Learning to BE rather than DO

I took a new (well, new to ME, anyway) yoga class this morning, Core Yoga. It was completely awesome, I enjoyed it a lot. Almost as soon as I left the gym, however, I got a stabbing pain in my left deltoid muscle. For a while it hurt to breathe, but it seems to be easing off. Hopefully is just something I slept wrong on and not a serious injury.

At the end of most Yoga classes that I take, the instructors do something called Savasana, a little meditation. In English, Savasana is Corpse Pose. You're supposed to relax completely. Sometimes the instructors do a guided meditation for this part of the class, sometimes not, you're just supposed to concentrate on your breathing.

Today the instructor gave us our direction while we were still in the final pose of the sequence, which happened to be boat pose. "Imagine something, something relaxing," she trilled. (She was pretty sing-song-y throughout the whole class, it entertained me a lot.) "A child's smile, or a butterfly, floating along, just that and nothing else. Then, when I tell you to, clear your mind and think of nothing, nothing at all."

Living in the moment is very, very difficult for me. When I'm trying to sleep (and this is the biggest reason that I take a sleeping pill) my mind is busy making lists of things that need done tomorrow, or the next day, or just in general. Trying to meditate is a bit like trying to pick one instrument's sound out of a vast symphony for me. So I tried to focus on the memory of a butterfly that I followed around Lily Dale for about a half hour on my last day there, trying (unsuccessfully) to get a picture of the darn thing with its wings wide open. It was a delightful few minutes, I almost felt the wonder of being a child again, chasing after it.

I'm laying on the floor in the exercise studio of my gym, trying to remember the wind off of the lake, the butterfly bobbing along with the breeze, the flowers it landed on, and into my mind pops Jensen. So I pushed him out (blasphemy, no?) and went back to the butterfly. Then my closet with its heaping piles of stuff on the floor that I'm supposed to get into reasonable shape while I'm off pops up. Pushed that out as well. Then the laundry that isn't done, Jensen, the floors that aren't scrubbed, Jensen, the car that needs washed, Dean, the dishwasher that needs unloaded, Jensen, the weeds that need pulled, Dean, the flowers that I haven't planted, Jensen, a conversation I had with a fangirl friend about Jensen, (are we seeing a pattern here at all? No? Must be just me, then.) the mess that needs cleaned up in my bathroom, Dean, the bed that isn't made, GAH!!! Butterfly, dammit, butterfly!!!

Each time I managed to bring myself back to the meditation, only to have it disrupted with something non-related. So much disruption that I never heard her tell us to clear our minds, the next thing I knew she was having us sit up into Lotus position, exchanged "Namastes" with each student, and the class was over. It occurred to me after I left that perhaps next time I ought to choose something else to concentrate on, that whole butterfly thing wasn't really working out for me.

Being in the NOW, right this moment, has always been very tough for me. I'm always thinking ahead to what's next. But as I walked to my car, I realized that this time I've had away from work is making it easier for me to just BE, that I've got a sense of almost serenity that I've never had before. Is it the medication? Probably. Maybe. I don't know.

I finished reading "Is It Me Or Is It My Meds" and I hadn't really thought a lot about it until I cracked that book, and read about others who think the meds make them less creative people. The meds are stifling my creativity. I think. I'm having trouble writing the book. Blog posts, these rambling bits of what runs around in my head are no problem, but the book, that's a problem. Knitting, too, I'm not very interested in doing.

I feel so much better, mentally lots more stable, and I don't ever want to go back to where I was in February/March of this year. But at what price? Taking away my ability to write may just not be worth it. The last time I felt able (and excited) about writing was after that mediation class I took at Lily Dale. Perhaps I need to incorporate that into my daily routine to get "it," whatever "it" is, back.

The only reason I'm not giving up on the writing completely and saying "forget it. move on. find something else." is because I love my little story and having had at least one other person read it, I know it is worth it, there's something there, that could just turn out to be the most amazing thing I do in my life. And if Rowling could write the first Harry Potter book whilst she was unemployed AND a single mom, well, damn. I can manage it too.

If I don't understand it myself, how can I explain it to you?

"So," says a friend on the telephone yesterday, "How was Lily Dale?"

"Really interesting,"I tell her. "It is a very strange little place."

And then I tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to explain how I felt while I was there. There are places on this earth that have a certain feel to them, I can't explain it any other way. When I was a kid, we would spend summers in a small place in the Manistee National Forest, in Michigan. A cottage, a lake, a sailboat, a motorboat, a rowboat, and not much else was there. We would swim, sail, waterski, lounge about in the sun, have evening bonfires where we would make s'mores, and rarely did we leave the cottage. It was as if the place cast a spell on you, that once there, you didn't want to leave. When our time there was up, at the end of every summer, there would be tears as we took our leave of the place. Returning the following year always felt like coming home, even though it never was home, never could be occupied in the winter; the place had little insulation and no furnace, so you'd freeze to death.

Lily Dale felt a bit like that to me, as if it was a place I'd come 'home' to. I spent a lot of time sitting on the porch of the Maplewood Hotel in a rocking chair and reading, time walking around the unusual settlement, some small amount of time taking pictures with my real-film camera. I found it soothing. Very soothing. I spent time in contemplation, took a class on meditation, participated in a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. (Which was awesome.) I did not want to leave. Places like our summer retreat and Lily Dale make me feel like the rest of the world, outside of those communities, does not exist. As if the whole wide world is comprised of this spot, and this spot alone.

Lily Dale is a Spiritualist community. Spiritualism is a religion, widely practiced in the late 1800s. Like other fads, its popularity faded, and Spiritualist communities these days tend to be small. But these folks believe hard. From Lily Dale's website, here's a definition of a Spiritualist.
One who believes, as the basis of his or her religion, in the continuity of life and in individual responsibility. Some, but not all, Spiritualists are Mediums and/or Healers. Spiritualists endeavor to find the truth in all things and to live their lives in accordance therewith. Sounds all right, not too kooky. I mean, yeah, Mediums, all right, not so sure about that part, but religions outside of my own Catholic experience fascinate me.

