A Moment by the Lake

I have forgotten my camera at the tent, and I don't want to disturb the dogs by retrieving it.

I am sitting in dappled morning sun, over-looking Lake Charlton. There are no ripples on its mirrored surface, only steam rising from it. The sun peeks through pine needles on an adjacent tree, and I can almost look at it with my sunglasses.

The silence presses against my eardrums, and then I hear past the silence. Birds, insects buzzing, a camper's slow rumble of a snore, a camp-mate's propane burner for making that first cup of camp coffee.

Soon kindling is being chopped and I wonder again about retrieving my camera.

I've only come out for one night of camping--and it seems both ridiculous to do so, and absolutely necessary.

A micro-adventure into nature to hear The Piper playing his songs. I hear them in the birdsong across the lake, in the breeze that flutters past my ears and dances in the spider webs.

The kindling catches and the campfire smoke floats out to the lake.

My coffee has grown lukewarm and so a trek to the car to get another bottle of propane is next. I will eat instant oatmeal without guilt and make a cup of chai.

There is a half-hearted talk between the only other two campers awake yet of taking the canoe out, but I don't want to move from my spot. I'm enjoying the quiet like I haven't since I arrived yesterday afternoon. Soon enough the quiet will end.

I was hoping for silent epiphany last night, but I was kept engaged with my friends--enjoying the night--and without sleep late until the wee dark hours of the morning.

But maybe this morning's silence by campfire and following the sun rise higher in the tree's needles is enough.

The Piper card from the Faerie Oracle deck said for me to come camping, so I did.

I'm confident that I have received, or will receive, whatever infusion I needed to clear my head and center into me again.

The more I think about it, the more I believe my healing and personal growth were aided by this view this morning. This still lake, this crackling fire, this quiet morning with the scent of infusing each breath.

This moment is why I came out to Mother Gaia--why I'm here today.

Doggy Dilemmas

Time for another seven minute blog post!

Since last I wrote, life took an unfortunate turn.

Two of my dogs fought again.

It was super traumatic. For me and the dogs. I only now feel partially recovered. I mildly injured my hand in trying to break up the fight--just stiff and a little swelling/over quickly, but I'm talking about the emotional trauma. I honestly thought they were killing each other. I knew with certainty that one of them would end up dead. I tried everything to get them apart. I even called 911, who patched me to the Police Department, who said that the Animal Control people had left for the day already. By the time they had called back to check in on me, I had miraculously managed to get them apart.

I'm not re-living the event in my mind nearly as often as before, and slowly feeling a little better every day.

They've been separated for over a week and this makes our home life more stressful. No more snuggling on the bed together. No more lounging in the living room with my loverloverman and all three dogs. Now we take turns sitting with them in different parts of the house, making it so that even the humans get separated from each other for stretches of time. (insert sad face)

At least the rigor of medications is over. Two different pain meds and two different antibiotics, two and three times a day, for two different dogs was crazy insane to go through. I've been to several vet appointments, with still one more to go. Humphrey needs to go in next week to get his stitches removed.

Also next week we start a new kind of dog training. I have high hopes for this time around. We've done others in the past with limited success. Loverloverman is right in pointing out that some of that "limited success" was our fault for not personally training them everyday (in addition to the two training sessions the professionals would come and do each week.) And this training will focus on changing dog emotions--specifically the problem ones: fear, anxiety, aggression.

We will be putting both dogs through training (a first), and both dogs will get personally trained by us every day (also a first). We will be changing around some of the things at home that cause extra stress for the dogs, hoping that will create a way for them to deal with their dislike of each other in less "rough and tumble" ways.

For instance, we will be installing a mailbox at the street. Two of our dogs go completely dire-wolf on the mailman through the window when he or she approaches the house mail slot. Why get the doggy adrenaline going and just cause them to be all fired up around each other? That's a recipe for disaster, right? With a mailbox at the street, no mailman at the house, no doggy freak-out, no running into each other, no fighting. Win/Win.

I'll blog about our training successes (or failures) in the upcoming weeks.

Look here for tips and tricks that might help you in your doggy dilemmas. Let's learn together.

S.A.D. Tales and Renewal's Redemption

I'm struggling struggling struggling. Sometimes S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) gets the better of me and I just have to cry and stare into my Mini Plus HappyLite. I don't know if this actually helps, but it's something I can proactively do, making me feel a little less helpless. (Side thought: maybe listening to Gillian Welch isn't very helpful right now.)

Yesterday and the day before were lovely lovely lovely sunny days. I sat on the back step in full sun and soaked soaked soaked it up. And journaled. I haven't been journaling enough lately, and really feel the effects.

Journaling, for me, is code for "Checking In." If I don't check in with myself, I don't know why I'm making any decisions, why I'm facing a certain direction, or why I feel strangled/restless/unsatisfied. Checking in with myself makes a big difference in my centering and grounding.

