Aye, Dream

Giving myself permission to dream big can be a real stretch. Yes, really, it's true - I'm such a pragmatist, perhaps because I'm a Virgo or perhaps because my father and his stepfather are both practical men (also Virgos) who heavily influenced my thinking. Often enough as a child, I'd make an offhand comment about something I wanted and one or the other of them would launch into a detailed explanation of what steps one might take were one to actually attempt to acquire the object of my desire. All three of us are also left-handed and creatively inclined, particularly in pursuits that require logic - for me, that means crocheting with its attendant mathematical constructs.

But back to dreaming… When my husband (and I love him for this) talks about his next big idea or the book that we're writing together, he thinks so far out of my comfort zone that I tend to just sort of tense up. With our book, it may be, "We could be the next J.K. Rowling with the next Harry Potter!" or "We could have movies made from our series, like Twilight, Percy Jackson or His Dark Materials!" Always punctuated with an exclamation. All of which makes me feel very nervous and as though I'm standing on the edge of a precipice. I don't want to disappoint him, but J.K. Rowling is probably a once in FOREVER phenomenon and sure, movies regularly get made from books, but we haven't even finished chapter one of ours so that possibility seems impossibly far out beyond the horizon.

Still, his dreams make a good counterbalance to my own. Mine that often look something more like: "Maybe I'll get a blog post written this week," or perhaps "I'd like to try to get three loads of laundry done AND put away this week."

What would I dream up if I allowed those boundaries to really dissolve? Don't know - let's find out…

I dream of travelling around Europe and elsewhere to experience different cultures firsthand, allowing my remaining preconceived notions about what's "normal" to fall away.

I dream about a writer's retreat that is a small but cozy space with a kitchen(ette) and a place to lie down for a cat nap (or a rip-roarin' snooze). Maybe a Mother-in-Law's cottage adjacent to a larger home, maybe an elegant loft in a large city, maybe just a gussied up tool shed. I've actually entertained the latter quite recently during trips to Lowe's and Home Depot - aren't they adorable? Ostensibly, they'd be heated and cooled by solar power.

Outdoor Living Today's Pentagonal Penthouse Garden Shed at Home Depot

  

Cedarshed Clubhouse (8' x 16') at Lowes


I dream about having plenty of cash on hand for whatever might arise, need or want, so that I don't have to scramble about, make do or resort to a beg/borrow/steal mentality. By this, I don't mean millions of dollars. Frankly, I don't know how I'd quantify it. A bank account that perpetually had a balance of any given whole number followed by at least three zeros would probably fulfill this criterion. Four zeros wouldn't be bad either…

I dream about contributing to my/our world in a meaningful way - making gum (more specifically, reporting on the process of making gum) certainly isn't wrong in any inherent way, but it doesn't really feel like we're doing anything of genuine worth to improve the world in any qualitative way. Quantitatively, we're manufacturing a lot of "stuff" and I might have just a wee issue with that, but we're not the sole contributors to that monster, so…

I dream about writing books that people enjoy reading and purchase as gifts for their friends and discuss over cups of tea (or coffee, if they must). I'd even be tickled to hear complaints because that still means I've triggered something in them strong enough to elicit a response.

I dream about helping people begin to peel back the layers of gauze that obscure their sight so that they can see more facets of the amazing, wonderful, beautiful, astounding, awe-inspiring world of people, animals, plants, minerals and elements around them. I am already working on my own gauze, wispy and ethereal as it is.

I want to help other Picky Eaters become Persnickety Eaters in whatever form suits them best. And write memoir cookbooks of their journeys and my own.

I do dream. I can dream big and vague and not worry whether my dreams are at all feasible or how I might accomplish them or in what timeframe and with what resources. Yes, I acknowledge that manifesting my dreams - any of them - will require specific action, but never worry. Worry serves no purpose but to delay progress toward whatever goal I might pursue.

What are your BIG dreams?

Exposing Personal Myths

What ecstatic fun you can have examining the myriad myths of a misspent youth!

