Enough

In those slow motion moments
right before waking,
that deep-as-death, bottomless hole
yawns wide within her and
in those moments 
she knows
she will never be enough


   Years of therapy, years of sobriety, and still my instinctual response to being in the world is I'm missing something that everyone else has. I'm a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle complete but for that one piece. Waking each morning with that awareness was enough to send me into my day handicapped, a poser who couldn't let anyone close enough to see the flaws. Every activity, every interaction required a different mask. It was an exhausting way to live.
   Today, feeling inadequate is still instinctual but I know it is my own choice. I've learned that "enough" is a judgment I make about myself, not one that I let others make. At times I have been overwhelmed, confused, uncomfortable and frightened by my FEELINGS, certain that I was facing failure or rejection. At the center of every situation was a fear of loss. Not only was I not enough but I would never have enough. Now, as I look back at those challenges, I lived through every one of them and all that I feared never happened. My experience tells me that I am as capable as I need to be, as capable as I believe myself to be. One of the gifts of getting older is the wisdom that comes with each life experience and the added benefit of having the time to reflect on it. Wisdom has shown me that feelings aren't facts, they can be changed with a thought. Wisdom says believe the facts not the feelings and the fact is that I have been, that I am and that I always will be enough.


I woke with the breath of a believer
in all that is being better than all that was.

I Should, I Can, I Will

  It’s always been so easy to give up on my writing by thinking that whatever I had to say had already been said by someone else far better than I could say it. But if that was true, we would not still be writing about topics as old as humankind such as murder, jealousy, bigotry, courage, love, parenthood and all the emotions they invoke. The uniqueness of a story’s plot may hold our interest but what makes it meaningful is that our stories connect us to each other. It’s humanity's common ground regardless of our particular circumstances. Our narratives are mirrors, operating instructions, ancestral memories, cautionary tales. As the brilliance of a diamond is reflected in its numerous facets, the universal truths of our existence are reflected in the many lenses of our individual perspectives.  Each telling unfolds a new layer of self. It creates a safe space to intimately share the experience of the other in the imaginary world on the page.

   To withhold my story is not an act of humility. It's selfish. I believe that each of us has a responsibility to add our story to the human record. What ever way we are drawn to tell it, be it as a writer, an artist, a teacher, a parent, a friend, we can be certain that we have also been given the talent and ability to share it. With each story we are reborn, a little wiser, more compassionate, more courageous more inspired. I may not feel comfortable putting myself out there to be judged, critiqued, ignored or laughed at, but that’s my ego. My heart knows that the reason I write is to reach out to others with my life experience and to let them know they are not alone.

Forgiveness

I stumbled under the weight of my anger oh God

and in that brief moment, You stopped being enough.  

I chose to live in the fiction of my wounds.  

Now I’m back at the fire’s edge, 

uncomfortable with its beauty, 

fearful of my desire to return to the flames.  

Fragile as ash I come to you Father, 

seeking the eternal yes of your forgiveness.  

Remove the bitter taste of sin from my tongue and let me be a place where flowers grow.

   I've been away from the blog for awhile but not because I've given up on writing. I actually wrote and submitted something. It was like removing the albatross from my neck. In years past, I would always set myself up for failure. I couldn't submit just anywhere. If it wasn't a "prestigious" journal or site, being accepted wouldn't mean anything. Of course I did't think I was good enough to be accepted by an established journal so I put myself between a rock and a hard place because I had an inflated, insecure ego calling the shots. It was easier just to wiggle away. 
   One of my favorite blogs is NPR's On Being. As I was reading it last week, I noticed that they took submissions. I wrote a piece about my journey to trusting my own talent and I submitted it with a poem. It was fun! I've got no anxiety about being accepted. The whole exercise was about believing in myself. It was about keeping things right-sized and packing up my ego-based fears and putting them in a box outside. It worked. I did what I have never allowed myself to do. Now I can go back to writing for fun. The page is a magic carpet ride again.