There are several books about Lily Dale, I picked up Lily Dale; the True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead at my local bookstore before I went there. Many Mediums are Christian, but identify primarily as Spiritualist. Lily Dale has daily free "readings" twice a day, given by both members of the community and visiting Mediums, as well as student Mediums from time to time. Curiosity is either one of my greatest strengths or one of my big weaknesses, depending on what I allow it to lead me to, so I went to two of the daily readings just to see what it was like.

And it was weird. The Mediums either identify a particular person in the crowd and ask them, "May I come to you?" for which the proper response is NOT a head nod, but a spoken, "Thank you." Or they begin to describe a person that they "see" and wait for someone in the crowd to identify that spirit as someone they knew, who has passed on. Could be mother, aunt, cousin, whatever.

I have a belief in the supernatural, (obviously, witness the fangirl stuff) in that which is beyond our daily perception. Ghosts? Possible. Telepathy? Maybe. Telekinesis? I wish! Teleportation? Wouldn't that be cool! Vampires, ghouls, all of that, as Sam and Dean point out each week, every culture in the world has some lore for each creature. Do I truly think it is all real? Not really. I tend to believe that which is tangible, that which I can touch, see, smell, and hear all on my own. But I do believe that there are folks who have psychic abilities. I don't really count myself among their number, but things do happen to me that I can't explain.

So watching these public sessions with the mediums was both hilarious and hair-raising, by turns. In general, the Mediums who approach a particular person and begin telling them things that the Medium could never just "know" were far more credible to my mind than those who stood at the front of the crowd and began random descriptions.

One of those random descriptions went like this, (I took notes, of course) verbatim.

"I'm seeing a woman in a hospital bed, long illness that she died from. Long time in hospital, in hospice. Older."

And from that very, very vague description, a woman directly in front of me began waving her hand wildly. "That's MY mother!" she nearly shouted. "She had cancer."

The Medium's face lit up and she said, I shit you not, "Oh, wonderful. Lots of love from her to you."

It was all I could do to not crack up. If YOUR dearly departed mother was to appear to a Medium, wouldn't love be the first thing she expressed? The Medium went on to say that the mother was no longer hurting, no longer in pain, she was out of that hospital bed and dancing. Now, isn't that precisely what you would WANT to hear about your mother who died of cancer after suffering for a long time? It seemed to me that so many people were so desperate to be comforted, to believe, that they took the most vague things and turned them in to meaningful messages.

You can also sign yourself up to visit any one of the town's 45 or so "registered" Mediums, a private session, for a fee. I resisted the temptation. I have been to see a psychic, once, about 6/7 years ago, and she scared the shit out of me. She used ordinary playing cards to tell me all kinds of things that I have no idea how she could have known any of. I refused to tell her my name, I refused to tell her how old I was, any identifying details. I left there shaken, and frightened. She knew things that I never, ever, ever talk about, that I've never told anyone. She wrote notes, I still have them. They're a bit rambling, but most of it? She was dead on. It happened. One thing that she was 100% right about? She told me that I should start writing. That I had it in me to be a writer. I did not begin writing until several years after I saw her, but I remembered her prediction with a jolt when I was accepted to write for FitFare.

If I go back to Lily Dale, and I think I will, I might sign up to see one of them. But my natural skepticism just might prevent me from taking any of it as anything more than entertainment and bull.

About time, doncha think?

NPR reported on All Things Considered yesterday afternoon that the Idiot Administration has finally seen fit to impose some sanctions on Sudan for the conflict and slaughter of civilians in the Darfur region. Way to step up to the plate, there, Mr. President!! This has been going on for only four years before you decided to make some tougher regulations.

NPR's piece made the very interesting point that the Idiot Admin has been talking about doing something in Darfur for a long time, but not suiting the deeds to the words. Miss Condee has given speeches, W has said a thing or two, but not until NOW have they decided that they ought to do something more? And is it enough? Hardly, in my ever so humble.

Cynical girl inside my head would like to take a moment to note that the administration probably needs to distract the public yet again from the fact that they can't find Osama and that the wars on both fronts, in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going so well. (How many more people need to die in Iraq before there are some policy changes?) Or p'haps because W's poll numbers are down again and they think they're going to get points from a target demographic by looking like they're doing something.

Three other things I'd like to mention, all not remotely connected to this topic.

NPR has also been doing a series about soldiers and post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, which has made for RIVETING listening. Daniel Zwerdling, the reporter, has a wonderful voice that only adds to the experience. Give it a listen.

Not from NPR, but PRI (public radio international) comes This American Life, which is a amazing radio program. I spent some time in the car yesterday and since I've subscribed to the podcasts, I have about 4 that I haven't listened to. Rather than try to explain the amazing thing that TAL is, I'm just going to have to write a whole post about it another day. Stay tuned for that.

Finally, I'm very pleased to say that yesterday I ran 1.2 miles in 13 minutes, 47 seconds. Which was awesome. A bit painful. Considering when I started working out in October that the two flights of stairs to the cardio studio at the gym made me winded, this is most excellent.

California Daze

All right, so when I stopped yesterday, it was two in the morning on Saturday, May 12. Let's pick up there, shall we?

I managed to get back to sleep at some point, and when I woke again, it was about 30 minutes before the breakfast bell was due to ring. I don't think I mentioned yesterday that all meals are communal (just like the bathrooms!) and that's actually fun. There is a staff kitchen, where they can cook for themselves, but with no power, there's no point. Let the kitchen crew cook for you!

I slipped out of the cabin, not wishing to wake mum or babysis. She and I had planned an early morning hike into the hills, but that wasn't going to happen with so little time before breakfast, so instead I walked down to the dock that reaches out into the ocean, bobbing along on the tide. I noticed that the sky was overcast, just like it is so often at home. I had expected abundant sunshine and warmth, coming to California. It was cool. I say yet again, sunny California, MY ASS.