Petting warm doggies on squishy green couches lifts my spirits, too.

Spring is around the corner and the evidence is everywhere. I'm really looking forward to feeling healthy and energetic again. This past Winter was more difficult for me than ever before--and I'm not sure why. I speculated that SAD was accumulative not only during the season, but each and every year. But probably that's not true at all. Probably it's that it was colder than usual with two ice and snow storms. Eugene usually gets one snow day a year; this time it was two weeks of snow days.

The Spring Equinox (happening next week) brings me a day of planning. Planning and goal setting for the year. Personal goals, business goals, family goals. Ginger Carlson, author of Child of Wonder, got me into doing this. One year my kids did it with me, and this year I'd love to have Ali do it with me. 

With the budding of newness in the very soil around me, I can't help but think of my own renewal. In the past three weeks I've made plans for my massage business, tried on new ways of thinking about myself as a writer, and created a new financial plan--including a new budget.

In these ways I'm moving out of my winterized shell and into the light. Quite literally. It's coaxing me out of my funk.

What I still need to worry about are my internal expectations. They say we are our own worst critics, and never is that more accurate for me than during the winter, or just coming out winter. Or just going into winter. (Ha ha.) I slow way down, I'm overwhelmed by tasks that don't normally confound me, and I fall off my exercise routine. Lots of things just don't get done--and one of those things is usually self-care.

Despite today being a low-energy day, and one where I spent a good hour in front of the HappyLite, and my continued efforts at not succumbing to a nap for the past three hours, I am feeling grateful for the future and the things I'm about to embark on that will change how I think about myself and how I represent myself to others. I'm grateful for my continued passion and love for my partner and for my continued bond with my two teenaged children. And while I'm currently stressed out about taxes, money, and having to move (or not--I'll know in a couple months), I will get passed all that. I know it.

May Spring bring you renewed energy, excitement, and health.

February Stinks.

Unfortunately, it is February again.

That means:

I'm cold.
I can't get warm no matter what I do.
I'm old-man-cranky.
I'm exhausted.
All I want to do is either sleep, nap, read, sleep, drink hot beverages, or maybe watch a movie.
(But even that sounds like too much effort.)

I sat down to Be Creative (I set aside time every day for that), and poked around on Facebook for twenty minutes instead. Not feeling creative right now either.

I received a Reiki session today. That helped a lot. I was warm, relaxed, released some cleansing tears, and just felt nurtured. With that needed energy, I was able to go grocery shopping and stalked up on feel-good food, healthy food, and comfort food that's not so good for me. I brought in fire wood and chopped kindling for the cold front that's due to come in.

Disappointment Feels Heavy in my Chest

Warning: There is nothing profound in this post. In fact, it's probably better if you don't bother reading it.

I get stuck on what to write a lot these days. It's easier to watch someone else's stories on the screen, or to read someone else's words in a book. It's easier to market my book, instead of writing a new one.

It snowed today. And instead of being cozy and knitting or reading or blogging, or glorying in the unexpected day off to play (or even to be accomplished), I felt bad. I cried while watching Little Women. I felt orphaned. Abandoned by family. Some not in a malicious way (perhaps none of them in a malicious way), but I felt lonely all the same.

My mom and my sister (and her family) live in Minnesota and I only hear from them sparingly, every few months or so; my dad (and his family) live not more than an hour away, but I only see him once a year on xmas eve, presumably because he can't be bothered any other time. He and his wife have a new roommate that I only found out about today when he confirmed he would *not* be joining us for our traditional xmas eve gathering because it would just be logistically too inconvenient. And then there's my other sister. The one in Wyoming. The one that stopped talking to me six years ago. For religious reasons, she said.

I asked my friend today if it was wrong to wish your family were different than they were. She said, No. When I said that it felt like I was giving up on them, she said, you can't give up on someone who won't engage.

It's not that they won't engage (except for Wyoming Sister), it's that they don't engage in the way that I want them to. Isn't that loving them conditionally then? "I'll only love you if..."? I keep coming up with excuses for them, or repeating to myself what they tell me. And my mom did just call me last month out of the blue and talked to me on the phone for two hours, when I know she hates talking on the phone, and then we followed up via FB chat last week for a couple of minutes. Another friend said that I don't need to make excuses for them, I need to just let the sad and disappointed pieces of me talk.

Maybe there is something to just accepting that they aren't who I want them to be, and not trying to get more out of them. I should just love them the way they are and get my emotional and familial needs met by others. Who'd want to be around or talk to anyone who is disappointed in you anyway? That way just leads to more hurt. Plus, I'm not the greatest at keeping in contact either. And what's with my whining when I miss them? Why don't I contact them when I think of them, instead of bemoan our separation and wonder why they don't contact *me*?

My children are home, but as teenagers they most often prefer the solitude of their bedrooms and YouTube, and my loverloverman is still in India (due home is six days!) Combining that with my geographically and emotionally absent family members, I feel understandably melancholy. Suddenly the dishes and making dinner look way more difficult to approach than normal.