   I've missed posting. Self-discipline has never been a strong suit for me but there's a new me emerging. It's not too late to become the person I imagined myself to be. I've seen myself as a writer. I've seen myself as dependable. I've seen myself behaving what I believe. The discipline of blogging has actually helped me in all three areas. I can count on myself to show up on the page. My creativity is returning and sparking my imagination. I've embraced my inner critic as annoying but well-meaning and I've taken rules, competition and comparison off the table when I write. 
   I've just finished Burn This Book, an anthology of writers on why they write. The reasons were not so unique or lofty as I always imagine. Like me, they are people who write because they love it, they feel the need to write, they have a story that they must tell, they want to understand themselves and their world, they want to make a difference. It was helpful to remove authors from the ivory tower where I've put them. 

Fresh Starts

Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

New Neighbors

I am really enjoying the creative opportunities that this blog is providing. I'm using the blog as a practice of discipline. I'm using it to reignite my creative embers before they turn to ash and I'm challenging myself to learn new skills to stay relevant as the world expands beyond what I currently know. But the best part is becoming a part of a new community made up of an eclectic group of imaginative neighbors who have inspired me to leap, tumble, sky-walk and spin with the abandon of a six-year old. I recently stopped by Summer Pierre's home at www.summerpierre.com where I found the post to the left. It reminded me that the blank page is not the only place a writer meets the magic of unlimited possibility. It also reminded me that I would sell my little six-year old soul for a Black Cow, two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice-cream in a frosty mug of Hire's root beer. 

My Father's Eyes

It's not much but it's a start. It's words on a page. The start of a story. It's a start.
  
I don’t know how my father’s eyes looked, if they were light brown or speckled with bits of black. I do know when they filled with wanting my innocence. I know when they were crystal balls that held my future. I know he smelled of old spice and beer and that he played catch in the street with me after a long day at work, still in his crisp white collar and cuffs and I know that his laugh was genuine when I caught the grounders he sent right to me feet. I know he wanted to find some part of himself every time he lost himself in me.  And so I believed that I carried the answers to his unasked questions. I was the Treasure Island that held the missing pieces of his soul.  

I’ve spent my entire life looking for those pieces so I could rid myself of what would make him whole, so he wouldn’t come looking to me anymore.  If only I could give him what he wanted, what he needed then he would stop hurting, we would stop hurting. I know he spent everyday at morning mass because he hoped that the penance and the prayers could obliterate the sins. I know I stopped going to mass because I knew they couldn’t.

The Devil Is In The Details

There’s been a group of characters in my head for about ten years, patiently waiting to tell their story. I’m not sure why they’ve chosen me, the poster child for procrastinators, but it appears their persistence has worn me down. Their voices are louder, more insistent. They won’t be put off anymore by my “aw shucks” shuffle of false humility and claims that I’m too old, I don’t have time, I don’t know how. They’re totally insensitive to my fears. What I hear ringing in my ears is their chorus of “Just Do It.” Coincidence? I think not. A good friend told me years ago that sometimes we speak for our own good and we say what we most need to hear. “Start, one letter at a time, one word at a time, Just Do It.” So...

   The characters have already let me know that I work for them or at least I’m going to represent them. I don’t want to let myself down again and stop before I’ve started. I’m terrified of losing control. (Hello Inner Critic and I see you’ve brought my self-doubt with you.) I don’t notice details, the little things that make a character unique, that anchor them in a particular place and time. And how can I tell a good story without details???

   One of my favorite authors, Robert McCammon not only takes an interest in detail but uses words like a master artist uses color. In Boy’s Life, http://books.simonandschuster.com/Boy's-Life/Robert-McCammon/9781442349223you don’t just see a rug, you see through the “yellow lamplight” an “Indian rug red as Cochise’s blood.” You hear the “space heater rumbling.” You notice that his “shelves go on for miles and miles” piled high with “stacks of hundreds of comic books - Green Lantern, Batman, Aquaman and dozens of issues of Boy’s Life magazine.” He doesn’t just have an old Civil War relic, he has a “Civil War button that fell from a butternut uniform when the storm swept Shiloh.” When you leave those two opening paragraphs, you know this boy well enough to get him the perfect birthday present. You also can imagine just where it will go in his room. The reader has been treated to a lush, seven course feast rich with language that won’t be soon forgotten. I don’t want to be Robert McCammon. I just long to use language with the skill and artistry that he does.      

