WRITING MY INSIDES OUT

There is no doubt my writings of late have been culled from the darker side of light, and while they have not been full-board litanies of disconsolate life relations, I can't escape acknowledging their unquestionably murky perspective.

Humor intrudes here and there like the designated driver you pretty much ignore while out partying and only fully appreciate the next day after you've been delivered home and have had a chance to sleep off the majority of your impairment.

In retrospect I am grateful for the automatic insertion of that steady blade of sarcasm in both my attitude as well as in my writing and can appreciate the full value of owning such a skeptical and hardened edge once all the whining has been sorted through and put to rest.  Nothing puts more of a damper on a pity party than a solid blast of comic cynicism.   It can be a real buzz kill.

However, closing each post on an optimistic note or peppering the odd paragraph with comedic allusions does not a resolution make.  There still remains a fair amount of slogging and purging to do, and I am going to do it come hell or high water....she says.

But for those of you who have expressed concern, don't worry.  I am far from suicidal and 'hopelessness' is not part of my vocabulary or considered an acceptable disposition.  And for those who have lamented the missing pulse of consistent and irrepressibly, light-hearted musings, welcome to the real me.  I'll still make you feel good, but you might have to do more than just show up to earn it.

 Having denied myself permission to publicly exhibit any signs of frailty, fear, frustration or expression of the f***-yous for most of my life, I have decided it is time to lift the ban (at least in terms of literary expression) and am now sifting through the fractured bits of a life designed to please everyone but myself in order to discover just who myself  is.  For the time being at least, Pollyanna has left the building.  Deal with it.

Earlier today I got a phone call from my beautiful mother who, after reading the blog, expressed concern over my untenable relationship with that damned elliptical saying, "Boy!  You must be really frustrated!"  Of course, we laughed, but then the conversation turned to one about the pros and cons of honesty and disclosure.

I brought up the personally cathartic exercise of challenging myself to withhold nothing (at least insofar as it does not intentionally expose or wound others) as I write my insides out, and she brought up the valid point that most people are very uncomfortable reading about the raw, un-retouched, dark or ugly sides of others because it might remind them of their own and not everyone is willing or able to look at themselves in that way.  Plus, it can be a real downer.  She also warned me not to fall into the trap of chronic negativity where suddenly nothing is without a problem and grousing becomes the proprietary filter through which all communications are sifted.

She was perfectly correct in her observations and comments, and I fully agree with them.  But I'm not writing for fun and profit here, which means I have no obligation to produce epistles of happy talk or to cater to the fickle preferences of an audience who would choose to engage life like an egg on teflon; keeping the charred, over-cooked or unappetizing bits from sticking at all costs.

In addition to making light and sense of a life that has more living behind it than it does in front of it, there is the aspect of accountability and conscientious examination that is of absolute necessity in crafting the full recital.  To leave those parts out would be like playing the Heart and Soul  piano duet with one person or one hand.  You might still be able to pick out the basic tune but the full melodic resonance would be missing.  It simply would not be as good or a fair representation of the actual song.

Nothing happens by chance or without purpose.  Nothing.  Even the ostensibly tragic things.  Once we can wrap our minds around that concept, we are closer to peace and the cynosure of all the truth in the universe than any marathon meditation or ring around the Rosary beads could ever produce.  And that is not to dismiss the real and powerful results in these methods and rituals, which are valid and necessary.

What I am referring to is a root-level acceptance of whatever we are faced with or without in life and that level of acceptance is hard to gain without endeavoring to establish a prayerful connection with the transcendent.  Meditation and prayer are certainly solid corridors that can lead one towards that kind of acceptance and subsequent peace.

But what is equally as crucial is a willingness to look at and be accountable for the elements within us that are not terribly pleasant or appealing.   We all know that these prayerful forms of passive union make us feel better, calmer, more in sync with the world and the universe.  That is a given because in addition to the metaphysical implications, there is also the physiological exchange of energy and a measurable shift within the body.  It makes us feel centered and rested.  But so does a good night's sleep.

