Day 7: Use your words...

Photo by J. Grandbois

In my memory of the moment there was a clock ticking.  But I also recall a conversation about the clock being broken so I know this is simply my minds way of marking the time.  I am in a chair, the comfortable one.  Across the room is my therapist who just asked me a question, "What do you want out of this?"

Between us is silence and the tick tock of my imaginary clock.

I sit.  My shoulders rise towards my ears.  My hands are willed to be still in my lap, my jaw is clenched and my throat feels as though it has a tennis ball lodged in it.  The words are in my mind...if I had a pen I could write them down.  I could text them; the distance between my phone, the cell tower, and my therapists phone more easily traversed than that between these two chairs.  I want to speak the words.  I will my vocal chords to work. When I speak the words are slow, distorted and my voice breaks...

"I want the self loathing to stop..."

I love conversation.  I could linger over a dinner table for hours discussing just about anything.  I don't have an overt fear of public speaking.  I will stand in front of a crowd of nearly any size to make a speech or MC a show.  I don't have a problem with speaking up for others.  If you ask, or sometimes even if you don't, I will willingly be your champion.  Most folks would probably call me an extrovert and they'd mostly be right.  So the following may surprise some people...

When it comes to myself, to things that are deeply personal, I go silent.  It isn't willingly, because there are times that I have huge emotions swirling inside of me that I desire to express.  I can speak up for nearly anyone else but when it comes to myself, I have physical reaction where my vocal chords cease operation and nothing, no sound emerges.

I have had therapy sessions that have long silences where I struggle to get words out.  When I do finally speak, I can often barely whisper a squeak.  I will be hoarse for days after, as though by forcing  my vocal chords into action I've somehow damaged them.  My therapist has told me that this physical reaction stems from trauma; from times in my life that speaking my thoughts was dangerous, or where I would be belittled or told my feelings were wrong or not valid.

And it is true, I've had many of those times in my life. And they've left me with more scars than just my body enforcing my silence, but there has always been one way I have been able to express myself, where words and my body don't fail me.  I write.

I've kept a journal since I was nine years old.  I write nearly every day. Even during the most silent periods of my life, the blank page was my safe space.  While most of it stays private, I've also written poetry, personal essays, short stories and of course blog posts.   It has also become the way that I could share my deeper thoughts with others.  I could write you a letter, an email or even a text message about what I'm feeling, even if I cannot speak it.  My vocal chords might seize but my hands do not.  I may not physically be able to discuss it with you after, but at least I'll get it out there.

Maybe it is because I have a choice in whether or not to share it, and who I share it with, or perhaps it is because I have the time to craft the words so they express clearly what I want to say.

Right now I don't really need to know the why, I'm just very grateful that that outlet has existed. And I'm grateful for the ability with word craft that it has given me.  It is my silver lining...

(And I'm working on the speaking thing.  Right now my technique is, of course, to write things down first and then say it over and over again until my voice no longer catches.)  

Day 6

This space intentionally left blank.  

Day 5

Photo by J. Grandbois

"I wouldn't know how to handle serenity if somebody handed it to me on a plate."  - Dusty Springfield

se·ren·i·ty - səˈrenədē/ (noun) -
the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

I have experienced moments of serenity.  A sunrise over the sea witnessed in solitude.  The quiet of a damp, mossy forest after a rainstorm has passed.  A walk by the river when the fog still hovers above the water.  A moment of waking up and realizing I've nothing to do on a particular day. 

These moments all have two things in common: they were all experienced in solitude and they were all fleeting.  I believe serenity might be a solitary experience.  We can be feeling serenity in the same place and at the same time as another or even many people, but the feeling, while possibly set off by external events, exists solely in the heart of the one experiencing it.  I don't think serenity is infectious in the way laughter or tears can be.  We have have a shared joy or grief, even a shared sense of peace...but serenity is singular.  

Serenity to me is a feeling that I can breathe, that things, while they may not go okay, will fall in whatever way they will and I'll find a way through.  Serenity is an acceptance of the fact that I am not in control of everything.  It is recognition of the connection between myself and all other things in the universe.  The matter and energy that is me occupies this point in space and time. I may not exist for any particular reason but I am here and I'm alive. 

It is a feeling I'd like to have more of in my life.  I'm not sure how one cultivates it.  Perhaps it is created by cultivating other things: peace, self esteem or a sense of gratitude.  Maybe it is easier to feel if one spends more time in nature and quiet places like sunrises and pauses.  I'd like to have enough of it that I could tuck some away in an inside spiritual pocket, so when I find myself in the midst of chaos I can pull it out, unfold it and drape it over my mind.  

