Recently a friend wrote this sentence in an email to me: "I used to be a HUGE oversharer before social media was a thing." I thought about social media. Lots of people just put up pictures of their vacations / parties / marriages / children at their finest moments and call it a day. I actually know of numerous people who have deactivated their Facebook accounts b/c the competition got to be too much. They feel like everyone else is saying, I have the best vacation, the best husband/wife, the best baby. With the implication of, and you don't. I got the feeling that this friend who emailed me feels like sharing their life, in all of its dimensions, is frowned upon.
I have a problem with the term "oversharing." Also, the word "needy." "Oversharing" assumes that no one wants to hear your personal stuff, that it's impolite or socially wrong to share your personal stuff, that we should all walk around projecting only positivity and the more shallower dimensions of our lives.
Everything looks shiny; no one allegedly has to feel anything except YAY YAY YAY.
When really, I think it's a continuum. At my old job, I sure as hell would not share personal things with certain people. Especially administration. Most jobs are like that. But I think it's okay to share things with people who are your friends or close colleagues. Because what the heck are friends for if you can't be there for each other during the positive *and* negative times?
My friends are some of the best people ever because they have listened empathetically to me and really been there for me, especially over the past year-and-some-months, when things happened with my mom. Or they have distracted me with wonderful things like coffee and Indian food and visits and children and simply the beauty of their presence. I never feel judged by them. And I in turn feel special and honored when they come to me with important emotional things. Like: wow, they trusted me enough to ask me to listen. I feel capable and strong when I can support them.
The word "needy"gets kicked around a lot, just like "over-sharing." "Needy" pathologizes the idea of interdependence. As a culture, we live under this delusion of self-sufficiency, like that's the ultimate thing to strive for. It's very American. Or United-States-ian, I should say. But when you dissect it, the idea of INdependence is fundamentally impossible unless you decide to become a hermit on top of a mountain. And then what happens if you break your leg or need to go into town for food?
Each in their various ways, my mom and dad raised me to believe that self-sufficiency was the ideal. In reality, they were not self-sufficient, but I was raised to believe that I should strive to be. I think they thought they were doing me a service. This created a schism in my thinking which still continues. On one hand, I feel the old emotional pull: do it yourself at all costs. Appear strong at all costs. If you can't, that's bad. Other people will take advantage of you OR You're weak. Incapable. Less-than-adequate.
On the other hand, I know my reality, and I try really hard not to judge myself for it. Ahem, I'm not saying I succeed in being nonjudgmental, but I try. Yeah, sometimes I need. Everybody needs. And sometimes I NEED. And everyone in their life goes through a period of that NEED too, whether they admit it or not.
I think about need, and sharing, and interdependence also as it applies to teaching. I think about it a LOT. When I went through teacher training in grad school (ages ago… yikes!) I was taught that students are people, that learning is collaborative (students learn from the teacher, students learn from each other, the teacher learns from the students), that each student will have a different learning style, that it's okay to be honest with your students when you don't know the answer, that it's okay to be vulnerable and to expect (and accept) your students' vulnerabilities.
Then… I taught at a certain place for awhile and it really made an impression on me. The culture was rather the opposite of the way I'd learned to teach. Not necessarily through word but through example, the ideal classroom was presented as: the teacher makes the rules, the students follow the rules, the students get punished if they don't follow the rules, each student is an information bucket into which you deposit key skills, and then they somehow translate those skills into a well- or poorly- written paper and then you grade them. Nobody needs to be feeling their feelings all over the place b/c there's no room for that in the syllabus.
I really tried to be that latter teacher and I did not do well being that teacher, and it burned me out. I had colleagues who taught at that place, and still do, who somehow managed to be a combination of the former teacher and the latter teacher. Or colleagues who were so untouchable (some concept called tenure of which I know not) that they could be the former teacher and the administration could go… fly a kite.
If anywhere I thought I could succeed as the former type of teacher, it would be in the teaching of writing. Whether you are writing poetry or a thesis-based argument, the idea of empathy is important. The ability to accept and not vilify emotions is important.
Now that I'm feeling a lot better, I'm going to start revising / submitting my own work again in January. I'm also thinking about teaching (as a concept), because I really miss it. But, especially given my geographic limitations, I don't know where the right place is for me, if any.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
20 things : Positivity
So for those of you who read my blog and think that I've fallen into an abyss of morbid reflection... you may be right. However, DBT is all about the "and." Simultaneously acting on behalf of your recovery while accumulating and acknowledging positive experiences. I wanted to make this entry b/c I need you to know, and to remind myself as well, that there are positive things in my life. These are in no particular order.
1. I helped Mike re-jigger his office set-up in the apartment last weekend, which involved the purchasing of a desk, the disassembling of another desk. I felt... well... helpful and not burdensome. It was a really REALLY good feeling. And the new set-up, although it will not be complete until December, is already looking smashing. It unblocks some energy in the apartment, allowing for new openness and flow.
2. I've taken advantage of National Novel Writing Month to write a poem a day. The official NaPoWriMo isn't until April, but I wanted a project for November to push through my writer's block. In regards to beginning a draft, Stacey Waite said "writing ain't no thing." Because all my emotions have been so weighty lately, it's bled into my attitude about writing as well. Every possibility becomes too heavy, too important. When you write a poem a day, they just can't all be important. So far it's working out well. I'm eleven poems in.
3. Autumn: the colors, scents, tastes, sounds... except the sound of leaf blowers. Use a rake, dammit.
4. I lost a lot of weight and thus dropped some sizes. I went from a size 12 to a size 6 or 8. Probably I'll opt for 8 because I like things to not be too tight. I like jeans better now. So I bought myself some pairs of jeans. The losing weight did not make me happy or sad --I did not intend to lose the weight. But I'm trying to keep it off. The reason this qualifies for Positivity is the jeans. Jeans are nice sometimes.You can just put them on. I forgot. (for those of you who don't know me IRL, I wear dresses and skirts).
5. I've been making a lot of progress in my healing process. I don't really want to talk about it right now though. But I can notice the progress, which gives me hope for the future.
6. I've had the fleeting desire that it's time to consider making a plan to go back to teaching.
7. I like Thanksgiving and Christmas. And my birthday. They all take place in November and December. It's like bathing one's brain in mulled cider to make January and February go down more smoothly. Not saying it works 100%. But I'll deal with January when it happens.
8. Friends. They are good to me. I value them like family. I love them. I need them. They mean more to me than words can say.
9. Shutterdown <<< this is a friend's project. It's also the music of dream alchemy. You should click / listen / support.
10. I made soup for the first time this year. It's possible that I made soup for the first time in two years, because I may not have made soup at all last year. Now I have a lot of soup. Chicken soup anyone?
11. The art community at Polyvore. This site may look commercial and material on the outside but once you peel back the layers you find many amazing sub-communities of collage artists.It's not actually all about clothes.
12. Our apartment keeps getting cuter as we make improvements to its layout and decor. I'm tentatively planning a crepe party for my birthday. Like, I make crepes and everyone brings a topping and then there's a lot of eating and celebration.
13. It's a year since I started IOP and I can notice how much better I am. I'm listing this one separately from #5. [It's my blog and I can list stuff how I want to.] It's just that... at the time, I didn't / couldn't see ANY way that my life could get better. It was all raw emotion. There are still days when I take life in hourly chunks. Sometimes minute-ly chunks. But that is okay.
14. I've gotten back into yoga. Yoga is good.
15. I can read stuff again. You might not know this b/c I've kept it quiet, but a year ago my concentration was so bad I could barely watch a half-hour sitcom without getting restless and amped up. I wasn't able to read a magazine, much less poetry. Reading poetry made me cry. It reminded me of how much I [thought that I had] lost in a short period of time. But last week I read a fucking essay on poetic theory by Lyn Hejinian, and it made sense to me --relatively speaking-- the argument was not very accessible. So yay for the restoration of cognitive function. Therapist N said it would come back.
16. I had both kitties with me on the couch the other day.
17. I've managed to not fall off the DBT wagon, and my last IOP stint ended in early August.
18. My hair came out this really unexpected, pretty color the last time I dyed it.
19. I've made the decision that in January, I'm going to start again to send work out on a schedule. Last January I was not ready. I'm taking it slow this time. Planning two months ahead. I'm excited that my psyche has / will have mended to the point where I can actually consider a work schedule again and not just make stabs at it and beat myself up when I don't fulfill my expectations. Even though January 2013 did not work out so well, the month of January has momentum. I broke away from university and started my full-time devotion to writing in January 2012. It feels like longer. Can you believe I only got seven months into my one-year [ha!] sabbatical when my mom did what she did? I was at the top of my game. It was like being smacked down by a force of nature.
