Counting down from Zen

I have a bone to pick with time.  It seems by the time we figure out how very little we have left, we have run out of it.  We spend our whole lives thinking we have all the time in the world, until we get to the point where we’re looking back instead of forward.  At what point are we supposed to live?  How can it be “in the moment,” when we’re so distracted by the life we’re supposed to be living?  ”Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  This is true, and terrifying.

I want to live in the gut-wrenching now, every day an uncompromising smack across the face.  My eyes are starving for vibrancy, my lips ache for the explosion of sweat from my lover’s brow, my fingertips hunger for the surprise of foreign textures.  Every morning I walk up the same street to catch the same bus, to go to the same job, and every morning I think, “How many mornings have I walked up this same street, and how many do I have left, even if it’s to experience the joy of walking up this same street again?”  It is bittersweet joy, as I take in the vibrant red flowers bursting at full bloom in the height of spring, the trailing clouds dissolving under the early morning sun; bittersweet as I take in these wonders “in the moment,” yet always against the backdrop of time and the palpable sensation that it is fleeing from me rapidly.  Expanding universe, days rushing away from me like stars.  I panic.

With panic as my motivator, I am throwing myself into life, exerting myself physically and mentally.  I have developed a new sense of thrill-seeking, pushing my body to its limits, facing new challenges fearlessly.  I wonder if the fear ever really existed, or if I never sought my own limitations.  How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?  I am going back in time, using the body I wasted as a teenager, even as I careen into middle-age and a premature mid-life crises.  I fear there is nothing good enough, nothing big enough, as I stretch against my surroundings and find them constricting.  I could live a hundred lifetimes and I am restricted to just one?  One that is so quickly dwindling, and the scenery of my imagination is so elaborate. . .

Every day I don’t burst free is a compromise.  We don’t feel ourselves age, we watch it happen.  We see it in the faces around us, the fresh young skin of the 20 year olds who are walking around in our bodies, looking the way we feel on the inside.  We see it in the unrelenting reflection in the mirror as we scrutinize, yet intentionally ignore.  Don’t focus on that, don’t see the wrinkles you can’t hide anymore by changing your angle.  While all of this is happening there are hundreds of lives waiting to be lived, and I’m still walking up that same street on that same cloudy morning.

And I often feel like the only one who thinks about these things.

 

 

 

Building (Block)

When I find myself at a standstill with my writing, I look to my favorite authors for inspiration.  I imagine Chuck Palahniuk’s murderous writer’s retreat, or the unforgettable moment when a boy’s insides were sucked into a swimming pool filter.  I tap into Neil Gaiman’s world of dark dreaming, where lovers fall in childlike wonder with the world and each other.  I ask, what would Tom Robbins do?  There are times I argue with myself:  don’t go to sleep, young lady, I don’t care if it’s 3:27 am and the words are swirling around in a half-dream, we’re going fishing.  No, you didn’t write them down yet, you’re still in your bed, and by the time you wake up I promise they’ll be gone.

I used to pity David Duchovny’s character on Californication, the writer who hasn’t produced anything of worth in over two years.  Yet as I look back on the things I’ve written, I repeat my mantra of self-abuse, nagging like a disappointed mother, “You haven’t written anything of worth in months.”  That’s not true, I tell my critical self, I just wrote that lovely analogy about the pin wheel not a week ago!  Two perfect sentences that created an image in the minds of strangers (which, by the way, is the only dream I ever hope to fulfill).  Even as my ego and my critic fight an endless battle it dawns on me:  a true artist is her worst critic.  The truth is I will never be satisfied with what I produce as a writer -  every success will be viewed as a challenge, every step forward a half-step at best.

As I read the writings of my peers, who apparently have never heard of writer’s block, I view each one of them as an inventor – the bold, fearless writers with clever titles plastered across perfectly structured pages, not one useless word or unnecessary comma, and I find myself hating them.  These modern-day heroines, the sex-educators and teen moms turned authors, who effortlessly introduce themselves to us in a charming, captivating way, telling their stories of rebellion and coming of age. . .Why are they so special?  I have my stories to tell,  I am a woman of the world.  I am capable, passionate and educated enough, yet everywhere I turn I am tormented by the countless creations that seem so obvious - an endless onslaught of why didn’t I think of that?

