this morning

portland street altar, april 2007

I sought a cocoon of solace as I slid the rings across the bar and felt the warm water touch my skin.

The words rang out with a crackle.

Your problem is, you always want to talk about things and other people don't want to.

Words from long ago, but words that stay with a person.

For almost thirty years, I tried to package it all up in nice pretty bows so they didn't have to hear it. But, when people opened the packages, out would jump confusion, empty space, disconnection, trying to please, untruths, hurt, fakeness, and other images that were often not what I meant at all. And, I talked and talked and talked about the confusion with a few trusted souls, but I never really gave myself the space to change.

It was my body that finally got me to shut up and listen as it gave me a package full of my unsaid words in the form of a ping-pong ball size round cyst in my throat that lived in my body during the months of November and December last year.

The space it used to take up has become a barometer of sorts now that alerts me to a sudden tiptoeing back to past ways. And as those words rang out today, that space gave a little ba-boom, ba-boom and began to ache.

I reached up for my throat and sank to my knees as fine, whatever you want rang out in my head. In child's pose with the hot water beating on my back, I didn't sob but opened my eyes and watched the water dropping from my forehead. I heard Deb Talan's words and began to sing along with her in my mind…

Tell your story
Tell it, tell it
Tell your story
To anyone who'll listen
Tell your story
Don't stop talking
Just
Tell your story walking

I sang these words on repeat until my older-than-my-years knees reminded me to move. I stood and pressed my head against the cool wall and took several deep breaths. I called on my teachers, one by one, seeking.

Then, I heard their whispered chorus,

You are on your path.

My voice mingled with theirs as we said it again and again.

Until the water heater needed a break.

Until it was time for me to emerge.

a little charred...but open to joy

I was going to post this delightful "senses" post about how I spent my day yesterday…but life kicked in at some point and things shifted to some other things…like the following:

1) Jon's grandmother, Gram, is in the hospital. She fell and broke several ribs. She is in a lot of pain. They are concerned about pneumonia (she is 91) and it hurts her so much to cough. As of our last phone call, they were not moving her to intensive care, and she had been sitting up in a chair for a while. So that is good news. Please keep her in your thoughts. She is a dear lady full of life and light and laughter. A hippie and an artist; several of her pieces hang in our home. I feel blessed that she came into my life and we both adore her.

2) I hoped to get my etsy shop open this week…but I think I will need to wait until next week like I thought all along. Need to finish a few prayer flag sets, but then, I have to take pictures of everything. The weather is not cooperating (well, and then there is the part that you have to be finished with everything before you can take pictures). The other reason is…

3) Several urgent files came in for my "day job" this weekend. Files that need to be done asap. Which means working on Mother's Day. Not that I am a mother or anything…but… And, of course, it isn't my boss that is insisting I work. No. But, our clients need these things turned around and since it isn't sunny enough to take pictures of things I haven't yet finished…I am editing today. Well, and you can't finish things that need to be sewn when you have to spend the afternoon at a café because….

4) I tried to burn the house down today. Okay, I, of course, did not try to burn the house down, but, I did start a darn nice fire. By accident. Who wants to start a fire in their kitchen? On an electric stove? When the person is just trying to make tea? The story: I filled up the tea kettle and turned on the burner and went back to my little room to edit. And just when I thought, "oh it is probably boiling by now," I started to smell something burning. And thought, "oh there must have been some rice from dinner the other night on the stove or something." And then edited two more sentences before heading to the kitchen. My brain was starting to compute, "hmm…something smells like it is actually on fire" and my eyes started to burn from smoke and I turned the corner to the kitchen/family room. In no particular order of absent-minded horrors: a) I had turned on the wrong burner. b) There was kitchen towel on the stove. c) I had turned on the stove when a kitchen towel was on it. d) The kitchen towel was on the "wrong" burner. e) There were pretty huge, high flames that had engulfed that kitchen towel. f) There was that scary "flames are around" sound as the towel burned. The good parts, in no particular order of importance: There was a section of the towel that was not burning. That section was enough for me to pick up the towel and throw it in the sink, without burning myself (or starting a second fire). We have one of those water hose things in our kitchen sink so I was able to quickly douse the entire towel in water. The flames had not reached the towels that hang from our oven handle. Our smoke alarm went off (remember when it didn't?). Oh and no one was hurt and our house did not burn down.