20. My dad and Pam said they were gonna come to Pittsburgh and visit me. Maybe it will be near my birthday. I really miss my folks and although they can probably only do 48 hours, it will still be good to see them.
20. My dad and Pam said they were gonna come to Pittsburgh and visit me. Maybe it will be near my birthday. I really miss my folks and although they can probably only do 48 hours, it will still be good to see them.
Friday, September 20, 2013
20 things : the group
1. I feel such a sense of relief, having experienced the first iteration of the Survivors of Suicide support group last night.
2. I was worried that the group was only going to be heavy, crushing, scary, and not show its helpful aspects immediately.
3. I want to give an indication of my experiences without breaking the confidentiality of others... so no details about other group members. Which means that I probably won't blog about the group much other than this first week.
4. I feel I owe it to those who were extremely concerned after my last blog entry to show that I am feeling somewhat better. I feel guilty about making others extremely concerned. I don't think the last blog entry was particularly extreme, considering all I've written about. Joanna's voice echoes in my head right now we are not responsible for other people's feelings. We are responsible for our own feelings.
5. But sometimes, with loved ones, the boundaries blur. About who is responsible for what. So I write this entry, in part, because of that. To reassure others, and to assuage my own guilt.
6. I mostly want to talk about the philosophies of the group leader regarding suicide. To me they are unusual and comforting at the same time.
7. She believes that suicide is not, in fact, preventable. She has research to show that with or without psychiatric treatment, the suicide rates remain the same.
8. She believes that suicide is its own illness, a massive failure of the frontal lobes' executive function--separate from depression, bipolar disorder, and so forth.
9. She believes that the idea that is prevalent in society "suicide is preventable" leaves the survivors with a huge amount of guilt over what they could have, should have done to save their loved ones.
10. This idea is, in one way, immensely comforting to me --because I am still obsessed with what I should have done to help my mom. If only I had been more aggressive about talking to her doctors. If only I had taken charge and flown her up to Pittsburgh.
11. You see, I'd had this idea that at some point, I would have to move her up here and take more of an active role in her life, sorting out her myriad problems for her. Because her decision making skills had been going downhill for decades, plural. Talk about failure of executive function.
12. But we could never have lived together, ever. Because of how toxic our relationship was when we were that proximal. It was not good for me.
13. I had been trying for years--half my life--trying to and succeeding in repairing the damage that --to be frank --she either caused or set me up for.
14. So I had been putting it off --offering to move her to Pittsburgh --b/c I knew it would cost a lot of money to set her up and she has none. I also knew that much of the time it would be like taking care of a child. And I also knew that the relationship had the potential to quickly turn into me = caregiver and she = a mean, combative, even at times violent child.
15. And I've been struggling with this idea of I PUT IT OFF FOR ME ME ME. And so I let her die. I chose me over her.
16. Ironically, I wonder if my relatives in Georgia thought they were doing the same thing when they moved her down there. Like they could swoop in and fix a truly unfixable situation.
17. My mother had a real talent for inspiring this kind of We Will Save the Day kind of help... and then TOTALLY resisting 99% of the help. It. Was. Truly. Maddening.
18. The DBT version of helping me with my survivor's guilt is : waterfall. I may have blogged about this before. Joanna asked me one day to come up with an image that would snap me out of the rumination (dwelling-on) trajectory that I've just described. I came up with waterfall. Not because it was a beautiful example of mother nature's creation... but because it was beguiling yet destructive. If you stand under Niagara, you will be crushed. The water surges forward under its own power, cutting a channel into the rock because that's what it does. You are just a brittle bag of bones compared to the power of the waterfall.
19. According to our SoS group leader, my mom's brain slowly stopped being able to make the decisions necessary to keep her alive. Complex decisions, but also decisions that we all take for granted. It is a radical idea. However, I'm considering it. Not only do I want to believe it because it lessens my guilt, but it also makes so much damn sense when I look at the course of her life over the past twenty years. If you think about it, it actually connects to waterfall. Well, okay, it does for me.
20. So that's what I got from my first week of group. I'm glad there are only 20 things. It tells me when I can stop writing. B/c I'm exhausted now. Whew. Time to hop in the shower and start my day!
2. I was worried that the group was only going to be heavy, crushing, scary, and not show its helpful aspects immediately.
3. I want to give an indication of my experiences without breaking the confidentiality of others... so no details about other group members. Which means that I probably won't blog about the group much other than this first week.
4. I feel I owe it to those who were extremely concerned after my last blog entry to show that I am feeling somewhat better. I feel guilty about making others extremely concerned. I don't think the last blog entry was particularly extreme, considering all I've written about. Joanna's voice echoes in my head right now we are not responsible for other people's feelings. We are responsible for our own feelings.
5. But sometimes, with loved ones, the boundaries blur. About who is responsible for what. So I write this entry, in part, because of that. To reassure others, and to assuage my own guilt.
6. I mostly want to talk about the philosophies of the group leader regarding suicide. To me they are unusual and comforting at the same time.
7. She believes that suicide is not, in fact, preventable. She has research to show that with or without psychiatric treatment, the suicide rates remain the same.
8. She believes that suicide is its own illness, a massive failure of the frontal lobes' executive function--separate from depression, bipolar disorder, and so forth.
9. She believes that the idea that is prevalent in society "suicide is preventable" leaves the survivors with a huge amount of guilt over what they could have, should have done to save their loved ones.
10. This idea is, in one way, immensely comforting to me --because I am still obsessed with what I should have done to help my mom. If only I had been more aggressive about talking to her doctors. If only I had taken charge and flown her up to Pittsburgh.
11. You see, I'd had this idea that at some point, I would have to move her up here and take more of an active role in her life, sorting out her myriad problems for her. Because her decision making skills had been going downhill for decades, plural. Talk about failure of executive function.
12. But we could never have lived together, ever. Because of how toxic our relationship was when we were that proximal. It was not good for me.
13. I had been trying for years--half my life--trying to and succeeding in repairing the damage that --to be frank --she either caused or set me up for.
14. So I had been putting it off --offering to move her to Pittsburgh --b/c I knew it would cost a lot of money to set her up and she has none. I also knew that much of the time it would be like taking care of a child. And I also knew that the relationship had the potential to quickly turn into me = caregiver and she = a mean, combative, even at times violent child.
15. And I've been struggling with this idea of I PUT IT OFF FOR ME ME ME. And so I let her die. I chose me over her.
16. Ironically, I wonder if my relatives in Georgia thought they were doing the same thing when they moved her down there. Like they could swoop in and fix a truly unfixable situation.
17. My mother had a real talent for inspiring this kind of We Will Save the Day kind of help... and then TOTALLY resisting 99% of the help. It. Was. Truly. Maddening.
18. The DBT version of helping me with my survivor's guilt is : waterfall. I may have blogged about this before. Joanna asked me one day to come up with an image that would snap me out of the rumination (dwelling-on) trajectory that I've just described. I came up with waterfall. Not because it was a beautiful example of mother nature's creation... but because it was beguiling yet destructive. If you stand under Niagara, you will be crushed. The water surges forward under its own power, cutting a channel into the rock because that's what it does. You are just a brittle bag of bones compared to the power of the waterfall.
19. According to our SoS group leader, my mom's brain slowly stopped being able to make the decisions necessary to keep her alive. Complex decisions, but also decisions that we all take for granted. It is a radical idea. However, I'm considering it. Not only do I want to believe it because it lessens my guilt, but it also makes so much damn sense when I look at the course of her life over the past twenty years. If you think about it, it actually connects to waterfall. Well, okay, it does for me.
20. So that's what I got from my first week of group. I'm glad there are only 20 things. It tells me when I can stop writing. B/c I'm exhausted now. Whew. Time to hop in the shower and start my day!
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
20 things : what to do with the dead
1. My mom's death day (like the opposite of birthday) is coming up on Saturday.
2. I am looking for distractions.
3. The first person whom I asked an opinion about distractions said that I should think how I can memorialize or honor her instead.
4. I don't know if I'm ready to do that.
5. Maybe I will take her ashes out of seclusion and find a place in the house for them.
6. On Thursday, that is TOMORROW, I am joining a support group called Survivors of Suicide. It is the first session.
7. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about what happened, because I don't really talk about it with anyone, except Mike or therapist N sometimes.