The point being that these practices and rituals are just that: practices and rituals.  They have no value unless you can take whatever peace and feelings of sacred unity you've assimilated and bring them with you onto the crowed subway train at rush hour or to the inconsiderate neighbor who keeps backing his car over your newly seeded lawn when he leaves for work every morning or to your wife who nags you and is unhappy or your boss who expects too much and pays too little or to your friends or relatives who are addicts or alcoholics or otherwise ill or a nuisance.

In other words, you have to be willing and able to face and to live graciously, authentically, respectfully and discerningly in and among the dark and disturbing factions of all life; including those within yourself.

In many ways I am at that point right now and am allowing the acid rain of sub-par emotional intelligence to wash over me with the obvious hope that clarity will eventually be reached.  But in the meantime, I am sodden with regret over the sheer volume of lamentable revelations that are cresting on the surface of this existential puddle as it expands around my feet and am applying all the concentration I can muster towards the process of bailing lest I drown in a pool of unexamined ignorance.

Perhaps the fact that I am trying to flesh out the dysfunction at this advanced stage of the mortal game might provide an impetus for other mid-lifers to do likewise and not to mechanically devolve into a crystallized version of their surface qualities.

You see a lot of that in homes for the elderly.  The complainers become withered fleshpots of carping and griping; the authoritarians are forever reaming out the staff and attempting to reorganize Bingo night; and the indifferent are, well, indifferent and have lapsed into a coma of complacency that requires nothing from them but compliance, which they readily abide by.  There is no hint of striving toward understanding the other in life anymore let alone one's self.  It is very depressing.

I'd rather question myself, my life, my beliefs and the world now while I'm still active and viable and can make the necessary changes and apply the accumulated wisdom rather than wait until I am dependent upon someone else to get me dressed and mash my food.

The fact that all this questioning usually leads to a few bouts with the blues or periods of despondency, feelings of detachment or disassociation from the norm, known, or familiar and even all-out anger is all part of the process.  The status quo is no longer acceptable.  I'll do whatever it takes.

And, yes.  I do wish I had gotten to this juncture much earlier than now, but it wasn't time.  I wasn't ready.  Even among the boomer generation, I'm probably one of the less progressive ones.  A late boomer, I suppose.

My dad always told me I had the classic curse of always being "a day late and a dollar short."

I think my day has come.

Anybody got a dollar?

A ROOM FOR MY VIEWS

Today is the third consecutive day of clouds and rain.  While it is not the sort of cast most people appreciate this many days in a row, I'm sure my neighbors in the home directly behind us are taking a small bit of comfort from being shrouded in this fine drizzle.  Yesterday their house caught on fire.

It was a fire that began at the kitchen stove, although I'm not sure of the specifics.  Beth, my neighbor, said it had something to do with what she had on the stovetop and a nearby candle.  However, within seconds there were flames too virulent to control and smoke filling the house and billowing out from all the windows.  Pat, her husband, was at that moment airborne on a return flight home after a business trip and, obviously, could not be reached...not that he could have done anything other than pray anyway, and she was home with their two small children and two dogs.

She did the only thing she could or needed to do and grabbed the babies, the dogs and her cell phone and exited out the front of the house to our small cul de sac where she called 911.  Being a very intimate enclave of only five houses we are all very aware of and friendly toward one another so she was immediately aided by all the neighbors who took the children and the dogs and comforted her as she tearfully watched what she feared might have been the end of life as she knew it.  

Within minutes several fire trucks, ambulance, police cars, etc. were crammed into the circle taking care of what, blessedly, turned out to be a relatively minor fire, all things considered.  They will need a new stove and some minor repairs to the surrounding walls and the house smells much like McGonigle's Meat Market on the days they have the huge smoker out in front of the store cooking ribs and chicken, but other than that, everything is fine and they were all able to sleep in their house last night.