Of course, being a blogger and all, after I had opened all the windows and assured my husband (who had been in the shower) that all was okay ("but would you please turn off the smoke alarm as Millie's ears are hurting from it?"), I decided to take a picture. And share it here...

(As I write this, someone has started playing a cello here in the café. Oh, it brings tears to my eyes, the sound is so beautiful. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon writing a blog post and doing a little work as someone plays the cello.)

As I looked at my charred, W-S wedding-present towel, I had the thought that maybe some of you might have had days lately that have left you feeling a bit "charred" around the edges…

So do you want to do something fun? Like maybe a kitchen/tea towel swap to invite some joy in?

just keep going

I wrote this earlier today, before I had a conversation that shifted my thinking a bit. Still, I want to share these thoughts…and then in another post or two or three, I will share the shift and some other stuff that happened in between last week and this moment right now…

********

As I mentioned in a post last week, I lost a bracelet that meant a lot to me. Buying that bracelet was, for me, a way to buy myself a little gift that would remind me that I am on my path. A little talisman to say, “you are doing it girl.” And I wore it, literally all the time, for almost a year. I think I took it off once to show it to a friend and once as it didn’t quite go with a dress I wore to a wedding last summer. The bright colors reminded me of how I am inviting color, creativity, and awareness into my life. Wearing it all the time, it became a bit like a wedding ring to myself in bracelet form.

Last week, I wrote a letter directed “to the Universe” about this missing bracelet. I could have addressed this letter to myself, to God, to fate, and on and on. I actually don’t use the word universe when I think of a higher power. I usually use god, especially when I pray. Though I think of god as like the collective energy of all that is and was. I think of god as all that I know and all that I could never understand. In that moment though, universe seemed to be the word that fit. I tend not to specifically talk about religion on my blog, partly because I find that there are two topics that can invite people to quickly make assumptions about another person when discussed. These topics are, of course, politics and religion. My blog isn’t really a place for me to go on about these two topics, though I do bring them up occasionally.

That said, last week, when I wrote the letter to the Universe that I posted here, I was actually crying as I wrote it. Almost a week later, I have taken a breath, of course, and see that it was just a bracelet that I lost. At the same time, I know that I deeply understood that then.

However, last week was one of those dark weeks. A week when I wasn’t doing my practice and was feeling overwhelmed by a lot of stuff in my life. I was feeling a bit misunderstood. I wanted to pour out some of the guts of life that had been stuck in me a bit. I wanted to just feel sorry for myself even knowing it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I wanted to feel sorry for myself about the last few years because I haven’t really let myself do that as much as I need to because most of the time I don’t see much point in that.

People often say, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” I can hear an adult figure, can’t remember who, saying this about a friend from high school when she lost her brother in a car accident when she had already lost her mother to cancer. I remember thinking, “that is shit” but heard it so many times that I started to think maybe it could be true. But, right here, in this moment, hear me when I say, “I think that is shit.” I don’t think it is about how much you can handle. There is no “handling” of it all, there is only breathing. You just get up and breathe. You just go to sleep and breathe. You do what you do. You can only go on. That is your only choice.

This is what I have been doing. As we approach the second anniversary of Traveler’s death, which means we are approaching the second anniversary of my grandmother’s death, which means it has been almost three years since I saw my grandmother alive, which means I will never see her alive again because she is dead, I know my only choice is to just keep on going.

I don’t mean this in a melodramatic way. I mean this as truth. And some of you are nodding as you read this and know what I mean. I don’t mean that I don’t see the beauty of my world. Hell, I find gratitude in my day, every single day, as part of my personal practice now. I see it. I know it is there. But the fact is, my life is different because I have been in the middle of this big fucking wide hole that is grief. I have sat in the middle of it, pitched a tent in it some days, chosen to take a walk around it on other days. This is how it goes. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean that life isn’t different. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you have forgotten. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you don’t also see all the good stuff.