8. Not with friends, certainly not with family.
9. I don't know how to begin the conversation or what I would say.
10. I do envy other people's ability to talk about the dead.
11. Perhaps I am imagining this ability.
12. I think the not-talking-about-it has kept me corralled in a certain area of my mind, so to speak.
13. I don't even feel comfortable blogging about it.
14. Like : that time has passed. Like : no one wants to read that.
15. My favorite cactus died last week.
16. I couldn't tell if it was b/c of over- or under-watering.
17. I think it was under- but the internet says to under-water a cactus is much less common than overwatering. I conducted obsessive internet research but found no good answer.
18. I wanted to conduct an autopsy, but instead I had Mike take it out to the faraway trash, pot and all. I couldn't bear it.
19. My anxiety and OCD started to get so extreme on Tuesday that I only went out of the house to take down the used cat litter, and that made me so paranoid I was hyperventilating by the time I got back. 20. This morning I have already predicted my own death in five ways. The OCD is an unwelcome divination.
EDIT: After having gotten some unexpected responses to this entry, I want to clarify #20. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder leads the individual to have compulsive, uncontrollable thoughts--obsessions. It is common for those thoughts to be troubling, even violent, in their content. The person with OCD deals with the stress elicited by those thoughts by acting out compulsions or tics. Stereotypical compulsions would be hand-washing, checking 20 times to see if one has locked the door, etc. My OCD is torturing me with death thoughts this week b/c of the anniversary and b/c I am joining the support group. It does not mean I am acting violently toward myself or anyone else. Deep breaths.
2. I am looking for distractions.
3. The first person whom I asked an opinion about distractions said that I should think how I can memorialize or honor her instead.
4. I don't know if I'm ready to do that.
5. Maybe I will take her ashes out of seclusion and find a place in the house for them.
6. On Thursday, that is TOMORROW, I am joining a support group called Survivors of Suicide. It is the first session.
7. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about what happened, because I don't really talk about it with anyone, except Mike or therapist N sometimes.
8. Not with friends, certainly not with family.
9. I don't know how to begin the conversation or what I would say.
10. I do envy other people's ability to talk about the dead.
11. Perhaps I am imagining this ability.
12. I think the not-talking-about-it has kept me corralled in a certain area of my mind, so to speak.
13. I don't even feel comfortable blogging about it.
14. Like : that time has passed. Like : no one wants to read that.
15. My favorite cactus died last week.
16. I couldn't tell if it was b/c of over- or under-watering.
17. I think it was under- but the internet says to under-water a cactus is much less common than overwatering. I conducted obsessive internet research but found no good answer.
18. I wanted to conduct an autopsy, but instead I had Mike take it out to the faraway trash, pot and all. I couldn't bear it.
19. My anxiety and OCD started to get so extreme on Tuesday that I only went out of the house to take down the used cat litter, and that made me so paranoid I was hyperventilating by the time I got back. 20. This morning I have already predicted my own death in five ways. The OCD is an unwelcome divination.
EDIT: After having gotten some unexpected responses to this entry, I want to clarify #20. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder leads the individual to have compulsive, uncontrollable thoughts--obsessions. It is common for those thoughts to be troubling, even violent, in their content. The person with OCD deals with the stress elicited by those thoughts by acting out compulsions or tics. Stereotypical compulsions would be hand-washing, checking 20 times to see if one has locked the door, etc. My OCD is torturing me with death thoughts this week b/c of the anniversary and b/c I am joining the support group. It does not mean I am acting violently toward myself or anyone else. Deep breaths.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Water and No Water
When I was a kid living in rural eastern PA, we had a well. As a child, I didn't really understand the mechanism of the well, just that it was underground and through a series of pumps and pipes, provided all the water for our house. I think it may have also required electricity to run. Which means that when the power went out, so did the water.
* * *
Perhaps in response to my stream of compound-complex swear words, Mike asked if I was okay. I imagined the cold shower causing all my muscles to seize up and the fibro ache lasting the whole day. I requested a washcloth so that I could rinse off from the tub faucet and not the shower.
When I turned the cold water spigot back on though, there was no water coming out of there either. More distant knocking of pipes. I had the feeling there was no water anywhere nearby, although Mike said there was still some coming out of the kitchen sink--probably what was left in the lines. He brought me a bowl of water.
* * *
Last night in the middle of hysterical sobbing I thought look at my fucking life now --my mother did this to me. One last strike so we could both go down together. These thoughts are pretty close to my worst thoughts: the fear spiral that leads to places too dark to blog about.
How strange that she could be so kind one day, so unmerciful another. I mean it: how strange. I thought it was strange at eight. At thirty-eight my mind still can't get around it.
* * *
When I taught at University, I shepherded my students through a campus lockdown because there was a shooter on the grounds. There were three incidences of gun crime at this school during the six years I taught there. This never kept me from going to work.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
20 things : losses and gains
1. I've been out awhile, and struggled with how to tell people exactly why, and what I've been up to, and when I should come back to blogging, if at all.
2. The other day a friend told me she missed my blog, and so it was motivational.
3. I'm trying to participate in my life again, on a more social scale, after nearly a year of grieving.
4. For a long time now I thought we lost Ravi on August 8, but I look and it's actually August 22.
5. That's almost exactly a month before my mom did what she did.
6. I'm thinking a lot about anniversaries, because I'm being transitioned out of IOP round two, and because we are closing on our house --selling it --on Friday.
7. I dreamt about Ravi for the first time in a long time last night.
8. Around the time he went missing, a friend said, If you're dreaming about him, that means he's gonna come back. I had been.
9. I understand that's just some BS that people tell other people b/c they want it to be true, but I still wish she hadn't said that.
10. Sometimes when you love someone, they go away and don't come back. I had two someones who went away.
11. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be over it.
12. But I have to start rebuilding my life somehow, some way.
13. At first I was pressing myself to do this really hard, like I had to score an A+ on a test and the test was My Life.
14. But now after a raftload of therapy, I realize that the rebuilding will occur in its own time, and, although it doesn't hurt to encourage them, certain aspects of my life aren't going to come back before they are ready.
15. For example, I've been making status updates on fb in the past few days, and now I'm making this blog entry. But I wasn't doing those things for a long time.
16. However, if I choose to envision these things as a dramatic re-launch of Me in Social Media, then I will crawl back under the couch.
17. In other news, I'm doing a reading this weekend. When I signed up to do this reading months and months and months ago, I thought I'm gonna be so much better by August!
18. There was another reading, in June, that I'd signed up for and actually had to withdraw myself from, because I wasn't ready. Now I think I'm sort of ready. We shall see.
19. It's hard to tell when to push and when to just let myself be. I used to think the answer was always push, and I would feel guilty every time I did not push. I don't think that anymore.
20. So this is a post. It's not an epic post. It's not an official re-launch. It may be a "soft open." But I don't even know what those words mean, when you're talking about a person. I hope I'll post again soon.
Here's a painting; click to see larger:
2. The other day a friend told me she missed my blog, and so it was motivational.
3. I'm trying to participate in my life again, on a more social scale, after nearly a year of grieving.
4. For a long time now I thought we lost Ravi on August 8, but I look and it's actually August 22.
5. That's almost exactly a month before my mom did what she did.
6. I'm thinking a lot about anniversaries, because I'm being transitioned out of IOP round two, and because we are closing on our house --selling it --on Friday.
7. I dreamt about Ravi for the first time in a long time last night.
8. Around the time he went missing, a friend said, If you're dreaming about him, that means he's gonna come back. I had been.
9. I understand that's just some BS that people tell other people b/c they want it to be true, but I still wish she hadn't said that.
10. Sometimes when you love someone, they go away and don't come back. I had two someones who went away.
11. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be over it.
12. But I have to start rebuilding my life somehow, some way.
13. At first I was pressing myself to do this really hard, like I had to score an A+ on a test and the test was My Life.
14. But now after a raftload of therapy, I realize that the rebuilding will occur in its own time, and, although it doesn't hurt to encourage them, certain aspects of my life aren't going to come back before they are ready.
15. For example, I've been making status updates on fb in the past few days, and now I'm making this blog entry. But I wasn't doing those things for a long time.
16. However, if I choose to envision these things as a dramatic re-launch of Me in Social Media, then I will crawl back under the couch.
17. In other news, I'm doing a reading this weekend. When I signed up to do this reading months and months and months ago, I thought I'm gonna be so much better by August!
