• Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth

    What Madness is This?

    October 20, 2010

    Why is it easier to speak about everything that is difficult?  Why is it that when joy moves me I do not wish to pick up paper and pen (laptop)?

    While my writing has its own life – a life that “comes upon me”, there is a difference between that “which must be written” and that “which does not need to be written”.  Grief and pain hold some shadow of doubt, a life tension that casts a shadow on all thoughts.  Happiness holds confidence and joy and there are no shadows lingering about.  I think it is that life tension that must be written so that each piece of doubt, each shadow of anguish can be examined and perhaps – purged.  It is the act of writing that makes the nonsensical make sense; it is the act of writing that sheds light on anguish.

    Joy needs no sense; joy needs no explanation, it is satisfactory the way that it is.  So is it true that artists need to be tortured souls?  Well versed in heartbreak and woe?  Must a good story include what is hurtful, bad and evil before shedding light on what is joyful, good and right?

    Is there any thing or any relationship that is all about joy?  Ah, but no.  It does not exist, there is no such thing as a uni-faceted relationship.  There are times in a relationship that are joyful, new and beginning relationships share this characteristic of happiness.  Newborns are born into a celebratory atmosphere, weddings are celebratory events, as many newly formed relationships begin with a “honeymoon”.

    As surely as we lay our head on our lover’s shoulder sighing deeply in satisfaction, we will also be hurt and angry in turns and at times.  Some people choose to pursue only new relationships in the hopes that they will never have to experience the hurt and anger of a long term relationship.  Some people are in fear of long term relationships and would rather not commit love in any long or lasting manner.   Then of course, there is the dilemma of love: the more intensely you love, the more your passion and your joy for another is, the more you can be hurt by your relationship with your loved one.  It is the very intensity of the love that dictates the depth of despair you may feel.  Then there is the other relationship dilemma and that is the choice to not love another, which is a real tragedy, though a silent and quiet one.

    I have given a lot of thought to this idea; the idea that writing out my grief and despair is so much easier than writing out my love.  When I am feeling love, I am usually engaged in love and thus have no time to put the thoughts to paper. When I am feeling despair, I am likely to be alone and thus can befriend my laptop and spend long hours in thought.   But, I am thinking that it might be important to express my love and my happiness.  It may be important to find a way to write about what is right about my life.  It may be important to express the joy and the love that occurs daily in my life.

    To be engaged in love is a singular experience and can happen no matter what type of relationship it is.  Being engaged in love is creating a cocoon with another.  Inside of the cocoon emotions shoot like sparks and ricochet around only to be caught by the other who is in the cocoon with you, thoughts will randomly attach to your loved one as well.  Eye contact is utterly intense and can move your heart in all different ways.  Small movements can be profoundly intimate and warm touches can be magical.  Hearing your loved one can change the response of your whole body and feeling the presence of your lover can make your body go through changes.  Loving is a joyful experience that brings happiness to those who give it and to those who receive it.  Finally, love compels sharing.  Feeling love in my heart always pushes me to reach out, either to say “I love you” or to touch, hug, or kiss, but love is always compelling, it compels all of us to give.

    So what madness is this that writing about love is awkward, while writing about hurt and grief is like putting on comfortable pajamas?  That, my friend, must change.  Because – while I have had my share of broken hearts, it certainly is not the definition of my life and therefore cannot be the definition of my writing.

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  • World Affairs

    Health Care and Water

    October 15, 2010

    I’m pretty adamant about the need for universal health care in America.  It’s a self-evident fact that we can afford it and should give it equitably to all Americans.  Currently, the wealthy receive it and the poor do not, a fact we should be ashamed of.  There is nothing worse than sitting with a young person who has cancer and listening to how he cannot get treatment and keeps getting shuffled around by “healthcare providers” who will provide nothing without an insurance card or a gold Mastercard.  That moment crystallizes the face of a system that is deeply flawed and deeply in need of repair.

    Oh, but wait, care about humans and the world – farther and broader than American borders.  I want to say that health care is a right, but in Africa, tens of thousands of humans cannot get clean water.  “Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.”  28 July 2010 –  “Studies also indicate about 1.5 million children under the age of five die each year and 443 million school days are lost because of water- and sanitation-related diseases.”  (United Nations General Assembly 2010)

    How luxurious is health care in comparison to the need to get clean water?  Water is a matter of daily survival, while health care is a matter of exceptional survival, we need health care as an exception – water we must have no matter what.

    Here is what is the same about both issues:  We have enough of both, health care and water.  What we do not have is an equitable means to distribute them.  What is lacking is the saddest fact of all, the way to equitably distribute water and health care- that will save MILLIONS of lives each year is to redistribute wealth, because with wealth, anyone can buy health care and an African village can buy anything, including clean, fresh water.

    For more info: blogactionday.change.org

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  • It is What it is...