Instead I find myself staring at this screen at 3:27 am trying to piece together a life-changing arrangement of words that will finally, finally release the visceral monster that’s been lying in wait just beneath my skin since before I can remember.  I’ve felt it rolling and pulsing, as only electricity can do, but no matter how hard I try, that perfect story still belongs to someone else.

in the bored room.

The economist stood at the front of the room, numbers, percentages, dates scrolling before his eyes like the sevens and cherries of a cartoon slot machine.

“I get very nervous when heavily armed people posture,” he said solemnly, and the group of business execs. . . black suits blue shirts red ties . . .chuckle politely.

A former economics professor, our host is in his element, pulling together the myriad components that make up our economic state, jumping from housing to China, the Federal Reserve to rates of growth, his white mustache flapping.

His eyes, like buttons stuck haphazardly on a potato, shoot rays of numerical fanaticism at an audience of dozing pinstripes.

Alone on his personal soapbox, our host grows larger and redder with each industry term, words like “Index” and “Reserves” falling like bombs on a crowd of deaf soldiers.  He is a walking Google toolbar, a wealth of information, not useless, just uninteresting.

we are here for the free breakfast.

The little yogurt cups and the softened pads of butter, mounds of bagels and danishes softening the blow of powerpoints and lime green laser pointers, and as we watch the walls melt into the floor, our host’s verbal masturbation bounces off the cherry wood podium and we reassure ourselves that this is better than being at the office.

Exposing St. Patrick

as published in the March 2012 issue of  Exotic Magazine:

On March 17^th, the American people will come together to do what they do best: Look for any excuse to party.   St. Patrick’s Day is an occasion that is highly anticipated, cited by some as their favorite holiday, though like most traditions in America it has lost most of its original meaning.

I myself am guilty.  I’m a quarter Irish, yet when I envision St. Paddy’s day I think of shamrocks, beer, green bagels and a good excuse to do the local pub crawl where I’m sure to be adorned with beaded necklaces comparable to Mardi Gras.  I have a vague recollection of my full-blooded Irish friends being bitter and angry about the way this day is celebrated; so this year I decided to do some research to find out what the big deal is – why my mick friends are so pissed, and exactly what the true meaning of St. Patrick’s Day is.

To begin with, who is this “Saint Patrick” guy – is he a hero or a villain? And what did he do that deserves such recognition in a country not of his origin?  When I reach into the recesses of my childhood education, I recall something about snakes and Christianity, but we all know by now that our education system is far from educational.  As it turns out, Saint Patrick’s Day in America (as with most of our holidays) is based in misconceptions and outright American gluttony.

Let’s start with the basics:

With a name like Saint Patrick, one could assume two things: the man was religious, and he was Irish.  Both of these assumptions would be wrong.  Saint Patrick was born in Britain around 390 AD, and though he was born of a Christian background, he was not of a particularly religious nature.  It wasn’t until he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland that he found Jesus, and after escaping back to Britain, it was the voices in his head that convinced him to return to good old Eire to set up permanent residency as an ordained priest.

So now we have a 36-year-old Brit roaming around Ireland trying to convert everyone to Christianity— sounds like the type of guy you might run into on the back of the Metro.   But cynicism aside, he was dedicated to his life’s work, and had plenty of opportunity to prove it.  He suffered abuse at every turn: from the Irish authorities to the British royals, down to the local Irish thugs who didn’t like what he had to say. It really was him against the world, and as far as Sainthood goes, so far he’s looking pretty legit.

The history gets even more complicated.  St. Patrick is credited with ridding Ireland of snakes, and while it’s true there are no snakes in Ireland today, you can blame melting glaciers, not St. Patrick.  Ireland, after all, is an island; one that happens to be surrounded by frigid waters making it impossible for snakes to migrate there.  It’s not a question of how he got rid of the snakes on Ireland — they were never there to begin with.  This is where religious symbolism comes into play.  In Christianity snakes are representative of evil – after all, it was a snake that lured the misbehaving Eve into temptation.  In St. Patrick’s time they were used as a representation of his efforts to banish paganism from the hearts of his Christian brethren.

