Remember the new friend? Dang, he's intense. He's needy and tries not to be, which is so familiar to me from my end - usually it's me saying "it's ok" when it's not, "I don't mind" when I do, etc (see under recent posts about my frush-frama). He obviously has his own little frush-frama going. And I am presented with the same dilemma I have offered others - he seems like a great guy and I'd like to be friends, but at what point do the minuses outweigh the pluses? Lots of musing about boundaries and how they feel!

No exercise; talked to my meditation instructor but no meditation (she reminded me to just listen to the chaotic roar that is the mind without meditation... Don't fight it just observe it.) I realized that good time with wifey is also self care, which is easier than some of the other things! But I think that's just because we're getting along pretty well right now... I did get some work done today so that was good... Forgot to record yesterday that I made some progress clearing out the dining room, which has been a mess for 1.5 years... I dunno...

No

check-in #7

Today: exercise, check - meditation, check - time with wifey, check - spent time clearing out the damn dining room, check. All in all a good day. So why don't I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction? This must be some kind of plot.

check-in #6

thinking. i made a new friend today. we talked about when you get too needy in friendships and just use people up, burn through them... apparently this is his habit... he dives in and grabs on and just eats people up and then they can't take any more and abandon him... but now, he has a new girlfriend who is doing the same thing to him.

i've done this in the past, though less extremely than he has.

so i told him about meditation and about how nothing outside himself can satisfy those needs. he was really interested... he thinks i'm very wise and he's very eager to be best friends now.

he's a likeable guy. i would like to be friends with him - god knows i can use more friends. but, this is an experiment in good boundaries. so far i think i have maintained them pretty well. i explained to him that i was going to do so, and that sometimes it would be uncomfortable for him because it would be like he was trying to dance and i wasn't stepping into his rhythm. i did that several times.

i exercised this morning - took dogs for an hour walk (we are dogsitting an extra baby). so that was good. haven't eaten right tho - only a bowl of cheerios and some christmas cookies for breakfast, no lunch. i'll go fix that right now.

Checking in... Home from the in-laws'.... Noticing that while it's sometimes easier and quicker to be rude it feels much better to be kind... Hardly an original sentiment but one worth recalling, since it relates to this whole self-care theme...anyway, so noticing in general how not noticing I've become with regard to my own feelings, energy, etc. Want to fix that.

Check-in #5

More connected today. Felt my feelings, talked with relatives... Gave self permission to just sit back and enjoy watching tv and eating all day. I love being with these inlaws... They really love and accept me... after all these years... And it's so easy to be with them. They don't have any expectations of how I'm supposed to complete their lives. They don't even expect me to do the dishes ( though of course, everyone appreciates it when someone does the dishes!) Sigh. A good day.

Check-in #4

Travel day. ER at 2 a.m. cuz I suspected (rightly) strep throat. Relatives' all day. Helped clean up which felt right but spent much of the rest of the day in a sort of dissociated stupor that didn't feel good - I know in past years I've made an effort to connect with each family member. Well, I was super-sleep-deprived today... But once again I'm seeing how much of the day just goes right by me.

check-in #3

spent a lot of the day on the computer, more than i'd like, chatting on this new site i've found. i'm hoping to make some real, real-life friends there with whom i could actually go places and do things around Chicago, and form some kind of long-term bond - you know, actual friends? - so that's sort of like self care. but i also caught myself thinking about it as something that was going to confirm me, make me happy, etc.

on the other hand, i didn't wait until midnight to start packing for our trip - i was all packed at 7:45, which was a first in my memory - and i had good vegetables for dinner - those were two self-care things. i had to bribe myself with cake to get both of those done, but it happened.

no meditation, no exercise. didn't get out of the car when i could have gone with wifey to walk her dogs; stayed in the car instead, chatting on my phone. yeah, the weather sucked, but the dogs were cute and it would have been fun. some positive time with wifey too... in the car we mostly bickered.

this accounting is interesting. i can see how i consistently come up way on the minus side.

off for pennsylvania tomorrow...

check-in #2

let's see... i've been sick all day... this morning at 5 a.m. i really wanted some hot chai and hot cereal so i dragged myself out of bed and made some... does that count as self care? it felt like it... not expecting anyone else to meet that need... i've been trying to take good care of myself all day, got some stuff done i was supposed to do, which felt good.