It's Been a Red Flag Month

It's hard to talk about my depression, because -- on the outside -- it seems so trivial. I don't have clinical depression, I'm not high-risk for needing medication, I'm not suicidal, and I function -- with all outward appearances -- normally. However, as with everybody, I'm sure, there are seasonal times, hormonal times, or times during the year where your life seems to be running too fast to keep up with, and you just get a wee bit depressed as a result. That's the kind of depression that I'm talking about. It's the self-resolving kind. But for the month or two that it's around, it's a bitch.

I have learned over the years to identify my "red flags" that tell me when I'm in that depressive place. For instance, this morning all I wanted to do was knit and watch Little House on the Prairie. Not a normal response to waking up in the morning. When I start seeing those red flags pop up in my every day life, I want to take steps to remedy whatever is out of balance. I don't know if it would, but I fear that if I didn't change whatever was creating that mild depression, that I would settle into something much deeper and harder to get rid of.

My red flags are things like wanting to sleep a lot, or watching two movies in one night. All by themselves, they are harmless. There's nothing wrong with wanting to sleep for nine hours -- if you're trying to catch up on some lost sleep. There's nothing wrong with watching two movies in one night -- if you're having a movie marathon with friends, or if the only way you can get your son to get off the computer, widen his horizons, and socialize with you is promising to watch something he wants, if he'll then watch something you want to watch. It is a problem -- for me -- when I'm offered a night out with my loverloverman and I opt to stay home by myself and watch Gosford Park and three episodes of West Wing.

I also recognize that my red flags are not going to be someone else's red flags. This comes in handy when I'm trying to avoid diagnosing people with depression, especially my own children -- teenagers who only want to watch YouTube, sleep for twelve hours a day, and not come out of the their rooms, or even bathe. I have to constantly remind myself that they are teenagers, not depressed.

Also, I'm not the center of the universe. If I'm feeling depressed, that doesn't mean that everyone around me is.

I drug myself out of bed this morning at 9 am. Later than I normally wake up. I missed a yoga class. Again. And I didn't really feel all that bad about it. It was kind of a relief. "Oh darn. Too late for yoga." And that's happened, like, four times in the last two months. Also, different than normal for me. More red flags. So, after I did the dishes and made my bed, I pulled out my journal and started writing down things that I'm doing or feeling lately that are making me a little nervous.

RED FLAGS

1. Feeling mildly overwhelmed (like I have too much to do)
2. Tired (back to needing at least nine hours of sleep a night). Just wanting to sleep. I want to get things done but have marginal energy to do them.
3. In pain -- sacroilliac joint (unrelated, but contributing)
4. Not wanting to go out (prefer to stay in with the snuggly dogs and tea. And a book.)
5. Not wanting to go to yoga (my preferred exercise regimen)
6. Worried about money (again, unrelated, but contributing to overall emotional/physical malaise.)
7. Not wanting to work.

I think it's safe to say that I'm having a Red Flag Day. (Actually, more of a Red Flag Month, or two, but who's counting?)

Having had an up close and personal relationship with my mild depression starting to descend into something darker during my last romantic relationship (two years of long distance), I was euphoric to be in a new one that actually bypassed my seasonal February blahs. (Every February for years. It's weird.) I even warned my new boyfriend that during Februarys I would need extra hugs, and maybe I'd shed some extravagant big fat tears. He said the same was true for him in March. Good. We knew where we stood. BUT. Other than a random day here and there, neither one of us got depressed! Bliss.

Now. Here I am in frickin' August, which has NEVER been a trigger month for me, feeling all redflaggy. I'm actually not too worried about it, despite it just feeling shitty. I'm not concerned that I'll trip into the darker kind of depression, because I believe I know the cause. And that just makes everything much easier to handle. I know the cause; I know how to make it go away.

This time around it's medical.

I went in for my regular three month blood test (I have Hashimoto's Disease -- hypothyroidism), and my levels are low. Time to up the meds. My doctor wrote me a new prescription, but it's wicked expensive so I'm going to finish off what I already have (which isn't working well, but it's better than nothing). Within a week or two, when I start taking the new one, I'll feel much better.

Also, my iron levels are too low right now. I had it checked in June, coming out at 12.8 and my doctor likes to see it above 13 at the very least. Since then I've run out of my supplements, and only just started taking them again. Two months being deficient in iron can also make me tired.

And another thing. I ran out of my liquid vitamin D3 that I take a lot of, due to a deficiency, and only just found some more for sale two days ago. It's been a good long while since I had me some vitamin D3.

Turns out I'm low on everything! Which definitely puts my whole system out of whack, causing fatigue and depression most notably. Hashimoto's symptoms include muscle weakness and pain, too. I wonder if my low levels are contributing to my SI joint pain. It's been locked up, fixed, locked up, and fixed again, but still causing me a lot of discomfort.

