Be the change you want to see.

(not much secret, I just posted a giant hint to InstaBook...)

I'm getting my cover-up tattoo tomorrow! Less than twelve hours away!

I don't know how much of it we can get done... But I've been following jopie_lee for awhile on Instagram and have confidence that we can make this good. She SQUEEEEEEEEE when I showed her the reference photos, so I'm pretty excited.

old ghosts (tw: termination of pregnancy)

I was looking in the mirror one day and thought, "I would have none of this if I hadn't ended the pregnancy."

I was 25 years old when I got pregnant.
Can't decide if I should phrase that as "had an unwanted pregnancy", "got impregnated", or what. "got knocked up" isn't quite appropriate for the situation, because I can't afford in telling this story to be too flippant.

it was 1995. My dad had been dead less than a year, after being sick from diabetes and liver damage for several years, declining worse each year.
Mom and I were living together, in the house on Papaya Drive with the 1970's Spanish tile floors and the little fish pond and waterfall in the back yard. I had a great view of the green green green backyard, and had the constant waterfall noise in my ears every night as I fell asleep.


The smell and the feel of that house inform my memories of the time.

Brian and I were having sex and he didn't tell me that the condom broke, till after. Like, it still puzzles me, he says he felt it tearing, he says it was actually kind of painful for him, but he kept going.

He told me afterwards that he thought I wanted him to, to keep going, which yeah, who doesn't wanna get off, but seriously WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE DOESN'T TELL HIS GIRLFRIEND THAT THE CONDOM BROKE. I still ... *makes incoherent rage noises*

You know how I learned that the condom broke? I reached down to hold the top of the condom when he went to pull out, and the horror of it was that all there was to hold was the ring that was the top of it. That was all that was left. … we had to dig inside my vagina and find it to pull it back out….

I could try to put possible reasons on what he was thinking, maybe it was as simple as HE wanted to get off too so he kept going even without the condom.

But I don't really wanna think about his alleged motivations because **I** was the one who wound up pregnant.

I felt the change in my body almost immediately. Within just a few days after the "accident," my boobs got bigger, the nipples got softer and more tender. My pussy and labia were constantly hot and tender, and I just had this internal *awareness* low in my pelvis and belly. And I had so many feelings about all of it.

mostly I came to a sudden and crystallized awareness that, more than not wanting to have to raise a child, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with BRIAN. And I knew immediately, at a gut level, that in some way or another, no matter what else, I'd have to deal with Brian forever if I chose to have this kid.

and it was almost inconceivable anyway, (heh, yeah I went there) to think of having a kid. You spend so much of your early adolescence and twenties controlling your fertility really tightly, worried about the what-if. And sex is mostly fun, mostly meant to be fun, when you're not in a serious relationship and *planning* to have a kid…*

I had done research for a paper in college into medical side effects of being pregnant, it's no kind of easy walk in the park! There's real risk of gestational diabetes, blood pressure problems, varicose veins, digestion issues, likelihood of daily vomiting over months, *massive* mood swings and hormone changes, I mean the number of side effects you have to suffer through for a WANTED pregnancy, not to mention the non-zero risk of DEATH, or single parenthood, or ... all the different ways your children hurt you or break your heart.

That little... blue line on the pregnancy test. Oh my god. Possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen, and I already even KNEW. Like, there was no MISTAKING what my body was doing. I had this swirl of emotions going through my brain and body.


And I left the test on the bathroom counter, under a sheet of newspaper.(back when we still took the paper) Like I had zero idea how to talk to my mom about this. I was terrified I was going to be a disappointment to her, but I knew without thinking that if I *didn't* conceal this test, she would find it and know and help me. (and it turned out that she did find it, and she did help me, which I'll talk about at the end)

I can't even tell you about all the other things I was feeling then because even now, 25 years later, it's still hard thinking about that time in my life; emotional chaos and turmoil, still angry and grieving my father's death, along with everything else. I know I haven't quite forgiven myself for my own ignorance (and what feel like bad-choices when I am being hard on myself).

Though, trust me I do know all about the extenuating circumstances. I know why I made those bad choices especially because I have gotten therapy and done a lot of self work over the last two decades. I can see my own patterns and recognize where those impulses arose from and I don't let that part of myself drive the bus anymore, because I've healed a lot of those childhood injuries, or at least mostly healed them. Largely through talking and writing, both writing the blog and longhand and poetry. All kinds of ways.