I stood at the end of the dock and went through the yoga poses in Sun Salutation, trying to loosen my stiff neck and back, breathing in time with the waves. When the breakfast bell rang, I went in the direction of the mess hall, searching for the rest of my family. Even with no electricity, the kitchen staff managed to do an amazing job, so many props to them for what they do every day. A typical breakfast at camp is as follows.

scrambled eggs
hash browns
french toast
strawberries
bananas
pineapple
mango
kiwi
melon
vanilla yogurt
corn flakes
cheerios
granola
soy milk
whole milk
skim milk
cottage cheese
apple juice
orange juice
bagels
croissants
sweetbread, like a cinnamon-raisin bread
hot water for tea
coffee

Is that enough? Herregud! So much food, and mostly healthy stuff too. I took lots of fruit, a little bit of the eggs, half a bagel. Unreal, the way they feed just the staff.


After breakfast, we changed into clothes that we wouldn't mind getting wet, because we were going out in the ocean kayaks. (You know how badly I want to put that Dean line in about "She's 23, she kayaks, and they're real," don't you? LOL. At least I entertain myself.) The kayaks are red, molded plastic, with compartments at the front and back for gear, should you, you know, want to paddle one of these things to some remote campsite. I'll pass, but, the idea is there. They say "classic scupper" on the sides, I've no clue what that is supposed to mean. Babysis gives me a few quick minutes of instruction, I've never been in one of these before, and we carry three of the kayaks to the ocean's edge.

I managed to get out in the boat without tipping over in the surf, and I'm pretty darn proud of myself for that. I've got on my camelback, and I'm having a tough time adjusting the backrest on the seat so that the camelback isn't interfering with my comfortable seat. Manuvering the kayak is both easier and harder than I thought it would be. My upper body strength is fine, and I'm not having any trouble rowing, but I must paddle harder on one side than I do on the other, because it seems to pull constantly to the left.

There is so much to see. The water is so clear, and we approach the kelp beds, looking for all manner of wildlife. The kelp is like an underwater forest, with leaves swaying in the current instead of in the breeze. And the kelp grows up to the surface at an angle, to better capture the sun's rays. I have a ton of questions about each part of the plants, and babysis is able to answer them all, in far more scientific detail than I needed. I spend too much time looking over the edge of the boat and not enough looking where the hell I'm going. I managed to not run into any of the rocks along the edges, but that ends up being sheer luck rather than by design.

Some of the kelp comes all the way to the surface of the water, and then grows along the surface on a sort of horizontal plane. When it glides under the kayak, it makes a hissing, scraping noise, a "shhhhh" sound, although you do try to not steer directly over it so as not to damage it.

The ocean meets the land in a series of cliffs, rocky shoals and straight drop-offs. The rocks are red, brown, dusty looking. There are beaches, in certain coves, but mostly the waves crash against jagged edges. We spend nearly three hours in the kayaks, covering probably four miles of ocean. By the time we head back, I am sore, but not where I expected to be. I expected aching arms, but instead it is my hip flexors that are screaming for relief.

We put the gear all away, rinsing the life jackets with a wetsuit conditioner to prevent the salt from damaging them, and we lie in the sun until lunch time, trying to warm back up. Yes, there's that famed California sunshine, but it still isn't warm. After lunch, we sat in the sun for a while longer, contemplating our next move. The ocean is cold, COLD, about 60 F, and we're trying to decide if we're macho enough to go snorkeling. We decide that we can't pass up the chance, it is after all some of the best diving grounds in the world. So we gear up. I've gone diving before, and snorkeling too, a time or two. But this icy cold water requires far more gear than I am used to, boots, pants, jacket, hood, all made of black neoprene. It takes a HUGE effort to get all that stuff on. When I was taking my dive classes, we always just geared up in the water. It is far easier to put on a wetsuit when you are wet than it is when you and the wetsuit are both dry, however, when the water is as cold as it is, it isn't a good idea to hop on in and take your gear with you.

By the time we've got all that crap on, we're almost relieved to get into the cold water, because you're so overheated. First, though, there's a long walk across hot sands, and the requisite safety instructions. I already know just how cold it is from kayaking, but with all this gear on, at first I don't even feel the temperature of the water, all I feel is pressure, the water pressing on me. And then all of a sudden, it rolls up from my ankles to my chest as if I'd been lowered into the water all at once instead of wading in that far.

My sister encourages us to get all the way wet, that it is easier if done all at once, and she demonstrates with a dolphin dive. When I put MY face into the water, it is so cold that it takes my breath away, and I gasp, sputter, and end up taking in nearly a lungful of seawater. As a young child, I was terrified of the water. I've worked very hard to overcome that fear, but every now and then it sneaks up and catches me off guard. When I swallowed that water from the snorkel, I tried to stand up to regain my breath. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I was already out way, way, WAAAYYY over my head, and I panicked for a moment. Alright, several. Then I remembered that neoprene is really buoyant, and I stuck my arms out to gain some stability and was able to remove the snorkel and clear the water out of it. I imagine it looked pretty hilarious from a distance, but no one harassed me about it, so maybe no one saw.

I don't have my open water dive certification, despite having taken the classes for it twice. (That's a long story.) I got to go diving in Hawai'i, and vastly prefer SCUBA to snorkel, because there's actually AIR in that regulator. I'm just not good with a snorkel, no matter what I do it gets swamped with rouge waves or I do something dumb and then, hello, I'm sucking down water again.

But one thing I like about both is the peacefulness, all you can really hear is the sound of your own breathing and whatever noises the water transmits, pops, cracks, sometimes the sound of a propeller. My old diving instructor had this thing on his air tank, a tank banger, that he would use to get everyone's attention, and it irritated me because he was disturbing my lovely solitude.

With the snorkeling, mostly you stay on the surface of the water, although you can dive down and take a closer look at something if you are any good at holding your breath. I am not. So for that reason and because the water was so fucking cold, I stayed at the surface, mostly allowing myself to drift with the current, watching the fish, the kelp.

Each branch of the kelp sways with the waves, and as I watched, I thought about the motion of the sea and then the motion of the earth around the sun, and I felt at peace with myself and the world, for a few minutes. I was imagining a gentle mother earth goddess, rocking the seas gently, watching over all her world. My breath was in time with the waves, and all was right in the world. Until another wave swamped my snorkel and I got another unexpected taste of seawater.