    Smoking…

    October 15, 2010

    Everyone knows what is bad about smoking, but no one is talking about what is good about smoking.  I’ve got a few things to say about that.  Now that I’ve quit, I have to notice what I liked about it and what purpose it served for me. For one, my parents smoked, so I don’t have that negative response to the smell of cigarettes.  When I smell smoke in my house, it reminds me of my mother, which is a nourishing, nurturing feeling.  So – with the smell of cigarette smoke comes this “at home” feeling.   The other piece is that lighting up a cigarette always put a period to whatever I was doing, in other words the cigarette was my signal to the universe that the activity (whatever it was) was done, over, finished. So, it’s not just the after meal time cigarette, but the after work, the after the chore, the after the you-know-what and on and on.  A cigarette was the exclamation point of finito!  I am done!  The cigarette was the space between now and then…  Associated with the cigarette is the feeling of accomplishment, it is the finish point and is therefore part of the finish line.

    There was one more point of the cigarette – and I really didn’t discover this until the last decade: it provides space between myself and others.  I could use the cigarette to get another person to move away from me, to get them to give me room and / or, just to, flat out, get away from them.  A cigarette can be a tool of rejection.

    The problem with all of that is that I can’t control the cigarette, it would control me.  So even when I was not done with a project, I would have to stop in the middle of it and go have a cigarette just to get rid of the nicotine craving.  This is a very unpleasant feeling and can be an unwelcome interruption to any activity (particularly the you-know-what activity).  Even when I don’t want to reject someone, the cigarette would reject them – because after all – what non-smoker wants to be in the middle of all of that mess?

    So here I am, a self professed non-smoker, struggling with all of the craving and lingering detoxification of nicotine. Each day when I wake up, my first thought is: “Will I fight it today?  Will it work without a fight?”  Either way, the outcome is same – same.  I will not smoke a cigarette.

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  • Womens Issues

    Empty Nest and the South of Spain

    September 23, 2010

    I am the most disciplined person I have ever met and yet, in spite of my best efforts, everything has gone to hell in a hand-basket.  I’m not kidding.

    While contemplating my future many months ago, I remember saying to myself – “self, don’t let go of your internal discipline because you need that tight hold to keep your life from capsizing.”  “Not true” said my inner party girl, “What damage can a little bit of fun do?”

    Now, let’s just be clear about what I mean by discipline…I have very rigid behavior surrounding my home and my work life.  Little ground rules, if you know what I mean.  For example, 28 years ago when I was pregnant with Johanna, I decided to lay out my clothes for the entire week on Sunday.  I’ve kept that discipline for 28 years.  I rigidly get all of the laundry done on Saturday and then I rotate clothing forward to be used for this week….

    I have dozens of little rules like this, work hard, work early, get all of the chores done first, ALL of them, then I can sit down and relax.  Always pay the bills first, no matter what my little heart wishes for.  Take care of my kids, on schedule, on time.  Now there were very good reasons for all of these disciplines; I raised seven kids.  It’s a herculean task that requires a lot of organization, time management and above all, efficiency.  Budgeting is a fine art, as is house care, and it’s all there to be completed by the end of the day.

    Empty Nest: So no one needs me, there are no beautiful children’s faces gazing at me with adoring eyes.  Who am I without all of that to keep my inner crazy in check?  I’ve always functioned within the context of motherhood.  Now that motherhood recedes there is this woman who wants to get out and play.  Who the frick is she?

    So -my dilemma is that for the last several months, I’ve been riding the slippery slope.  “I can do laundry later, groceries, who needs groceries? Sleep in a little bit, what difference does it make?  Checkbook, what checkbook?  Money, where did I put the money?”  I’ve even been practicing drinking, yes drinking!  I’ve never indulged in alcohol aside from a holiday here or there and one puke-drunk per year:)  Dozens of my friends tell me that they drink wine every day.  So how did that little pleasure pass me by for the last two decades?

    There has always been this dark corner in my brain about extremes.  In other words, I think of extremes as the reality of my person.  I’m either a bad girl or a good girl.  There is no place in-between.  I see this dark edge of behavior that I could easily slide off into and the next thing you know, I would be sun-bathing nude on the coast of Spain with intellectuals and winos contemplating the meaning of the sand.  I would abandon my children, leave creditors in the lurch and laugh deliciously at all of my boyfriends who wish for me to settle down.

    My good girl wears baggy pants, wants to bake cookies and coo at babies.  My good girl is still alive and well, she is industrious, caring and competent.  My bad girl wants someone else to go to the store and buy cookies for her, and babies are just for fun.  My bad girl is lazy, uncaring and doesn’t need competence, just confidence – who cares about the rest?

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  • It is What it is...

    Saving Words

    September 21, 2010

    Brigitte says to me in her perennially raucous manner “What the hell does that mean, saving words?”  And I say “When the words are elegant or express something perfectly, I wish to save them forever, so that I can read them over and over again.”  So it is – that my lifelong habit is exposed and finally, simply stated: saving words.

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  • Philosophy

    Natural Knowing as Intuition…

    September 21, 2010

    “…intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.”  Paulo Coelho, 1993.