I was 25, and Brian was 28. Theoretically that was old enough to know what we wanted, but both of us were dumb and inexperienced in relationships. We'd not really thought and especially not talked about what we wanted at the time or at any time in the future. We were just slinging along together because I think both of us thought we were the best we could do.

But we were old enough to decide if we wanted to have a child together and we met at Tower Cafe in downtown Sacramento to talk about it. about two weeks after the condom broke and a few days after I had taken the test. I'd said "we need to get together and to talk face to face" and he said yes, so we scheduled it. We hadn't even sat down properly at the patio table when Brian said, "You're pregnant, aren't you?" and I said yes. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went but I remember it wasn't a difficult or stressful one.

We were unanimous, that we didn't want to have a child (together), and we were both relieved to find that out. That neither of us had to try and convince the other to keep or to terminate. We were agreed to terminate.

I made the appointment. I had to stay pregnant for a total of eight weeks before the hospital could perform the procedure. I don't remember why that was.

To his credit,(Brian) did take me to the appointment, and did get me home safely.

My mom, and this makes my eyes fill up with tears, had a heating pad, an extra blanket, and she'd set up her bed, the big bed, for me to have a nap. She brought me a bed tray with my favorite tea, some toast with jam, and a little rose-bud in a little vase. I absolutely did cry from that, and everything else.

Brian stayed with me there on the bed until I had the snack and fell asleep. It was dark when I woke up, and he wasn't there anymore, and I was disappointed and angry, but realized there was really only so much I could expect from the guy.

Mom was good to me. No judgment, no anger, just support. She had my back. I had her back. We were a good team back then.

I don't like contemplating alternate universes for this story. Like, the what-if game doesn't work out well for me.

in 1995 I hadn't gone back to school to get a teaching credential.

I hadn't met my first husband, or even the boyfriend before him (who was and is a better human being and more thoughtful and kind than either Brian or my first husband).
I hadn't started my spiritual journey that gives me so much richness and meaning in my life (and which I was turned on to by the boyfriend I mention above)///
I hadn't started getting therapy for my relationship with my dad and my inability to grieve him or to get out of the anger stage of the grief.

My mind shudders away from the idea of having had to raise a kid in the conditions we were living in. Not that those were horrible, but it would have been stressful, hard work. And while I know motherhood is supposed to have its rewards, I just don't even know how I would have coped, without the skills that I have been able to acquire BECAUSE I didn't have a kid...

It's this fork in the road that my life took, and I DEFINITIVELY chose the one path and left the other path behind.

I'm glad I am HERE. I'm glad that THIS is what it is. I'm glad to have Eeyore and my priesthood and Burning Man and a lot of beloved friends. I'm glad to have the writing, and the making and the sewing and the dancing, and the work toward social justice.

The ability to choose when and whether to have a child is HUGE in your ability to determine your life's path. HUGE./// 12 Minutes

I don't have any kind of snappy ending, except that I am grateful that I got the chance to have the choice about whether or not to have a kid, and I will continue to fight for other people's right to chose whether to have a kid or not.

NOTES Performed this on the spoken word stage at center camp, Burning Man 2019 Mon August 26. One woman thanked me and cried. One man told me about, before he knew he was gay, his girlfriend got pregnant, and when she miscarried, they also cuddled in bed with the heating pad. And a couple that were pregnant (8 months) and beautiful "the first one I've carried to term"
But the last person said, "did you do this as a TED talk? It feels familiar" and I said no, it was a blog post and he said "huh well I guess we know what comes next"
SQUEEEEEEEEE

TAGS abortion, actions have consequences, anger, becoming, challenge, children, choice, dad, death, designing my own life, feeling some feelings, feelings, guilt, karma, life is good, making things, mom, open hearted, pagan practice in everyday life, paradigm shift, parent, past lives, pathwork, personal cartography, pregnancy, probably more than you really wanted to , sad, self, self-worth, spirituality, state of the liz, stomping brain weasels, stream of consciousness, taking care of business., truth falling out of my mouth, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, words, spoken word, burning man

I want to thank tenacious_snail for introducing me to the concept of enthusiastic consent. I've been thinking about it a lot recently.
Her way of putting it, was "I have a fetish for consent", actually. I like this as well.

Just before the holidays, someone I should have been able to trust, put his hands on me, not just without my consent, but in a surprising way, from BEHIND ME, where I could not see him or be warned in any way.

