Sarcomical

september

finally, we have open-window weather. i feel happiest when September rolls around. whooshing breezes carrying the smell of damp ground, gentle temperatures, crisp evenings, the sense of a relaxed, sighing earth...it makes me grateful for seasons and wistful for places where this happens almost every day. it reminds me of how i felt during our horseback ride in Banff a couple of weeks ago...

the bullet points...

Oh my lord, but the tune never changes. "Hello, wee blog; in the mess you got left behind, so sorry blah blah blah..." Ah, well. Moving along.

Basically, this has been my summer, in progression:

• no SarcomiBebeh
• a bit of yoga
• a few crappy farmers markets
• i need to get out of indiana and this stupid subdivision
• puppy dental surgery
• Florence & The Machine concert
• pescetarian
• i refuse to be consumed/defined merely by my current (non)maternal state
• artistic frustration
• vocation & adoption research
• mindfulness practice
• hey, i feel pretty good about myself
• no SarcomiBebeh yet
• potato chips
• treadmill treadmill treadmill
• obsessive trips to Half Price Books
• Paul McCartney concert
• blissblissbliss
• i hate anyone with a baby
• The Head & The Heart concert
• hell no, i have to give up coffee?!?
• Saturday brunches with The Husband
• Big Brother
• doctor appointments
• excessive highlights
• still no SarcomiBebeh
• ICED VENTI SOY LATTE, please
• depressive movie marathons
• Starbucks pumpkin loaf (i hate the word loaf)
• back to yoga
• adoption research
• i am so tired of thinking about this
• pumpkin loaf
• decision to stay away from IVF & clomid
• return to acupuncturist
• stunning, beautiful, exhausting adventure in Banff, Canada (photos coming)
• back in the routine
• eager to mix up the routine
• [except for the pumpkin loaf]
• acupuncture as well as fertility specialist appointments booked
• workshops at the Writer's Center
• crazy yoga arm balances - this is my year, right?
• determined to be present and fully unafraid of trying everything

• attempts at yoga & treadmill running

easing, easing...

Sparse...Our backyard, a sheet of ice the neighbor kids skated across during the recent winter blast which turned us into a HouseSicle for two weeks.

I know, that is what my space here has been for quite some time. I don't feel guilty about that, because in case you don't believe the rumor, pulling away from Internet Land can be quite a soul-nourishing experience! Kind of like a dip in a calm pool or a breath drawn in a forest. Seriously, not caring a wit about whether or not the world knows what is happening in your life is more fun than you may remember. You know, back in the Sad, Slow, Tweetless, Blogless, Pen and Paper, Crack-Open-an-Encyclopedia, Dark, Scary World. (And if you are too young to have had to ever open up a QRS encyclopedia to do research on quails or Russia or supernovas for class, I'm going to pretend for this brief moment that people your age do not yet exist to keep my brain from exploding and also ARE YOUR PARENTS MONITORING YOUR INTERNET USAGE, YOUNG'IN? Also, damn, damn, damn. So old I am feeling. So...so old.)

The thing is, I soooo love my sweet, funny, moving, intelligent, creative, inspiring friends across the InterSphere that staying connected is still important. Through virtual land I've met several of my real-life lovelies who I get to SEE and TOUCH and LAUGH WITH and SOAK IN just in the past year or two alone. Not to mention the many I admire and get wrapped up in sometimes from afar, feeling incredibly connected to people I am pretty certain don't have any idea I am in a little relationship with them...reading ...laughing ...crying ...empathizing ...SUPERFAN-ING ...adoring ...coveting ...learning ...clickety-clicking through their lives and thinking "IF I COULD JUST SMOOSH THE WORLD TIGHTER...you and I would be the closest of souls." Or at the very least, you could teach me how you do that thing with your hair or how you capture such ghostly beauty in your photography or how you keep consistent with your home yoga practice or how you deal with fertility complications with such grace or how to make those evil evil cupcakes or how you sit down and write things that are so wonderful.

And that is why I choose to share again, perhaps with slightly altered motivation. I think this year will be full of a lot of changes and struggles and victories and annoyances and deliciousness...and I want to remember every bit of it. Plus, I have so much that's been collecting dust, heaving at the seams to be talked about! LIKE HOW I MET TONY BOURDAIN. And...um...well, now I can't really think about anything else, so...ahem. I know the many who used to visit here may not remember to check back in (it's been so very, very long since I've been consistently here and talkity-talky), but that's okay with me. I'll just be over here making stuff with words and photographs and maybe a few other things...and geekishly (yes that's right) and quietly fawning over some of YOU.

Independent of Vanity

I've been spending some time on NieNie today...and if you have never been to Stephanie's blog, please take some time to visit and familiarize yourself with her unbelievably inspiring story. I always take a deep breath when I move my mouse over to the little tab with her blue typewriter icon on it (yes, I have the tab to her blog permanently up on my window), because I know that I am about to be humbled, amused, moved, and swept up in the beauty of her spirit.