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  • Speaking as a Parent

    Jill Patricia

    September 19, 2010

    As is usual, I cried when I hugged her.  Couldn’t help myself, we’ve been separated for a couple of years.  She is the daughter of my heart, my first child, though I did not meet her until she was 3 years old.  She allows me to be her mother, she calls me “ma”.  She introduces me as her stepmother – though my marriage to her father lasted only a New York minute and he has long since passed away.

    She is at a conference and she is managing her image.  We are in Orlando and she has been nominated as the national winner of the “Medical Practice Office Manager of the Year” award.  So we shyly ask an official for permission to skip out of the afternoon session and go shopping.  I am set that she must accompany me to pick out my outfit for the “Eighties” party that is happening on Friday night.  I tell her “Jill, the last time I was at a conference, I attended morning sessions only – people just pretend to participate.”  But she is so serious about her professional status and so I must be part of the permission asking process.  And then we go – off to the mall.  It is a perfect day.  We talk about our family and especially I wish to hear about my granddaughters.  I am also very interested in the state of her marriage.  She has been married for more than 20 years and I am anxious to hear that her marriage is intact and working still – as it should be.  She satisfies my fears and anxieties.  She is happy.  I become delighted with her easy going nature.  Something about her is different and I tell her so.  She has matured, she understands in a way that had not occurred before.  She picks out the perfect outfit for me, and just like my oldest biological daughter, she lovingly accompanies me on my trips to the dressing room, waiting out side to tell me that I am “cute”, beautiful and all of those other things.  As we drive back to the hotel our conversation inevitably returns to our history.

    We speak of her anger for her biological mother and our history as a family.  I ask her “so you let me off of the hook completely” as we talk about her hurts from her childhood.  She tells me that yes, she has let me off the hook, and my guilt is assuaged somewhat by her love.  We speak of her father and she explains to me that even with his absences “I always felt loved by him.”

    We finish our day, we sleep and early I hear her making phone calls and getting ready for her day.  The first thought that comes to my mind, what I must know and what I must ask “Jill, did you always feel loved by me?”  And here is the fulcrum, the cruxt of our mixed lives together, our history and our future.  She tells me, simply “yes, I always felt loved by you.”  Now I know, more than any other thing that is important to me, this is the middle of it.  Loving her, my first child, is one thing – but in the oddities that became our life story together, her knowing that I love her seems so much more important than anything else in our relationship.

    I run errands, I do the normal motherly things, pick up her mascara, and exchange her shirt and then we have lunch.  Again, I marvel at how special she is.  Jill is sensitive to me and solicitous of my well being.   I get a picture of Jaxsun by text, and we both laugh out loud at how funny and cute he is with his football gear and baby bottle.  I am so happy that we share our love and our blood with the same people.

    Quickly the evening comes and the Awards Dinner is here.  We take our pictures and for some ridiculous reason I am complaining that she is taller than me.  For the first picture Jill tries to stoop, which is a disaster for the picture and I realize that I am silly for being sensitive about tallness.  What swirls through my head is that I want to resist this moment, a moment when I must acknowledge that I am no longer THE parent, I am shorter than Jill and somehow it indicates a diminished status in her life – rather than what it is. We redo the pictures and Jill takes her shoes off.  As we get inside to the awards ceremony, I notice that her laces are untied and just like a mom, I tap my thigh to indicate to her to put her foot up and just like a kid she puts her shoe next to my lap and I tie her shoelace.  I am remembering her five-year-old-self standing mutantly in front of me, bottom lip out, refusing to learn to tie her shoes.  The memory makes me smile and then I have to laugh because there we are – adults – and I am acting like she is my baby again and I have to tie her shoelace.

    Jill is called to the stage with the four other nominees.  I have the camera and I am very excited to be there to record this special moment for her.  There is an awkward moment as everyone’s name is called and then there is this terrible pause and I am thinking – oh my gosh – they are just leaving her there standing alone on the stage – and then it dawns on me, she WON!  I am crying again, for the dozenth time in such a short time…

    I am so happy, to be here, to be part of this, to have the time to talk about what was and to learn to enjoy what is, the now of our relationship.  The next morning, we hug several times to say goodbye.  I walk away crying, as is my ritual when I must leave her. 

    When my step-daughter married, I knew that she would be physically and geographically separated from me.  It was a change I could not welcome, however, it taught me many things.  For some reason, I thought that my emotions would change once my child became an adult.  They did not.  In this sense I struggled with our separation and resisted much of what must happen when one’s child gets married.  It was 22 years ago, and that struggle was in vain.  I don’t know why, but we both have a new sense of acceptance.  I delighted in her personality, vibrant, accepting, loving.  She is everything a woman could be, in love with her husband, a dedicated mother and successful in her career.  I like her philosophy about life and I love her competent management of her peers, her family and the thriving medical practice that she administers.  It was an amazing two days.  Allowing the relationship to change was phenomenal – the emotions – never changed.  All the love I have for her, and have always had for her, bubbled over, condensed into the moments that I can share with her.  Guess what?  It was all okay.  Resisting the change was useless, had no effect, except to intermittently separate me from her.  

    As I left her, I cried the same tears that I always cry when I leave her, but this time, I know that it is simply part of our process.  My grief does not cause me to try to force change.

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