Friends and Truth Telling

Treat your friends as you would a bank account - refrain from drawing too heavily on either.
~ Samuel Johnson


Funny thing, I was just thinking some thinks like this yesterday and Monday. I wanted so to DO the Venture Map #1 - Truth Telling Interview in Module 18, I STILL want to, but I realised that there's really no one in my Life at present with whom I could DO this just in the moment, straightaway.


What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
What can you count on me for?
What can't you count on me for?
If you were speaking on behalf of the people who know me, how would you describe me?


The thing is, I am NOT afraid of the truth. I am, I think, afraid of my friends and family rolling their eyes, feeling put upon by my curiosity, or simply blowing me off. Again. I have attempted similar requests with oftentimes NO response.


I so rarely see, in person, people I consider close enough to ASK these questions, and I have, for some time Now, BEcome the one person I am closest with. The one who knows me best.


The one who WANTS to know me.


MayBE the ONLY ONE who WANTS that...


This is NOT a whine, a trembling admission, or even said with sadness. It is what it is. This is How and Where Life and I meet at this time. Simple.


So, when this little quote came into my emailbox this morning, I took a moment and wrote this post. BEcause, for me, I'm thinking this interview will have to BE reconfigured and done differently.


Or mayBE just saved for another chapter...

The Story I Have Been Avoiding

Jenny Bones says:

What story have you been avoiding sharing? Which one makes you the most nauseous when you think about hitting the ‘publish’ button? Write that one. Today. Publish it. Free yourself from the restraints it inflicts on your creative expression.

I sit here on a BEautimous Monday afternoon. It’s blue skies and breezes and sunshining. It’s the sort of day that makes Gratitude grateful. And all that BEing said and oh so true, I am also in a deep funk. A dark one. The sort of funk that feels much more February-ish than May-ish…

I know there is a reason. A cause. A place from which this funk comes. But y’know… it simply doesn’t matter. The thing is, I am here. I am here for the on BEyond some gazillionth time in my Life. And all I can DO is BE.

During AYWM and my writing on this blog, I have shared some pretty difficult things. And never once did that really scare me. I suppose BEcause I don’t envision anyone ever reading my posts. Well, anyone other than others on this AYWM Journey…

But in this funky place I am Right Now I am noticing that I DO have things I hold inside. Refuse to share out loud. Things I wouldn’t want someone or several someones to read or hear or know. Things I am almost afraid to think about. As though just that act alone would BE some sort of treachery…

One thing I am reluctant to share is that I am happy with my Life. Just as it is. Just as it is NOT.

Another is that I have wanted to end my Life so many times BEcause I was tired of trying to make a Life that someone or something else would deem Enough. I have always wanted to live a Life I’d BE proud for anyone to read about and Now I don’t really give a $#!+ what ANYone thinks. That may make NO sense at all, but it does… It does to ME.

I live with depression. It is my constant companion. Like my Spina Bifida, that I didn’t know about until age 36, which has, in the past 22+ years taught me so much more about itself. I always knew something was wrong with me. Or NOT right. That I wasn’t like anyone else. That I was different. And I learned over and over and over again to “get over it” and “rise above it” and yet it was NOT within my power to DO that. So this often led me down the road where I would think ending my Life was the Rightest thing.

Depression is no more something to BE ashamed of than Spina Bifida. And still…

These are things that I don’t want people to know BEcause I didn’t know them for so long. I didn’t know that there was no reason for shame or guilt about a physical “defect” so why would I make the giant leap that said there was none for shame or guilt about a mental and emotional one?! I hadn’t a clue that wanting to end my Life was how I coped with the NOT knowing about the physical defect that made itself known in so many ways that never were clear enough to “get” as BEing caused by something quite BEyond my control.

I don’t want to publish this rambling MEandering. I want to “fix it up” and tie it together first. But… 

Commencing To Get Ready To BEgin

I've been changing, moving from too much to just enough. I am meeting the challenges in my Life with a sort of grace. Oddly enough...


I didn't start out this way. And grace has NOT really EVER been my strong suit. Imagine that!


Life isn't a thing I must work against as though it were some sort of obstacle on my path. It is much more an opportunity and a wondrous adventure. Loving that!


BEcoming this new Me is oftentimes very odd and it leaves me feeling that sense of I'm forgetting something but I can't remember what it is which I'm finally facing rather than running from. I was always looking "out there" at someone or something that wasn't ME!! Who knew?!


Starting without a clear vision should have been a handicap, yet it's turning out to BE much more fun to DO this, making it up as I go. It's sort of an eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired way of Life. Utterly amazing...