I started reading Nie a few months before the 2008 plane accident she & her husband were in which caused burns on 80% of her body, so I had already fallen in love with her colorful world of handmade goodness, creativity, silly photographs, children cute enough to crumble the stodgiest character, and the sweet and deep love story between her and her husband. This young woman was a beauty by most any standards, and I like all of her followers became an adoring fan.

Since she was able to begin blogging for herself again (after months in a coma and then in therapy), we have all been able to see what a true beauty she is. She looks completely different, has had to come to terms with her new life, and has embraced it wholly and without bitterness. She stresses that she is "not her body", and exudes the same spirit of happiness, creativity, joy and gratefulness that she did prior to the accident.

I say all of this because...when I spend time reading her thoughts, seeing her daily photographs...I wonder

Could I do the same?

I am not sure. I would like to think that I could overcome the loss of my current physical self - that I could retain the sense of who I am - if that challenge was placed before me. I feel humbled (I use that word a lot in my head when I think about Stephanie) when I think about how fussy bangs can ruin my mood, or how not feeling like I fit into my jeans right can make me not want to see any human for days. It is vain. But it is there. I remember that Stephanie, before her accident, was excited because she had just grown out a haircut she thought was too short and was glad to be in a ponytail again. So...I think she gets it. I think you get it. We all have those moments, don't we? It is human.

But when I think about Stephanie now, I realize that the INTENSITY of importance I place on those things is what I must keep in check. I feel petty. I feel ashamed by my little obsessions. Things become distorted so easily. Things feel so, so, so crucial. But they are not, really.

Would I be able to feel beautiful if I no longer recognized myself? Would I be able to feel beautiful if something happened to change the way strangers saw me? Do I have the ability to take that lesson now while I am so fortunate and cultivate an inner self so lovely and strong that it is independent of vanity?

I don't know. I can only try.

p.s. Stephanie, you are stunning. xoxo

Dualities

I'm that person who is thinking you probably don't like me as much as you say you do.

I'm that person who has begun to realize that maybe YOU have that same insecurity about ME.

I'm that person who is suspicious that maybe the bottom will fall out of one. more. thing.

I'm that person who is learning the world desires good things for me.

I'm that person who can let a simple return phone call scare me off for days and days weeks.

I'm that person who...is working on it. (okay, they're not all so easy)

I'm that person who for years has often avoided eye contact with my reflection in public mirrors.

I'm that person who has grown more comfortable with imperfection...and also blaming bad lighting. 

I'm that person who thinks if the ceiling fan's on High, it might crash onto the bed while I'm asleep.

I'm that person who is figuring out how NOT to make choices in my life based on fear. (but not the ceiling fan, though...that's scary, I'm talking about "life" stuff...yeah)

I'm that person who thinks maybe avoiding human contact January through August wouldn't be that bad.

I'm that person who understands that while solitude can feed the soul, human bonds add the flavor.

 

I'm that person who is grateful for the room life gives us to grow from one extreme to the other.

more is more.

I'm sitting here on the couch with my headphones plugged into my laptop, one of three dogs burrowed deeply into a blanket next to me (chihuahua, shocker), drowning out sounds of the Monday night football game (which, unlike in Mr. S.'s case, is of little consequence to me) with A Fine Frenzy's Bomb In a Birdcage album subtly pulsating between my ears. Once again, the evening brings time to sit and soak in the swirling bath of ideas, possibilities, worries, plans that take up the space between the notes, and this particular time of my life bears quite an opportunity for all of these to flourish.

I've recently begun delving into Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, and I have to share that if you are a creative person at heart and are trying to find a way to polish that gift and sharpen your ability to bring your temperament into focus, this could be an amazing tool for you. I find myself already daily reminding myself of things she says and little tools that help pull me back into a creative space. There is so much valuable guidance there I find myself needing to pace my reading to allow time to put all of it into practice.

This is to say that, I'm beginning to take my voice back, in writing as well as my photography. I've let the trials of the past several years drain away the vitality and passion from my work and my life. I became jaded. I wrote less, created less, because I felt less.

But I am more.

p.s. So are you.

 

Tragically Awkward

I like to think of myself as a tragic romantic. If I were in Regency-era England, I believe Jane & Cassandra Austen and I would be a lovely trio of sighing moon-eyed friends. Or perhaps even more fitting, I could be a long-lost Brontë sister, savoring gothic daydreams of torturous longing and and writing about female strength through trial. Yes, I think that sounds lovely. Minus the tuberculosis and early death, of course.