Next up in the “word association with St. Patrick’s Day” game is Shamrocks.  Luck O’ the Irish and all that.  While it’s a cute little symbol that’s easy for school children to color during the month of March, once again the history is a religious one.  Originally recognized in the pagan religion as a representation of the “three Goddesses,” when Christians took over they adopted the symbols as their own, and as often happens, all mention of the past was wiped away.  St. Patrick is credited for popularizing the Shamrock because he used it to signify the Holy Trinity in his teachings, each leaf representing the “father, son and the holy spirit.”  I can’t help but laugh as I think of the Shamrock plastered all over Ireland as a symbol of religious conversion from the religion it actually represents.

So far we’re 0 for 3 on the Irish icons as pertaining to our friend Patrick.  No snakes, no shamrocks, not even an Irishman. .All that remains true is his devotion to Christianity — Aha , the pieces are starting to come together; I’m beginning to see why the Irish are so upset.

If we look at how St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in Ireland, it becomes crystal clear.

In Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was revered as a religious holiday, a holy day.  A week-long celebration was spent attending mass, having family get-togethers and serving traditional Irish chicken or bacon – not the stereotypical corned beef and cabbage.  It wasn’t until the 1970’s when America hijacked the holiday and started throwing parades and beer pong contests that Ireland gave in to the hype.  In fact, up until a couple of decades ago all Irish pubs were closed on St. Patrick’s Day.

So how did this turn into a beer guzzling excuse to dye rivers green and make a complete mockery of Irish culture?  Oh yeah — this is America.  We have once again created our own version of a culture’s history and used it to our gluttonous advantage.  We have stripped it of its meaning, doused it in booze, dressed it in green and called it Irish.  Some stones are better left unturned, eh?  Have fun on St. Paddy’s Day, but when you’re lifting your Guinness to toast the Irish remember to say a little prayer and give thanks that consumerism is alive and well.

For the Beauty Queens – Part 2

Once, when I was about 23-years old, I slept wrong, squishing my face into an awkward position for several hours, and when I awoke I had a deep crease going up my forehead, sharply accenting one of my furrow lines.  To my bewildered young mind, this appeared as a giant wrinkle, and everything I’d proclaimed about my standards of beauty flew out the window.  I genuinely thought that this was how wrinkles surfaced – suddenly and overnight – and I was convinced it was only a matter of time before my porcelain skin would be a roadmap of stress-lines and failed plans.  Yes, I equate age with failure – but more on that later.

On this particular morning, at this particular stage in my life, prior to seeing the misidentified wrinkle, I was anti age-defying anything.  The thought of liposuction or a face-lift was as horrific to me then as Toddlers and Tiaras is to me now.  I was so tired of the  media and what it had done to our images of beauty, I was completely against nipping or tucking, pulling, sucking or peeling anything.

Oh, how times change, which mine did in the blink of a groggy eye.  As soon as I saw that wrinkle, my mind instantly plotted exactly how I was going to get the money to pay for the Botox, and somehow I’d figured out how to do it before anyone laid eyes on me that morning.  Desperate times, people. . .

As luck would have it, the stupid crease wore itself out, and my lovely 23-year-old skin plumped back up until I was the glowing image of youthful beauty I’d been when I went to sleep the night before.  I can talk about myself like this because now, even just 10 years later, I realize how youthful 23 really is, and the lesson is one I’ve not easily forgotten.

I used to make fun of my mother for the arsenal of day creams, night creams, undereye creams, neck and throat creams, eyelid, hand, body, wrinkle creams, vitamin D, E, and A oil – every kind of cream, lotion and oil a single mom could afford.  To my untrained eye, the woman always looked the exact same.  The truth is, none of those creams probably did her a $40 ounce of good, but now I understand it was the appearance of an effort. My mother wasn’t rich, and if she could have afforded Botox, or even knew that it existed, I may have been raised by Tammy Faye Baker.  But in an age of Jafra and Avon, Royal Jelly and the Home Shopping Network, this was what she had to work with, and as I reach the age my mother was when the creams started to take over the bathroom, I realize I am just like her – but willing to push even harder to maintain my vanity.