This is the fifth time he has done this over ten years, in the exact same kind of way. Always from behind. Always in my blind spot. Always silently and without warning, he plops his heavy hands down onto my shoulders. *shudder* I don't see him often thank the gods. But he will NEVER do this again. I was already angry and unhappy with him due to his prior history with me and stories I have heard from others about similar behavior towards other women, and I had been very cold towards him, shielded and painfully polite during the visit so far.

This last time he did this he did it in the crowded basement and came up behind me, directly in front of his sons: my husband and my brother in law. It felt like some combination of a horrible creepy crawlie landing on my skin and like ropes starting to be tying my arms to my upper body. I had a full-body shudder, moving forward in the crowded room while ducking and batting his hands and arms away from me, saying, "no, stop, I don't want this, don't touch me!"

ew ew ew ew ew.

I put Jeff between him and me for the remainder of the evening, and he didn't make eye contact for the rest of the evening either; he was holding his grandson at the far end of the table. And when it came time for parting and good byes, he strangely was not in the room.

GOOD.

He still is owed a long email. I'm working on how to say things that might get him to actually fucking CHANGE his behavior rather than totally just shred him, which I am perfectly capable of doing, mind you. But I've had about three weeks to think about things. He's in his sixties, stuck in his ways almost to the point of fossilization, basically a social pariah. I can't change him, but this is a HARD LIMIT and he will NOT touch me again. If I can introduce a fracture, I will. I plan to.


*inhale*
*exhale*

This was not actually the post I meant to be writing, but it is pertinent and related.

What I wanted to talk about is that it is fucking CRUCIAL to ensure enthusiastic consent with people you want to connect with.

Even for a handshake. *shrug* I forced an introductory handshake on someone once and realized after the fact that his culture did not DO that kind of thing. Awkward, but hopefully not wounding.

Even for a hug. My friend N used to have another friend who insisted on hugs, even when she wasn't wanting to hug them. N will hug me, usually... the first time though, I offered and she initially said NO.

and it's so goddam important to respect the NO.

I said NO a dozen times to the asshole who date raped me in college. He ran right over the top of my NO. I was barely 21 years old. I presumed basic respect, and did not have the tools to handle a situation beyond my assumption parameters. (I'm okay now, but I'm still ANGRY about him forcing unwanted sexual activity.)

Our culture does not respect the NO. Too many romance novels and comedies have the love interest "sweeping someone off their feet", saving them in some damsel in distress trope, "earning their love" through defeating or humiliating enemies or rivals or getting past obstacles. There's a deep stream that says "do what you can get away with", witness subway creepers, upskirt photographers, catcalling on urban streets, drugging drinks in fraternities and bars.

I REJECT THESE TROPES.

I want to see more people learning the delicate dance of exploring and respecting others. Of seeking the people who enthusiastically want you in their community, people who you want in yours. Enthusiastically taking someone into your life, or your bed or your body, and them being as enthusiastic to be there as you are enthusiastic about wanting them.

I *will* take lukewarm hugs, and lukewarm acquaintance if that's all I can get.

I think I can do better than that, though, honestly. I'm pretty awesome. =) If you're not into me, why spend the time? That's just dumb and kind of a waste for both of us. Find something that sets you on fire, inspires you.

I will not take lukewarm lovers, and I will not pressure someone into being with me unless they're actually, really into me. I'm willing to be patient though and let a good deep secure friendship make slow progress toward something else. I can gently express my enthusiasm about the person I am into, and let them gradually dig me more until maybe they are enthusiastic about me, too. Someone who is enthusiastic about me, who will treat me as I deserve to be treated: with attention, time, tenderness, touch, and sweetness.

And I have to understand that I need to enforce my own No, too. If spending time somewhere or with someone is unproductive, unrewarding, uncomfortable or unfulfilling for me, I need to say NO as often as possible. Sometimes you can't do that, life is complicated. But you can often make choices to do the things that feed you rather than the things that drain you or doing stupid stuff because it's a habit.

Make more CONSCIOUS choices. Cultivate the relationships you really want instead of settling.
If something doesn't work to feed you, prune it out of your life. It's deadwood anyway, why should it stay if you can make room for actual growth, more sunlight, more breathing room. It can be awkward, painful, uncomfortable to do.

Can we all speak up a little more?
"yeah, I really love spending time with you."
"no, I don't have the interest in doing that, thank you for asking."
"hey, could you scratch my back? (rub my feet, pet my hair, help me with task x)?"