Turns out that simplifying my Life is only complicated in moments. For the most part of the time it's as freeing as a spring morning. Sweet stuff!!


There isn't really any "when" to get ready for; Life is always Right Now. Even yesterday and tomorrow are figments of human imagination. Of course!


It's taken me a Very Long Time to learn this, something I see is second nature to others, like babies, dogs, and the squirrels running along the fence outside. To BEcome as smart as a squirrel, Now there's a goal I can lean into!!! Yes indeed!


This idea of preparing, what I call Commencing To Get Ready To BEgin, albeit tongue-in-cheek, is just how I've always DONE Life. It's actually kind of nice to have had that so wrong for so long. You know?!


Now that I am laughing, near myself and mayBE even a little AT myself, I hope you'll join in the grin. Life is much too wonderful to take too seriously. Laugh on!!

THOUGHTY MUSINGS ON: BEING IN THE ZONE

An oddly large strawberry...

This week has been an unplanned and wholly unexpected wander off onto a path through a wood I never knew was there. It has found me sailing like a monkey from tree to tree, limb to limb, as if by magic. Truly an amazing thing. And yet I’d never have imagined it. [Which explains a LOT about why I’m NOT in charge of figuring HOW things work; my only task is to envision it, visualise the details…]

Whether I was specifically inspired by this Module, or BElieve simply that My Right Now Time & Module 16 coincided, causing this “BEautimous Mistake” to come into BEing, I cannot say. And I won’t even pretend to try saying. I think I have, finally, stopped wanting to find the answers at the back of the book. In fact, I don’t even WANT answers. I simply want to BE. BEcause when I BE I am without a doubt In. The. Zone.

One thing I had in view all week was how good it feels to step aside, get out of the way, and just notice, observe, and see without judging. MayBE it was BEing so busy with learning how it is to live without four wheels. It’s a BIG change, and I have to say I am loving it, AND it leaves far less time for the wondering and wandering my mind had learnt to BE so busy at. Letting myself BE “new” and “inexperienced” at this, I’ve noticed once again new ways in which I can grow.

While I have heard it said, more gazillions of times than I can count, that there is serious value in BEing kind to oneself, to treating oneself as I/you would a child, a puppy, any young thing, I only Now really grasp its importance To ME.

It’s a little like what I guess plumbers DO. They have to work their way through the muck of what’s clogging things up to get to the source of what’s backed it all up to BEgin with. It’s NOT fun. Mightn’t  smell too nice. And surely it’s infuriating. Still, when that’s your thing, when that’s what YOU DO, bringing your whole self to the task is definitely the best plan.

It was such a kick for me to read what Julie Jordan Scott said about her approach to making McDonald’s hot fudge sundaes. I reread it several times, each one of those times taking me on a romp through similar stories in my Life. You see, this is what “the zone” is according to Currie:

DO WHAT I DO AS I DO IT.

DO IT THE VERY BEST I CAN DO IT.

AND DO IT AS ONLY I CAN DO IT.

It is important to me to always bring my best. NOT my perfectionist sugar-coated always right “best.” The BEST that only I have to bring to it.

I think what I’m trying to say is that there is a whole lot of noise going on inside my head most of the time. A whole lot of the nattering old prune in me who always has her clipboard and checklists and Big RED Sharpies. If I give her another job to DO, BEcause, truly, she has her good points, this frees ME up to BE kinder to myself. Treat myself with the same sort of tenderness I’d treat YOU with. AND… best of all at this point in Time, this ensures that SHE can go figure out things like bus schedules and how to get somewhere by bus.

Along my journey these past 7 days I came to an endpoint. NOT so much a stopping place, more a commencement. [Though no speeches, funny hats, gowns, or diplomas were involved.] I arrived in the place where I let myself off the hook I’ve been hanging myself on for way too long. I saw that this was how I could go on with enJOYing Life. Like throwing back a catch into the sea… it was enough to know I caught what I caught…

To respond, too, to the Alexia Petrakos’ prompt, I might NOT have fully understood until Now how I lose track of my time. How I find “my Zone.” Where exactly it is. BUT… I did know how to dawdle, detour, and keep myself at arm’s length. I knew, too, how to block my own sunlight and stand in my way, keeping the hope and dream of BEing fully ME and DOing what I DO how I DO it, how only I CAN DO it. It’s my practise of staring in the rearview mirror.

MayBE, it occurs to me, that is why I got rid of my 4 wheels. There is no rearview mirror when I am walking, and in the bus I can’t see what’s going on. My only responsibility is to know where I am going and pull the thingie when I want out at the next stop.