Why?  Because every day closer to my grave is a day closer to an unanswered dream.  It is physically impossible for me to do everything I want in this lifetime, and every day is another wasted adventure.  Yes, there are wonderful, fulfilling things along the way, but we aren’t getting any younger, and well, that’s the point.  Beautiful people do exciting things.  When I imagine traveling the world, it’s not the grandmother version of myself in my mind’s eye.  If I’m being honest, the closer I get to old, the farther I get from opportunity.  Before you know it, I will be the leopard-print-clad, Lita Ford wannabe inviting herself to parties and trying to explain how cool she was, “back in the day.”

No, I will not go quietly.  Nowadays, it makes total sense to buy myself a boob job for my birthday.  Botox no longer seems criminal, but a luxury.  I’m still very conscious that the media has us all screwed up, and sure, I can rationalize that beauty comes from within.  If a friend of mine were saying these same things to me, I’d tell her she was crazy and more beautiful than she would ever be with Botox or surgery, and that it’s a rite of passage to grow from a young woman into a fully realized, well-rounded goddess.  While all of that is still true, I’m also beginning to see that 33 turns quickly into 40, then 50, and I know without a doubt that I’ll be looking back on my youthful 33-year-old face someday, longing for the day I looked this lovely.  For that woman, I’m willing to look past the flaws I see now, but you bet your sweet, sagging ass, when the time comes to do something about it, this spring chicken will be the first in line.

To read part one, click Here.

Where’s my lighter?

I am experiencing the worst case of writer’s block ever experienced by anyone, ever.  Ok, I know that’s not possible, but I think it’s been a year since I’ve written anything worth reading.  I know, I know, I had a year’s worth of “cancer blogging” to show for it, but I feel like that was from the heart, not the mind, which is the difference between acing a sociology final and a math final.  With emotive writing, you just open up your veins and pour it out onto the paper, but with the other kind of writing, you use an entirely different part of your brain – the engaging, rational, critical thinking part.  I’m missing a lot of the critical thinking stuff.

Conveniently, we’re coming up on New Years.  I suppose I could use this time to set a resolution of writing daily, or even weekly, but I’d rather not do that.  You don’t need to be bothered by my wasted words, empty thoughts written for writing’s sake; I can do that in my own time.  And do resolutions even work?  As the WordPress wall tells me, there are countless blogs about how to succeed at your resolutions this year, but something about their titles – “5 ways to blah blah blah,” tells me they are just trying to bring more traffic to their site – something I could appreciate a year ago, but has now lost its appeal.

Simply, I miss being a regular blogger with an actual group of people who read my stuff and engage with one another about important topics, and who tripped my synapses into firing and my blood to flowing, and already I can feel the old fire seeping in, a bizarre blend of emotive and cognitive, which perhaps is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I’m not poly anymore.  This is a big deal to me, as someone who has been in an open relationship of one type or another for over 7 years, not to mention it being the topic of limitless possibilities for my blog.  Part of me feels like I covered so very much in the couple of years I blogged about it; another part feels like I barely scratched the surface.  Regardless, that part of my life is over, and it’s time for me to finally solidify it by doing the only cathartic thing I know – blog about it.

I think polyamory is a very valid choice to make, either in a relationship or solo; I found many positive things about it, including honesty I never thought possible, trust on a very intimate level, and the spice of adding new and varying sexual dynamics to my relationships.  These are all fulfilling things, and they made it worth it in the long run.  However, quite simply, I think I’ve grown out of it.  This is not to say, in any way, that polyamory is an immature lifestyle – quite the contrary – but I feel like in my seven years of being open, a lot of the pursuit was shallow and misguided.  Yes, I had very meaningful relationships, and even fell in love, but I was always holding a little part of myself back from my partner(s).  I could rationalize things logically, but the bottom line for me is I’m tired of rationalizing.  I can play devil’s advocate and drive it home that monogamy won’t protect me from the things I struggled with in my poly relationships, but I already feel less worn out, and that’s kind of a big deal.