18. There was another reading, in June, that I'd signed up for and actually had to withdraw myself from, because I wasn't ready. Now I think I'm sort of ready. We shall see.
19. It's hard to tell when to push and when to just let myself be. I used to think the answer was always push, and I would feel guilty every time I did not push. I don't think that anymore.
20. So this is a post. It's not an epic post. It's not an official re-launch. It may be a "soft open." But I don't even know what those words mean, when you're talking about a person. I hope I'll post again soon.
Here's a painting; click to see larger:
Stripped
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
20things : Alterations
20things : Alterations
2) When Mike came home he asked if there was anything he could do to help and I suggested a walk.
3) So we walked to Frick Park, which is very close now, which I haven't been to in years&years&years.
4) As soon as we got there I got this "opening" feeling.
5) Like, I wasn't Feeling Better, but I could see the concept of feeling-better out there in the universe, waiting for me to find and retrieve it.
6) Like maybe all the weight of Since August could potentially be lifted, not right now, but eventually.
7) It's the first time Since August I've felt this.
8) So that happened. Hence, more walks in my future.
9) This morning I took in a dress.
10) I'm one of those "pear" shaped women, smaller at the shoulders than the hips.
11) I've accumulated three really pretty summer dresses with wide straps that fall off my shoulders.
12) It was either fix the dresses or donate them; I've been putting it off since last fall.
13) I was worried that Luna would immediately be hunting the needle and thread as soon as she figured out I would be engaged in a task that involved slow, intriguing, repetitive movement, carefulness, and of course sharp objects.
14) Thankfully she didn't figure it out until the second shoulder.
15) By then I was halfway done so I was able to stay more or less patient.
16) Did I mention I'm thoroughly mediocre at sewing?
17) It's not my favorite task. I nearly failed home-ec because of a teacher who chose to treat me like a dummy in front of the whole class b/c I'm visually impaired.
18) Everything I learned about sewing came from a very patient art teacher and a room mate who majored in fashion design, neither of whom assumed that because I'm mostly blind I couldn't sew.
19) Still, I've never actually taken in the straps of a dress before, just imagined what it would be like to do it.
20) And now my purple butterfly dress, which I'd bought to wear for a big SIT presentation two years ago, fits like the straps will stay on my shoulders and not start that embarrassing slide down my arms.
I think I will wear my "new" dress today.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
20things : moving / seven years / and
1) All winter my cheeks were windlashed and wet.
2) After this winter I determined I no longer look good w/o makeup.
3) My face has these red flaky areas over my cheekbones. And lots of bumps and blemishes all over.
4) Also I've cried more in the past winter months than I did in seven years previous.
5) The other day I snapped the first buds of magnolia.
6) The picture reminded me of Spain, a raw almond, green and furred, still on the tree; another photo, over half a life ago.
7) I keep running aground on history.
8) It cracks me open every time.
9) I sink further.
10) One night, when I was young enough to barely remember, I cried into the rectangle of orange light that separated my bedroom from the rest of the house, where after dark I knew I couldn't leave.
11) I cried until someone came for me.
12) Sometimes they did not; that night, they did.
13) We were going on vacation in a few days --my first one.
14) I needed to know if the bed would be the same, if the sky would be the same, if I would be the same, were I in another place.
15) The answer was I don't know.
16) That was my mother.
17) That was my mother.
18) And I am again in another place, and the bed is not the same, and the sky is not the same, and I am not the same, and it is still almost too hard to hold onto, like in my childbrain.
19) I hear the present approaching the future, rushing faster and faster toward me.
20) A train and I am trapped underneath the tracks.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
20 things : boxes, again
1. Last night I had a nightmare. We were in a plane going somewhere exotic like Morocco.
2. There was no cockpit door and I was right in the front so I could see and hear the pilot.
3. He had no co-pilot. He kept taxiing the plane down the runway at very high speeds, almost taking off, and then not.
4. He kept saying "if I don't do this right, we're gonna crash." It kept happening and happening.
5. All the passengers wanted off the plane but he wouldn't let us off.
6. Finally they / we sort of staged a coup and overpowered him and open the front cabin door and all piled out in a mad stampede.
7. Then we were stuck in an airport in the country of Approximately Nowhere.
8. Last night I said definitively that I was going to write an email saying, Dear Uncle ___, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch "in person," until now. It has been a rough few months, and I am only beginning to join the land of the living, so to speak. I was just writing you regarding the 12 boxes of my mom's stuff. Because we are making so many trips this spring and summer, I regret that I will not be able to come to ___ , to ____'s house and look through the boxes as I had originally said. I was wondering if it would be possible for you and ___ to please look through the boxes when she comes to visit you, pull out my mother's sketchbooks and send them to me. Love, Jill
9. Now this morning I don't know what I will do if a) he says no or b) he says he'll ship the boxes to me.
10. I want all the boxes.
11. I don't want any of the boxes.
12. They're all I have of her.
13. I don't need any more of her.
14. I really don't want to deal with this before AWP happens because my anxiety's already cranked about the conference.
15. I really do want to deal with this before AWP happens because my anxiety's already cranked about the conference.
16. I want to come and visit you immediately, Uncle ___.
17. I don't know when I want to see you again.
18. I wish we could talk honestly and be open with our emotions.
19. Talking honestly and being open with our emotions scares the crap out of me because our family has never really done it before, and so it would be a supernova shitstorm of bad.
20. I cry about her every day. I wonder if anyone else is crying too.
2. There was no cockpit door and I was right in the front so I could see and hear the pilot.
3. He had no co-pilot. He kept taxiing the plane down the runway at very high speeds, almost taking off, and then not.
4. He kept saying "if I don't do this right, we're gonna crash." It kept happening and happening.
5. All the passengers wanted off the plane but he wouldn't let us off.
6. Finally they / we sort of staged a coup and overpowered him and open the front cabin door and all piled out in a mad stampede.
7. Then we were stuck in an airport in the country of Approximately Nowhere.
8. Last night I said definitively that I was going to write an email saying, Dear Uncle ___, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch "in person," until now. It has been a rough few months, and I am only beginning to join the land of the living, so to speak. I was just writing you regarding the 12 boxes of my mom's stuff. Because we are making so many trips this spring and summer, I regret that I will not be able to come to ___ , to ____'s house and look through the boxes as I had originally said. I was wondering if it would be possible for you and ___ to please look through the boxes when she comes to visit you, pull out my mother's sketchbooks and send them to me. Love, Jill
9. Now this morning I don't know what I will do if a) he says no or b) he says he'll ship the boxes to me.
10. I want all the boxes.
11. I don't want any of the boxes.
12. They're all I have of her.
13. I don't need any more of her.
14. I really don't want to deal with this before AWP happens because my anxiety's already cranked about the conference.
15. I really do want to deal with this before AWP happens because my anxiety's already cranked about the conference.
16. I want to come and visit you immediately, Uncle ___.
17. I don't know when I want to see you again.
18. I wish we could talk honestly and be open with our emotions.
19. Talking honestly and being open with our emotions scares the crap out of me because our family has never really done it before, and so it would be a supernova shitstorm of bad.
20. I cry about her every day. I wonder if anyone else is crying too.
Boxes, Again
Thursday, February 28, 2013
And
[click to enlarge]
I'm halfway sad today but there was a reason for it. This morning I finally canceled Ravi's pet insurance. I left the microchip registration open. The end.
Interjection
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
the grief grind
Last night Mike informed me of an email that he got four days ago wherein my uncle said that my aunt --his sister --was going down to GA for some furniture and possibly boxes of mom's stuff. She's flying down and renting a truck and driving back.
Mike and I can't drive like that.
*
Not that his coping strategy surprises me. My grandfather was entirely like this. Even my mother was, to some extent. And I did it for all the years that I was at The University Previously Known As My Place of Employment because "getting it done" was way more important than feeling my feelings about whatever "it" was.
In all the offices I worked in I was described as "sweet," "cheerful," "perky," and "bubbly." My teaching evals always said I had great rapport.
*
I just... I would like to be asked, you know? Even if I'm not ready to talk.
*
*
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
20 things : pudding
1. I made the special pudding again yesterday. Added more seeds so it took less time to set up.
2. 2c milk plus 7-8 tbsp seeds yields quite a satisfying goop.
3. I redid the chocolate and the cinnamon lavender clove.
4. Sometimes my thoughts are like a pudding.
5. On Saturday I received in the mail an envelope containing my mother's will and a document called Petition to Probate Will in Solemn Form.