So yay! I'm depressed for medical reasons! This is very good news to me. It means I'm not lame. It means I'm not going to stay depressed. It means: things will start looking up, I'll get more accomplished, I'll be able to stomach being social again, I'll stop wanting to knit, and I'll be able to function with less sleep. Win/Win.

I just need to wait another two weeks. Mid-September will be grand.

What do YOU need?

Yesterday I think I had a very quiet, very short, mini mental breakdown.
But only for an hour and a half.

I totally lost perspective -- worrying about my cluttered house, my overwhelming life, Costa Rica angst, working my multiple jobs, and still needing more clients.  N. calls it "Paralysis by Analysis." Whatever it is, it sure makes me sleepy.

I basically ran to my bed. Except, run is too energetic of a word. It was more like, I don't know how, but I just appeared at my bed and I fell into it -- and completely covered my head and body with pillows and covers and slept for an hour. And then, when I awoke, I didn't feel so panicky, but I sort of felt afraid to get up. It just sounded so exhausting.

My back door was open and flies were buzzing around but I didn't have the energy to get out of bed to shut the door. I felt like crying. I felt achey and despondent and I didn't want to go to work the next day. I just wanted to write and blog and move away. Maybe sleep some more.

I wanted to buy camping gear with the remaining money I had in my checking account and get plane tickets for the kids and myself and just go camping on our Costa Rica lot for the month before school started.

But when I finally did get up, I moved a bunch of furniture around. So I'm pretty sure the breakdown is over, or it never really happened and I was just tired.

Whatever it was, it had me thinking what it is we really need in life, and, of course, prompted me to move that furniture.

We need:

Within a home:

~A place to sleep
~A place to prepare food and eat it
~A place to poop
~A place to read/entertain/work
~A place to get away

In life:


~Opportunities to connect with friends and loved ones
~A way to meet our other needs (like chopping wood, weeding the garden, or help with homework) that may or may not actually require money. (Note: Access the gift economy.)
~Work that is meaningful and contributes to a feeling of purpose and delight.

That's all I need.
And I bet it's all you need, too.

So, as I said, I moved my furniture around.

I was trying to simulate living in a small space. Could I prepare and eat food, rest, work, entertain, and sleep all in the same room? Yes.

I don't know if I like it yet. And I'm not actually sleeping here, but I COULD.
And that's the point.

My next five year plan includes slowly getting rid of furniture and things that just clutter up my life. Eventually I want to move into consecutively smaller and smaller homes, until I am only living a tiny footprint. Smaller house equals smaller utility bills, less housework, and less headache.

However, it also means less family heirloom furniture. And less emotional attachments to inanimate objects. Which is great, but will probably take me a few years to let go of.

But that's okay; I've got FIVE YEARS to do it!



What do YOU need? 
What is your five-year plan?

Write Write

I have a man on my floor. My hardwood floor. He is humming his symphony and reading The Handmaid's Tale. He is my friend. My platonic brother. He stays with me when I am lonely. He stays with me when he is lonely. And we talk.

We dance. We eat. We cook for each other. And we take walks.

We ask questions and make observations. About each other.

And sometimes they are ... not what we want to hear.

I don't know where to go to write anymore. To process life’s griefs and sorrows. The big ones that stop my breathing, and send me to bed with my clothes on, and the little ones that I just want to vent about. I took this platform class that has streamlined my blogs and website to make it more "professional," but then ... I don't have anywhere else to write write. Write write my heart. But maybe. Maybe maybe I should just write write anyway. Platform be damned. There is something, after all, to be said about writing as you are -- showing up on the page -- and whosoever gels with the message will stay to read. Will feel the resonance. Will soak up my words, like rain, and plant their own seeds because of what I've said. That's who I want reading my stuff anyway.

The other ones -- the ones that take umbrage with my phrases, my pictures of story -- those ones, they can just not read. They can put the book down. They can click away. They can unfriend me. Not with any haste or malice. Just. Because they don't find what I say interesting. It doesn't make them bleed or cry or say Yes. And that's ok. I am not writing for those people.

I've been dancing lately. Unpeeling myself and looking inside. Sometimes I'm amazed at the beauty, other times I'm startled at the dishonesty and ignorance. The blindness. The self-defeating practices.

Even now I'm struggling. Struggling to write these few words, because I've been blocked again. Blocked by my own arrogance. My own denial. My own ... unhealthy practices. Who knew that not eating enough calories, or subsisting on restaurant food and instant oatmeal, or not going to bed by 10pm could interfere with my writing?

But there it is.

So I'm forcing it through.

Sucking the stories and truths out of my bone marrow to look at them.

Thinking.

Trying not to think.

Feeling.

Trying not to feel.

And then realizing I have to.