And yet...despite this swooning nature, this tendency to imagine in the dramatic, I find myself often feeling awkwardly irritated by real-life sentimental gestures. Well, let me clarify. Not ALL sentimental gestures, just a lot of the ones directed at ME. I suppose mostly I am irritated by them because of how ill-equipped I feel to react to them. Unexpected hugs from people make me feel unprepared for my buffer to be breached. Saying 'I love you' to anyone other than my husband, even family members, is often unnatural for me; it feels like my throat is closing from inauthenticity. Surprise gifts with no occasion leave me fumbling to express appropriate amounts of graciousness. Romantic overtures sometimes make me giggle. 

In short, I am pretty much an emotional contradiction. My head space is full of grand observations and dramatic interpretations, imagined conversations & scenarios. Outside, there's a bit of restraint. Especially when RECEIVING. Life and some of the people in it have raised my guard, and so I hedge near the precipice of comfort when accepting real-life gestures of affection. Staying slightly stoic and self-deprecating is much more easy for me when you say something beautifully complimentary or present me with a token of your love. Or maybe I'll make a joke.

In my head, though...

In my head, I'm accepting with gratitude. Or at least trying to.

Rain On the Pretty Ones

i'm the actor who's scared to perform
i'm the sunshine that hides in the clouds
i'm the father that couldn't be found
i'm the cuckoo that never flew south
i'm the christian that cannot forgive
i'm the dreamer that jumps off the bridge
i'm the sinner who hates how he lives...
i'm the liar who gets what he gives.
-Ed Harcourt, Rain On the Pretty Ones

There are moments, still. Moments when I am hit with a swell of certainty that I have abandoned myself. I pause, overwhelmed by the chasm that separates me from the quiet, patient shadow that I some days am barely aware exists. What's worse is when I go days or weeks without even thinking about the fact that I miss her.

She tells me to remember how hard I've worked to make impossible things happen in my past.
She wishes I would not stuff down my desire to become a traveler because of fear.
She'd like to kick me in the ass for pretending this is enough.
She reminds me how much participating in the comaraderie of musicians meant to me.
She challenges me to take risks in my art.
She wonders if I'll allow myself to fail.
She asks if I've forgotten the exhilaration of performance.
She urges me to become fully passionate with the wreckless abandon of a child.
She can't comprehend giving so much power to my own critical voice.
She wants me to stop lying to myself about me.

*Feed reader folks, there's a video in this post. This song makes my soul ache and swirl. Please give it a listen.

Magnetic Serenity

Dear Jennifer from Whole Foods,

A little over a week ago, I came into the store to replenish my stock of deliciousness from the magic wall of snack bins, which usually has a tendency to make me very giddy. This day, however, I was feeling mentally and emotionally sandpapered in a way that could not be soothed by large plastic scoopers and giant tubs of strawberry/raspberry granola or carob spirulina energy blocks. No, not even the sweet faces on the animal cookies could provide any comfort.

I just remember feeling low and somewhat removed from myself. I was tired, a little sad and a lot overwhelmed. I'm sure I must have looked serious when I came up to your register, because I know at times when I'm feeling perfectly pleasant I have a naturally down-turny mouth, even when I SWEAR I think I'm smiling a little. But on this day, I felt admittedly droopy, and I was gearing up to begin the Service Person/Detached Customer with Averted Eyes Interaction, UNTIL...

You started talking to me. Okay, at first I admittedly resisted and mumbled a bit, something like "uh-hmm, yeah..." in reply to your request if I'd found everything I needed, because as is the tendency when someone with my temperament gets caught in their headspace, I sort of wanted to remain the hermit crab wallowing in its sad wee shell. But then I looked up at the moment you asked if I was having a good day, and you said it as gently and sincerely as possibly anyone has ever said it to me and you locked into my gaze as if you were really trying to find a response in my eyes that I was okay. So profound was the sensation of your goodwill and genuinely peaceful smile that it knocked me a little off guard.

I have to be honest; I am usually the type of person who detests - DETESTS - mindless chit-chat with a stranger, mostly because I am very sensitive to tone and picking up people's vibes, and the moment I sense superficiality or ingenuity a switch flips in my brain and I get very turned off and want to get out of there. But, as you continued to ask me about my peace t-shirt (holy wow, I am starting to sound very hippy-dippy in this post, aren't I?) and told me about the pigeons you used to feed when you lived in Montana, and how there was one white one who would always show up with the rest of them and we began to wonder out loud if doves are basically white pigeons, I was drawn to your grounded calm, your magnetic serenity. It was something I rarely come across but am always drawn to. During our brief exchange I was struck by the positive energy you had shone into my life at just the moment I needed it. I came out of that place much lighter and breathing freer. Thank you so much for that.

Jennifer, cashier at Whole Foods and rare soul...I think if I see you again I am going to ask if you want to meet one afternoon for coffee.

Until then,

Melissa from A House Not Far Away