Still no meditation or exercise. Well being sick i think i can be excused from the exercise but... Nad told me how she had a rule that she had to put on her jogging clothes and go outside. sometimes she went right back in, sometimes she walked a bit, sometimes she went for a run. I was thinkin I should do that for meditation - my rule could be that every day I go down there and light some incense. If i meditate, great, if not, at least i've looked at my teachers' faces for a second or two.

sleepy, going to bed.

check-in #1

Good IM with Nadine this morning. She pointed out (for the gazillionth time, poor thing) that it's not this friend I want... that I need to fill my own needs for myself...

she made me promise that every evening i'll post a blog entry stating whether i did any of the following that day - and if not, what blocked me from it.

Things that make me feel better, build me up: meditation, exercise, photography, other creative activities (collage etc.), reflective journal & blog writing, time with certain of my closest friends (that's you) who remind me of my best self. Taking a bath or other physical self-care can be included but not always. Getting work done.

I need a list of things that break a depressed or obsessive mood. Painting my toenails and playing with the dog come to mind. Going to the movies. I'll have to add to this later.

There are also neutral time-sucks... i.e. they don't hurt in themselves but they take up time I could be spending on the above-mentioned positive activities - mostly, they involve the computer.

So today ... I got some work done early in the morning, but spent most of the rest of the day noodling on the computer. I wish I had exercised. I just had a nice bath but I still wish I had gone for the long walk I planned on when i got up this morning. However, I did a good job of not thinking obsessively about this frush-friend... or thinking he's going to make me happy. On the third hand, I didn't necessarily set good boundaries in my interactions online. So... well... it's overall not a building myself up day but not a total loss... I guess.......

trying to navigate

Lately I've been having frama (that's friend drama, I just made it up) with a frush (that's a friend crush - i made that up too - i mean someone you want to be friends with a lot cuz they're so cool but you aren't sure if they want to be friends with you, so it's like a crush, but just friends).

Sometimes I think we're going to be great friends and confidantes, and sometimes I think this person is just too different from me. As Nad said, I need constant validation, and this guy is silent for days at a time, and when he emails he's often cryptic and weirdly detached. But he's really kind, fun and interesting in person...

He confuses me and I need solidity. But then I think it's gonna be ok and I get my hopes up. Then I think it's not, and I'm sad.

You see what I mean - frush. frama.

Michelle (Goblinbox) and Nadly have had front-row tickets and Miriam has heard some updates, so most of you already know all about it, so I won't waste more time, but it's been a big deal lately and it's on my mind...

chasing and dodging

after a few attempts to dodge my feelings with chocolate and bunny-shaped graham crackers, i'm making a good dinner (well, defrosting one) and some favorite chai and sitting down with them.

actually, if you could have heard the convo in my head, you might have been surprised to find some familiar players.

me: maybe i'll have a drink... maybe some more chocolate... what's so wrong about numbing out the feelings?

miriam: you know you will have to feel them eventually.

me: oh cmon are you sure? do i have to?

michelle (goblinbox): yup. those are the rules. sorry babe.

so anyway. my aunt died in September and i've managed to ignore that fact. i haven't called my mother more than a couple times since then, because i don't want to be reminded that she's grieving tremendously for her sister. (yes, i beat myself up about that a lot, but i won't here). it's bad enough i get her emails about her sadness, cc'd to me as she writes other friends (a standard m.o. for her).

but now that i'm heading to AZ in less than 72 hours, i can't avoid the fact that i'm going to be immersed in the collective grief of my uncle, their three sons, and the wives and grandchildren - and of course my mom. i'm dreading it. absolutely dreading it. i don't know if it's because my grief is walled off or because i'm afraid theirs will be so much greater than my own that it will be overwhelming or what.

i should look at it as a time to be kind to people i love. but i'm afraid of all those feelings. i'll try to let go of those fears and take on the positive viewpoint. and to remember, as all of you would remind me, to be gentle to myself.