Eventually, I got cold enough that I was shaking. I found my mum and sister not far away, and mum took one look at me and ordered me back to the beach. Yep, 32 years old and still listening to my mother. Before I got out, my sister dove down and brought up a sea cucumber, which is an animal, not a plant. Babysis spends a lot of time teaching at camp, and she's really good at it. I tend to think of her as permanently 17, but the fact is that she's 23 and passionate about what she does for a living. She teaches classes about the marine life, about the recycling that the camp does, the environment, and she is very knowledgeable about all of it.

The lesson on sea cucumbers complete, I swam for shore, climbing out of the water about half an hour before my mother and sister. I discovered when taking all the gear off, that I'd gotten so cold because the hood I was wearing had come un-tucked from the jacket, allowing icy cold seawater to pour down the collar of the jacket. Oops. We cleaned all of our gear, and laid on the camp's dive deck, in full sun, trying to warm up. Sunny California? Ahh, you know the rest.

We played a game of Apples to Apples after dinner until it became too dark to see the cards, which was endless fun. Babysis bought the game as a birthday present to herself, and I need to get it for myself. Hilarious, especially if you're a geek into English vocabulary.

At some point during the day on Saturday, the camp got a generator to power their refrigerators and freezers, and the noise it makes can be heard all over camp. They decided to run it during the day, and turn it off at night, around 7pm. When we noticed that it had been shut off, we all heaved a sigh of relief.

While the generator is off, the camp is surrounded by only the sound of the ocean and the wind. No electronic hum of computers, refrigerators, buzzing security lights. Most people turned off their cel phones because there was no way to recharge them if the batteries died. The peace is pervasive, satisfying some part of my soul that I didn't know was missing out on that form of solitude.

I got up in the middle of the night (yes, again) because even so far away from all my troubles, I didn't sleep well. I went outside, and even though it was freezing cold, I stopped for a moment to just drink in the stillness. I took several deep breaths, listening to the ocean and my heartbeat, allowing the quiet to surround me, trying to fix that moment of utter peace in my memory. I had to push jealous thoughts of "this is her life ALL THE TIME!" out of my head. I am unbearably jealous of the life she's leading out there, even while I know I could never do it myself. The sun! Seen more than once a month like it is in Oh-hi-ia. The ocean, steps from her front door! The incredible food!

In the morning, my sister and I took a hike, just the two of us, to a place called Inspiration Point. Prickly Pear cactus are everywhere, and some are even blooming, a yellow flower that looks vaguely like a rose. What? You think I know a goddam thing about botany? Um, no.

We talk, the conversation of siblings that don't see each other often enough and barely understand the life choices the other has made, let alone understand one another. I wonder when this chasm opened between us, and wonder, desperately, how to fix it. I try, in the brief few minutes that we have alone together to explain my unhappiness, and my dissatisfaction with my job, and how much I miss both sisters on opposite coasts, with me seemingly stuck in Ohio. She tells me that there are times when she hangs up the phone with any of us, the 'rents or our other city gal sister, and cries because she misses us so much. And damn, now I've made myself cry again.

I don't know which is worse about the depression, not being able to take much joy in anything at all, or the random bursting into tears over relative trivialities. I feel like I can't express much emotion at all, as if I'm encased in a fog that separates me from the rest of the world. Laughter, happiness, elation, all seem so distant, while pain and and a weight, a heaviness, in my every step are my constant companions. I know it will fade. I know it will get better. Patience has never been my strong suit, though, and I want it better N-O-W!!

Anyway. It was very early in the morning, and we watched the sun come up through a cloudy sky. She brought her cell phone up there, and when we turned it on, amazingly, she had a signal. And about 6 messages from concerned friends and family members. So we made a few phone calls, to our other sister, to our dad, to my husband, reassuring them all that we were still alive and that no, the fire wasn't on this side of the island.

The only thing was that there was no power all weekend, and I know I said before that it was a minor problem. The thing is, that here, it is a minor problem. I don't miss my pager--for DAMN sure-- which was left behind because as soon as you cross a state line you're out of range. My phone isn't missed either, as soon as I figured out that I've got no signal in camp, I turned it off and put it in my suitcase. I did "look" for it a time or two, as it is almost always clipped to my right hip, and I often reach down and pat that spot to make sure it is still there, but after the second time I did that, I stopped.

The internet is a distant memory, neither fond nor painful, just not much considered. I know that Asylum has been going on over the weekend, and I'm really, really curious about the girls from the board who might have gotten to meet each other and what they did and saw, but it will all be waiting for me when I get back to Ohio and I'm quite content to wait.

Much later in the day that day, when I was talking to middlesis in New York again, she laughingly reminds me that I've only been away from the computer for a little more than 72 hours and that I ought not be so proud of myself over not missing it so much for such a short period of time. Um. Yeah. Thursday 04.30 until Sunday at about 21.00 (9PM) when I was talking to her....true, not so long after all. *Shrug* It is proof to me that I could stay away if I wanted to, or rather if the situation of no power forced me to. Hee. As I told both sisters, there just isn't that much else to do at home, and they know it. In New York City, plenty else to occupy your time and attention. Santa Catalina Island, an ocean, every single toy you could ever want, sun! Ohio? Well, hardly the garden spot of the world, are we? My father often teases the sister in NYC by saying (very crudely, I might add) that if someone wanted to give the planet an enema, New York City would be the place to start. I'd start with the cities in Ohio, but hey, that's just me.

It ended up being about 4 days by the time I got back to a 'puter, we took the red eye home from LAX on Sunday night, and sleep was the highest priority when we got back. Leaving either sister when I visit them is so hard. I won't force you to read all about our leave-taking, but not really because I care about putting y'all on an emotional roller coaster, rather because I'm not sure I care to re-live it by writing it out. Again. Once in my notes was enough.