Day 4

Miss Pickles -  Perfecting the art
of doing nothing

"In this media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age, we have lost the art of doing nothing, of shutting out the background noise and distractions, of slowing down and simply being alone with our thoughts."  –Carl Honoré

Today I find I am feeling quite unmotivated to write at all.  Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's my mood (blahhhhhh) but today is the sort of day where I really just want to sit in my room, with the door closed and do...

NOTHING

Despite my best efforts I have accomplished some things today.

• I went for a walk by the river where I sat for a bit and cried, because I was sad and well...crying seemed appropriate. 
• I started baked beans in the crock pot.  They will be done soon and I will be able to accomplish something else, eating them. 
• I took a nap. 
• I ate a sandwich. 
• I ate a slice of quiche. 
• I did my monthly new moon tarot reading (yes..two days late, I know, I know)
• Watched a documentary on South American traditional medicine.  
• Pet the cat. 
• Read a chapter of a book while sitting on the front porch. 
• Watched a Ted Talk on posture and spent about 15 minutes trying to improve mine. 
• I wrote in my journal. 

Apparently I'm not all that good at doing nothing, especially since I can now add writing today's blog post to the list.

Day 3

Today I'm spending the afternoon and evening with one of my oldest friends.  Everyone should have at least one friend who knew you when...

...you had the bad breakup. 

...they had the bad breakup. 

...you doubted everything. 

...you thought you were so sure.

...you finally admitted you knew nothing.

I am grateful that I have such a person in my life.  I hope you do too... 

Day 2

Growing up Saturday nights meant two things at my house: baked beans and A Prairie Home Companion.  There are only a few things that make me nostalgic for my childhood - the scent of holiday balsam, a certain angle of sunlight through autumn leaves, the taste of baked beans and the sound of Garrison Keillor's voice.

I was an anomaly as a teenager  Nearly every one of my friends had parents who where divorced.  That my family sat down to dinner together every night, even on the weekends, was something that was noted and commented on.  My brother and I were home for dinner every night by 6:00pm - except Sundays because Sundays were "every man for himself..." (and it was written as such on the weekly menu my mum posted on the fridge every Sunday night).  This of course really meant, it's the night we eat all of the leftovers from the prior six nights of the week.  Which was okay because, those other six nights - the food was good. 

Each night of the week was a different meal, but Saturday night was always baked beans; sometimes with hot dogs, or cornbread, or brown bread, nearly always coleslaw.  I can remember the sound of the cabbage, carrots and onions being crunched through the hand crank grinder that attached to our counter top.   I remember the light reflecting off the old dented penny that my mother used to brace the screw vice that held the grinder tight to the counter's edge.  

I remember the scent of honey as it was squeezed onto warm cornbread.  I recall the snap of hot dog skin as I cut them up to mix into my beans and the the sweet contrast of brown bread with creamy melted butter.  And always that voice.  That steady, breathy, voice that accompanied the preparation and serving of our Saturday night meal. I remember singing along with the Powder Milk Biscuit song and how when they started taking the show on the road we swore we'd go, and we'd find some creative message to be shared on air during the intermission...

I never did make it to a show.  And my family is now scattered.  My parents joined the statistical numbers of the divorced nearly a decade ago and my brother lives in Alaska.  Try as I might I don't remember the last meal we all had together.  

Tonight, I'm listening to Garrison Keillor's last show with my cat while eating homemade quiche instead of baked beans, and sipping chardonnay.  I keep telling Miss Pickles, she's the cat, how maybe part of the reason I love to tell stories is at least in part due to growing up listening to this man, that I used to write scripts for my own radio shows.

She rolls over and blinks at me...

Day 1

Here's the thing about deciding to do a month of blogging, the first day, it's kind of a freebie.  Why? Because on the first day you get to sit down to write about how you are going to blog for 31 days. You can talk about how you aren't 100% sure you can accomplish the goal of writing every day, but as you are trying to practise self compassion anyway, it will be a good opportunity to not be too hard on yourself.

You might share the theme of your month of blogging, if you have one.  Which you don't, not really.   You do want explore more deeply this thing you have professed to have been doing for five years now. Yep, that's right...five years of blogging, not always regularly, but you have managed to write and publish 449 posts in that time...

Mostly though, you want to figure out whether or not to keep on doing this and if you do, how much of yourself do you want to put out there?  How personal should this blog be?  You've written about a lot of really personal stuff but there are things you've not said; things you keep close.  You know there has to be line somewhere.

And maybe as you are writing this post.  The freebie.  You begin to realize that this isn't about your blog and what you want to do with that, but instead maybe it's about your life and just what do you want to do with the 34 years you statistically have remaining.

You are after all 44 and just got around to finishing your undergraduate degree.  You can only call your self a late bloomer for so long.   You crossed the half way mark nearly seven years ago.  Death is no longer on the far side of the center line.

Like the prior 44 years of your life, you don't really have a plan.
You don't have any blog prompts...  
You just have 31 days of writing.
31 days of trying to figure out the next step.