the special diet

1:45 AM
me: i should go to sleep i guess
i came home and fell asleep on the couch
(R is off dogsitting at someone else's house)
1:46 AM
then just woke up a short while ago to take the dog out and have some cheerios
and since i'm late taking my meds i cried. sometimes it feels so good to take a
break from the meds, if only for 15 minutes
1:47 AM
i can see why people stop taking them.
Nadine: how come
me: cuz it's like all the time breathing shallowly and then being able to take a nice
deep breath and fill your lungs
it's like being on a diet all the time and then getting to eat something delicious
1:48 AM
Nadine: ok - interesting
me: i just have to be a grownup and understand that, like a diabetic, i have to
follow the damn diet or it hurts not just me but everyone else
Nadine: what's the delicious bit tho -
me: crying
Nadine: oh.
me: feeling things too much
Nadine: never thought of missing that
me: i guess it's like an addiction
1:49 AM
big feelings
dramatic thoughts
Nadine: ah
yeah
I can see that
I miss that too
me: yeah it does make sense right
Nadine: but I so hate the crash that comes afterwards
1:50 AM
me: heh - supposedly the crying would be the crash. but really the crash is when you
realize you've made a mess of your life.

fear

have been feeling that old anxiety. started friday when i gave a quiz and students didn't seem to understand what i was teaching. have been frozen again, deer in the headlights, feeling ineffective. stuck. avoiding my work instead of embracing it. lost that determination and drive. for the first time, eager for the day to be over, not enjoying my job.

Loopy says. "Your job is to teach, their job is not to learn. Just keep going."

Since then I've started to think that I misinterpreted the quiz - that students just didn't understand the instructions. that's helping me get back on my feet.

in the interim, though, i've amassed a pile of undone work. it goes so fast - you have to keep up - every day.

and the anxiety persists. i tell myself i was overwhelmed with anxiety at the beginning of school and i kept putting one foot in front of the other - just do that now. one day at a time. one foot in front of the other. don't focus on what i didn't do yesterday or what my mistakes were. just start from now.

trying to apply what i learned this summer but it starts to seem far away. need to review my little post-its and other tools. wonder where all those papers went. the advice seemed obvious at the time but now i need it.

i'll imagine myself at the group check-in in the morning and see what i think others would say. maybe i'll call some people from the program and see if they want to hang out.

right now i have to get ready for school. i suppose even this post is a way to avoid, a way to be deer-in-headlights. but now i feel somewhat that i could stop that, that i could wake up, that i could be me again. it's coming back. strength flows back into my limbs. god. i was so scared.

grateful for this space to write. grateful for those who read.

technological genius in action

i've just set up my facebook to post status updates to my twitter account, and my twitter tweets to my blog, so updates (which are once or twice a day) will appear in the right column on my blog. since some of you (AMY! and mostly Nadine!) don't facebook i thought it's a way to update my blog more regularly. in case you want that kind of update! lol :-)

upside down / rightside up

when i take my pills late, my old normal comes back. feeling weepy and as though i don't want to do anything. everything seems desperate and insoluble. the thing is it's very normal and familiar and it's intense, and it always makes me wonder whether the pills are numbing out feelings i should be having. i remember highs and lows, giddiness and heartbreak and think that i've been so even-keeled that it's kind of scary.

then i take the pills and a while later i feel better, and i can see that i was trapped and mired in those feelings for years and they destroyed me again and again, and they can't be the feelings i "should be having" either. it's like a playing card and whichever side is up, seems right.

when i'm upside down without the pills i think that maybe Loopy n I should have broken up back when we were in crisis. when i'm upside down with the pills i think that's insane, we're obviously meant to grow old together. when i'm right side up without the pills i miss people and remember things. when i'm right side up with the pills i think i can live with everything the way it is - at least for a while. upside down is whatever side you're not on; right side up doesn't seem to mean anything.

i read a good book today - a piece of graphic art so it didn't take long to read. in it there was a moment where two strangers meet while looking at a billboard where someone has scrawled "you are not alone" over the closed eyelid of a model. i thought about how much more that statement would have meant to me before the pills. how i felt lost in darkness and akin to other lost souls. now i feel like i've climbed into a boat that goes sailing blithely over the seas in sunshine and salty spray, and i barely remember what it was like down deep in the waters beneath my dry feet, where the lost souls still wander, seeking warmth in each other and so moved by the comfort they find.

self-doubt

...comes creeping back in. classes are getting unruly. i'm getting tired - very tired. i start to feel myself being like last year - staring dully at them and going back to teaching without knowing how to handle what's happening. deer in the headlights, is that coming back? damn, it was so traumatic and awful last year. and the year before.