So that’s my blurb about polyamory.  Kind of strange that I can encapsulate 7 years in one brief paragraph, but it’s how I do things.  Once I’ve made up my mind, it’s history.  The bigger question now is, how do I get back to blogging, and what on earth do I talk about?  Toward the end of my blogging “career,” for lack of a better word (why do we say that?  There’s always a better word), I spent some time focusing on “isms” – things that pissed me off regarding racism, gender biases, or the sexually prudish.  I will never stop getting riled up by the sexually prudish, but I’m kind of tired about talking about the non-PC nature of our society.  It’s just the way it is, and you just can’t please everyone all the time.  There is always a fanatic group, a disgruntled radical, or a troll that will find something to bitch about.  And no matter which side of the fence you’re on, they will always be waiting in the wings.  I wish there was a special button on my computer that would not only demolish anyone too far off the spectrum of left or right, but simultaneously ban them from commenting, and trigger a giant middle finger to appear on any webpage the click after leaving their comment.

But how many people wish they could do that to me?  Overall, judging people is pointless, because at one point or another most of us could find ourselves in their shoes, or similar.

So what’s my point?  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be making changes to my blog, trying to push it more in the direction I want it to go, after having spent the past year growing, changing, evolving and learning.  Rather than curtailing my angst, I feel I’ve cultivated it, rounded out the rough edges, and perhaps gained a new sense of maturity since the blogging of yesteryear, and I’m ready to start tackling some interesting new topics surrounding religion, science, and of course, America’s favorite topic, sex.

Here’s to the new year, and a new platform for thought-provoking discourse.

Write write write

Fall is coming upon us faster than I expected.  It’s been a perfect, lovely summer filled with wine and friends and new amazing adventures, and while I’m thrilled to see the newly fallen leaves upon the ground, I’m sad to see the summer go.  Today the dock was wet from rain the night before, and there was a cool breeze rippling across the water.  It was closer to my memory of what Seattle is supposed to look like, and it was a welcome reminder, as autumn is my favorite time of year. 

Last night was rocky; I wandered room to room deciding where to sleep with the least amount of noise, but as I finally laid in my bed, the ”boat sound” (which I finally figured out is the sound of a line being stretched under the weight of the boat pulling against it) put me fast to sleep.  I think that means I’m finally home.

I traveled last week to San Francisco, which is a beautiful city.  I am completely awed by architecture, and the apartments in San Francisco really take the cake.  Part of what I like about traveling is trying to view my home with fresh eyes, though I can never seem to see it from the perspective of a tourist.  This time when I returned,  I was a little let down.  Seattle felt dirty to me, less appealing and incredibly small.  It wasn’t until I got off the bus in Wallingford and walked through more lush terrain that I started to feel at home again.  By the time I got down to my gate and stepped onto the dock, the now familiar smell of sea air washed away the grime of downtown and I felt renewed.  This is why people should live on the water; it is a calming antidote to the illness of the daily grind.

Other noteworthy experiences of the past month include seeing this amazing ship.  It’s a bit unnerving to be sitting in your living room and look out the window to see a pirate ship passing by.  This is the Lady Washington, and she was the pirate ship “Interceptor,” used in the Pirates of the Caribbean.  I took this picture from my living room.

Another memorable night was watching the sunset from a dingy in the middle of the lake, followed by hot tubbing aboard the Banjo, my new friend’s house/paddle boat.  It’s kind of amazing the situations I find myself in sometimes (is this real life?) 

It’s a whole new world out here.  When you ask your neighbors how they’re doing, they actually contemplate the answer, which is usually “excellent,” or they just sweep their arm in a circle as if to say, “look around, how could it be bad?”

Alas, I know as winter approaches things are going to change.  I’m preparing to hibernate for the winter, like a mama bear and her cub, except this bear has a fireplace and red wine to pass the time.  While I know it will take some more adjusting, visions of crock pots and hot buttered rums dance in my head, and I imagine sunsets like this can only get better.