One of the things my brotherfriend and I talked about tonight had to do with letting go of static ways of being, honoring the grieving process – no matter what it’s about, and then looking at ways to bring yourself back to wholeness. He says that I can't grow with fear stopping me every time I open up a little bit. But isn't fear a natural reaction to change? Isn't fear a necessary emotion during transition? One that helps you slow down your impulse to sprint through the grieving process? Because that's my inclination. Hurry up and grieve. And in doing so I would miss the lessons and gratitude my life situations have gifted me. I want to meander, not sprint. Even as my fear is slightly paralyzing, isn't that better than the alternative?

Ultimately I know that the fear will subside with time, and I will begin to move again. Look at the light again. Foster hope again. And actually, I think that will happen probably sooner than I think, but the safety of fear and paralysis is comforting.

If even a little annoying.

And then. And then then. Maybe after I have the courage to leave the sameness and routine of fear – I can write write again. Platform be damned.

It's Winter

I know it’s winter because I look for meaning in everything. Until my brain stem hurts and I get thirsty.

The Wind Has Wings With Feathers

In a lot of ways I feel like I'm being born again. I'm ready. Excited. Full of anticipation. Growth, Change. .... but also, the breathlessness of anxiety -- like a gust of wind that takes your breath away. Smack in the face.

I'm going to reactivate my inactive massage therapy license.

And I've challenged myself to a renewed mission of authenticity and self-honesty. And courage. Courage to say what's on my mind.

To live the way I feel inside.

To inhale life and breath out art.

Coming Back Into Myself

I've made myself a cup of tea and I'm sitting down for an hour before needing to go to work. I'm working a double shift today, so we'll see how my energy levels go for the rest of the day.

Right now I'm feeling fairly upbeat. I've been battling some depression this week, so a respite now and again is nice.

I need to re-evaluate what brings me back to me. When I'm feeling discouraged or emotionally under the weather, what can I do to nurture myself?

I'm Really Good at Lying

I’m really good at lying to myself. But I wish I weren’t.

“I love the extreme-ness of my boot camp class. It’s the only way I can get myself to do exercise.”  (It sucks ass. I hate it.)

lists

I'm struggling. As does everyone else from time to time.
I really hate "whining" to people or page, so it is often held in.
And I'm sure this entry is better suited to my journal.

Words and ideas and to do lists are swirling in my brain.
Some are exciting, some are exhausting and some just make me want to cry.
Or eat chocolate.

And that's another thing! People keep bringing me chocolate when they visit!
And I keep buying it! AAAAH!
Chocolate goes against one of the things on my swirling to do list.
Which is eat less sugar and lose body fat.


It seems often that my blog posts turn into lists of things we've done in the weeks since I've posted last. My journal entries have lots of lists in them. My essays even sport an occasional list. And I've been writing -- gasp -- poetry (*said with a shameful shake in my voice*) lately. Which are mostly in list form, as well.

What's up with that?
Where do the lists come from?
I never thought of myself as analytical or linear in any way.
My house is in constant natural disaster mode and my art and writing is spread all over my office. Nothing else in my life is in lines. Why on the page?

Is it because I crave order amidst my chaos?
Makes sense.

But sometimes I wish for no lists. Sometimes I wish for a time when there is nothing to put on my lists. For there not to be a need for lists.

So many things swirling in my head create a desire for the lists, I think. To make sense and order out of the spaghetti up there.

And I crave the open-ness to express all those swirling thoughts and descordant dreams ... but I think it would be shocking to see for some, so out of deference to them, out of fear of rejection and non-acceptance, and out of sheer discomfort from being in a vulnerable position ... I don't write it down here.

Let the judging commence.

Stuck in Hypocrisy

This is going to be raw and broken and weird and not very coherent. I'm going to use this space to free-write and journal today.

I'm feeling melancholy and slow and pensive. I'm feeling trapped and stuck and I can't breathe.

I feel like I'm at an impasse, a stalemate, a conundrum of days and ways of life. And the puppy just ate one of my shoes.

I think I haven't taken my vitamin D in a long while. Maybe it's time for a "happy light" purchase. But that just makes me sound mentally ill. And I don't feel mentally ill; I just feel ... stuck. And overwhelmed a little.

I feel like I'm grieving. That's what it is. Grieving for what, you ask? Sigh. I don't want to tell you. I don't want to spell it out loud here on the page. I don't want it to exist. But then I do want it to exist. I want to act on it; and then I don't want to act on it. I want to live a different life, but then I want and cherish the very one I have. I want less chaos in my life because of the pull on my time and energy; and then I want to add more for the excitement and promise. I want to live authentically, with my true self showing at all times, but then I'm too afraid.

Puppies, chickens, husbands, boyfriends, children, IEPs, homeschooling, gardens, special needs, doctors, therapy, traveling, writing, agents, editors, proposals, desires and un-met needs.