   I do notice, I just notice differently. I may draw a blank when asked to describe what the Seventh Day Adventist at my door was wearing but I can tell you that she had experienced enough doors slamming in her face that her eyes avoided mine. I can tell you that she used the literature she carried to keep me at a distance and I can tell you that her voice softened when I asked her in. I may not be able to describe the details of a room so vividly that you can feel the stitching on a quilt or smell the scent of dying roses but I can capture the fear in a room, the longing in a touch and the truth in a tangle of words. I know how it feels to weave words into a collage of images that opens yesterday into today and beyond.

   Robert McCammon is a breadcrumb on my journey, a reminder of all that’s possible when I let go and trust my talent. I think it’s time to stop writing about writing and write.

Just Do It

Inner Critic

Writers have been familiar with the phrase “Just Do It” long before it was branded by NIKE. Just Do It; one letter at a time, one word at a time; Just Do It; face that blank little sheet of paper that holds every fear, every criticism, every failure I’ve perceived since childhood magnified by a loud speaker and playing on an infinite loop. All writer’s must start the same way. They Just Do It. If that isn’t hard enough, once they’ve formed that first letter, most writers must face their inner critic. It’s relentless and finds fault with every word, every thought, every moment wasted on such a futile effort. Good writers learn to ignore or silence that critic which gives me hope.

   But wait. I’m all start and no finish or so says my constant companion, the ugly little troll that is my inner critic. When my pen touches the paper, my personal history starts to break through like rough roots rising against the ground. The monster of self-doubt threatens to swallow me whole if I continue. For the better part of sixty years I’ve run to safety in a place built on lies of omission where I’ve reinvented a self that has no demons. So after sixty years of avoidance, with my doubt stuffed in my back pocket for now, I’m going to trust my talent and Just Do It.

   It’s time to gather all the pieces of myself I’ve carelessly scattered in the lives from my past. It’s time to face my fears and reclaim what makes me whole. After all, how alive am I if I cannot answer “Here” when life calls out my name, if I cannot stand before my world clothed in the cloth I was cut from?

The Price of Ownership

I write to remember. I write to grow roots where I’m planted. I write to grow wings and soar above all that I know. Since I learned to form letters, the page has always been my best friend. I could trust it with my secrets and my fears, with my dreams and disappointments. It was my only safe place, the one place I could take chances without risk of ridicule. On the page there were no rules. There was nothing I could’t do.

   I’ve never lost my love of language but I think I have been a bit of a Peter Pan about writing and the page has been my Neverland. The child in me has hoarded the gift of writing. I’ve been unwilling to share and like all captured things, words become hollow when they are hidden away and not allowed to grow and change in the minds of others. As I’ve grown older, the gift freely given by what I can only call a Higher Power, has become a burden. 

   The page was a safe place, because it welcomed me, comforted me, encouraged me. It freed me from the dark, twisted tangle of a forest that my home had become. My hidden journals were the only things I felt were mine and so I felt I had to protect them. Whatever I wrote was now tinged by fear, a fear of loss. As time progressed, a child’s loneliness became an adult’s resentment. My fear had made me selfish. It had turned a gift into a possession. I no longer approached that clean white space as a magic place where anything could happen. Anticipation turned into procrastination. I’d lost the need to call out who I was. 

   Writing has become a serious business. No longer do I quickly abandon what doesn’t work in the spontaneity of the moment. What doesn’t work is now a failure followed by retreats into shame and self-doubt. The price of ownership has taken a heavy toll.