While I was in the shower this morning (because you needing the setting), I had an epiphany (because epiphanies and hot water seem to go hand in hand). Here's what I remembered: I used to think that "thin" had a weight limit and that was 110 pounds (roughly 50 kg)...

HUH?!? No wonder I had weight/body image issues! I have no idea where that number actually came from, but there it was as if from one of Moses' stone tablets.

Okay, well, that might be exactly what thin looks like for some folks (and my sincere blessings to you if you are in that category), but at 5'10" tall, that wouldn't have been "thin" for me. That would have been skeletal.

Luckily for me, I spent most of my excessively athletic high school years between 135-145. No, I didn't realize then how thin I actually was, but I have a great appreciation for that fact now. During college, I padded out a little, but still stayed between 145-160. Well within healthy norms for my height and build. I happen to have dense muscle mass (or so my chiropractor insists), so the scale weight for me of say, 140, equates to a size 5/6.

Right now, late-30's and post-babies, I'm aiming for a comfortable size 7/8, whatever that happens to look like on the scale. That's a drop of only about 3 sizes, nothing requiring surgery or hyper-restrictive dieting, but still a challenge on every face of it. I've been doing a yoga-pilates class several nights a week for about 2 months and I can tell a difference, but it doesn't seem to be quite "enough". Yes, there's that word, but I'm not applying it to myself in this case but rather my choice of physical activity.

So I joined a walking team at work. It's the first time they've done this so I don't know many of the details but I got my pedometer this morning and it's almost insanely fun to see how my regular walking adds up. Our manufacturing facility is quite large and though I don't often venture into the vast recesses, I do at least make the trek to/from my vehicle in addition to walking up and down a large flight of stairs several times each day. The pedometer measures to the thousandths of a mile so every step (or five) adds to the total.

As I've delved deeper into exposing myths (like "my ideal weight *should* be 110 lbs."), I've built healthier, more realistic concepts to take their place. Yoga, walking - maybe even running if I can beat the insane summer heat - these help me construct that framework that will sustain me through the rest of my years (which I plan to be numerous).

What personal myths have you excavated from your childhood/youth?

Shine On

This might not be obvious from previous posts - in fact, this might run entirely contrary to previous posts, come to think of it - but I am a relatively happy person. With few breaks in continuity, I have primarily looked upon the world in general with a glass-three-quarters-full, anything-is-possible sort of attitude. It's no coincidence that the first tattoo I chose was a sunshine with a Northward-pointing compass directional above it. Sunny, happy-go-lucky, joyous, brighten-your-spirits - I identify deeply with those descriptors.

In my darkest of days (the ones that seem most often to find their outlet here), one or the other of the wonderful people whom I cherishingly (is that a word?) claim as friends nearly always manages to remind me that I am valuable, to them and to my boys and to others as well. In the throes of pain, it's not always easy to dredge up (or believe) that kind of information by myself. It's much, much easier to believe that my contribution to this world is so little as to be utterly insignificant, which invariably breeds the thought: "Then what's the point?"

There's always a point, to every life that exists then ceases to exist. How we perceive, receive, believe and allow those lives to achieve their ends provides us with the reason. When we stifle life, our own or others, we cause damage that's impossible to measure. Still, those times are ripe for learning, too, in the endless, formless, timeless way that existence simply happens.

As I continue to emerge from my current cycle, rising into the next one with just a little more grace, a little more wisdom, a little more experience, and just possibly a little less baggage, I can feel a radiance beginning to grow within. It's always been there, though it's been frightfully dim for too long. With continued nurturing, that light will once again have the chance to shine through - Future's so bright, we're all gonna need shades!

What Is Real?

There are game changers, paradigm shifts, that leave a person grasping for threads of reality, some shard of a comfort zone, a leg on which to stand. One of those turning points happened to me seven years ago when my first child was born. My whole world changed hue: my eyes saw differently and my brain processes were permanently altered in ways to multitudinous to enumerate. That was an incredibly difficult time period for me - over two years of feeling like I was on a flaming, sinking ship rather than "over the moon" (which was how I thought I should feel about the beautiful little boy I'd been gifted with.)