I struggle with extremes. Paul told me once that my dreams were diametrically opposed to each other. Yes. True. Like: the fierce dream to travel around the world and wade in multiple cultures and breathe in their essences and write about them -- AND, to live with minimal footprint, on a mountain farm and ranch with a creek and tons of trees, living totally off the grid and completely self-sustaining. I can't do both. Who would take care of my animals while we traveled? Who would tend the gardens? How could I knit and sew all our clothes and household items and still have time to write the books that are milling around inside me like lost travelers? How could I live my dream of using little to no fossil fuels and still fly around the world? I would be (and am) the biggest hypocrite of all.

And so I sit in my office -- with the compact fluorescent light beaming on me, and the dogs play-growling down the hall, and the kids yelling "Don't bark!" and my son locking the puppy in with me so they can hear their television show, and the dog scratching at the door so that I have to get up and let him out so he doesn't tear the paper blinds -- and feel stuck.

Depression and Anxiety are my Special Needs Children

(This is a reposting from February 2008. I'd like critiquing in the comments, please.)

Movies I watch can inspire me to write or paint or sculpt.

But some only create the longing for it, and not the release – like the nightmares where you can’t scream but know that if you try with all that is in you, you could make enough noise to cast your voice out among the billions who also trudge this land.

There’s an ache – when I feel unable to create my art -- a loneliness that wiggles inside my brain so that it hurts, and my throat so that I cannot communicate.

My fingers are frozen at the page, clamped desperately around the pen. My breath stops as I wait for the timid kernel of inspiration to share itself through me – but alas, it is not Inspiration or Idea or even Plot Device that appears … it is: Clamminess, Brick Wall, Pettiness, Fatigue, and Not Good Enough.

The metallic sour taste of lethargy and self- judgment sit with me when the longing to create art is strongest. I’ve sat with and asked these soul-sucking companions why they visit. I sometimes get a response and sometimes not.

I wonder how to get rid of them – like they are the slugs on my sugar snap peas that eat holes before I get a taste.

But perhaps I should simply share space with these evil shadows of myself and honor their place in my house. What if I extended love to them, accepted them and knew there was an ancient lesson they came to teach me, if only I would listen -- like the hundreds of thousands of families with special needs children?

Depression and Anxiety are my special needs children. I court them, suckle them and find their triggers to tantrums. I sit with Depression and rock him to sleep with haunting music lilting from the iTunes across the room; I coax Anxiety out to play -- break out the glue and treeless paper and collage until she is more grounded.

I discover their strengths and weaknesses and take time out for myself when they become too much for me to bear alone. I nurture myself with popcorn and movies under the feather blanket, hot tea with a friend, or an afternoon alone at a coffee shop with my laptop and latte. And I think. I take time to Feel.

When I do this -- when I give myself permission to emote -- only then am I open enough to welcome ideas and plans and as-of-yet formless characters into the sacred circle I have created for them. Only then am I able and willing to give birth to their stories.

But that’s not right either. I am always willing. That yearning and longing to write and to create are always there. But maybe the readiness is not.

Maybe I must coddle my children, Depression and Anxiety before I can create. But … I don’t believe that one must be depressed or suffer anxiety attacks in order to create art. Art lives in us, we breathe it as air and it binds to the molecules within us. We bleed our art. We are art.

Perhaps I don’t need to be depressed to create art, but that if I am struggling with it at some particular time, I must sit with it first before I attempt to express an emotion I do not yet understand. Only if I take time to nurture myself, to Think, to Feel, to ask Depression why he had another nightmare, to ask Anxiety why she cried today when the house was a mess – maybe then I can unfreeze my fingers and find my voice and let it roar with all the passion and longing and creativity I have.
And then, I can create. I can write, paint and sculpt. I can communicate and breathe and love myself again. All the parts of me. Even the shadowy parts.

Who I Am

Part of me wants to upload pictures of my house (each room) so you can see what the inside of my brain looks like right now.

But then I get too embarrassed.

But then I think: There are so totally other moms out there with revolting homes that never seem to get organized no matter how they try and might even feel better and less like a louse if they saw my wreck.

But then I think: No way, Jose. I'd alienate you all forever and maybe even the county would come and plaster my doorway with those condemned buildings signs and tapes.

So I won't upload pictures. Just use your imagination.

I've hit the puces again. My house is a new shade of the leader essay I wrote a while back.


On a home-schooling vein: I'm anxiously awaiting our Waldorf curriculum. Aubrey wants a curriculum to follow instead of being unschooled as Robert is. I am also buying a used copy of the 3rd grade curriculum for him -- in case I can sneak it in for him, or if he sees his sister doing something and wants to follow suit. Also, it just gives me an outline to work with. If he wants to do it, cool. If not, no biggie. I'm only out $17.

I registered them for classes on Tuesday. They got all the classes they sent me out to get.
I'm not sure how I'll fit the Waldorf rhythms into this but I'm gonna try!