My job is now to provide dinner for them at five o'clock each night until their kitchen is fully operational again.  I am happy to do it since I've got to make dinner for my remaining family anyway, plus I still remember the excruciatingly long eight weeks when my kids were all under ten and we were reduced to a microwave and mini fridge in the downstairs laundry room while our kitchen was being renovated.  I did the dishes in the downstairs bathtub -when our Newfoundland, Frodo, wasn't sleeping in it, that is.  And while it began as sort of a campy, quirky alternative to conventional living, the fun of it all went out the window within the first three or four days, as soon as the kids realized their persnickety cravings and favorite victuals could not be sufficiently satisfied under those conditions.

I don't want my neighbors to have to experience that any more than they are already bound to do.

Whether it was precipitated by the near disastrous events of yesterday or by some other subliminal yoke strapping a weighty claim on my unconscious, I can't say; but last night's sleep was riddled by nightmares of nomadic wanderings in all manner of dark places.  Caves, underground tunnels that served  full-scale trains rather than the expected subway cars, and above ground places where there was a supposed sky overhead but one that was so dark and thick it left the impression of being more like an inverted (and dirty) Mason jar.

In any case, there was nothing familiar or comforting and a vigilant regard was paid to being perpetually on the move.  I was by myself, but there were hundreds of thousands of others there with me.  I knew no one, although many of those around me appeared to know each other.  It didn't seem to matter because the mood was so somber that the only connections were those of commiseration, so it wasn't like alliances could have been forged to alleviate the heaviness anyway.

Even though there was this hard dread and physical evidence of uselessness, senselessness and despair in all the grim and abstract images of dead-ended beginnings and never-begun endings, I didn't feel trapped as it seemed the others did.  I was aware that it was a dream and would summarily end in time, with or without my complete comprehension or endorsement.

I was a watcher, yet at the same time I experienced a definite emotional accord with everyone and had a visceral understanding of all that occurred, all that was felt, all that was missing and all that could never be in this nocturnal confederation of the damned.

This wasn't my first visit to this place.  I'm taken there regularly by whatever force it is that captivates all those unspoken thoughts and caches of denial I subscribe to inappropriate or selfish behavior in my waking moments and then compels them to expose themselves deep in the unconscious night when all pretense and contrivance sleep soundly.

I think we all go there because we all withhold more of ourselves then we should in the staid rounds of our day, and were there no releases or receptacles for these untended particles of thought and emotion, implosion would be the chief cause of death everywhere on earth.

My conscious walk through the world at the moment feels not terribly unlike those sepia colored, stained containers of non-being my soul travels to at night, which is giving the stoic in me a pretty rigorous workout.  It's a good and valuable exercise I don't regret undergoing, although it would be nice to have a better grasp on what it is all about.

When I was a kid I had these All About books:  All About Mammals, All About Birds, All About Reptiles, All About Dogs.  I wish they had not stopped there.  What I wouldn't give for a book, All About Apathy or All About Where To Go From Here.

Many years ago we had our driveway asphalted by this buoyant and wise character named Delacey.  He could neither read nor write and for a time my husband, who is a reading specialist, tutored him.  But what Delacey could do was put things into perspective, and one of the things he said that has always stayed with me was said after watching all the traffic clogging the local highway:  "Nobody knows where the hell they goin', but they all goin' like Hell to get there!"

I'm not what you'd consider a 'type A' personality, but there have definitely been periods in my life when I felt that way; that I had no clue where I was going or why but that I was getting there on a souped-up bullet train of discontinuities.   Perhaps this is why I've come to such a screeching halt now?  I've used up all of my "get out of jail free" cards and cannot pass 'Go' without one, so the game has come to a stalemate.

