To Cease The Suffering, Find The Shine.

Originally posted November 1, 2013

I am a ninja when it comes to getting hired.  I've gotten almost every single job I've ever wanted.  Some were in retail, others in marketing, and some were and are in food service.  I once walked into a publishing company, newly out of college, resume in hand, dressed sharply in an Ann Taylor suit my mom had bought for me when I graduated.  I asked if they were hiring, firmly shook the hand of the receptionist and gave her a warm but not-too-eager smile.  She looked at me for a moment, grinned, and went to retrieve a woman who ushered me into her office and proceeded to offer me a job a few days later.  

When I had children, I was privileged enough to be able to stay at home and do the hard work of raising them.  I went, as often happens with new moms of one and then two children, a bit insane.  When I bottomed out after doing the math and realizing that I had put my daughter to bed every single night of her life for three entire years, I decided I needed to get a job.  At the very least, I needed to get the hell out of my house, and a job would pay me for the peace and quiet I craved.  

A previous employer was hiring for a job in their HR department.  I had no experience in HR.  But I decided that I would like to have that job, and so I went about getting it.  I wrote a bang-up cover letter, updated my resume, put on the new version of the sharp outfit, and nailed the interviews.  Weeks later, I was sitting in my office.

I tell you this because when I think about the me that knows she will get the job she wants, I think, "Man, I wish I could be like her.  She's intelligent, pulled together, and confident."  I think about that me like she's a different person.  Similarly, when I think about the woman who capably, happily, and charmingly hosts at one of the busiest restaurants in town, it's like I'm watching someone else.  

What gives? 

Instead of feeling like I'm acting in scenarios like these, I think it's time to instead insist that I'm embodying my best self.  Instead of mercilessly trying to convince myself that I just need to be confident and self-assured, I simply need to accept that I am those things, and that that's okay. 

I'm not a more impressive human specimen if I suffer.

Instead, it's worth investing in the notion that joy, belief, and levity - that these traits, too, are evidence of an evolving character.

I choose to evolve.  

And I'm tired of the suffering. 

To the joy and to the flow,
*E

An Ode.

Originally posted September 23, 2013

Life shuffles us along.  We wear our shoes thin.  And our fizzy, buzzing spirits get stuck, jammed into a corner, unable to reach their tendrils up and out of our middles.  We can still feel joy while this is happening.  We can still feel sorrow.  We feel, but are aware of an absence. There is longing - we can feel it pulling, can sense the need for release, but our heads are tipped slightly down, our feet busy moving, ever-slowly.

And then sometimes there's a moment.  A series of moments.  A reel of film.  These moments, they put their palms on your forehead and push.  You look around.  You take the deepest breath you've ever tasted and as you exhale your eyes are full.  You smile a little bit and bite your lip and breathe in again, this time inhaling the moment you just shuffled into.  You look at your feet.  You pick them up, you push your shoulders back, and you take a step.  You swing your arms.  You are striding now, straight ahead, into something you'd forgotten about.  Now that you're in it, now that you're walking with your eyes scanning and your middle straightened out, you wonder why this feeling feels so simultaneously new and ancient, so shiny and so well-worn.  You hang back for a moment to watch.  They continue, your people, down the street, dodging folks coming the other way.  Their feet are up, too, their arms are swinging, too, they have knowing grins on, too.  You are buoyant, the whole lot of you, and every single one of you knows it.  You are co-psychics.  You are co-conspirators.  

You are movement and shining, a web of centrifugal force. 

And then, some time later, things settle.  Your feet slow again, and remember that they like to shuffle.  You stop. 

You push your forehead up with your own two palms and look around.

You see. 

These people, they are you.  You are them.  You try to think about why, about how.  "Let it go," you think, but of course you can't, because you're magnets.  "Move on," you whisper as you look at them.  "Is it really so special?" you wonder. 

These people, who knew you before you did, who still look at you knowingly, waiting for you to see what they see.    

Do not move on.  It is that special.  

Go to them.   

And when you get back, when you catch up, once your strides are synced and your arms are swinging, scan your smiling eyes, and head out into the shit and muck and boundless bounty of this one crazy life.  

When we cease to shuffle, we keep beginning.  

*E

We Choose.

Originally posted September 30, 2013

Many months ago I bought on old wooden footstool at a tiny antique store.  It was outside, looked ancient, and was mine for $10.  It lived in our living room for a month or so before I was home alone with a can of silver spray paint.

Once (barely) dry, I brought it upstairs.  It needed something, and since I'm wont to write love notes and helpful reminders on my house, I thought I'd carry the theme through and write a little something on the furniture.  I pulled out a Sharpie.  

:::

The other day, Osiah, my three-year-old, asked me to read the footstool to him.  I didn't want to read the whole thing, worried that the things "we choose" would seem like a sham; I didn't want my potential failures reflected back so early in the morning. 

But I read it.  We choose kindness.  We choose good coffee, good food, and good company.  We choose silly.  We choose 'I can'.  We choose capable.  We choose love.  We choose really, really good music.  We choose how we react.  