6. Since then, pudding. Both the eating of and the thinking like.
7. Besides thinking like pudding, I do a lot of things in solemn form lately.
8. It's why I'm not all over fb being like rah rah readings and such.
9. It's why on Friday everyone thought that reading I did was good but me.
10. I don't know what probate means.
11. Apparently I need to sign it and get it notarized.
12. It was probably not helpful to pick out all the poems that dealt directly with mental illness and read them.
13. I thought it would be liberating.
14. This one therapist is like, grief is different from depression.
15. Something about external triggers and emotions eventually getting back to normal.
16. It's that eventually I'm stuck on, like probate.
17. Apparently probate means prove or establish the validity of.
18. Validation is important.
19. My thoughts are either a dessert with a creamy consistency or a sweet or savory steamed dish made with flour.
20. Eventually is in the end, especially after a long delay.
2. 2c milk plus 7-8 tbsp seeds yields quite a satisfying goop.
3. I redid the chocolate and the cinnamon lavender clove.
4. Sometimes my thoughts are like a pudding.
5. On Saturday I received in the mail an envelope containing my mother's will and a document called Petition to Probate Will in Solemn Form.
6. Since then, pudding. Both the eating of and the thinking like.
7. Besides thinking like pudding, I do a lot of things in solemn form lately.
8. It's why I'm not all over fb being like rah rah readings and such.
9. It's why on Friday everyone thought that reading I did was good but me.
10. I don't know what probate means.
11. Apparently I need to sign it and get it notarized.
12. It was probably not helpful to pick out all the poems that dealt directly with mental illness and read them.
13. I thought it would be liberating.
14. This one therapist is like, grief is different from depression.
15. Something about external triggers and emotions eventually getting back to normal.
16. It's that eventually I'm stuck on, like probate.
17. Apparently probate means prove or establish the validity of.
18. Validation is important.
19. My thoughts are either a dessert with a creamy consistency or a sweet or savory steamed dish made with flour.
20. Eventually is in the end, especially after a long delay.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
My Delicious Chia Pudding Experiment
A friend of mine who is doing the Paleo Diet brought some unusual dessert to lunch the other day. It looked like wet sand. I asked her what it was and she said chia pudding. I was like, pardon? Apparently the same seeds that they cultivate for Chia Pets are actually, in non-sprouted form, a superfood that people are putting on salads, in smoothies, yogurt, even just eating raw --and have been doing for years now. I asked to try some. It was a little like tapioca but with more granularity instead of the soft bubbles of tapioca. Also, it had a pleasingly nutty taste. I find the flavor of tapioca rather bland and unappealing. My friend said that there were a zillion recipes on the internet for chia pudding and encouraged me to go for it. She said she bought the seeds at Whole Foods in the bulk section.
So when I got home I researched chia seeds and found out some things that convinced me I wanted to try making chia pudding. The seeds are high in fiber (higher than flax!), full of antioxidants, packed with omega-3, and they're a complete protein. Here's one article I found from the NYT explaining the history of how chia seeds went from a pop culture phenomenon to a health food. And here's one quick & dirty run-down of the nutrition benefits plus a pudding recipe from PETA.
Also, it should be mentioned: I like pudding. I mean I realllly like pudding. Or anything with a puddinglike texture --yogurt, smoothies, frozen Cool Whip eaten standing over the kitchen sink at 1am. But I'm lactose intolerant, and I gotta cross the river to get my soy yogurt, pudding, and so forth, and frozen Cool Whip ... yeah. I don't have to explain what's bad about eating that.
What I'm trying to say is: chia pudding is SO EASY to make that even the laziest cook (or, just perhaps, maybe you are suffering from a major depressive episode) can get behind it. Chia seeds and almond milk in sealed containers keep for a good while. No pesky trips to WF all the time.
These are the seeds. Mike drove me to WF and I too found them in the bulk bins, but you can get them in your local health food co-op or order online.
When you put them in liquid, they absorb it and become tapioca-like in their consistency. Actually, to me they are a little more crunchy and nutty than tapioca, which I find is an advantage. So to make the pudding base, all you gotta do is take a liquid, like almond milk for example (you can use any kind of milk), add seeds, stir-stir-stir for five minutes, and put it in the fridge overnight in a covered bowl.
Out of curiosity more than anything, I went back a few times during the day and gently tipped the bowl around to see how it was setting up. After about six hours I took the lid off and gave it another stirring, which seemed to be the right thing: the thickness increased dramatically after that. This is the chia pudding base the following morning. See how the seeds have absorbed the milk? Cool.
I found many ratios of seeds to milk while browsing internet recipes. I decided on 1c milk to 3 tbsp seeds + 1/2 packet of stevia extract to sweeten it. Sweet tooth plus grief-eating adds up to "I wanna keep it sugar free." You can also use maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar. Another cool thing about chia pudding: the high fiber content and the fact that the seeds have absorbed liquid keeps you feeling fuller longer. Yay!
I knew I wanted to make A LOT of base and fool around with spices, so I made 4c milk, 12 tbsp of seeds, and 2 packets of stevia extract. It came out pleasingly creamy and just sweet enough. I like my pudding pretty dense though. The next time I make a large amount I might add an extra 1 to 2 tbsp of seeds to see if it firms up a bit.
When I was out getting seeds and spices, I also got some tiny food storage containers (1/2 c each) to portion out the pudding. I wanted to try four different flavorings. This is where I abandoned the recipes and struck out on my own. I'm a much better improvisor than recipe-follower. I wanted 1) chocolate 2) ginger-cardamom 3) cinnamon-lavender-clove and 4) mixed berries.
Here's the chocolate:
I added (to 1c base) 2 tbsp of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa + 1 packet stevia extract to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa. RESULT: Yummy but tastes a bit too diet-y. Next time, 1/2 less stevia.
Here's the ginger cardamom. The picture isn't so interesting because I took it after I stirred in the spices...
I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. RESULT: Spicy like a good chai. I love it!
Here's the cinnamon lavender and clove:
I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/2 tsp crushed lavender flowers, and just a sprinkle of clove. RESULT: Unexpectedly delightful. I would almost say magical. You get the lovely floral taste from the lavender and also a slight bitterness, but then it's very earthy and sweet from the cinnamon and clove. When I was making this one I felt my mom's presence there for half a second. Maybe I just imagined it, but whatever. She was all about making cakes, pastries, and breads... maybe when I experiment with a sweet, I will feel close to her. For those of you who don't read this blog regularly, my mom passed away four months ago, almost to the day. Tomorrow it will be four months. EDIT: When I ate this pudding this evening, the cinnamon had overpowered the lavender. Next time, reduce cinnamon by half.
Lastly, the mixed berry:
As you can tell, I added WF Cherry-Berry Mix to the 1c base. Dried fruit is good for you but I don't like the taste of raisins... This mix has sour cherries, bing cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. I just tossed in a handful and stirred until it felt right. RESULT: The pudding seemed a little more all-over sweet plus I got extra pops of sweetness from the fruit. I wonder if the fruit will re-hydrate as the pudding sets in the fridge.
Here's what it looks like portioned out:
So each container holds half a cup. This pudding is rather rich, so half a cup should be enough to satisfy... and if you eat more at one time, who's judging? It's good for you.
NOTE: 4c of almond milk plus 12 tbsp of seeds makes about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2c (dry measure) of pudding. This might be obvious to people who measure things a lot, but it wasn't to me. Like I said, when I cook I'm improvisational. I'm mentioning it because, if you decide to do this method and make 1c each of different flavors, you can use an ample cup. The chocolate was the first one that I made and you can see in the picture that those 1/2c containers aren't full! I was using a scant cup and then I had leftovers. I ate the remaining 1/4-1/2c for breakfast. To me it was even tasty all by itself.
So when I got home I researched chia seeds and found out some things that convinced me I wanted to try making chia pudding. The seeds are high in fiber (higher than flax!), full of antioxidants, packed with omega-3, and they're a complete protein. Here's one article I found from the NYT explaining the history of how chia seeds went from a pop culture phenomenon to a health food. And here's one quick & dirty run-down of the nutrition benefits plus a pudding recipe from PETA.
Also, it should be mentioned: I like pudding. I mean I realllly like pudding. Or anything with a puddinglike texture --yogurt, smoothies, frozen Cool Whip eaten standing over the kitchen sink at 1am. But I'm lactose intolerant, and I gotta cross the river to get my soy yogurt, pudding, and so forth, and frozen Cool Whip ... yeah. I don't have to explain what's bad about eating that.