But as I sit waiting for the bail bondsman of enlightenment to return me to the world of productivity and purpose, I am not idle.  My brain is working overtime and taking me to a non-linear zone where thought all but obliterates despair, as well as keeping reality enough at bay that it loses it's immediate relevance.   I suppose if you're stuck in jail, it's better that it is the one of your own making.  At least you know your way around and are on friendly terms with a couple of the guards.

Music also helps, and Friday night I reveled in a live dose of it delivered as it was from the recording- studio basement of my stellar rocker friend, Chris; where I was treated to healing decibels of jams between four solid musicians and friends.   I even got a playful stint on the drums, which is something I have not done since the seventh grade when I decided that pursuit of the male species would be more challenging and less redundant than seeking proficiency even on Ludwig's best percussion set (although I later and regularly question that assumption) and was prompted to abandon my drum lessons after only three years.   But let it be now noted that while vodka can substantially loosen inhibitions, it can also impair coordination; although I managed to hold my own, albeit not without backup.

However, my favorite spot was sitting on the floor with Chris's old dog, Duke, where I could happily scratch behind the the old boy's ears and drift away on rockin chords of possibility.  It was an absolute Be Here Now evening that I am grateful for.

And now that I have returned to this odd place of indeterminable boundaries, I am thankful that my neighbors still have a house with walls.   Beyond that, today not much else matters.

I'm confident that at some point form will again be apparent in my life and around me a structure of clear perspectives and sturdy objectives will once more provide shelter for all these quaking doubts and finally put them at ease.

 I don't doubt that the process of building a whole new exterior attitude on a house without any interior walls is going to be challenging.  What will this new building resemble if it appropriately reflects my thoughts?  One thing I do know is that it must have loads of windows without any locks.  I've had enough doors slam on me to recognize the value of open windows and fire escapes, and I want to ensure that plenty of air will be circulating opinions and ideas from the outside intersection at the corners of Conventional and Dissenting.

In the meantime I've got a foundation to put down, which could take quite a while to put together given the importance of making certain that it is a solid one; and if I remember correctly, the first step before laying any foundation is to dig.

If I had a hammer.....and some nails, some two by fours, a rotary drill, reciprocating saw, self-leveling concrete....

HEAVY MENTAL

Over the past few days I've established a tentative truce with my soul:  It will no longer sustain such lofty ambitions with its cloying and relentless quest for goodliness, cultural valor and artistic recognition, and I will no longer hold it responsible for screwing everything up.

 It is a treaty only two days old but bearing up well considering the odds for successful transpersonal mediations are rare, particularly if done sans the aid or blessing of an accomplished guru or highly-paid life coach.

However, I've yet to test drive it in the real world as I'm still clinging tightly to that boulder of compromise while remaining mired in the quickening sand of afterthoughts; and as of this moment, I still have no plans of climbing out.

It is surprisingly warm bathed in the thick, slightly coarse sludge of mental and emotional despondency, and I find a fair amount of solace in being held above muck-level by the finicky physics of raw anxiety and non-clinical depression. Besides, I am fascinated by the uncanny strategy in their collaboration to outwit the gravity of apoplectic despair by merely shifting sides.

Anxiety drills hard from the inside and creates a sort of neurotic buoyancy that elevates my mood through chronic activity while the soft grinding of apathy provides a kind of stationary landing that holds the body steady and prevents the head from slipping completely under and drowning in the grasping mire of non-being.

Of course, my daily dual hours on that damned elliptical have ameliorated any excessive physical frustration as well as taken up a handy chunk of my mornings, which leaves me fewer daylight hours in which to brood or slam the world with bursts of misplaced anger.  It's all good.  Theoretically.

Now, if I could only get out of my way enough to just work for work's sake, I would likely be further along than I am.  Apathy is absolutely my worst enemy.  It underscores all creative musings with the broad black stroke of what for? and leaves my senses to idly scan the room for clues of purpose while those naysaying nodes of thought race to my frontal lobe with objections to every possibility no matter how lame.