trying not to panic. using my tools from my outpatient program... what is going well? remember my accomplishments... focus on the positive...

maybe i should call someone from the program, help me snap out of this.

good friends from Madison are coming to visit this weekend - they always make me laugh, hard, a lot. so that will be a good chance to recharge.

i've made some friends in Chicago, finally. a colleague from last year, one from the year before (but we've just started hanging out and grading together on a weekly basis over the past couple months), and a guy i met on the meditation retreat last summer. three whole friends! wow! that's a good thing.

dog continues to be a pain in the ass. doesn't give me a lot of joy like owning a dog should. he's mostly annoying, occasionally delightful. right now we're dogsitting another dog, too. it makes decent money for very little trouble, but it makes me stress out like crazy so i don't know that it's worth it.

i was observed on Tuesday by our curriculum director who just loves me, and she had not one single negative thing to say, and a lot positive. tomorrow there's a team coming from somewhere to judge the school in some way, and the school people want them to observe and interview me. somehow i've become the dog in the dog and pony show, and i don't know that i like it. i mean, it's a huge, huge compliment that suddenly i'm almost a star instead of the door that gets rushed past, but it's scary. i guess that might be one reason for my little freakout. so really, it's a good thing. it just feels painful and scary. but some good things do.

or so i try to tell myself.

i'm glad to have this blog to talk to... helps me figure things out. thank you for reading...

the sky gets in the trees

I made this four years ago to try to convey a silly thought I had about autumn many years back: when you look at the colors, it's like the sky has gotten mixed up with the trees, and the trees have gotten mixed up with the grass.

Technically, it's three times the same slice of the same photo, with the Photoshop "crystallize" filter at 15 and 50.

uncurling

When Halloween's over I feel better. It's like this growing darkness and then a lightness and brightness of crisp autumn air. Pre-Christmas stuff starts - I know everyone complains about that, but I don't mind, I like Christmas. And the leaves are falling in earnest and the air's getting colder and... it's a good time.

Things continue to be fine at school. I come home and Loopy asks, "So how was your day?" and my answer is almost always, "Fine. They're all fine."

It's a nice change - understatement - it's a day, or a day after day, that I never thought would come. Peace? Peace in our time? It's getting quite late in the year and things haven't fallen apart yet... fingers still crossed, still knockin' on wood...

The kids don't try to get my goat because it's clear that my goat is tethered and quietly munching on grass no matter what they do. They don't always listen or behave, but they don't go after me like they used to - I don't feel like the deer in the headlights, the dartboard helpless before the speeding metal points... this gives me some breathing space to practice other things and to think that the behavior will fall into line eventually.

The image isn't an autumnal but it reflects how I feel... slowly uncurling fist, slowly unclenching muscles, body slowly unwinding from fetus-position... like the petals opening... i'll post an autumnal post separately.

Tired today. Feeling slightly overwhelmed for the first time. Some part of my brain tugs me toward drama and despair, and I do recognize some of the symptoms from last year - today I wasn't ready for class, was confused about the purpose of the class, and was just casting about for something to do basically. But this was an unusual day - I am giving them a test tomorrow and had to give them one more day to study, and I didn't really have anything I needed to cover during that day.

As I type this out there's a storm of self-criticism that wants to break through (sample: you never have enough time for anything and you couldn't think of a productive way to use the day???) but, using the skills I learned this summer in IOP, I just turn away from those thoughts. Earlier I used other skills from IOP when I reminded myself that I was engaging in all-or-nothing thinking.

Am now reminding myself that generally I have been very purposeful and known exactly what I was doing and where I was going with my units. My 4th period is giving me trouble - correction - gave me trouble today, yesterday, and last Wednesday and Thursday. That's not "a bad class" or a "failure" on my part. It's a temporary issue that may or may not become a more long-term issue. I can think of several solutions. I didn't call parents today because I felt too tired by the end of the day - warning bells go off - that's how I was last year. But again I quiet them and say to myself, yes, it is something to notice, it might be a problem, but just because it happened today doesn't mean it's always going to happen or that it will be a problem.

I'm just generally tired. I guess as the year goes on my physical reserves are slowly drained, and that's just life. I think I may have to sacrifice 30 minutes of sleep for 30 minutes of exercise - I think when I was doing the daily longer dog walks, it really helped my attitude and feeling physically less tired and achy. Either that or I was less tired back then because I hadn't been working long hours for a month lol.