My mother said to me, as the boat pulled away from Two Harbors, "She's happy here, Lucy. You have to keep that in mind. It makes it easier for me." Well, it doesn't make it any damn easier for me. I'm really glad that she's doing so well there, and it is fantastic to see her thriving, happy, productive, but I'd really like it a lot better if it were about 3000 miles closer and I could see her more than roughly three times a year. There's no way to put a positive spin on that, it just sucks.

This post got far longer than I planned, but that's all right. I just have one more thing to share. As the boat made the crossing from the island back to the mainland, I was talking to a young couple who had been at camp visiting one of my sister's co-workers, and they told me that they've been going to the channel islands for vacations for years. They said that every time they make the crossing from the mainland to one of the islands, they see dolphins. Sure enough, just after they finished telling me this, we saw a very large dolphin pod, perhaps 2000 dolphins all told, and they were leaping out of the water and frolicking in the wake of the ferry. We watched them for most of the remainder of the boat ride, their antics endlessly funny. That did my heart a world of good, easing some of the hurt at leaving my sister behind.

Help Me Take A Deep Breath, Babe

The word of the day must absolutely be PERSPECTIVE. I had the first appointment with my therapist today, and perspective is what I got in spades. I'm energized, and nearly euphoric, which I know is only temporary, but wow, let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Since I'm almost always in "over-sharing" mode, I'm going to tell you about the whole visit and then draw some conclusions.

I got there early, which is a minor miracle. I am always, always, always running late. Laziness? You could argue that, I suppose. Scatter-brained has always been my excuse. I signed in, had a seat and waited for them to call my name. I knew I'd have forms to fill in, and was hoping that by getting there early that I'd actually get in and out of there in a reasonable amount of time. No dice, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first thing I noticed about the waiting room was the fact that there was about an 8 year old boy sitting there completely unattended. I don't have kids, and I certainly don't claim to be a child care expert, but I thought it really odd that this kid was sitting there all alone. I mean, I know I'm buckets of crazy, but really, you don't do that, right? No other adults in the room, and the receptionist behind her glass shield was absent as well. He was playing with a tabletop basketball game, making an inordinate amount of irritating noise. I wanted to rub my temples and shriek a little.

I was really nervous, and when my anxiety is running high, I shake. Tremble. My hands are the most obvious place to spot this, but if I'm sitting with my legs crossed in un-lady-like fashion, the foot that is off the floor will shake as well. When I notice it, I try to stop it, but that usually only makes it worse. So as I sat there, I felt crazier than ever. I joke quite a lot about being crazy, poke fun at my own idiosyncrasies, but sitting in the lobby of my psychologist's office I finally truly felt that I am perhaps completely unhinged. I was all but sitting curled in a ball, rocking. I very seriously considered running out and hiding in my house for the rest of my life. This is a tough thing, to admit that things are bad enough that yes, I need a psychologist.

I waited in that goddam waiting room for almost 45 minutes. Many things irritate me, but waiting in a doctor's office is way up there on the list. MY TIME IS JUST AS VALUABLE AS YOURS, DOC!!!!

The receptionist called me over and told me that my deductible hasn't been met according to insurance company XYZ, and that I'd have to pay for today's session out of pocket. Fucking fantastic. But, wait. That's not my insurance company. I told her, "I don't HAVE xyz. I've NEVER had xyz. I have ABC." In the end, it didn't matter, because my insurance company isn't going to cover therapy anyway. Deep breath...I'm not going to rant about insurance companies today.

When I finally went back to meet the therapist, I was pissed and frightened. Not a good combo to start with. Her office is....stark. Maybe that's not the right word. It isn't clinical, white, sterile. It is devoid of family pictures. There are a few knick-knacks, a seashell, a glass sculpture of fish, a huge pile of folders on her unusual desk. The desk is a slab of white marble, veined with small amounts of black, mounted on a cast iron stand, larger than the average desk. No computer. (No computer? WTF? How does she surf teh interweb?) Degrees, unobtrusive on the wall to the left of the desk, but behind her. An odd enough angle that I couldn't see where she went to school.

She opened a file that had blank forms mounted inside, reminding me of the files that I used to use at ye olde evile bank. She asked me a bunch of questions that in any other situation would have been rude, antagonistic. About my marriage, my childhood, my sisters, my medications, my asthma, my job, my education, why I had come to see her. We spent a lot of time talking about my job. I can't get into that here, so let me say simply that she is familiar with the situation and was able to give me some great, here's that word again, perspective.

After talking for just a few minutes, she said to me, "You're a very creative person. And your creativity is being stifled, that's a big part of the problem."

Really?

I've never thought of myself as a creative person. Never. When I'm not being an idiot with low self esteem, I think of myself as intelligent, I think of myself as bookish, I think of myself as blonde, sassy, outspoken. Creative? Not really. But yet, she's right. I create all kinds of things. The cooking and baking are creative enterprises, the novel writing is deeply creative, the knitting that I've been unable to pick up for weeks is creative too. I never follow a pattern or a recipe as written, the urge to put my own spin on everything is far too great.

I answered her questions truthfully, openly, and listened attentively to her opinions. She thinks the sleep problem is a symptom of both anxiety and depression, and she does not disagree with my self-diagnosis of depression, but she thinks I've got more anxiety than I'm willing to admit to. I should have known that...I obtained some Xanax a while back and when I take it, I feel much more like myself, like I used to, before this current insanity started.

I told her how I feel guilty for feeling so despondent, and she interrupted me, the only time she did that through the entire session, to say, "You should absolutely not feel guilty. Let that go immediately. Major life changes are often associated with depression, and your depression is valid. Just because you didn't have a miserable childhood or have one major issue that you're dealing with, that does not mean that you don't have reason to be depressed."

We talked about my sisters leaving the home state, and she said, "That was really hard for you." That gentle acceptance, and insight from someone I'd just met, nearly made me cry. I fully expect the sessions to be full of tears, but I managed to not cry during this session despite coming close one other time, when we talked about my cousin J's death. Everyone in town here knows the story, since there was a television show shot about it, all I have to do is say the name of the TV show and people immediately know. From time to time, though, people I encounter actually knew her before, or knew another member of my extended kin network and are therefore more intimately familiar with the story than the average Joe. Such was the case with the therapist, she knows J's sister.