What I'm trying to say is: chia pudding is SO EASY to make that even the laziest cook (or, just perhaps, maybe you are suffering from a major depressive episode) can get behind it. Chia seeds and almond milk in sealed containers keep for a good while. No pesky trips to WF all the time.
These are the seeds. Mike drove me to WF and I too found them in the bulk bins, but you can get them in your local health food co-op or order online.
When you put them in liquid, they absorb it and become tapioca-like in their consistency. Actually, to me they are a little more crunchy and nutty than tapioca, which I find is an advantage. So to make the pudding base, all you gotta do is take a liquid, like almond milk for example (you can use any kind of milk), add seeds, stir-stir-stir for five minutes, and put it in the fridge overnight in a covered bowl.
Out of curiosity more than anything, I went back a few times during the day and gently tipped the bowl around to see how it was setting up. After about six hours I took the lid off and gave it another stirring, which seemed to be the right thing: the thickness increased dramatically after that. This is the chia pudding base the following morning. See how the seeds have absorbed the milk? Cool.
I found many ratios of seeds to milk while browsing internet recipes. I decided on 1c milk to 3 tbsp seeds + 1/2 packet of stevia extract to sweeten it. Sweet tooth plus grief-eating adds up to "I wanna keep it sugar free." You can also use maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar. Another cool thing about chia pudding: the high fiber content and the fact that the seeds have absorbed liquid keeps you feeling fuller longer. Yay!
I knew I wanted to make A LOT of base and fool around with spices, so I made 4c milk, 12 tbsp of seeds, and 2 packets of stevia extract. It came out pleasingly creamy and just sweet enough. I like my pudding pretty dense though. The next time I make a large amount I might add an extra 1 to 2 tbsp of seeds to see if it firms up a bit.
When I was out getting seeds and spices, I also got some tiny food storage containers (1/2 c each) to portion out the pudding. I wanted to try four different flavorings. This is where I abandoned the recipes and struck out on my own. I'm a much better improvisor than recipe-follower. I wanted 1) chocolate 2) ginger-cardamom 3) cinnamon-lavender-clove and 4) mixed berries.
Here's the chocolate:
I added (to 1c base) 2 tbsp of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa + 1 packet stevia extract to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa. RESULT: Yummy but tastes a bit too diet-y. Next time, 1/2 less stevia.
Here's the ginger cardamom. The picture isn't so interesting because I took it after I stirred in the spices...
I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. RESULT: Spicy like a good chai. I love it!
Here's the cinnamon lavender and clove:
I added (to 1c base) 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/2 tsp crushed lavender flowers, and just a sprinkle of clove. RESULT: Unexpectedly delightful. I would almost say magical. You get the lovely floral taste from the lavender and also a slight bitterness, but then it's very earthy and sweet from the cinnamon and clove. When I was making this one I felt my mom's presence there for half a second. Maybe I just imagined it, but whatever. She was all about making cakes, pastries, and breads... maybe when I experiment with a sweet, I will feel close to her. For those of you who don't read this blog regularly, my mom passed away four months ago, almost to the day. Tomorrow it will be four months. EDIT: When I ate this pudding this evening, the cinnamon had overpowered the lavender. Next time, reduce cinnamon by half.
Lastly, the mixed berry:
As you can tell, I added WF Cherry-Berry Mix to the 1c base. Dried fruit is good for you but I don't like the taste of raisins... This mix has sour cherries, bing cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. I just tossed in a handful and stirred until it felt right. RESULT: The pudding seemed a little more all-over sweet plus I got extra pops of sweetness from the fruit. I wonder if the fruit will re-hydrate as the pudding sets in the fridge.
Here's what it looks like portioned out:
So each container holds half a cup. This pudding is rather rich, so half a cup should be enough to satisfy... and if you eat more at one time, who's judging? It's good for you.
NOTE: 4c of almond milk plus 12 tbsp of seeds makes about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2c (dry measure) of pudding. This might be obvious to people who measure things a lot, but it wasn't to me. Like I said, when I cook I'm improvisational. I'm mentioning it because, if you decide to do this method and make 1c each of different flavors, you can use an ample cup. The chocolate was the first one that I made and you can see in the picture that those 1/2c containers aren't full! I was using a scant cup and then I had leftovers. I ate the remaining 1/4-1/2c for breakfast. To me it was even tasty all by itself.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Thinking about the new year...
Lots of people take stock in their new-year posts; I'm thinking about what's coming up. Soon I will be leaving group. It's inevitable. They said they want to discharge me in January. It's mondo-bizarro how these complete strangers have come to mean so much to me. Well, some more than others... and most of the "some" have already been discharged. So I can say I'm on the tail-end of what I consider my cadre: peers in age and stage. Which means I gotta get my ass out the door soon. But what next?
I was talking to A about a week or so ago and she suggested I "work with the energy of the solstice" (so yeah, it was around Dec 21) and consider, in a playful way, the concept of starting over new. She said it was important to consider it as mental play, not a serious undertaking. I didn't know what to make of her comment at first so I put it on the back burner.
During some idle time when I got home I turned it over in my mind. I could see why she said to not consider it seriously. I take everything seriously, perhaps too much so. When I thought seriously about it, I started to cry. So many things have just gouged the hell out of me in the last four months that the idea of starting over new is like... hello? I'm barely scarred over! Give me some time! But as a "pretend" question, it made me feel a bit liberated from my sadness. I thought about last January, when I was starting my "year of quitting." I never imagined the ending it would have, or should I say, the last third of the year. Act 3. What if I started over on my year of quitting? [Note: I think my blog was on tumblr at this point so you might not know that I had sarcastically referred to taking a year to solely concentrate on writing, publishing, attending and giving readings as my year of quitting. Like quitting the job that sucked the life out of me for something that doesn't pay but is super-fulfilling.]
I remember now with great nostalgia the anxiety that, then, had made me cry. I was taking a huge leap of faith and I was doing it in the shittiest part of the year for taking leaps: winter. I had to fill a blank slate (woo, mixed metaphors) not knowing if my endeavor would be successful. One of my fb status updates at the time was "looking at design blogs and crying." Well, in my world, art begets art. I started myself on a disciplined schedule. I submitted every workday in the beginning --I would say the first 3-4 months. I kept up the momentum on faith, until the acceptances started coming in, validating my decision. I would say the best part was April through July. I was ON FIRE. I was so happy. I was so not prepared for what August would bring.
Now, despite my recent (and for the second time!) publication in MiPOesias, and upcoming pubs in RHINO, Hayden's, and Bone Bouquet, my submission pipeline is low. I feel like I don't have a lot of work to submit.
That feeling of having nothing may be false. It is false. I haven't been writing at the speed I was --I was generating 1-2 drafts A WEEK. For eight months. But I haven't published all of it. And I wrote a chapbook-sized sheaf of grieving poems, some of which have to be good enough to revise.
[Note: can you tell I've become worse at writing blog entries? It's my ability to concentrate. It's gone way down. I can't put together ideas as fluidly as before. Nor can I read a book all the way through. Or watch a whole movie without great restlessness. I don't watch them in the theatre any more-- at least for now. Therapist J says that this restlessness and lack of concentration is normal when experiencing grief. She also says it could go on for awhile.]
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is even though I have great anxiety about "my year of starting over," I began "my year of quitting" also with great anxiety. And that time it was fruitful. I showed up and did the work and I was successful.
There's this little (actually it's not so little) voice, the anxiety voice, that says, you never knoooooowwwwww about the future. You might not be any good any more. Maybe you broke yourself.
But I leapt before and it was good. Maybe I can do it again. I'm lucky to be in a financial position to try it. I don't have to go back to some thankless job. I can do YWI part-time and maybe everything will be okay. Not grand, but okay. I'm shooting for okay.
I was talking to A about a week or so ago and she suggested I "work with the energy of the solstice" (so yeah, it was around Dec 21) and consider, in a playful way, the concept of starting over new. She said it was important to consider it as mental play, not a serious undertaking. I didn't know what to make of her comment at first so I put it on the back burner.
During some idle time when I got home I turned it over in my mind. I could see why she said to not consider it seriously. I take everything seriously, perhaps too much so. When I thought seriously about it, I started to cry. So many things have just gouged the hell out of me in the last four months that the idea of starting over new is like... hello? I'm barely scarred over! Give me some time! But as a "pretend" question, it made me feel a bit liberated from my sadness. I thought about last January, when I was starting my "year of quitting." I never imagined the ending it would have, or should I say, the last third of the year. Act 3. What if I started over on my year of quitting? [Note: I think my blog was on tumblr at this point so you might not know that I had sarcastically referred to taking a year to solely concentrate on writing, publishing, attending and giving readings as my year of quitting. Like quitting the job that sucked the life out of me for something that doesn't pay but is super-fulfilling.]