But I'm not panicking.  I've been at this place throughout my life in routine doses and durations (although the timing can be fairly random and unpredictable) and I know historically that my karmic addiction to change precludes the permanency of any disposition; maudlin or otherwise.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.....  I wonder how redundancy feels about that?

What really needs an adjustment is my resolve, as it appears that dredging up the resolve to bring forth better days is the first step in the transformational process.

If only I just weren't so full of  f***-you's,  I'd stand half a chance of willing myself to take in the world from a point of acceptance instead of from this hastily-crafted divot of marbleized regret with all these veins of bad habits, poor choices, wrong turns, unfinished business,  broken promises, useless undertakings and all-out failures converging to form a solid slab of Who-gives-a-damn.


I could pave an entire city with that slab.  Perhaps I have.

There is also the strong symbiotic collusion between the elements and the soul to take into consideration; which, if you examine the unusually lengthy rainy season we've been subjected to here in the Midwest,  it provides my present dark night with a plausible foundation.

As if the continual injury of heavy winter snows was not enough, there comes the additional insult of all this spring rain.  Perhaps they've adjusted their attitude meters for such a dismal meteorological pallor in Seattle and are able to thrive in spite of the relative lack of sunshine, but we've been given no choice nor preparation time in Tornado Alley and can't seem to shake the idea that we've been sucker-punched by Mother Nature in a big way.

I'm not the only one trapped far to the left of happy around here, and you can tell the level of desperation on the infrequent warm and sunny days when everyone with an independent option and half a brain is spending as much time out of doors as possible.  The parks and sidewalks are so dense with pale denizens- clearly exhibiting signs of deficiency in vitamin D- that it looks like a city under siege after a long drought.

There are definite needs not being met by nature, by me or by man; and God is not nearly as comfortably close as I'd like Him to be.

But tomorrow is Friday, and for some ridiculous reason, in spite of the fact that Friday- and weekends in general- have long outgrown their significance for me in terms of being days of respite and reverie quite different from the rest, I still feel those tendons of residual hope tense in my heart at the memory of it all and that unoccupied seat of freelance abandon begs for a willing rider as much now as it ever did before.

I suppose that the learned patterns of joy are just as tenacious as the acquired experience of sorrow, and if the constitution of hope is more resolute than that of pessimism, then the short odds are that I will get my mojo back soon; or at least retrieve enough of it to rejoin my imagination and create again, as well as resume a more reasonable regime with that damned elliptical.

For now, however, Friday also signifies garbage day, which means I have to trudge through the soggy, backyard terrain with my trusty bucket and garden shovel to pick up the dog poop, collect the trash from all the indoor containers, cut up the boxes for the recycling bin and gather and tie the large, black plastic bags containing another week's worth of our detritus.  As much as I distain the mediocrity and drudgery of these pedestrian waltzes with normalcy, they are also providing necessary distractions from my temporary march with the f*** you's, and I'm trying not to hold too much of a grudge.

The other day I received a very unexpected but lovely Mother's Day card from an old and dear friend I don't often see or hear from much anymore in these days of newly-redefined filial demonstration; and in the card was a holy medal that had once belonged to her deceased mother; a terrific woman with the resiliency of the tides.  My friend wrote that she had wanted to pass the medal along to me in the hopes it would help me in my challenges with my son.  It could not have come at a more appropriate time, and I was deeply moved and filled with gratitude for both the gesture and because of the significance.

It is a beautiful, contemporary medal of The Blessed Mother, and I immediately placed it on the chain I wear and never remove that holds a few other very precious medals and charms I've received from friends and family over many years; all of deep importance to me.

On the back of this one is inscribed:  Our Lady of Mental Peace.


Who says the universe never hears us?

Everything is going to be alright.

THE QUICKSAND AND THE DEAD

I've noticed lately that my blog posts are coming fewer and farther between while my time on that damned elliptical has increased exponentially. I am now remaining on the bloody thing in excess of two hours daily and am reluctant to dismount even when that respectable milestone has been met.