She gave me some really great suggestions about what to do with the job situation, things that are completely, "Why didn't *I* think of that?!?" sorts of things, which made me feel like my eyes were opened after having been blindfolded for years. She even suggested I job hunt in Texas at one point, which made me giggle. And then I had to explain about the fangirl business. Astonishingly, to me, she managed to not roll her eyes. I could never do her job, that non-reaction face is something I could probably never master. Although I do have to do that sometimes at work. *shrug* I guess you get good at it.

I spent over an hour with her, and the time flew by. "Easy to talk to" is probably too cliche to say about a therapist, but it is true. She had on a lovely grey pinstriped suit, with a skirt just slightly longer than knee length. She sat behind her desk in the exact same manner that I do at work, with one knee propped up against the edge of the desk, the opposite foot en pointe and tapping the heel. Great shoes, a matte black pair of slingbacks with a glossy stripe around the toe, a small bow at the corners of the toes. She's taller than me, but hell, who isn't? Oh, that's right, ten year olds. Her hair is a dark blonde, cut in a businesslike fashion. She had on great glasses that I'm tempted to identify as Dolce & Gabbana, but I couldn't swear to that.

I left there feeling like I was seeing the sun for the first time in months, singing along with the iPod in the car, something I haven't done for ages.

If I am going to continue to talk about the therapy, I need to assign a name to her, I can't just keep saying "my therapist," "my psychologist," "she," "her," because it will drive me nuts. I can't use her real name, and I don't want to come up with something cutsey because I don't want to trivialize what's going on here. I kinda like Dr. Solution, because she's got the solutions, but when you're in therapy, you're supposed to find your own solutions, so that's out. Dr. Question strikes me as dumb, The Interrogator is too harsh. I'm going to have to think about that for a while.

Any suggestions from the gallery?


Finally, as I said yesterday, I'll be offline the rest of this week and part of next. I'll be in California with no computer and no internet. Behave yourselves while I'm gone!

Listening to: Sheryl Crow "It Don't Hurt"

Go Read the Gossip Rags

Because I don't have time today to write a post.

P. Hilt's going to jail, Michelle Rodriguez was outed, the Superficial had a picture of Kathy Griffin falling out of an SUV...much more entertaining that what I'd like to devote serious time to, the victory of Nicholas Skarozy in the French elections. Cheerio, chikadees, I'll be back tomorrow.

Go Fug Yourself

Perez Hilton

The Superficial

Defamer

Work, work, work, no time to spend my money.

Really Weird Dreams

Sleeping is such a problem. I want to lie in bed and do nothing, but I'd also love to get more than a few hours sleep, and it just isn't happening.

Last night I climbed into bed around 12:30, after watching Supernatural (twice). I spent from 10 pm until just after midnight talking online to other SN fanatics. Yes, a new episode of Supernatural aired last night, and yes, it was wonderful. I'm resisting the urge to write a complete rehash of the whole episode. I do have this one thing to share...Jensen's character had several lines that made me laugh out loud, but the best one has to be when he's being interrogated and someone asks him "You think you're REAL cute, don't ya?" and he responds with a mile-wide grin, "I think I'm adorable!" Yes, yes, you are. And that sound you heard? Was about 30,000 fangirls screaming their agreement.

Moving on. I'm going to talk about sleep today. Really.

I am still taking Ambien, and it gets me to fall asleep very quickly, but it seems to level out at about 4 hours of sleep, because without fail, unless I climb into bed after 1 am, I wake between 4:17 and 4:38 every day. I get up at 5, and waking thirty minutes or so before when I am going to really get up irritates me. I'm not sure why, other than perhaps I feel that I'm being robbed of a precious few minutes of sleep.

Sometimes I am able to fall back asleep for those precious few minutes. Sometimes not. I have vivid dreams in that short space of time when I do manage to fall back asleep. I am able to "lucid dream," something I've been able to do almost as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I'm even able to control the dreams. Not all the time.

This most recent one that bothered me was one that I wasn't in control, nor was I lucid. It involved a dinner at a restaurant, with a table for about 12. I can tell you what the table looked like, the chairs, the decor of the restaurant, even what the dishes and glasses looked like. Very, very crisp, vivid detail. I can't tell you who all was around that table for twelve, but one person was one of my ex's, and another was a parent of an old friend, a third was a high school classmate that I haven't spoken to in a while. The parent was asking how on earth I could be friends with the ex when I'm married to someone else. I tried in vain to explain it, finally coming up with the lame non-explanation "Because we're friends." (real life answer isn't all that much more clear: he's a good guy, and we're both grownups enough to be able to be nice to one another. We share a political viewpoint, I like his wife, and we're not interested in ever getting back together...this is a friendship, not an opportunity, fer gawd's sake.)

My classmate and I left the restaurant, shaking our heads over the inability of some people to recognize that men and women can actually BE FRIENDS, walking down a set of concrete steps, and we ran right in to another ex-boyfriend of mine. In the waking world, I haven't seen this particular guy for a very long time, and in the dream, he of course looked exactly the same as he did when I was 15/16. I'm not sure I'd be able to pick him out of a crowd today, like many of my schoolmates, he remains forever 17 in my memory.

He persuaded me to come back into the restaurant with him, after spending several minutes kissing me in the parking lot. Um? WTF? Hadn't I just finished explaining in the dream a few minutes ago that I was married to someone else? And in real life, I am very happily married to someone else. Dreams like this bother me so much. Not only did I go back into the restaurant with this ex, holding his hand, but also introducing him around the table as "my ex-boyfriend Joe" and then kissing him again in full sight of everyone, who gave me jaws-on-the-floor-shocked glares. I woke up a minute or so later, gasping for breath, convinced I'd done something wrong. I was very disoriented to discover myself in my own bed, DH asleep beside me, instead of where I'd expected to be, standing in a restaurant surrounded by accusing glares and angry words.