Last week, I was having one of those moments when I wanted to simply say, “I need to take a little rest here. This is getting too hard.” But, of course, it isn’t too hard; it is what it is.

You take another breath.

I do get that all I lost was one little piece of materialism. Yes, it is replaceable. I get it.

I am a person trying to, struggling to learn the lessons all the time. Last week, I was feeling dizzy from trying to learn all the lessons. I had spent quite a bit of time upset about how I can’t seem to learn them. How I think I am trying too hard. How I get that the lessons are there for a reason. I was finding my way back to that place where the words feel stuck in my throat because I can’t just be honest about something; instead, I have to try to package it in a way that I think will protect other people because I am so busy thinking about them and not thinking about me that when I try to say it, the words only confuse instead of explain. Last week, I was trying to work my way through it. To move forward. To find my way instead to a place where I can speak about what I really need, feel, and so on. I felt like I was spinning, spinning in circles. Sharing some of this today is an invitation to myself to stop letting the words get stuck…

As several people hoped I woud see, I, of course, see the lesson. I see the irony of losing a superhero bracelet and that, as Andrea told me when I ordered it, I had the superhero power in me before buying the bracelet. I so get it.

But really, I also get this: Sometimes something isn’t a lesson you have to learn in one specific moment in time or just because someone else really wants you to see it. Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that meant a lot to you during a week when you were already feeling really bad. Sometimes you just need to feel bad about losing that bracelet and let go of the need for a lesson in that moment. To let go of the need to please someone else who wants you to see the lesson. Sometimes you need to realize that every single moment of your life isn’t a lesson. Otherwise, someone like me, might become completely paralyzed, unable to move because of all the lessons I am trying to learn in a single moment.

Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that means a lot to you, sometimes people die, sometimes life is confusing, sometimes it gets a little dark until you find the light…and you just keep going and going.

You just keep finding your breath, breathing in and out, and you just keep going.

And you just keep seeing the lessons even when it looks like something isn’t a lesson, even when you have to admit that you know it is one.

You just keep doing the best you can.

dear universe:

i think you already know that i do the best i can. even when the best i can is not that great, it is still the best i can do. i didn’t rage at you when four loved ones were diagnosed with cancer in one month a two years ago. i didn’t rage at you when i sat at the dining room table staring at the phone after the vet told me traveler had cancer and became the fifth loved one. i didn’t rage at you when, even though we put him through chemo and got into debt and prayed and prayed that he would get better, traveler died less than three months after his diagnosis. i didn’t rage at you when my grandmother got sick and the doctors couldn’t diagnose her. i didn’t rage at you when she died the day before i was supposed to visit her. i didn’t rage at you when my good friend lost her husband who had also been my dear friend. i didn’t rage at you when all this was happening when i had just moved all the way across from the country from my family and i didn’t know anyone and i didn’t have full-time work. i didn’t rage at you when i felt sad, misunderstood, and confused. i didn’t rage at you when things didn’t meet my expectations. i didn’t rage at you when other people hurt my feelings. i didn’t rage at you when i hurt others. i didn’t rage at you when i found myself suddenly sick and scared. i didn’t rage at you when the doctor told me it might be cancer. i didn’t rage at you when i had the icky procedure that scared me. i didn’t rage at you when we couldn’t go and see my family for Thanksgiving because of that procedure. i didn’t rage at you when other people in my life were diagnosed with cancer. i didn’t rage at you when we couldn’t see our family for Christmas because of the snow in Colorado. i didn’t rage at you when both my computers died. i didn’t rage at you when life just generally felt sucky.
nope.

i either raged at me or just felt sad.

over the last few years, especially in the last few months, i am trying to shift my way of looking at things for real this time. i am trying to seek out the good stuff and not be so negative. i know that i am changing and growing into someone i want to be. and i think that you might have taken the time to notice that. but even if you don’t notice, i am going to do it anyway.