I feel like there's more to say but....... well. One day at a time, as I said in my previous post. One day at a time.

changes...

today i'm thinking how, in a way, i'm the same old me, and how, in another way, my old friends would have to get to know me all over again... i feel the same and different... i'm still the same me with the same likes and loves and so on... but i react differently, i hurt less, i smile more, my moods are gentler. i think this is an improvement, but i wonder if i have lost anything that people would miss. would anyone miss the crazy highs? were they fun or just weird? i doubt seriously that anyone would miss the crazy lows!

it doesn't really matter; i'm not changing back for anyone.

i am wondering if i'm exaggerating the change but i really don't think i am. every area of my life is different.

and i'm also afraid to write about it like this for fear i'll somehow jinx it and before i know it i'll be back in the same situation as before. ugh.

need to go to bed now anyway... one day at a time, that's all. just one day at a time.

miracles of modern medicine

the end of the day comes; the students leave; i eat an apple and chat with a colleague.

i'm not exhausted. i'm not despairing. i didn't count the minutes til the end of the day.

i don't have the drowning look on my face that my new friend the first-year teacher has on her face all the time, poor thing.

i'm cheerful. i enjoy my apple. i didn't come crawling to the colleague's room in desperation. i don't feel that i need anything from her.

after i finish my apple i sit down to work. it's easy to do because my work all day has not been strenuous. and, i have already completed a chunk of work in between other things during the day because i've been using my time well.

the students act up a little but it doesn't bother me. if one of them crosses a line i administer the consequence without sturm und drang. it doesn't bother me - it bothers them. that's how it should be.

are you wondering who i am and what i did with your familiarly fucked-up friend?

i attribute some of this to my new skills from my outpatient program this summer, but i attribute about 90% of it to my medication.

finally, finally, finally my medication is working.

i was reading some things i wrote even six months ago and they seem so dramatic, so intensely high and low, so... insane. i can still have intense feelings but they don't knock me down like a big wave at the beach, whirl me round and stuff my mouth with sand, leave me bruised and scraped and battered. i understand now why Loopy was saying that there wasn't any "me" there anymore, why it seemed i'd disappeared into the extremes...

reading what i wrote six months ago, and comparing it to the state of normality i've reached, i am so grateful. so, so grateful. all my life i've desperately wished for peace, and found it elusive amid all the turbulent feelings and obsessive thoughts. i think i'm finding it at last.

seeing my way through at last...

These lyrics have been going through my head:

Bend, little willow
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight

Life, as it happens
Nobody warns you
Willow, hold on tight.

Nothing's gonna shake your love
Take your love away
No one's out to break your heart
It only seems that way...
~Paul McCartney

(From a song written for a child whose parent had just been killed in an accident, if I remember correctly)

Somehow I find it comforting, particularly the part about how no one's out to break your heart, it only seems that way... but also the part about how no one warns you how hard life will be, and yet, you can bend with the harsh winds, hold on and endure and even (as it says later in the song) "grow to the heavens."

SO job. How is it going. I'm sorry I haven't updated.

Well, parts of it are a thousand times better, and I think I have my outpatient psychiatric program to thank for that. I have been keeping up with the work - lesson planning, grading, entering grades, etc. I've been entering grades every day for that day. As long as I can keep that up, it should be good.

Overall, I have a much more positive and dedicated feeling about the work. Whenever I have a moment, it's "ok, I have a moment now, what can I do to be ready for next week/tomorrow/etc?" I'm just... eager, dedicated and disciplined... finally! Finally finally finally. It's like I can finally do what I know I can do. So that's a wonderful, powerful feeling.

The classroom management is still tough though. I cried already (but at least the students didn't see). The first week I was "on it." One of the students called me a "pit bull;" I said, "I'll take that as a compliment" and he said "it is."

But somehow by week 2 I became afraid of the students again. What exactly am I afraid of. Their judgment, perhaps? That I am too mean? Yes. But mostly, I think, afraid of their power to destroy me. Again.

I'm definitely "back on the horse" (after being thrown from it twice) but too ginger, too scared, barely perched in the saddle. Scared. Scared.