Almost seven years to the day later, I've reached another long-sought-after pivotal event: I had a real conversation with my father. A genuine heart-to-heart, devoid of the amorphous tension that has plagued our interactions for too many years, wherein I got to ask some of the hard-to-ask questions I'd only recently been able to formulate coherently and to which he responded openly. There was no sense of judgment, no feelings of regret or necessity for apology; I had no attachment to or desire for any specific answer. We just talked.

I opened the conversation via email because it was comfortable to me to do so. That gave me the opportunity to carefully craft what I wanted to express, give all the background I felt was pertinent, make sure I meant everything I said and that it held both the gravity and genuine curiosity which I felt without laying any blame or pointing any fingers.

What I truly felt was needed for my healing to progress was for some gaps to be filled. What I experienced was infinitely more profound: the entire story required intense revision. I'm still working on bits and pieces of it but the basics have been modified so wholly that it's left me a little lightheaded. My husband even commented that my conversation must have gone well because I seemed much more happy than I'd been in a while. He was right on the money.

In its grittiest short form, the story I'd believed for so long that I'd simply accepted it as whole cloth, was that, as I was nearing the end of third grade, I had to go live with my grandparents because they were the only ones who could take me. There were multiple, emotionally charges layers in my mind as to why this was: I was too much of a burden on my stepmother because she had two small children of her own with another coming in a few months; my mother didn't have the financial resources to care for me; my grandparents only had one of their four children still at home so they were stable enough to take me in. All of these factors, for me, carried a sense of me being a hassle, a challenge to be dealt with, a frustration that needed to be handled because it couldn't easily be gotten rid of all together rather than a child who needed to be loved and cared for. Of course, it was never said to me in so many words - these are concepts that I applied later as I tried making sense of my memories as my mental processes matured. Not having any other evidence or input than my experience (which no doubt included things the adults in my life said to me without realizing the impact they'd have for me), I went along for the better part of three decades with an omnipresent sense of abandonment, perpetually questioning the love that should have been obvious but which was, for me, always in doubt.

What my father gave me was context. My mother had surmised much of what we discussed, but he filled in many of the varied circumstances and situations at play at that particular time in our family's history: extenuating financial challenges, intense work stresses, family in-fighting, the crossroads he was at personally in his career. The decision for me to go live with my grandparents, at its most basic, was based on everyone's desire for me to have a stable school environment. I'd already been in four schools in three states (VA, FL and MI) over the course of my first through third grade career so this factor alone had significant impact. The other obvious benefit was that my grandparents, my grandmother in particular, doted on me so it was understood that it would be a loving home for me. I admit that I was spoiled while I was there, but it certainly was a place where I felt fully loved.

What I missed was the sense of belonging - when I left my sisters and my brother-to-be, the home and parents I'd known for so many of my very early years, I never again felt like a proper part of that family. I was a guest, a visitor, more like a close cousin than a sibling/child. Strangely, however, my sisters and brother have always felt fully my siblings despite the fact that they share a mother with each other and, biologically speaking, I only share a father with them. I don't know whether that feeling is as strong for them since they were so little when I departed their daily lives, but they've never seemed like "half-siblings" to me.

My challenge now, my opportunity for growth, is to use this chance to make my personal history revisions and move forward with more confidence, more solid footing that this greater understanding of my life brings to me. It's a gift that has great potential for outward expansion; in what ways might I use this knowledge to be of service to others, helping them heal from their old wounds? Yes, mine own wounds still need careful ministration, more healing salve, more holes need filling in. And that's just fine.

I can say with certainty that this one conversation will ultimately prove integral to the next steps in my spiritual and emotional evolution - with any luck at all, I'll be able to permanently dissolve some of the angst that's nipped at my heals incessantly throughout my adult life. Exercises like this post will help me document those feelings so I can recognize them should they start stealing their way back in as well as solidifying my new story. I like it.