A few minutes later, after one and then two and then three stories, he wasn't ready for me to rev up the vacuum.  He dumped puzzle pieces all over the place.  Lots of them.  And then threw the box on the floor.  He was not, he assured me, going to pick up today.  I knelt beside him and gave a contemplative smile.  I took a deep breath and remembered the words I'd just read, the words he'd prodded me to remember.  "We choose how we react." 

I knew in that instant that I was either going to have Day A: resistance, deep sighs, frustration, and tears, or I was going to have Day B: mutual respect, ease, laughter, and smiles.  

I had one second to choose.  

"Osi, I'm choosing to have a good day today."  I began to pick up the pieces.  He studied me for a moment and then started to help.

I vacuumed for two hours while he danced, drew, and jumped around.  We chatted and laughed and hugged intermittently.  We went for a walk, played football, and loaded the dishwasher. 

It was, very possibly, the nicest day I've ever had with my son. 

Because on that day, together, we were able to make a choice. 

*E

Tell It.

Originally posted October 6, 2013

Sometimes it's quiet enough that the silence can finally explode, a canon into the clear blue day. 

Sometimes we can be brave enough to let the softness in. 

The other day I wrote to someone I love, and with whom I struggle, and wished her only happiness and I meant it. 

Today I told two people I love that I love them.  These two people have been loving me for years, accepting me for years, believing in me for years, and I've been jagged around the edges, a pillow full of sand instead of feathers.

We must soften. 

We must use the words of compassion and love to make our soft selves known. 

We must feel the confusing feeling of fear that comes along right before the love comes out, and we must continue to speak. 

Tell it. 

Tell it today.

Whisper soft,
*E

Recovery - The Other Kind.

Originally posted October 26, 2013

I've been a mother for roughly five and a half years, and so for roughly five and a half years I've been sure of a few things: that I'd die for my children without question; that the man I chose to be their dad was a very good choice; that my love for them tears at me, burrowing deeper and deeper in unexpected moments; and that the mistakes I make as their mother will outweigh the love, will hang on tighter in their memories.  

I know, that last one, right?

::: 

We took the kids to a modern art museum yesterday.  We told them ad infinitum that they couldn't touch, told them why.  We knelt down to their level as we explained.   

We walked into the first room and there was a huge thing (forgive my notable lack of art words here) hanging from the ceiling.  Huge and white and suspended.  Three different layers of jutting materials, with water running straight through the middle.  It was impressive.  My five year old promptly walked up to it, put her hand on it, and the whole thing started to sway.  "Isla, you CAN NOT touch! " I hissed.  I think I sighed and rolled my eyes.  Her face turned red, tears welled.  A museum employee gently ushered her over to a plaque on the wall that detailed the name of the piece, the materials used, the measurements.  "Here's some information about the piece," she said to her in a gentle voice.  

Minutes later, we were in another room.  This one had shiny, gold, woven boxes on the walls and floor, and a table with a pile of sand underneath. 

"Miss, you can't touch the sand," said another museum employee, and that broke us.  She collapsed into me as we walked out of the room.  "I didn't mean to touch, I was just curious about how it felt," she sobbed, quietly.  I looked into her eyes.  I told her how proud I was of her curiosity.  I told her I loved how much she wanted to know about texture, about how I don't really get why a big pile of sand is art anyway.  I told her that we needed to go to a different kind of museum soon, one where she could explore like she wants to.  I told her I loved her.  I wiped her tears on my sleeve.  And then I held her hand and we moved on. 

I was talking to a friend about this last night.  I was talking about the immense guilt and sadness I felt over scolding my child for simply being a child.  I was tug-o-warring with the ideas of wanting to bring my kids to places like that, wanting them to understand how to behave in different situations - and not wanting to shame them for being curious little humans.  He said something like, "Yeah, but you were just the filter."  The expectations of the space were set, and were filtered through me to our children.  That calmed my insides and I wasn't sure why.  I think something about the image of it - the energy passing through me, getting filtered and dispensed - took some of the pressure off.  I was able to think about things with a new angle.

Instead of focusing so singularly on my parenting errors, I'm starting to dance with the idea of our recovery moments - the eye contact, listening, relating, apologizing if necessary - being our defining moments.  This dance feels good.  When I think about my relationship with my husband, I see, among the happiness, arguments and miscommunication.  But the things I feel  about my relationship with my husband are the eye contact, the listening, the relating; my head knows that there's been hard, but the hard is overridden by the love, respect, and knowing that comes when we recover well.

At the end of our time inside the museum, we went outside to explore.  We found mirrors that reflected the four of us, over and over again, together.  We climbed rusty stairs and spied on an imaginary Airstream inhabitant (we were at a modern art museum, don't forget).  As walked the pathways back to the car, followed the giant yellow arrows, I stopped.  I grabbed my girl's hand and leaned over to reach her ear.  "I know some of that was hard.  You okay?"  She looked up at me perplexed.  "Yeah," she said.  "I'm fine.  I'm always fine." 

She beamed at me, skipped ahead, shouting a song. 

*E