Be specific. Address the individual person or persons at stake. Be honest. Be kind if you can spare the spoons, if you can't be kind at least be direct and clear.

That's what I want to see. That's what I want to try to do.


Thoughts??

This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.
*wince*

I didn't have what I would have thought of as a "happy childhood". Suffice it to say that there was enough pain in my life that I chose to live almost entirely in books from a very early age. Also I think it's fair to say that I had a lot of difficulty making friends even under the best of circumstances. The neighborhood kids and I didn't get along, and where I'm what we now call "geek", they were all what we'd call "jocks". Family dynamics at home weren't "nourishing", and I spent almost all the time I wasn't in school, alone. That didn't change till junior high, when I finally found a safe place to make friends of my own, friends that my sister didn't know about and couldn't mercilessly tease me about.

It will be a surprise to no one that I was regularly bullied almost every day in junior high school.

So, I was humongously awkward. An ugly duckling in so very many ways, lacking in social skills and without confidence to make proper conversation with new people (which was *everyone*) at my new high school.

Somehow, eventually, I did find a few people who warmed up to me, starting with one friend who'd just moved into town and didn't know anyone else, and gradually getting to know some people I'd known slightly in junior high. I still had huge amounts of anxiety around social interactions. Thinking of my freshman year in high school is enough to bring the memory of metallic-tasting panic to the back of my throat, even twenty-five thirty years later.

(God, this is difficult to write.)

There was this small group of what I would now call geeky guys. Robert, Mark, and Erik.

My lack of experience in any kind of social interaction, my extreme anxiety (that I was fighting to overcome on a daily basis), and the, well, let's face it, neglectful home environment, all meant that it was easy for me to mistake attention of any kind for positive attention. My sister and I were used to hitting, punching, hair pulling and scratching each other on a regular basis; my dad was either emotionally distant, physically not there, or verbally abusive; Mom had her hands full juggling the whole household and a full-time job, and my brother was just a kid, four years younger than me...

Any kind of attention, really, was a novelty, and nothing I was used to at thirteen. (I was really just thirteen when I did this. Someday maybe I can forgive myself.)

These geeky guys began to pay me attention. It felt ... familiar. Trading verbal barbs and sarcastic jabs, was second nature. It was how we talked at home.
It did eventually get to be mean, moved from notes in lockers to them learning my combination and leaving things for me. Once a pile of brown apple cores. Once, actually, a dead bird. *shudder* (If I knew then what I know now...I would have done some things differently.)

Once, I returned to my locker, and my books were neatly piled as though on a bookshelf, upright. Which I knew full well was not how I had left them... With a sinking feeling of dread, I noticed wet white glue, and sawdust, all over the bottom of my locker. I guess I was lucky to have found it all before the glue dried and set, in retrospect.
(In retrospect, I now feel a blazing and righteous anger at Robert, the boy who I knew even then was the ringleader.)

At this distance, I've no idea what the chronology of events was, where in the school year these different things fell. I distinctly remember, however, that it was a hot day on the afternoon I missed the school bus home and realized I had to walk four miles home with a heavy backpack and crappy shoes.

I had had a rotten day to begin with and missing the bus felt like the cherry on top of a shit sundae.
This was in the early 80's, before anyone thought to carry a water bottle around with them regularly, and it didn't take long walking in those crappy shoes under the Sacramento late spring/early summer sunlight before I was hot, sweaty, thirsty, and even MORE cranky than I had started out.

I was turtling HARD. Head down, armor up, not noticing the world around me, stewing in my own misery, when someone goes by on a bike.
... and turns around, and heads back towards me, panting.

Pulling somewhat out of my turtle shell, I glance up.
It's Erik. Little blond dude on a bike. He's sweating. I wish *I* had a bike. I'd be home already instead of only halfway home.

He says, "Here!" and holds out a water bottle. There's beads of condensation on the sides, it's obviously nice and cold, it's everything I wish I could have but I have learned that NOBODY does nice things for me, period, unless they're going to snatch it away and yell "PSYCHE!" afterwards.

Something COLD and MEAN shifts in my chest.

I question his motives to his face. I say mean things about the water bottle even, that it's probably dirty. Wide-eyed, he stammers something about he just bought it at the gas station when he saw me walking home and thought I looked hot and thirsty. (He wasn't wrong.) The MEAN in me doesn't let up, and I think I say something about he probably already drank from it and he probably has herpes and as it leaves my mouth just as MEAN as I can make it, the MEAN in me shifts, twists and oozes away, leaving a horror in my soul. Did I actually SAY that?