Both Aubrey and Robert are taking a chess class (which counts as a math core class) and water safety once a week. In addition to that, they are each taking an additional p.e. class: Aubrey will be doing ballet and Robert, another swimming class, so he'll be swimming twice a week. Also, Aubrey is taking an American Girls history class and Robert is taking a computer art class.

So. We'll see what happens. I'll try and get more math in for Robert (since he likes it anyway) with the Waldorf math book I bought. (It's a combined grades 1-5 math book.)


I told Paul today that it felt like I had four full-time jobs. I love them all and don't want to quit any of them, but that that's why the house looks like this. ;)

Job 1 is, of course, homemaker. I could totally have the house immaculate and healthy meals around all the time if that's all I ever worked on.

Job 2 is a homeschooling parent. I'm driving the kids all over for classes four times a week, in addition to curriculum. But I so want to do this forever. It is the right thing for my kids.

Job 3 is a writer. I'm writing and researching my proposal for my non-fiction book Grief Shadows: Young, Pregnant and Widowed. Four agents have requested that I send them either pages or a proposal, so I TOTALLY want to get on that and not let this AWESOME opportunity pass me buy. This is my dream job and a project I've had on my mind almost since Rob died. I want our story told and I want it to inspire other widows.

Job 4 is a homesteader (gardening, keeping animals, canning and knitting and otherwise trying to live sustainably and self-sufficiently), which probably should go up with job 1 so that I can also add

JOB 5: feeding myself (with hot baths and romantic comedies and reading and art and dates with my husband and socializing with friends and one-on-one times with my kids) so that I can be a healthy, contributing member of my family -- one who is pleasant to be around.


There.

How can I do all those jobs every day?

Because I can't quit any of them. They are all vastly important to me and make up who I am. And who I've always wanted to be. I can't change that, nor do I want to.

Magenta-Flecked Puce

When I'm depressed, I usually want to sleep. In fact, that's generally what gives me the heads up that I've entered the blue phase. though why it should be called blue -- which evokes healing and calmness and serenity -- baffles me. It should be called the puces.

Puce is that sickly mustard blah color that better depicts the flaccid jelly I become when in the doldrums. Magenta, also, seems an appropriate color to augment the puceness of my state when depressed. Magenta-flecked puce.

Magenta, because it is a color that screams. A color that overwhelms the senses and deviates from any normal protocol. And that, too, is what I feel when depressed. I'm overwhelmed.

And that is why sleep seems so blissful in my magenta times. My magenta puce times. I just want to sleep.

So yesterday I had driven a long way to a hiking trail near waterfalls with my kids and met up with my daughter's scouting group to work on our hiking badge and direction finder award. It was raining and though it was a nice hike and I loved watching the children interact, as well as connecting to some adults I admire, the trip was way beyond my exhaustion level.

I humped back home, stopping for cocoa with whipped-creamed straws and decaf coffee; dealt with parental disciplinary actions at home and then went to a friend's house for dinner. By bedtime I was magenta. After connecting with my husband and exchanging stories of our days, I rolled over in my bed, completely puce.

It got me thinking: what does one do to climb out of the slippery sludge that lines all sinkholes? How do you surpass the panic and terror? How do you make it back home to YOU? How do you make it back HOME at all?

Often I write. Sometimes I journal or write an essay -- but other times I make a list. Today's list (written in my head) was to purposely ignore the kitchen and the eighteen-inch grass in the backyard and instead focus on my children's bedrooms.

I have to say it. They were vile. I cringed every time I tucked my sweeties into bed and I feared lasting damage to their psyches from living and sleeping in such stagnancy.

So we cleaned.
For hours.

And now both their bedrooms are beautiful, there is a sense of accomplishment in the air and we've come to Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate. Two and a half hours later I'm looking at the clock, but my luvs don't want to leave. Sigh.

Another list (a mega one this time) plagues me until I write it down.

1. my bedroom
2. my bathroom
3. kitchen
4. garage
5. laundry room and 1/2 bath (also hanging and putting away clothes)
6. phone nook and bar
7. dining room
8. living room
9. back patio
10. back yard
11. gardens
12. office
13. entry
14. staircase and landing
15. learning closet
16. upstairs bathroom
17. front patio

If I dedicate one day to each off these tasks (and some will be hard-pressed to fit into one day -- like the yard or gardens), and exclude the days we have out-of-town guests, or plans that take more than half the day (and maybe a day off once in awhile for good behavior), I could be done with a major house cleaning by July 7th. Wow.

I don't know if I should be excited that I might be on top of things finally, or depressed further that ONE: it could actually take seventeen plus days to clean my house, and TWO: that at the end of said seventeen days I would have to start all over again! Ug.

Thinking now about the state of, say, the dishes if I waited seventeen (or even THREE) days without addressing them; I wonder about extending the July 7th date out even further. If I did that (crazy and unforgivable thing), I could add in one day a week (gasp! should it be two?) for maintenance purposes. That would take me to July 14th -- the day before the kids fly home with Fernanda. Three weeks in Massachusetts with Vavo, their Portuguese grandmother.