but yesterday, yesterday was the last straw as they say. yesterday, i lost my superhero bracelet. the one i have been wearing every single day for a year. the one i don’t take off. ever. not ever. ever. yesterday, i lost it. i have looked everywhere in, around, and inside my car and house. i even drove 25 miles back to the mall where i think i lost it yesterday. i even walked all around the parking lot looking for it and talked to the lost and found and went to Nordstrom and looked in their lost and found.

so universe, here is the deal. if someone needed it more than me. if someone found it and saw it and its beauty and super special powers. okay. i get it. that is great. but still, i am just a little over this “liz will be fine” shit. i am a little over this “liz can handle it” shit. yep.

so if you could show me where it might be, that would be great.
otherwise, let in some light okay.
it is getting dark in here.

sincere regards,
liz

begin

a stream-of-consciousness blog post.
also known as a morning-pages-like blog post.
also known as a dumping-the-brain-before-going-to-bed blog post.
also known as a welcome-to-the-world-of-me blog post.

*******

sleepy. so excited about my little room. trying to figure out what to do with the last bits of things. can’t wait until i can get my work done and play in here. just have a bit more to do. i want to put up my initials on the wall. figure out what to call my bulletin board inspiration thing. need to get a chair. i want a brown leather chair but i don’t know where to go to get one. hopefully this weekend we can look for one. i am sleepy. i can’t believe it is almost midnight. i should be in bed. why have i been staying up so late. my brain isn’t ready for bed lately. though i haven’t been all that tired during the day so that is good. feeling good. well. it is a good thing. i am so tired i don’t even know what i want to write about. i think morning pages that are really midnight pages might be better written out. i can’t help but use the delete key just a little bit (not counting when i make a mistake). kelly gave me the idea to just start using the morning pages as brainstorming. and this is how i fell in love with them again. i just started writing down words that make me happy. words that trigger all the good stuff i have learned in the last two years. has it been two years? i cannot believe that in a few weeks it will be the anniversary of traveler’s death. two years. i miss him. and then two years since my grandmother’s death this april. i miss her every single day. i was telling jon today that all my poetry is about her. and the reason i think it is always about her is because it is the most real thing in my life. the fact that she is dead. it is tangible and real and yet unbelievable and crazy and not at all tangible at the same time. but it is the most real. i have never felt more real in all my life as i have felt since she died. everything is different. every single fucking thing about it all is different. all of it. i am sleepy and don’t really want to be so focused on this as i get ready to head to bed. i miss her. getting her windbreaker in the mail and some other things has been a good thing. but the missing crept back to the forefront since i opened that box. that is okay. but it is still so very painful. but real. i think of the velveteen rabbit a lot. the wise skin horse. the truth, the truth, the truth. yes. only when you are rubbed off in parts and all that stuff. only then are you real. what i love about blogging is that i really believe some people come to the page and come from their real place. not everyone i suppose. but that is not for me to judge. i appreciate that blogging has helped me to know that this search for real is not something i am doing alone. oh this makes me even more tired though. all the work. and it is work. this living. i bought these little tiny glass jars today and i cannot wait to fill them with the smallest of bits i use to create. of course, i have been creating more in my mind lately. but soon, i will be creating again. stuff that is tangible. i spent the last few days brainstorming potential names for a little business i would like to create where i might sell my creations. hmmm. so many fun words out there. so many possibilities. it is great fun to brainstorm like this. i told jon that sometimes i laugh in my head that i am one of those people with all these great ideas for things to sell and create. the good thing is that i don’t create businesses for each one of them because then we would be living in a little teeny one room place. but at the same time, i wish i took the leap. stopped the excuses. today, we were at a store also known as the paper source also known as a place where i want to spend a million dollars also known as the place i left without spending a dime, and they had these delightful lowercase letters i could put on my wall. and i decided what i wanted to spell: begin. that is the word. begin. BUT. of course. they didn’t have any e’s. not one. though the nice woman told me that michael’s has the same kind of letters. will be funny to compare prices. they were hollow cardboard letters that i can decorate. this is the reminder. begin. when i don’t know what to do. begin. when i don’t know what to make. begin. when i am scared. begin. when i am overwhelmed. begin. begin. do not be afraid. stop with the excuses already.
begin.