I did get out of my own way in ways large and small this past week. I found [without “all that” to obscure my view] that lovely field. That place where simple joy lives. Where to breathe is to create. Where BEing is the point. Where I am enough, as I am, as I am NOT, and I love it here…

I’M NOT SORRY ~ A Year with Myself Prompt Module 15

I’ve spent a lifetime apologising for needing. Well, almost. I think it started around the time I was 9. Around the time I looked up and realised that Life was pretty much up to me Now. The other people, the grown-ups, well they were either preoccupied, overwhelmed, or simply stopped paying attention. At the time I kind of liked the independence and the possibilities of flying under the radar. 50 years later, well, NOT so much…

To BE honest, I’d thought this prompt NOT applicable to Me. Now, I am NOT saying I’m above this or even anywhere close to BEyond it, I’m just saying this is what I thought. At first. Even still a little bit Now. I was just fiddling about with my thoughtsandfeelings about BEing sorry, saying [or, in my case, writing] I’m sorry BEcause I really wasn’t hearing myself say it.

I have been kicking around a predicament of my Life for the past 16 months. The facts don’t need embellishing or even mentioning, BEcause they are NOT the point. The point, I have Now realised, is that I don’t think I am saying or FEELING I’m sorry BEcause, in fact, I am living from I’m sorry. Isn’t that a kick?!

It’s embarrassing and mildly frustrating to recognise something when all along you didn’t know. Like finding out you’ve been walking around with your skirt tucked into your tights. Or leaving a long voicemail at the wrong number. But there it is: Life. You have to admit, these things make it a little more comical.

Until I was 36 I didn’t know why I wet my pants or occasionally the bed or had to stop so often on car rides, even short ones, but especially longer ones. I thought I was just flawed. That though I have a pretty sharp brain on top of my neck, there were compensations, trade-offs, or simply this peculiar price for me to pay. When the stakes went up in that department, it REALLY got my attention.

No matter my shame and embarrassment or ohmygodicannotbelieveihavetosaythisoutloud  I spent 11 months spanning age 35 to 36 visiting doctors and specialists and having tests and BEing told it was all my way to get attention or, better yet, all in my head… um, hello?!

Turns out, Life has a sense of humour. A good one. But me, I wasn’t laughing. [after all, laughter was one of the surest causes for wetting my pants!!!]

When the 4^th neurologist I saw listened to my little intro, only a quarter of the way into it he interrupted me to tell me I have Spina Bifida. And that just made me incredulous!!! I said to him [and by the way, he was a real sweetheart, but still…] I’M SORRY BUT BABIES HAVE SPINA BIFIDA!!!  And in case he hadn’t realised it, I was no baby!!!

His response?! Yes, you have had this all your Life. You were born with this. It’s just been hiding all this time. You could have knocked me over with a feather…

All that time, all those friends and overnights and screw-ups, the jobs I’d quit or been fired from BEcause of my uncooperative bladder, the harassment, much of it from my own berating voice in my head, the WHY of my son’s birth by Caesarean, despite my well-practised preparedness for something far different…

It was one of those moments I will never forget but really cannot wrap in words that would make sense to anyone else.

There were points along the Journey where this might’ve been discovered, sooner, but as I said above, I was pretty much flying under the radar and solo since my last few months of BEing 9.

I can still, nearly 23 years into KNOWING WHY, wake out of a sound sleep and BE Sorry for needing to have someone take me and my situation to heart, seriously. Someone to advocate for me so I didn’t have to live all those years in shame and SORRY for needing… something… after all, I was BORN this way, I didn’t DO anything to make it what it was.

Now, by the age of 36, one of the “good things” was that I was in my own care. I was the one responsible for ME, and my needs. Things have been well taken care of since that diagnosis, and today I am living a Life that is, still, pretty much up to me and under anyone else’s radar. And when I feel an I’m Sorry bubble to my surface Now it isn’t generally an outward thing. It’s an acknowledgement and a sincere one to myself, for the secrets, lies, and shame that kept me hiding my problems.

So much of my “disability” is invisible. It is heartbreak and guilt and sudden realisations far too long after the fact to BE able to DO anything to make amends. And it is anger that runs so deep and dark that it’s impossible for me to stop it. I’m NOT sorry, and I AM sorry.

The sum total of my relationship history is that Now I live alone, with my dear Golden, Gracie Mae. I love my Life, don’t misunderstand that for one blink of a second, but I see Now that it might NOT have been the worst thing in the World for me to have spoken up, or even to have got LOUD and DEMAND the grown-ups to pay attention, when I was still young and vibrant enough to “BE a kid” rather than BEing grown-up myself trying to apologise for BEing “imperfect.”