His face slams shut. His eyes get dark, his jaw juts out, he jams the bottle (delicious cool bottle, that I wanted so much, I want now to say "yes, please", I want to erase the last ten minutes SO BADLY) back in his backpack, wheels his bike around and rides off.
.
.
.
Erik never spoke to me again.
There are things for which there is no apology possible.

And that is the lowest I have ever sunk. That is the person I have striven to make amends for, *shakes head* with basically my entire life.
One single moment of intentional, focused cruelty in a time of my own soul's pain.

I was in the gutter for so long. It took me many years to be able to know that there even WERE stars, much less figure out how to see them.

I'm sorry, Erik. I wish I could have seen your kindness for what it was, instead of what I expected.



This has been my entry for therealljidol, Last Chance Idol, week 3. The prompt is "We are all in the gutter."

You can read my colleagues in Last Chance Idol, and vote for me (and some of the other wonderful writers there), HERE.

Body has been tightening up and giving me pain. Have only had one even half-serious workout in the last month, today was my second time in the gym since before Burning Man.

I didn't task myself with making up for lost time. I climbed on the elliptical machine for 18 minutes, made a point of keeping it at a rate that raised my temperature and heartrate without making me stressed ... lunch was too close to when I went to workout, but I modified accordingly. And I was sufficiently warmed up before heading to the Gentle Yoga class, which was a LOT of what I needed. Not everything, not quite, but gave me a great workout and let me check in with all the tight places to see what they wanted. (more moving, of course!)

And there was a substitute teacher who was really quite excellent. She was kind enough to give me a good demonstration of bakasana (Crow Pose) which several friends have been practicing and posting photos of on FB and now I have a fairly good idea of what I need to do in order to have the basics down. I need a strong tight core, strong triceps, strong inner thighs... and a willingness to fall on my head while practicing this radical arm-balance.

Okay.
Time to work on looking ridiculous sometimes. And since I also wanna get to the point of doing forearm, head and handstands? this is a good intermediate step, feels like to me.

so I will work on moving enough tonight that today's yoga won't make muscles too stiff, and try starting to practice the things I need tomorrow.

I've been thinking for the last few years, that attention is the rent we pay for being in relationship, for being in community.

It was never such a privilege to pay attention as it was, many years ago, when I was teaching high school reading and drama classes, and became the advisor for the Improv Comedy Club. Thinking back, I marvel at the quick wit and facility with ideas, language and expression that these teenagers had. How fluent and adaptable they were to performance situations where anything could change (and did) with the drop of a word or addition of a new gesture!

Nick was a wiry, nervous Italian looking kid, earnest and new to the Improv team, often half-a-beat late with his responses, or just this side of awkward, in its own kind of funny. Mariel was a comic genius, with a rounded buxom figure, huge brown eyes and an impressive range of physical expression, and she could also get really LOUD in all the good ways. Tawd was clever, almost effortlessly funny both onstage and off, and a deceptively mellow, slow voice. He's the reason I acquired a nickname among the drama classes, and I remember him fondly for that. Aliza was slim, sly, sarcastic, with a drawling kind of vocal delivery that could quicksilver turn to something manic and panicked if the character called for it. Lucas was tall, with what his friends teased him was "emo kid hair", at that gangly teenage stage where his every gesture seemed floppy, but he sure knew how to use that puppety-ness to his advantage, like a Tim Burton character. Brandon was short and compact. He had a deep voice that belied his small frame, and an onstage poise and speed on the uptake that was nothing short of marvellous. Adam was blond, almost with ringlets, and our tech guy when he wasn't onstage. He was ridiculously silly and ridiculously smart, and I still remember one skit where he was spontaneously, slowly, somersaulting around the stage for no apparent reason.

They were all, every one of them, hilarious, but Parker felt like the ringleader. That kid... well. Damn, that kid was a force to be reckoned with. Sandy sort of dishwater brown hair (and I'm not just saying that because he had a positive TALENT for pissing me off), a nondescript sort of everyman face, and sleepy-looking hooded eyes, he was an absolute fucking chameleon onstage, with a rubber face and a skill at vocal characterization that reminded me of the young Jimmy Stewart. He's the one who I remember (with Mariel and Tawd) as starting the club and teaching the other kids all the improv games. He had a very strong personality, and he pushed hard to get the team members to practice all the different kinds of games and to get them in shape for competitive Improv Comedy events with other schools.