Sometimes dreams mean something. Sometimes they're just dreams. I attach no particular significance to this dream, it isn't allegorical or a statement about my life, but man, it made me squirm. I don't have dreams quite like this when I'm not taking the Ambien. Never as vivid with the detail, and hardly ever traumatic. The level of weirdness knows no bounds.

Running Down A Dream

Before I get to my usual Tuesday Brain Dump, I need to point your attention to this piece on NPR, heartbreaking in its simplicity, about the shootings yesterday at Virginia Tech. Audio isn't available as I am writing this post, but will be later today. Judith Miller says so eloquently what I struggle to put into words. Give it a listen.





I'm thinking today about running, and the 'runner's high'

I'm still only able to run for 10 minutes out of the 35 that I'm on the treadmill. Some days are easier than others. I don't know why. My routine varies only by a small amount each day; get up, get dressed, go to the gym, come home, shower, get dressed for work, work, drive home, dinner, write, bed. Tuesdays and Thursdays there's an exercise class in between dinner and writing. That's about it. I drink a ton of water each day. I'm watching my portions and eating healthy. So why is it that some days are super easy and some so incredibly tough? I wish I understood.

I have been a runner for a very long time, but taken very long breaks in between times when I run and times when I don't. I was on the track team in junior high school, 7th grade? Or was it 8th? Too long ago to remember now. The junior high school in my hometown was on a tree-lined street, which has about 10 century houses on it, and in fact the original portion of the school is a historic building as well, was at one time a private college. A very, very, very small one. At the end of the school's street is a forest preserve, 243 acres of wild lands. I spent a lot of time there as a kid, and for conditioning for track, they'd have us run from the school, to the preserve, around the loop trail in the preserve, and back up to school. Then we'd have practice. I'm not really sure of the distance. Maybe 3 total miles, maybe less. It was tough, I'd get to the practice field dead tired, panting, and in no mood to do time trials or sprints. I hated it, but kept pushing myself because I wanted desperately to fit in somewhere, and since one of my closest friends at the time was a track star, I thought that this might be my niche. It wasn't.

I'm not a good runner, or a fast one. They stuck me with running the 400, and I never won. I did it for only one season of track, I remember saying frequently at the time that "The only GOOD thing about running is when you stop." I never felt that endorphin high that everyone talked about.

In the spring of the year I lived in Sweden, my best friend and I looked at ourselves and realized we'd gained some weight over the winter. Which is really ridiculous, she was 5'7" and weighed maybe 140 and I was 5'2" and didn't weigh over 100, but I was 17 and she was 19 and we thought we were 'fat'. We embarked on a very ambitious journey, swimming 2 kilometers in the community pool after school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and running between 2 and 5 kilometers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays we drank. Sundays we recovered.

We made a list, that I still have, of things we agreed to not eat. Nothing fried. No more stopping for something to eat on the way home from the clubs on Saturday nights. The town's cafe/bakery made these donut sort of things called munkar, which were square, filled with a wonderful apple/sugar/cinnamon blend, and I agreed to stop buying them when I got out of school every afternoon. No ice cream.

We did get into better shape, but what I remember most is coming to the back door of my host family's house, panting, opening the door and calling out to my host-mum, Snalla, kan vi har lite vatern? (Please, can we get some water?) We weren't allowed into the house without taking off shoes, and we'd stretch in the backyard before going inside. The route that we ran took us though farm country, and I had to really work to get the mud off of those running shoes. I still hated it, and I remember mamman asking me why we didn't just walk if we hated it so much. I would tell her how we'd look so cute in our bathing suits during the coming summer and she would roll her eyes at me. She ought to have smacked me one, considering what I weighed and my body image at the time. Not that it would have smacked some sense into me, but still, I wince when thinking about how I used to whine about being fat at 17. Someone really should have given me a beat-down.

Through most of my college years, I lifted weights, but did very little cardio, and my weight gain really escalated after I got married. Sure, I walked in our old neighborhood from time to time. I exercised never, though. I joined a series of gyms, but never really got off the couch. The thing that's different this time around is that I now recognize and understand that the working out has to be part of my life every day for the rest of my life, that once I've gotten to the goal, I can't just stop doing whatever finally works to get the rest of the weight off. I might be able to do 3 days a week at the gym instead of 6, but it has to be a part of who I am and what I do for the rest of the time I'm on this earth.

And I finally get that runner's high. Each day, when I manage to get to the ten full minutes running, I feel like raising my hands over my head and cheering. I want to jump up and down and shout "LOOK!! I did it! Ten minutes!!! GO ME!" I restrain the impulse, but it is there.

I'm still having trouble with cramping in the tibia muscles, and it hurts when I stop running. Which is a complete 180 degree turn from where I was, that it was good to stop. I have been trying for about a week to get up over ten minutes (woot! 11 whole minutes!!) but I can't quite get there. It will come, I know. Patience has NEVER been my strong suit.

What I love about running is that it is now very meditative for me. I can't focus on anything else but breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. I can't think about anything else, and considering the craziness that is going on in my life right now, a blank slate, a clear head, is a wonderful thing. It doesn't last for but a few minutes after I get off the treadmill, but it is nice to experience while it does last.

I was out of bed at 4 this morning, giving up the battle to sleep even a few minutes longer after watching the clock from 3:17 AM on. Can't sleep, can't focus, don't want to do anything, endless circles of the same thoughts chasing around and around in my head. I was at Dr. Hottie's office last week, and he encouraged me to continue to use the Ambien to get the sleep I need. Muscle repair and your body's regeneration happens in stage 4 sleep, and I'm not getting even a minute of that. Dreams occur during REM sleep, stage two. I have very little of those, either. The sleeping pill gives me exceedingly weird, disjointed dreams, but also about 5 hours of sleep as opposed to the three or so I get without help.

So I'm continuing to chase after that elusive fitness goal, and a good night's sleep. But looking in the mirror this morning, I can finally see some muscle definition in my shoulders, and when I turn around and look at my back, there are two fewer rolls of fat. Twenty-two pounds lighter, and that's all the difference I can see. Guess my self-image still needs some work.