I remember now with great nostalgia the anxiety that, then, had made me cry. I was taking a huge leap of faith and I was doing it in the shittiest part of the year for taking leaps: winter. I had to fill a blank slate (woo, mixed metaphors) not knowing if my endeavor would be successful. One of my fb status updates at the time was "looking at design blogs and crying." Well, in my world, art begets art. I started myself on a disciplined schedule. I submitted every workday in the beginning --I would say the first 3-4 months. I kept up the momentum on faith, until the acceptances started coming in, validating my decision. I would say the best part was April through July. I was ON FIRE. I was so happy. I was so not prepared for what August would bring.
Now, despite my recent (and for the second time!) publication in MiPOesias, and upcoming pubs in RHINO, Hayden's, and Bone Bouquet, my submission pipeline is low. I feel like I don't have a lot of work to submit.
That feeling of having nothing may be false. It is false. I haven't been writing at the speed I was --I was generating 1-2 drafts A WEEK. For eight months. But I haven't published all of it. And I wrote a chapbook-sized sheaf of grieving poems, some of which have to be good enough to revise.
[Note: can you tell I've become worse at writing blog entries? It's my ability to concentrate. It's gone way down. I can't put together ideas as fluidly as before. Nor can I read a book all the way through. Or watch a whole movie without great restlessness. I don't watch them in the theatre any more-- at least for now. Therapist J says that this restlessness and lack of concentration is normal when experiencing grief. She also says it could go on for awhile.]
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is even though I have great anxiety about "my year of starting over," I began "my year of quitting" also with great anxiety. And that time it was fruitful. I showed up and did the work and I was successful.
There's this little (actually it's not so little) voice, the anxiety voice, that says, you never knoooooowwwwww about the future. You might not be any good any more. Maybe you broke yourself.
But I leapt before and it was good. Maybe I can do it again. I'm lucky to be in a financial position to try it. I don't have to go back to some thankless job. I can do YWI part-time and maybe everything will be okay. Not grand, but okay. I'm shooting for okay.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The Universe Box and Radical Acceptance
The day I walked into the room where my therapy sessions are held, the words RADICAL ACCEPTANCE were scribbled on the whiteboard in failing black marker. I dimly remembered this skill from last time (199something). There was something else written under it which my mind wants to paraphrase as "This really sucks right now but there's nothing I can do about it."
Easier seen on the whiteboard than taken into the heart and mind. A few days later, a fellow group member let me in on his idea for something called a God Box. You made a special box where you put thoughts and feelings that were just too big, overwhelming, too much for you to handle. The idea was to physically and metaphorically give up control to a higher power, who has the capacity to handle these things much better than you do.
This box works if you believe in any version of a higher power at all.... even if the higher power is just the best parts of your Self, not easily accessed --that strong core that has kept you alive thus far. I called mine the Universe Box because it suited me.
Here's a picture of the top of my box. I didn't have the energy to make the whole thing pretty but I did at least do the top.
That uneven black rectangle is the slot I cut where I put the thoughts. I made it small deliberately, so that I would have to fold up the pieces of paper REALLY TINY to get them in there. And I glued a nautilus to the front because I find them beautiful. It sort of looks like the thoughts might all be pouring into the mouth of the nautilus as well.
Here's more about radical acceptance. This is from the book, by Marsha Linehan, Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder (c) 1993. When I first did this therapy, they were only using it for borderlines, but docs and clinicians have since seen the value of using it as a therapy for bipolar, depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and probably more than that.
Btw, if you google Marsha Linehan, the first thing that comes up is all these images of tees and sweatshirts from CafePress that say things like "Marsha Linehan is my homegirl." Not even kidding. Well, her therapy did save my life once, and now we're working on rescuing my sanity 17 years later.
Okay, so the ideas of radical acceptance, straight from "Distress Tolerance Handout 5: Basic Principles of Accepting Reality." There's two sub-sections I'm going to outline here. One is called Radical Acceptance. One is called Turning the Mind. These aren't my words. Please Marsha, don't sue me.
I do have lots of italicized notes though, like this one.
[NOTE: if you are reading this blog and you're pretty well-adjusted, you might think that the worksheet title is odd. You may not have trouble accepting your reality. You may even enjoy your reality most of the time. And for the times when you don't enjoy it, you may be doing things about it that are effectively helping your reality conform to the way you'd rather have it. That person was pretty much me, from about 1998 or so to August 9, 2012. I'm not saying I was super-sane or asymptomatic, but I was relatively good until the flea infestation that started off my downward spiral. Which I am planning on discussing in group today. Anyway, IF you have trouble accepting your reality because something SO world-rocking happened and you have limited or no control over it, then radical acceptance may be for you.]
Easier seen on the whiteboard than taken into the heart and mind. A few days later, a fellow group member let me in on his idea for something called a God Box. You made a special box where you put thoughts and feelings that were just too big, overwhelming, too much for you to handle. The idea was to physically and metaphorically give up control to a higher power, who has the capacity to handle these things much better than you do.
This box works if you believe in any version of a higher power at all.... even if the higher power is just the best parts of your Self, not easily accessed --that strong core that has kept you alive thus far. I called mine the Universe Box because it suited me.
Here's a picture of the top of my box. I didn't have the energy to make the whole thing pretty but I did at least do the top.
That uneven black rectangle is the slot I cut where I put the thoughts. I made it small deliberately, so that I would have to fold up the pieces of paper REALLY TINY to get them in there. And I glued a nautilus to the front because I find them beautiful. It sort of looks like the thoughts might all be pouring into the mouth of the nautilus as well.
Here's more about radical acceptance. This is from the book, by Marsha Linehan, Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder (c) 1993. When I first did this therapy, they were only using it for borderlines, but docs and clinicians have since seen the value of using it as a therapy for bipolar, depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and probably more than that.
Btw, if you google Marsha Linehan, the first thing that comes up is all these images of tees and sweatshirts from CafePress that say things like "Marsha Linehan is my homegirl." Not even kidding. Well, her therapy did save my life once, and now we're working on rescuing my sanity 17 years later.
Okay, so the ideas of radical acceptance, straight from "Distress Tolerance Handout 5: Basic Principles of Accepting Reality." There's two sub-sections I'm going to outline here. One is called Radical Acceptance. One is called Turning the Mind. These aren't my words. Please Marsha, don't sue me.
I do have lots of italicized notes though, like this one.
[NOTE: if you are reading this blog and you're pretty well-adjusted, you might think that the worksheet title is odd. You may not have trouble accepting your reality. You may even enjoy your reality most of the time. And for the times when you don't enjoy it, you may be doing things about it that are effectively helping your reality conform to the way you'd rather have it. That person was pretty much me, from about 1998 or so to August 9, 2012. I'm not saying I was super-sane or asymptomatic, but I was relatively good until the flea infestation that started off my downward spiral. Which I am planning on discussing in group today. Anyway, IF you have trouble accepting your reality because something SO world-rocking happened and you have limited or no control over it, then radical acceptance may be for you.]
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
- Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
- ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell. >>> I starred that one
- Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
- Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE. >>> with all the self-medicating I'm doing right now, I really want to work on this aspect some more
- ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
- To accept something is not the same as judging it good. >>> This one is very important to me. It means that even though my mom killed herself, I don't have to forgive her right now, or even seek my own emotional understanding of her motives. It just means I have to accept, for example, that there was no way I could fix her.
TURNING THE MIND
As I understand it, this means literally re-orienting your mind from a place where you are attached to the pain, where you ruminate and dwell on what-ifs and should-haves and whys --which, remember, you have no control over--to a place where you allow yourself to let go.
- Acceptance of reality as it is requires an act of CHOICE. It is like coming to a fork in the road. You have to turn your mind towards the acceptance road and away from the "rejecting" reality road. >>> Note: rejecting reality is not the same as denial, although it might be. Rejecting could be, for example, going over a problem in your head that is past all help, but you can't stop dwelling on it. I just thought of Adam's t-shirt on Mythbusters that says "I reject your reality and substitute my own." I love that shirt. And it's fine in an imaginative sense, when you are engaging in acts of creativity, or when you need an escape, or if it's a joke printed on a shirt. Or if substituting one's own reality can actually produce a positive change. Damn, I love that show. I wonder if they had a new season when I wasn't paying attention.