Parker was so funny and occasionally so bizarre... I remember how impressed I was with how much he knew about comedy and improvisation. I was brand new to the drama gig, and I don't mind at all saying that I learned virtually everything I know about improv and theater games from these kids. From Highway Patrol to New Choice, tongue-twisters and physical warmups, their speed and sarcasm and joy and silliness just delighted me. I would watch from the audience space and sometimes grade papers as they worked and played and tried new things, always new things, even with the old games they all knew well.

Building characters and scenes with zero stage props or maybe only hats or scarves or a couple of chairs from the audience is what made me think of them when I saw this week's prompt. These kids? I could imagine them EASILY getting a "confession from the chair." You'd be laughing at the one-sided conversation, imagining the chair's responses, and then cheering as the chair is dragged offstage. Of course, there'd be implications that a well-deserved beat-down will happen once the chair is in lockup.

It was a privilege to pay the rent there, to be on the sidelines watching the worldbuilding these kids could do in the blink of an eye. I got no call to be proud of them, I didn't teach them anything. They did it all themselves, but I'm proud of them nevertheless. It was a pleasure to know them.

I hope they are all still finding joy in words and connection and their own quick minds, making creative and subversive things in the world, and messing with people's heads.


This has been my entry for therealljidol . This week's prompt was, as I mentioned, "Confession from the Chair."

Here is a link to one place you can find short descriptions of improv comedy games, you can also google "theater games" or improv games if you would be interested in learning more. Also I recommend comedysportz san jose as an example of improv comedy as a hell of a lot of fun for an evening's entertainment. (hmmm, I need to get out and see that again sometime soon!)

You'd think, with how good my life is now, that it'd be easy to pretend.

Pretend WHAT? says the acidic voice in the back of my head...
Pretend that you were happy? Pretend that you felt loved? Pretend that you ever felt safe?

"Yeah," I shoot back at the Nasty. "Pretend that I had a 'happy childhood.'"

I'm an optimist now. It feels as though I have always been an optimist, and perhaps I have. I'm not SURE, though.

From a very early age, I remember... melancholy, and a sense of disconnect from the world around me. I remember deep suffering, and an almost equally sharp despair. I remember a fierce yearning to BELONG somewhere, or to someone, as I never did at home. Convinced that would never happen, I still determined I would somehow learn to be happy. I knew that people were happy, somewhere (though not my family, except in brief glimpses.)

Wasn't it Tolstoy who said that unhappy families were all different and happy ones were all the same? I disagree. I've met so many people from unhappy families, and we all have so much in common... It feels like Tolstoy had it backwards. The folks I know who had happy childhoods seem to me like visitors from another planet.

My own childhood feels as though someone else experienced it. It feels like a story I was told long ago that no longer apples to me, so I have mostly forgotten it.

It's no longer relevant to my current life, my childhood, but it's still true. And it's still a part of my story.
*thinking*

Joy staining backwards. That's how Lucy Maud Montgomery defined it... In her book The Blue Castle, the main character has a miserable life under the thumb of her family and the small minded society of the small Canadian town she lives in. Valancy has a brush with death, determines to make a change for herself in the short time she believes remains to her, and finds happiness for the first time in her life. Her joy in her new life with her new husband is so vivid and rich that she finds even her memories of the miserable grey childhood of neglect, control, and verbal abuse, seem happier as she looks back on them. Like looking on the past with rose colored glasses, her past did not change, but her present joy gives her a new perspective on the horrible events and the grim family that were all that she knew for most of her life.

Sometimes, nowadays, it does seem as though my life has only been contented, full of love, happy, and with my needs met. It's because the contrast between then and now, makes THEN seem completely unreal and distant. Now is what's real. This hilltop I live on now, these woods I ramble through with those I love and those who challenge me and make me laugh. I don't delude myself anymore that I was truly happy, back then. I was lonely, miserable, heartsick, and friendless.

But I am none of those things anymore. Even when I am completely solitary, I am none of those things anymore.

I am standing beneath the same moon as my childhood self, and it is a comfort to me... a comfort that I still have a childlike sense of connection to the universe, to the impersonal unending beauty of nature and the cosmos. I have joy, I have courage, I have friends and family and beloved community. I have plans and goals that draw me on to the next chapter, the next goal, the next adventure.