Now wait a minute. The puce starts rolling in again. I am not going to spend my entire stay-cation sans kids on cleaning the house! (Slave that I am.) Ha!

I WILL read a whole shelf of my glorious books. (snort) Maybe THREE. Realistically, reading twenty books in three weeks won't do, if I want to retain anything.

I WILL write everyday! Even on heavy cleaning days. I promise.

So with a couple of game plans and a list, plus a successful day of cleaning behind me, I see the magenta-flecked puce fading and while it is time to get the kids home and to bed, I'm not crabby and ready to hibernate for twenty-one days like yesterday.

Unless, of course, I spy the kitchen on the way to my bed.

Bah Humbug

I'm not feeling well today, nor is Paul.

Whenever I don't feel well, I tend to get a wee bit depressed and feel bad about all the things I have not done, or that need badly to be done.

Office cleaning,

filing papers,

washing dishes,

folding and putting away laundry,

cleaning the pink stuff out of the bathrooms ...

... making dinner.

Bah Humbug.

Depression and Anxiety Are My Special Needs Children

(I try not to cross-post too much, but, well ... )

Movies I watch can inspire me to write or paint or sculpt.

But some only create the longing for it, and not the release – like the nightmares where you can’t scream but know that if you try with all that is in you, you could make enough noise to cast your voice out among the billions who also trudge this land.

There’s an ache – when I feel unable to create my art -- a loneliness that wiggles inside my brain so that it hurts, and my throat so that I cannot communicate.

My fingers are frozen at the page, clamped desperately around the pen. My breath stops as I wait for the timid kernel of inspiration to share itself through me – but alas, it is not Inspiration or Idea or even Plot Device that appears … it is: Clamminess, Brick Wall, Pettiness, Fatigue, and Not Good Enough.

The metallic sour taste of lethargy and self- judgment sit with me when the longing to create art is strongest. I’ve sat with and asked these soul-sucking companions why they visit. I sometimes get a response and sometimes not.

I wonder how to get rid of them – like they are the slugs on my sugar snap peas that eat holes before I get a taste.

But perhaps I should simply share space with these evil shadows of myself and honor their place in my house. What if I extended love to them, accepted them and knew there was an ancient lesson they came to teach me, if only I would listen -- like the hundreds of thousands of families with special needs children?

Depression and Anxiety are my special needs children. I court them, suckle them and find their triggers to tantrums. I sit with Depression and rock him to sleep with haunting music lilting from the iTunes across the room; I coax Anxiety out to play -- break out the glue and treeless paper and collage until she is more grounded.

I discover their strengths and weaknesses and take time out for myself when they become too much for me to bear alone. I nurture myself with popcorn and movies under the feather blanket, hot tea with a friend, or an afternoon alone at a coffee shop with my laptop and latte. And I think. I take time to Feel.

When I do this -- when I give myself permission to emote -- only then am I open enough to welcome ideas and plans and as-of-yet formless characters into the sacred circle I have created for them. Only then am I able and willing to give birth to their stories.

But that’s not right either. I am always willing. That yearning and longing to write and to create are always there. But maybe the readiness is not.

Maybe I must coddle my children, Depression and Anxiety before I can create. But … I don’t believe that one must be depressed or suffer anxiety attacks in order to create art. Art lives in us, we breathe it as air and it binds to the molecules within us. We bleed our art. We are art.

Perhaps I don’t need to be depressed to create art, but that if I am struggling with it at some particular time, I must sit with it first before I attempt to express an emotion I do not yet understand. Only if I take time to nurture myself, to Think, to Feel, to ask Depression why he had another nightmare, to ask Anxiety why she cried today when the house was a mess – maybe then I can unfreeze my fingers and find my voice and let it roar with all the passion and longing and creativity I have.

And then, I can create. I can write, paint and sculpt. I can communicate and breathe and love myself again. All the parts of me. Even the shadowy parts.

February Blues

I'm feeling weird and pensive and out of sorts.

I don't know what's up with me today.

I'm tired. The sun from yesterday is gone. My front lawn is ugly with leaves. My unfolded laundry is piling up on the love seat and at the foot of my bed. The dishes need catching up on. I still can't seem to write a query letter. My theater writing group is meeting tonight and I can't think of anything interesting to write about. I haven't looked at my manuscript in what feels like ages. I haven't even started a sewing project meant to be done by next week, nor have I started making Valentine's or cookies for the swap that is tomorrow. And even at this late date, I am still wondering and concerned about how to home-school Robert. Everything I want to try seems to conflict with something else I've tried. Or want to try.

I'm tired of my own inconsistencies.

But most of all, today, I'm thinking of old lovers. Missing them. Wondering if I made a difference in their lives; if they still think of me, as I do of them.