Healing by Paying Attention

When I’m hurt I so often forget to pay attention to the little details that lead to healing. I miss the kind word of a friend, the sharing of wisdom when actively listening to the pain of another, a song, a bumper sticker or any number of other "signs" that become background noise in my daily routines. After reading my post about the effects of being brought up Catholic, I realized the chip on my shoulder may no longer feel like a boulder, but it hasn't become pebble sized either. I'm walking along a muddy ditch of resentment, angry that I keep getting my new shoes dirty. My days are spent trying to avoid the mud rather than crossing to the freshly swept, beautifully landscaped side of the street where mud does not exist.

Wishing Wells, Waterfalls and Wings

     With age comes awareness and a major awareness of mine has been that the easier, softer way to live is to go with the flow. Since I spend much of my day living in my head, awarenesses usually take root as a mental process. The next step is giving my thoughts a voice. This is the messy part, moving from the drawing board to the dry runs. It is where the I meets the Other. It is relational. Not a strong point for me. I'm not a multi-tasker by nature and relationships require the ability to listen deeply by giving full and undivided attention, followed by reflection, interpretation, feedback and clarification. Once through the loop is challenging enough but the key to success is refinement through repetition. Rarely do I hear during the clarification step, "That's exactly what I meant. You've got it now!" So around I go again only this isn't a case of practice makes perfect. Each relationship experience is unique. It has a different lesson to teach. It doesn't lend itself to a streamlined efficiency. What awareness is teaching me is that my process is my life's rhythm.  It's my own flow that I need to go with. Who knew? All these years I thought "Go with the flow" meant moving in harmony with the majority, moving with the herd. I was never comfortable in the herd but move too far towards the edge, outside the herd's protection, well then you are just prime for the picking.  The image that comes to mind is trying to walk in a large crowd exiting a sporting event or a concert or a church service lasting longer than the allotted 30 minutes on a game Sunday. Everyone is moving in the same direction but lose your footing and you are herd fodder. If you stay seated until the aisles have cleared, it's steady as you go.
     One of the great benefits of Blogging - showing up on the page and finding yourself in the middle of an AHA moment. Think I'll go with my flow, honor the moment and get cozy with that Inner Presence. A little reflection time might reduce further blather and seed my imagination.  To Be Continued...

God - Wall, Window or Fresh Air

     As a child, I knew my name, I knew my address, I knew my age, I could spell "ice cream" and I knew that I was a Catholic. Catholics went to heaven. Non-Catholics did not. God loved Catholics. God wanted to love non-Catholics but he could only love them if they became Catholics. God had a son named Jesus. Jesus was an only child. Jesus always obeyed his father and he never did anything wrong. He was kind of human but he was perfect, something humans could never be. His father sent him to save humans because we were sinners and did a lot of very bad things. If Jesus didn't suffer and die, humans couldn't go to heaven. Occasionally I forgot my address, sometimes I even forgot how to spell my last name or how old I was. Two things I never forgot were how to spell "ice cream" and what it meant to be a Catholic.
        From the universal Catholic Church point of view ours was a messy family. My mother was a German Lutheran who didn't see the point to hopping on the heaven train if she had to leave her grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews behind. Her youngest brother's wife, my favorite aunt, was Jewish. We never even talked about that. My brother married his high school sweetheart. None of the Catholic part of the family attended because it would have been a sin to attend the marriage of a catholic to a non-catholic. Apparently turning your back on a family member wasn't considered one of the bad things that kept you out of heaven but it was one my earliest memories of being confused and frightened. 
     I'm not sure if where I've been is as important as where I am on a spiritual journey but I've never looked back without a chip on my shoulder. I say I'm past it. I nobly proclaim forgiveness and understanding yet I still struggle to let go. The older I get the less I know, the more I doubt and the more I feel it's ok to sense a presence greater than myself within me that I can't explain. I'm more interested in keeping the connection than I am in understanding it. Today God is the fresh air, institutionalized religion is the wall and people are the windows. For now that's enough.