- You have to make an inner COMMITMENT to accept. >>> I find that if you believe in a higher power, it's really helpful to lean on that higher power to help you make the commitment.
- The COMMITMENT to accept does not itself equal acceptance. It just turns you toward the path. But it is the first step.
- You have to turn your mind and commit to acceptance OVER and OVER and OVER again. Sometimes you have to make the commitment many times in the space of a few minutes. >>> I starred this one too. It's so important. I remember when I was in my first year of recovery from self-injury. I definitely had to re-commit every minute in some stressful circumstances. Because it's like your brain has carved these neurological pathways that tell you [insert destructive pattern here] is the only way, and it's not. My pathways for self-injury haven't caused me to act on them for 14 years, even though those neurons that say do it still fire.
[end handout]
I hope that I can switch my neurons again. Before (in 199something) I felt it was the one pattern I had to work on. Don't self-injure. Don't self-injure. But now I feel like it's a bunch of smaller counterproductive patterns (erm, like a fear of leaving the house, e.g.) that I would like to mend, and it's all complicated by this grieving process that I know barely anything about. Except it's unpredictable, nonlinear, and it can take a long time. Woo hoo.
Monday, December 10, 2012
and stuff
I woke up at 4:10 this morning and couldn't turn off the thoughts. What could I have done to prevent her from doing what she did? I'mabaddaughterbaddaughterbaddaughter. Even though by now extensive therapizing has convinced me that this is not a fruitful path for my brain to go down. I folded up some thoughts and put them into the Universe Box but still could not go back to sleep.
My mother killed herself.
She sat on the couch for four weeks while she starved to death.
She would not allow anyone to intervene.
These things happened.
I need to say it. Because I can't believe it. Because it fucking blows my mind whenever I think about it or whenever I'm not thinking about it. For example, when I'm trying to sleep. I wonder if my aunt can sleep. I wonder if she's having nightmares. Or if she's put it behind her. I can't call. I can't email. They don't email me or call either even though they have my number / address. I probably wouldn't answer if they did call. I want to ask DO YOU FEEL THINGS ABOUT THIS? Because I feel things. I feel many things. I want to throw up just thinking about it. The holidays this year (Thanksgiving-birthday-Xmas) have sort of divided between happy moments and being a fucking sham. That is, I'm the sham. I shamble. I try to move and talk like a human. I make small talk. I come up with talking points in advance.
I went to a reading this weekend. I had to read a thing. And before and after I had to talk to people. It was short. It went well. Livingdeadgirl looks / acts so real.
It's a real wasteland in there. My brain is. Sometimes (like, all the time) I worry that there is no coming back from this.
My mother killed herself.
She sat on the couch for four weeks while she starved to death.
She would not allow anyone to intervene.
These things happened.
I need to say it. Because I can't believe it. Because it fucking blows my mind whenever I think about it or whenever I'm not thinking about it. For example, when I'm trying to sleep. I wonder if my aunt can sleep. I wonder if she's having nightmares. Or if she's put it behind her. I can't call. I can't email. They don't email me or call either even though they have my number / address. I probably wouldn't answer if they did call. I want to ask DO YOU FEEL THINGS ABOUT THIS? Because I feel things. I feel many things. I want to throw up just thinking about it. The holidays this year (Thanksgiving-birthday-Xmas) have sort of divided between happy moments and being a fucking sham. That is, I'm the sham. I shamble. I try to move and talk like a human. I make small talk. I come up with talking points in advance.
I went to a reading this weekend. I had to read a thing. And before and after I had to talk to people. It was short. It went well. Livingdeadgirl looks / acts so real.
It's a real wasteland in there. My brain is. Sometimes (like, all the time) I worry that there is no coming back from this.
I Want to Believe
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
TINY CRUSTLESS PUMPKIN PIES
Because who really cares about the crust anyway?
I heart pumpkin pie, the spicier the better. Often it is I who "insist" on making the pumpkin pie for a holiday dinner --in fact I am a control freak. I like my damn pie the way I make it. I have noticed the past few times though, that I had a LOT OF pie batter left over. Like I filled the two nine inch pie crusts to brimming and there was still over a dozen tiny crustless pumpkin pies' worth of material.
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
4 large eggs
1 can (29 oz) of LIBBY'S (R) 100% Pure Pumpkin
2 cans (12 fl oz each) of CARNATION (R) evaporated milk
2 pie shells
1) Double the spices.
2) Lessen the sugar by 1/4 cup.
4) Add nutmeg. Just shake it all around in there. Give the top of the batter a good sprinkling.
5) Add vanilla. Don't measure this either. Pour it in like you're topping off someone's drink.
For any of you who follow this blog and know what my situation is right now, you should know that being mentally together enough to make tray-loads of pie amazes me. Baking is a joyous thing. I didn't know that I could rise to the occasion.
I'd had to call my mom. She'd told me (duh) use baking cups or parchment and how long to cook them for.
I didn't remember how long, for this year. I had to keep testing them. Whatever she said, I hadn't written it down.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Happy anniversary to me
Today 11/1 is my fourteenth anniversary for being in recovery from self-injury. This past year, well okay, these past few months have been the hardest... I won't say in fourteen years b/c that first year was rough as hell but certainly in the past seven years.
There's this artist that I really like whose name is Kimya Dawson. She got a little pop of notoriety when they used songs of hers for the soundtrack of the movie Juno, which is when I found out about her. I can't really describe her style, just to say that she's amazing and other people have used labels like "anti-folk" and "freak-folk" so there you go.
Last night when I was journaling I can't remember what gave me the association but I thought hm what's she up to lately and re-checked her out. Apparently she released an album last year with this great song on it, "Walk Like Thunder." I listened on YouTube this morning. Talk about serendipity or fortuitousness or the universe giving you the thing you need at the right time.
I found two links, a studio version which has a cool pic of the tattoo she references in the song, and honestly the quality is better, but the other version I found was a live one at a bar in Pittsburgh (!)-- I hope she comes around again on her tour this / next year. I'm giving you the live one b/c the energy is there and you get to see real people and real faces and emotion even though it's less polished.
The reason this song is important to me today is b/c I realized yesterday when I was talking to A that this grief I'm carrying around --I can't stop and wait for it to be over. I have to somehow start getting on with my life, my work, again. I need to go to readings and hear people. I need to go to open mics again. I need to submit more stuff. I feel like I'm on the cusp of figuring out how exactly to do that. Like emotionally, how to do that. There's no way I can sort out all the strands of this giant clusterfuck that was dropped on me and THEN get back to my endeavors. They will have to happen at the same time. Yesterday I was like, I have no idea... just NO IDEA how to do that. This morning I heard the song and I felt like maaaaaaybe I could build a little bridge between here and there.
So listen to it dammit! If you can't spare the whole eight minutes, at least listen to half. It's really good.
Clicky click.
There's this artist that I really like whose name is Kimya Dawson. She got a little pop of notoriety when they used songs of hers for the soundtrack of the movie Juno, which is when I found out about her. I can't really describe her style, just to say that she's amazing and other people have used labels like "anti-folk" and "freak-folk" so there you go.
Last night when I was journaling I can't remember what gave me the association but I thought hm what's she up to lately and re-checked her out. Apparently she released an album last year with this great song on it, "Walk Like Thunder." I listened on YouTube this morning. Talk about serendipity or fortuitousness or the universe giving you the thing you need at the right time.
I found two links, a studio version which has a cool pic of the tattoo she references in the song, and honestly the quality is better, but the other version I found was a live one at a bar in Pittsburgh (!)-- I hope she comes around again on her tour this / next year. I'm giving you the live one b/c the energy is there and you get to see real people and real faces and emotion even though it's less polished.
The reason this song is important to me today is b/c I realized yesterday when I was talking to A that this grief I'm carrying around --I can't stop and wait for it to be over. I have to somehow start getting on with my life, my work, again. I need to go to readings and hear people. I need to go to open mics again. I need to submit more stuff. I feel like I'm on the cusp of figuring out how exactly to do that. Like emotionally, how to do that. There's no way I can sort out all the strands of this giant clusterfuck that was dropped on me and THEN get back to my endeavors. They will have to happen at the same time. Yesterday I was like, I have no idea... just NO IDEA how to do that. This morning I heard the song and I felt like maaaaaaybe I could build a little bridge between here and there.
So listen to it dammit! If you can't spare the whole eight minutes, at least listen to half. It's really good.
Clicky click.
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