In what ways might you be able to examine your story and act as your own life editor?

Grief Gratitude Grace

Graceful Beauty

Lately, I've been doing a lot of grieving. For the people of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, and their relatives around the world. For Chad. For a high school classmate who's suffering an inconceivable loss.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that grieving for them makes me feel grateful, but isn't that almost always the way? Don't you see someone else suffering and have a moment of gladness that it isn't you even as you wish they didn't have to experience it either? Why should we pile guilt for gratitude on top of grieving?

Whether with or without sorrow, I love my life. A blogger friend's post reminded me of that this morning. Things don't have to be perfectly hunky-dory for me to have great appreciation the people in my life. Such an amazing panoply of lives have touched mine, molded mine, shaped me gently (and not-so-gently) into the person that I am. A person I'm still learning how to love and cherish, a person who is still evolving, still learning, still growing.

And I don't regret a step of the journey. Parts have seemed almost ridiculously difficult, though less so in retrospect. Once you've lived through hardship and emerged into the sunshine on the other side, it's not always easy to peer back into those darker regions and see very clearly. You're a bit blinded, you see, and that's probably how it should be.

I don't really know whether "time heals all wounds" is an accurate phrase. Time makes them easier to bear, easier to contextualize… harder to recall with clarity.

So on the other side of my tears for friends known and unknown, I find genuine gratitude, renewed energy for my endeavors, and hope for healing of the deep sorrows of the world.

Put more simply, I find love.

Three Boys I Love

Easier Said Than

Sometimes I talk a good game. Shoot the breeze, convince the locals. Parlez the lingo, as it were.

Occasionally, I even "walk the talk". Yay, me!

But there's this strict, not-so-little, very unforgiving voice inside my head that always pipes up with the, "BUT..." Always. I try to assuage this voice, reminding it that I need to be gentle with myself, that criticism - the harsh, scathing, cruel kind - has no place hereabouts.

I've made good improvements to my life, I say. But there are many left to make, it counters. I know this and I'd like to be pleased with these five good choices for just this moment, I reply. Well, just for a moment then BUT don't forget about the other hundred or so things you should also be doing, it says, shaking its head a bit ruefully.

Like I told my six-year-old when he complained about kids teasing him, I should just ignore this voice. Or reform it. Maybe I could locate some inner monologue reformers, kind of like those people who "cure" people who've been brainwashed by locking them in a hotel room and screaming at them.

On second thought...

Maybe all that voice needs is love, a little acceptance, a LOT of patience. I learn new things, experience new viewpoints, every day. Some I take in and nurture, ponder and incorporate. Some I discard wholesale. That's how it is for everyone, I suppose, on one level of awareness or another. The key seems to be how consciously you make these choices versus just allowing things to happen to you (or in your vicinity). That's my model and mantra for 2011 - To live purposely and intentionally.

So here's to promoting the energy of moving from the "said" to the "done" and enjoying the [sometimes arduous] journey along the way!

Quiet Memories

I think that anyone who contemplates the intrinsic mysteriousness of life has in their metaphorical suitcase an incident or memory that is, for them, the quintessential moment of connection with something greater than "me". Maybe that memory isn't infallible, but I'd like to think that it is the use to which we put our memories that is important, not the scribe-like quality we might hope that memory could have. I don't think I can link to the post that elicited these thoughts (as it's on a friend's Facebook page) and in the interest of maintaining her privacy, I'm not going to share her name here. The core of her piece that moved me to words is a belief she holds that she is destined, as it were, for something larger than even the amazing accomplishments she's already achieved - something greater than her single self in which she will take part and thereby improve by giving that most precious and abundant resource: love.

I've worked hard on a number of occasions to give voice to a similar feeling I've had for as long as I can recall. Perhaps it's become embellished in my mind, but I consider that serendipitous - that the idea, feeling, compulsion, drive has a life of its own which keeps it growing toward manifestation. That's a good an explanation of any that Spirit / Unity / God works in our lives without our having to be consciously aware of the connective force going about its business.