I know that this moment is just a pause to rest and refresh myself. Anticipating the next big adventure, like my heroine in The Blue Castle, doesn't mean I've forgotten my past, or am in denial of what life was like, then.

Now is different. These hiking boots don't come with a rear-view mirror. They do help me carry my permanent sense of wonder, along with all the other tools I now possess. Life is amazing, NOW.

And Now? That's where my focus is.




This has been my entry for therealljidol, week 11. The prompt was "recency bias."

I'm enjoying writing within this community very much. If you enjoyed this post, or got something out of it, please consider voting for me so I can continue to write with these amazing and supportive people. The polls are available HERE , and I'm returning back in Tribe One.

Last night I was telling Nick about a (possibly apocryphal) Buddhist teaching story:

The master has a large jar, a bucket of big rocks, a bucket of gravel, a bucket of sand on the table.
He instructs the student to fill the jar with the big rocks, as full as it can go.
Then he asks the student, "Is the jar full?"
The student replies, "Yes, teacher."
Now the master asks the student to add the gravel to the jar. Most of the gravel in the bucket fits into the spaces between the stones.
And he asks the student, "Is the jar full now?"
The student replies, "Yes, teacher."
The master indicates the bucket of sand, and the student knows what comes next, and pours the sand into the jar, and it settles in around the gravel and the stones.
"Surely it's full now, teacher?"

The master smiles, and pulls out a bucket of water from beneath the table.

I heard this story used by Steven Covey to talk about prioritizing your life according to the values that matter to you. In the video, the Big Rocks all have words painted on them. Words like "Family" "Romance" "Health" "Job Advancement" "Planning" "Self-Care" "Spiritual Development". All the kinds of things people talk about as their Highest Values.

Only Covey told the story backwards.
=)
He had the folks taking his seminar fill the jar with sand first, and then try to fit the big rocks in on top of the sand.
All of the taking care of yourself kinds of Rocks got left out, and it was a pretty powerful symbol.
Then he had his demonstration victims Subjects dump the sand out, and fit all the Big Rocks in FIRST. THEN add the gravel, THEN add the sand.

So, he points out, if you take care of the big Values first, you can fit the Projects and the Everyday Little Tasks in around them.
But you can just as easily let the Everyday Little Tasks take up All The Time You Have, and get to the end of your day not having taken care of any of the things you really find VALUABLE.

I'm finding myself dealing a lot in Sand, and not so much in the Big Rocks as I would like to.

So I'm making a drawing, and trying to set up a visual reminder of my priorities.

I've marked one "rock" as Dance, Music, Art, and Writing. I'm struggling for brief vivid descriptors. I could put Roles in, i.e. Wife, Friend, Sister, Aunty, Daughter, Lover. I could put it in as Nouns for the things I value: Self-care, Artistic Expression, Kindness, Philanthropy. I could use a personal pagan metaphor: Persephone, Demeter, Hermes, Artemis, Athena, Dionysos, Cerridwen, Brigid, Argante.

I'm leaning toward the Nouns at the moment. How about you? How would you describe the things you Value above all others?

How do you fit it all in?

Today's massage was pretty darn good. This was the first time in recent memory that I showed up for a massage with nothing actually hurting or needing the therapeutic work. So on the therapist's suggestion, I opted for a relaxation massage. That was nice, and he (he and I are new at working together) seemed much more comfortable in this mode than the sports-therapy massage I requested two weeks ago. So that went well.

I'd had Wrenb drop me off for my appointment, we'd been doing errands together, so I opted to walk home via the bike trail. Less than two miles, I figured...
(How tough could it be, right?)

Oh dear.

Upside: no muscles are sore, my back is fine and my endurance for such things is hugely increased over the last time I took a long walk like this.

Downside? My shoes/boots weren't entirely the optimal choice for a long walk down the asphalt bike path. No heel blisters, thank Hermes, but I have blisters. Under my calluses. On the balls of both feet.

And the first of the early morning workouts with Tal and Tshuma. Like ready to work at 8 am early, when I usually roll out of bed between 8 and 8:30 kind of thing.

Oh well. I'll make it march somehow, and Tal probably has ane encyclopedia of things I could work on without straining foot blisters.

I have faith. Tomorrow will be good, and I will work hard, because I want to be tougher and stronger.

That's that.

Now to check in on Spouse and Tshuma, and rustle myself some more food.

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