I’m NOT sorry that I need. Whatever it is that I need. But I still feel ashamed about it. It’s so deeply ingrained Now that I have pretty much stopped thinking anyone else needs to BE concerned with my needing. Almost daily I have to talk myself in off some ledge or another…

Still, I AM NOT so sorry…

Meet My Good Friend, Fear

My Friend, Fear

I’ve known a lot of Fear, like most people, I suppose, but I am continually amazed at all the little Fears that seem to have put down roots in me, deep deep roots, and me, none the wiser even after all these years, I’ve run this long game of If I Close My Eyes I Can’t See You thinking that will make some sort of difference, shift the balance, or make the whole mess go away away oh so far away…

The way that Life has unfolded recently, and really, the longer view I have from Now to Then, the Time Of My Life when I suppose I invited Fear in instead of thinking it would go away if I just ignored it, closed the door, and pretended it was obviously here by mistake… well I’m starting to see that all Fear ever intended was to get my attention, get me to LISTEN to it, and get me to BE its friend.

I don’t know the exact moment I decided to BEfriend Fear. Perhaps there wasn’t one moment. Still, we’re good Now, and it actually feels like our friendship was here all along, I just was looking at it bass-ackwards.

The thing about Fear and Me is actually a funny thing. We’re like conjoined BEings of some sort. If I pull one way, Fear can either go along with me or pull back in another direction. Pretty simple stuff. And I’ve only just come to see that I’ve been the stronger of us all along. Stronger-willed, stronger in opinions, and stronger than was/is, frankly, good for either of us.

BEcoming friends with something that has always just BEEN there, in me, with me, part of me, seems about the silliest thing I’ve heard in awhile. I mean, Fear is something I was taught to Rise Above, NOT Let STOP You/Me, and For Goodness Sake, Get Over YOURSELF ALREADY!!!!

I’ve always gone my own way. The above “voices” are my parents’ and, yes, sad to say teachers', bosses', and even a few mentor-ish types'. What If???? I didn’t listen to or heed their words?! What If???? I simply made friends with my Fear, met it with genuine compassion, and welcomed it to BE heard, known, and felt?!

When I met my Fear, looked at how it dressed, spoke, walked, and basically lived in the World, er, in ME, I noticed some things. It looked very gentle, even a little curious. It wasn’t a monster. It didn’t have 3 heads and bulging eyes. It was: A. Lot. Like. ME.

So Now we simply dance together in this World, Fear and I. We laugh and we help each other. Sometimes it might seem we’re at cross-purposes, yet we’re NOT. We understand that we each play a part. An essential part. And it works best when we work together.

Musing on Creativity, Power, and Their Splendid Dance

Muusie

I love the Henry Miller quote from Module 13: Power:

When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance. The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one's whole being, is that you alone control nothing.

This pretty much sums up my sense of and connection with that thing called my Creativity. 

I admit to "trying" to make myself post last week, when I "should have" and had got in the habit of DOing the previous 12 weeks of AYWM. And it was even a little bit funny to see all the gyrations and leaps of confusion I indulged.

The thing is, when I create, or when I try to see where my creative mojo comes from or how it makes its way to and through me, it's like trying to see my eyes when I am looking through them. It's simply NOT within the realm of possibilities I understand...

Still, the dance with this problem was an adventure, truly, and it taught me that I still have some moves in me!!

One of the tricky parts of owning my Creativity is that I really don't, in fact, I don't even WANT TO own it. I just want to learn to ride it like a wild horse and NOT EVEN worry about holding on!!!

So this is what brought me to Muusie, my muse. My grandmother, Moosie, was the World to me, all gathered up in a woman I knew for far too short a time "in person." The photo above, scanned and fiddled with, is of her in a tiny black and white photo with me in my high chair. So it's old. And NOT so good to BEgin with.

But here's the thing... it has been on my art table for over a year Now, along with some other photos with other special people in my little ordinary Life. I would see each of them and I would feel so loved. So deLIGHTed in. And over time I think I came to a place of deep peace with Life, MY Life, as it's been, as it's NOT been, and as it's unfolded and continuing to unfold.

This tiny photo reminded me that BEfore I even had a clue that I needed to harness Power or BE Creative or DO anything at all BEyond simply BE, I. Was. Loved.

Deeply.

Just. Loved.

Oftentimes I have paused, seemingly to listen or catch the sweet scent of memory that has no image to it. I think in those pauses I have found my "muse" and that, for me, the picture of it is of Moosie, just happy that I was there BEing.

It's a good place to launch, a great one to surrender to. It is far from earth-shattering and will never make the headlines, but for me it's the Real Thing.

Love. That wonderful love I had, and still FEEL. That's where it all starts, lifts, and lets me fly.