and a lot of driving and finding entertainment the following week. Last year, before my parents visited, I did an internet search for things to do in the area. My planning and preparing was mostly successful and I’m hoping I can pull it off again for the first week of August. The main problem is that there is not much to do around where I live and so we will have to travel by car one to two hours in each direction. I’ll have to lead with my car and my uncle will have to follow in his car. This makes me nervous because we’ll be going to places that I’ve never been to before and I’m afraid of getting lost or worrying about whether my uncle is still following me. At least now we both have cell phones and can keep in touch even if we do get split up. My family will be staying at a local bed & breakfast. Last year my parents stayed with me, but that put some pressure on me to clean up and I didn’t quite get it done and let my mother come upstairs only a couple of times to see the cats. This year it is just too hot, especially since I don’t have air-conditioning. Now the cats need to come downstairs from time to time because it is 10-20 degrees cooler...but my father is allergic to cats. So I suggested the B & B and my family agreed. Their rooms will be air-conditioned. Still, I have to get cracking cleaning up my house as best I can because they will visit. I have four days. I can get a lot done in four days, if I pace myself. I might have to change my sleep cycle to the daytime and work at night and early morning, just because it is so very hot.
Climate change is affecting the whole planet. This is the first year that I got snowed in by a blizzard at JFK airport last December and the first year that I can remember the heat changing the atmosphere at the music festival. Normally we have at least one thunder storm there, but this year not one. The days when so many people can own one or more cars each and are free to give birth to any number of children must be coming to a close. We are guzzling our resources and leaving people to starve to death due partially to overpopulation. If we don’t change rather drastically, I’m not sure we’ll survive. What can we do? People in the US say they really value their freedom, but won’t we all be required to make sacrifices and pull together due to this common environmental threat? Shouldn’t we be doing it sooner rather than later? At the festival they were promoting an anti-Fracking position, trying to enlist people into their cause by signing a petition. Our governor, Andrew Cuomo, is backing the Fracking movement before tests have been done that prove that the procedure is safe for humans. Business people are frantic and greedy to find an alternate energy source so that we can continue living in excess, even if it means some people will get ill or die because of it. I’m not against an energy source that’s safe to use for people and the planet, but Fracking doesn’t sound safe. There needs to be more research done and more regulations put into effect. Whether we can cobble together various energy sources to survive is unknown, but what we can do is to change our lifestyles all over the planet. Increase and extend public transportation, even build newer small city/towns that utilize solar and wind energy to the max, possibly return to a more commune like communities where people work together to preserve or extend resources, to recycle, to farm, etc... There are small communities like that sprouting up all over the US. Let’s see if they have the right idea over time.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Persistence, Faith & Hard Work
I've had the urge to write repeatedly over the last month, but my output is minimal. In the last few days the urge has been laced with an irritating depression. Whichever direction I begin to go in, be it flipping through books on writing or books on Buddhism or taking a stab at writing in my journal, turns into a dead-end. I either fidget or I go to sleep. Strangely enough, when I sit down to write a blog, usually spontaneously and without notes, I wind up writing something halfway worthwhile. It's just getting myself to sit down and do it that is the problem. Anne Lamott, who wrote a popular book on the practice of writing called Bird by Bird, says of writing: "It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started."
Persistence, faith and hard work...I guess that's the recipe for life itself. I am also a strong believer in the immense value of being creative, especially for people who suffer from chronic mental illnesses. Lately I've been committing to my Buddhist practice, but neglecting writing, songwriting and painting. My Buddhist practice of meditation, listening to audiobooks and reading, taking notes and studying is my foundation and so I won't stop with that. When I meditate each evening, despite my restless thoughts and the discomfort in my back, I begin to focus and steady myself. By the end of the meditation, I'm usually refreshed and ready to listen to a dharma talk and then to do some reading and note taking. All this takes place in the evening and night. It's the day time where I get lost.
Why do I resist the fact that just being alive is good enough? Whatever I do with my days, as long as it is not harming myself or others, is okay. I get writer's block because I am judging myself and pushing myself and not going with the flow of life. It's back to having ambition instead of patience and humility. The truth is that my life is a simple life. Another truth is that I think I want it to stay that way. In order to keep things simple I need to let go of ambitious ideas. Maybe I will write a book, but not unless I learn to write a good essay. I have a friend who told me that one of the things that got her out of her depression was the expression, "little by little". Baby steps...persistence, faith and hard work.
My life is mysterious to me. I don't know why I'm here; I'm just here. And I know now that while I'm here, every moment I'm here, I'm changing and my circumstances are changing. I know this is true for all of us. I witness the change when I listen back to my audio journal from a few days in the past. It helps me to acknowledge that I can hold onto nothing. And it keeps me honest. Writing here does the same thing. I've been writing in this blog since about November of 2006. Very slowly I am printing up my blog so that I have a hard copy to review, maybe edit and re-work. I think it is important that I do this so that I can follow the flow of my life and see what lessons I am learning or re-learning. Every now and then I need to review my journals and take stock of where I've been and where I seem to be heading.
My audio journal is a good therapeutic tool, but sometimes I neglect my writing because I'm busy pouring out my thoughts and ideas on tape. It's easier for me to talk to myself than to write, but writing also holds the key to self-understanding and to sharing my experiences with others. The more I study Buddhism, the more I want to be helpful to others. The challenge is to not lose confidence. That's a big challenge.
Persistence, faith and hard work...I guess that's the recipe for life itself. I am also a strong believer in the immense value of being creative, especially for people who suffer from chronic mental illnesses. Lately I've been committing to my Buddhist practice, but neglecting writing, songwriting and painting. My Buddhist practice of meditation, listening to audiobooks and reading, taking notes and studying is my foundation and so I won't stop with that. When I meditate each evening, despite my restless thoughts and the discomfort in my back, I begin to focus and steady myself. By the end of the meditation, I'm usually refreshed and ready to listen to a dharma talk and then to do some reading and note taking. All this takes place in the evening and night. It's the day time where I get lost.
Why do I resist the fact that just being alive is good enough? Whatever I do with my days, as long as it is not harming myself or others, is okay. I get writer's block because I am judging myself and pushing myself and not going with the flow of life. It's back to having ambition instead of patience and humility. The truth is that my life is a simple life. Another truth is that I think I want it to stay that way. In order to keep things simple I need to let go of ambitious ideas. Maybe I will write a book, but not unless I learn to write a good essay. I have a friend who told me that one of the things that got her out of her depression was the expression, "little by little". Baby steps...persistence, faith and hard work.
My life is mysterious to me. I don't know why I'm here; I'm just here. And I know now that while I'm here, every moment I'm here, I'm changing and my circumstances are changing. I know this is true for all of us. I witness the change when I listen back to my audio journal from a few days in the past. It helps me to acknowledge that I can hold onto nothing. And it keeps me honest. Writing here does the same thing. I've been writing in this blog since about November of 2006. Very slowly I am printing up my blog so that I have a hard copy to review, maybe edit and re-work. I think it is important that I do this so that I can follow the flow of my life and see what lessons I am learning or re-learning. Every now and then I need to review my journals and take stock of where I've been and where I seem to be heading.
My audio journal is a good therapeutic tool, but sometimes I neglect my writing because I'm busy pouring out my thoughts and ideas on tape. It's easier for me to talk to myself than to write, but writing also holds the key to self-understanding and to sharing my experiences with others. The more I study Buddhism, the more I want to be helpful to others. The challenge is to not lose confidence. That's a big challenge.
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