This might indicate a couple of things:  1.) I have nothing more to say, and  2.) I am running away from home.

Of course, my leave-taking is purely theoretical, as my body is the only part of myself given permission to actually do any running.  Yet it is definitely being egged on by my mind, which got the idea from my emotional state because, quite frankly, I'm fed up with trying to manage them all.

I'm fed up by many things these days.

Perhaps I should rephrase that.  Stating I am "fed up" implies that there has been an erosion of patience brought about by the million small inconveniences and adjustments I've had to oblige and make room for in a soul already crushed by the weight of its own shortcomings.  That isn't entirely accurate.  Not entirely.

Those millions of small hurdles are normal and perfectly acceptable especially given the lengthening bones of clarity and understanding they lend to my psychological stride once I make it to the other side of enduring.  Who cannot wade through a lifetime of pedestrian near-misses and patient side-stepping and not emerge having developed some level of passive assurance that it will all make sense in the end?   You almost have to or the alternative option of an early check out would be overwhelming.

No.  I'm not fed up.  I'm foreign.

Suddenly, I have forgotten my own language.  My thoughts pass through the same portals of interpretation as they have for fifty-four years, yet I no longer understand what I say to myself.  It is almost as if I've been summarily saddled with a Mandarin guide for my English-speaking psyche.

Even my body, once so patently reliable and subjectively native, lately functions more as an extrinsic vessel of questionable origin whose operational capabilities seems less internally orchestrated but instead are responsive to some remote organizational force with which I have no real communication.   It would seem I am no longer present in my own skin.

Last week I lived in the world as me.  This week I am a foreign exchange student from another dimension wondering just how long this midlife inculcation will take before I will finally be able to communicate through more than my eyes and exaggerated gestures alone.

There aren't very many reasons to continue manufacturing dialogue when the only one listening is you and you can't understand yourself anymore.  I've gone quiet for lack of interest; self or otherwise.

Ironically, during my protracted galavanting on that damned elliptical, my mind never ceases producing words and trying to string them together hoping for a yield of useful thoughts and concepts.   It is done mostly out of habit and while it produces little that I have been able to successfully translate into my former tongue, the effort remains sincere and steadfast.

After two hours I usually come away with the faint skeletal etchings of at least one poem, two blog posts, a half-dozen correspondences (to people I no longer know but will never forget) and one suicide note just to remain in touch with my edgy, tortured side.

While my insatiable curiosity as to how this life will all turn out prevents the consideration of suicide as a viable exit strategy, I find it important not to thoroughly dismiss the commotion generated by those prosperous inhabitants in the dark corners of possibility or they are likely to well up into probability.  I learned when my son played football that the best offense is always a good defense, and there is no tactic quite as disarming as to engage an attentive ear.  Just ask Julius Caesar.  "E tu Brute?"

What can I say?  Lately these maudlin toads of dark sentiment and emotional dysfunction have been beating my ear.  But I'm polite.  I listen, and even though my ability to interpret much of anything is presently stymied,  I understand enough morose-ese to have momentarily succumbed to the hard blow of failure and temporary confusion as it shoves me into the quicksand of apathy.

 At least I'm not so clueless that I don't remember that as with any quagmire, earthen or otherwise, the best resolution is non-action because the more you struggle, the deeper down you will go and so quickly you won't even know what happened to you.  A lesson learned through experience as well as observation.

So while the surrounding inhabitants of the moors sleep soundly under the moonlit wash of a night sky and wake expectantly to the warm swagger of promise in another day, I remain motionless; wedded to the lone boulder of compromise that will eventually be my method of escape as soon as I recapture my resolve and restore my mental footing.

For the moment, however, I'm forced to consider anything beyond breathing as a liability.

Where the hell are those Mandarin guides when you need them?