That's where the "no one's out to break your heart" comes in. The students aren't out to get me. It's not personal, even if they think it is. EVEN IF THEY THINK IT IS. They are just being teenagers. They are just bouncing off whatever's there. I'm there, so they push me and bounce off me. They will forget me. I will forget them.

I will not forget how I made myself strong or weak however.

It reminds me of trying to use the exact correct set of abdominal muscles for the back-strengthening exercise I used to do. It was a question of focusing my mind on the desired muscles (that make me strong in the classroom), willing them to be the ones to respond, but from lack of use, they are weaker than other muscles (the strong habits that make me weak in the classroom)... so, more often than not, the muscles I have used the most - the wrong ones - tighten instead of the right ones. So I lower my leg and try again. This time, this time, don't go with the habit, tighten those weaker muscles, strengthen them, strengthen them.

I like this analogy. The weak muscles get stronger with time. I just have to keep doing the exercise. Every day I go in and I do the exercise. "Success and failure are your journey."

At last I start to feel like a teacher. The rest of it - the grading, the lesson planning, etc. - even when the lessons fail - I feel like a teacher, I feel like I'm doing my job, at last, however shakily, however much on newborn-deer legs, one step in front of the other... I'm no longer the deer in the headlights... for now... but I think it's a real change that will stick.

When I get too overwhelmed or scared I just remind myself... one day at a time... one day at a time. That helps a lot too.

So... thank you for caring, for wanting to know how it's going, for being my friends. I sometimes see you as a circle of faces sending me such love and goodwill. I am so lucky! So so lucky.

There's one more thing... lately I have worried that I have become too cold... I watch the other teachers' interactions with students... so warm and loving... touching a cheek, inspiring a room full of teenagers who sit spellbound listening to a loving and powerful voice. I think I am angry at the students - all students. It makes me too cold. I have trouble remembering their names. I look at them without affection. What happened to the loving person I used to be?

But I decided, keep going. Keep going. And now writing this out I say to myself: that warm loving person is still inside me. It's eclipsed right now because of all the shame and anger around my past failures at work. But if I can start to get things right, if it can start to feel less like a constant losing battle, those negative feelings can start to fall away and I can come back to myself... the jewel is still under there, even under the pile of shit, and is never harmed or damaged no matter how much is piled upon it.

I feel much better having written that out. I was crying yesterday with thoughts of how cold I'd become... I should write in my journal more...

Huh. That's in the lyric above, too. "Nothing's gonna shake your love, Take your love away." :)

七転八起　Fall seven times, get up eight.

early fall morning glories...

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

~Shakespeare Sonnet V

I especially love the last two lines. :)

aak.

I got the job referred to in the previous post. I'm overwhelmed. Instead of any further information or commentary about the job, I will bring you more Star Wars humor.

i might have a different job.

So back to the school that I interviewed for on 9/2. Either they hired someone who didn't work out or... I guess they must have hired someone who didn't work out. Cuz today they called me and I have to go in tomorrow to teach a sample lesson.

Yow. There are a lot of good points about this school - history and English are taught together, by reading novels. That's perfect. Class sizes are small. Good. It's "second chance" kids who've already dropped out, been to jail, had children, whatever. Good and bad.

But this is what I sucked at, what I didn't want to do again.

R's voice in my head: "It's only a feeling." (that I'm going to suck again). All the other teachers who told me, "hang in there, it gets better," "I sucked until my third, fourth, fifth year."

I don't know... I guess I'll just try it and if it sucks again I'll just quit. I have a backup plan this time (subbing, tutoring). At least it won't be an exam-oriented school. Maybe that will make a huge difference. I think.

OK, gotta go work on that lesson plan.

rough day at work...

I might have been hired. It's vague.

Another possible job, where I might have already been hired. The principal is from The Gambia and perhaps because of this a lot of things are laid-back and somewhat vague. Whether I've been hired is one of them.

The job is at an alternative school like the one where I taught and worked in Madison, WI. 200-some students, very heavy social justice orientation, family atmosphere. Low-income students, students from group homes, street kids.

I would be hired as the special ed teacher and perhaps (it's vague - hand-waving was involved) teach some classes as well.

The special ed part sounds great. Most special ed departments are these mentally cramped places, where people are consumed with fear and self-defense - defending the school against lawsuits - because special ed law is so extensive and complicated, that you practically have to be a lawyer to understand and obey it all.