Finally, I'm jumping on a bandwagon that I've just discovered. Searching for new music to run to on iTunes the other day, I found Podrunner, produced by LA's DJ Steveboy. Once upon a time, dance hall and trip-hop was all I listened to. And then I figured out that it can get pretty damn annoying. But I'm in love with the mixes that Steveboy produces. I'm gooving to Paintshaker, which was featured the week that Podrunner had its four MILLIONTH download. So yeah, I'm behind the times a wee bit. I haven't subscribed to the podcast yet because I'm running out of space on my iPod, a project for the coming weekend is to delete everything that I haven't listened to since uploading most of my music library in January.

I hope your Tuesday doesn't suck out loud.

Are you kidding me?

I was watching CNN at the gym yesterday evening, while running on the treadmill, without sound. So what I'm about to say may be completely wrong, but here goes.

It looked like they were talking about the British sailors who got to go back home....and the news story was more about what they were WEARING than the homecoming? Seriously. Dude. WTF? Let's talk about if they were injured, how lucky they are to be home, not about what they've got on. Don't ask me why that disgusted me so much, because I don't have an answer. Next!

And then I heard this on NPR. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is burning, bombing, destroying girl's schools. Why? Well, women aren't worth educating, according to these extremists. I'm beyond distressed about it. They're killing teachers, harassing students, forcing the closure of more than 200 schools nationwide.

I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. On September 11, 2001, I worked in one of the tallest buildings in a small city in Ohio. The plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was in contact for a brief while with a traffic control center near us. The powers that be evacuated our building that day, sending us home around 11 am. I began making phone calls to friends and family across the country to ensure that they were safe. Towards the end of the day, I called over to Europe, to talk to family there as well. Since I don't talk to them every day, they never know from one day to the next if I'm traveling or not, so I wanted to reassure them that I was OK, my family was OK.

When I got my mamman on the phone, she asked me, "Lucy, do you think it will come to war?" Her voice was so sad, so forlorn, so disheartened. The Swedes have been a neutral country for so long that it is a deeply ingrained part of their psyche, the radical idea that violence ought to be the last answer.

And I responded, "Mama, 'we', the United States, can not just 'do nothing'. You know that." It made me sad, too, but I knew even on that day that our government would want to do something, no matter what it was, as an answer for so many deaths. And if you'll recall, even in the confusion that was that actual day, the talking heads on the news were already blathering on about striking Afghanistan.

I'll never forget what she said to me next. "But it won't solve anything. It won't bring back the people who died today. It won't change the people who hate."

She's so right. It hasn't changed or solved anything. Is the world a less dangerous place without Saddam Hussein leading Iraq? Sure. Has life improved for the average Afghani? I wouldn't give that a resounding yes. Are we foolish for being involved in wars on two fronts? Uh. Yeah.

Before the US began bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, I remember getting e-mails from various feminist listservs about life in Afghanistan for women, about the no education rule, the wearing of the burka, the way that they couldn't travel without the permission of a male relative. There was also fuss and complaining from other quarters, about the Taliban not allowing the practice of other religions, and the fact that opium poppies were/are a huge part of the agricultural infrastructure. Do you remember the worldwide uproar over this, when the Taliban blew up a sacred Buddhist statue in early 2001?

So did the Taliban need replacing? That I'll give a resounding YES to, but it seems to me that strides forward are not so quick in coming.

I don't understand why a body politic would want fully half of the population illiterate. Nor do I understand why on earth you would follow anyone who would suggest that women are less, simply for being female. But then, I am very fond of the bumper sticker that says, "Hate is not a family value." Which is usually a reference the deeply offensive idiots who claim that 'God hates f**s', but it works well here too.

So, what to do about the problems with the schools in Afghanistan? There are several organizations that could use your support. HASCO, Help Afghan School Children.Org, Help Afghan Women. Com, Women for Afghan Women.

Activism, in my ever so humble, is the best thing that we can do. Remember this quote...

"Never doubt that a small goup of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

~Margaret Mead

NO TIME!

There is quite a lot happening on the political front that I want to talk about, but since today is going to be completely insane for me, you're going to have to check this space much later for general ranting about David Hicks, Congress passing or not passing the thumbs down on the war, Nancy Peolsi's travels, the British sailors in Iran.......


Work, work, work, work, work, no time to spend my money.

More on Scooter Libby OR dipping my toe into the dirty waters of blogging about sex.

The jury is still out on Scooter Libby's perjury trial, but I was checking the news wires and found a few things. One, and this is of particular interest to me because I'm writing a book myself, Scooter published a book in 1996 called The Apprentice. Here's a link to Amazon's page about the book. Please check that out, and then come back to me. I'll wait.

(Hums a bit of Metallica)

All right? You back? Good.

Scooter? Is one seriously fucked-up sick puppy, y'all. I'm not going to write about my own perversions, I'll leave delicious things like that to Girl With a One-Track Mind, or Belle du Jour. But I will say that I'm pretty open minded about all things sexual. For the most part, I think you ought to do whatever works for you. I draw the line, however, at necrophilia and bestiality. The old bbs boards had some abbreviations that entertained me...YKINMK (your kink is not my kink) YKINOK (your kink is not OK) and those both apply in spades here. Not only does he write about bestiality and necrophilia, but bestiality WITH necrophilia, child pornography and child prostitution. Yuck? And how on earth did this get published?

I'd like to say something scathing about neo-conservatives and their hang-ups about sex, but the joke seems to be just out of reach for me. Also too much of an obvious answer. Insert your own here, please.


There's another story in the Wilmington Star about The Idiot Administration and Scooter that I'd like to direct your attention to. This is exceedingly well-written stuff.


Finally, my punk ideals are offended yet again. Earlier this year I complained about a credit card commercial using a very bad redone version of a Soup Dragons song. Today I saw a Wendy's commercial using a Violent Femmes song, Blister in the Sun. Watching Keith Olberman on MSN and he used a Nine Inch Nails song. I'm so annoyed by this. Mostly? Because it makes me feel old. I now understand how my parents felt when Nike started using the Beatles Revolution to sell sneakers. Sigh.