When I give myself over to stillness and quiet the thoughts that race unceasingly through my overcrowded cranium, it is very easy to sense that there's a larger whole of which I am a part and which simultaneously is a sum greater than its constituent parts. When I allow that sense to fill me up, push out the extraneous bits, "defrag my hard drive", I feel peace. The same peace I had as a child, standing in a newly mown field adjacent to our school playground, gathering up the dead, dried grass to make a bird's nest. What I couldn't have known then but see clearly now is that I was learning about cycles of nature: the death of the grass gave in turn a home for the birds in which they could raise their young. Just a small part of a large cycle, but holding the nest in my hands, I could feel the remnant life of the grass, clearly see it connect with the life inside myself. I could imagine myself a cat creeping through the tall grass, stalking the bird making its nest. I could imagine myself the bird, doing birdy things, soaring through the air, and gathering worms for my cheeping babies. All of which made re-entering the school building at recess end an endeavor of re-entering my physical body, taking back on the heavier feeling of walking about in this corporeal form. I would have been about 9 or 10 years old at the time yet I can recall enough scraps to reconstruct a beautiful picture that holds meaning for me now, 25 years later.

I've never lost that ability to set myself loose. Indeed, I've endured a fair bit of good-natured ribbing for being in my "own little world". I don't mind, and I never will mind - it is when I'm in my own little world that I feel most complete and connected to all elements of creation.

Good Heavens - Great Scott!

Even though it's been a terribly long time and I've intended to get over here more times than I care to admit, I was nearly thwarted yet again. No, it wasn't a kid this time. No, it wasn't any other responsibility. It was Google! I swear that I used to be able to go through Google to get to my Blogger account... Apparently I've lost that ability somewhere along the line.

So, there's the perfunctory opening babble out of the way. Perhaps I ought to just skip it next time (did I just hear a "YAY!!!"?). Anyone who's spent any time around me at all knows that I talk a lot. I also tell stories. I talk about ideas I have for stories I'd like to write. I talk about books and letters and articles that I'd love to share. Yet... yet... I haven't.

I have a beautiful friend who blogs every day. I have another lovely amie who blogs quite frequently. They don't let the excuses of motherhood or responsibility stop them and I applaud them loudly (insert audio file of clapping here). Why aren't I more like them? Makes me think of that song on The Jungle Book. I wanna be like them! They write thoughtful, relevant, cogent pieces. (Have I mentioned how tickled I am to be friends with such incredible ladies?)

So, rather than beat myself over the head (yet again), I'll resolve to take another little step forward. Who knows? This time it could build on all the others just enough to give me the quantum leap forward that I'm really looking for!

Truly, Deeply

In Love - My husband fulfills me in ways that I didn't know I needed fulfilling.

In Mommy - For the first time, I love being a Mommy, even when there's spit-up on my bare shoulder.

In Awe - Of the hardships and challenges my family and friends endure and through which they find the strength to thrive.

As The Little Globe Spins

I'm feeling a little sleepy even though I didn't get up terribly early AND I took a nap this afternoon. This holiday weekend provided me with a well-timed break. I got to play in a lake all day on Friday with a good friend, just hang around and relax today, and I still have tomorrow to do "responsible" things, like laundry and bill paying.

There's one more thing I've been asked to do tomorrow as well: create a memorial DVD for a close friend who lost her mother on Thursday. Perhaps that's part of why I feel drained. Let me explain - I am honored to help my friend remember her mother. At the same time, I have to put up a wall to keep my own heart from breaking, protect myself from the inevitable worry about my own mother's mortality. I still have two living grandparents, so it's almost inconceivable to me that either of my parents could possibly pass.

Juxtaposed with those largely ignored feelings, I have been feeling the first little twinges of new life in my belly. My sister, currently pregnant with her first child, described it feeling to her like an "angel running in place". Probably my favorite description ever.

So the little globe spins and the cycle continues...