This sounds like it'd be a lot more laid-back.

It seems that at this school special ed is very loosely structured and construed to mean any student in trouble academically, not just those with official labels. I would move around from one class to the next working with students who needed help. (At least, that's what it sounds like - they are changing special ed around, it seems, so it's vague).

I like that. A LOT.

Unless the principal doesn't really know. It might not be legal to do it his way. We'll see what the case manager says - s/he is the one who will really know.

Teaching classes, I don't know, it's so vague, and it sounds like I'd just do whatever came up, and I'm afraid it will be all my old nightmares.

I'm excited but very scared. Is this my dream job? Or more failure? Scared, scared, scared.

But excited. I think.

Live in the gray. Live in the gray.

This is like, the school of gray. So if I'm gonna be there, I'd better get used to it.

Still... at the same time... a glimmer of hope.

fear to fearlessness

Last night I saw a new friend at meditation - one of the people I met on retreat. Some good friendships are coming out of that and I am really happy about that.

This friend talked about how he was trying to be fully present in all his relationships, not hold back at all, not even the smallest part of himself. We particularly talked about it in relation to family.

He's so earnest - he's only 24 - and I felt the need to protect him, to tell him to protect himself - that he was going to get hurt, that this was unsafe, that bad things would happen to him. He seemed so fearless and yet so vulnerable.

I thought more about it today, thinking surely I could quote him some teachings about being sensible, about self-defense - essentially, that I could justify how I behave toward my mother - I keep 98% of my true self out of our interactions, which I know hurts her, but I feel that I need to protect myself from her somehow.

Instead of finding teachings to defend myself I found only the revelation that everything in the teachings supports what he is doing. I wrote him the following email just now:

"Thanks for the conversation last night - it was good to spend time with you and catch up a little. I'm really glad that we met.

I especially wanted to thank you for the insight about not holding back. Again it triggered a lot of alarms in me and I wanted to ask (maybe I did ask) "is that really safe?" I felt the need to protect myself more than that.

This morning on my walk (I try to walk the dog an hour in the mornings - one of the best parts of my day!) I was thinking about it again and again thought, surely that's not what the teachings are talking about - surely that's unsafe. But I started to think about teachers and teachings and I realized - that's exactly what the teachings mean.

Pema talks about "fully enlightened" meaning "absolutely fearless." It doesn't mean that nothing bad will happen to you - it's the confidence that you can face it and be able to relate with it directly, be present with it, and not be undone.

There's also the teaching about "hope and fear," that they are two sides of the same coin - as long as you have one you have the other - and that the opposite of these is "fearlessness and confidence."

They also talk about "the path of the brave ones," and about how running away from the present moment is always about "not wanting to see something, not wanting to feel something." The opposite, of course, is being present, being willing to see, willing to feel. And that's - as far as I can tell - the whole point.

So thank you for kind of cracking open a hard place inside me. I'm grateful, though resisting the challenge at the moment. I'm not ready to come out of that shell yet, but I see it for what it is now, and that's the first step.

I really have to get you [the Pema Chödrön CD] "From Fear to Fearlessness." I believe it really speaks to where you are right now.

your friend
v

[end quote]

Dangit. Do I have to follow the teaching in this regard? Can't I just not do this part? Can't I stay closed off?

Dangit.

possibilities...

Sudden job interview today - got the call yesterday. It's at a school for kids who need a second chance - "at-risk students and high school dropouts who are ages 16-21 and who have been under-served and /or disconnected from traditional education."

This reminds me of my time at Shabazz in Madison, although those kids were probably from a higher class/economic status, on average, than the students I'd be teaching here. I loved the opportunity to work more closely with individual students and to help identify their specific obstacles, try to help them solve their particular issues, try to connect them with the content we were studying. That's the type of work I'm hoping to do with a special ed degree.

The position is history - purely history - which is unusual in itself, and of course, something I'd love.

Can I do this? I don't know. It depends a lot on class size. Traditional class size - no. If they are smaller groups, I might manage it. Especially if it's some kind of alternative teaching style.

Although.... I've failed so much. Failed to create lesson plans, above all... Failed to grade and input grades... But I have more emotional tools now, thanks to my time in the psych program... But I'm still procrastinating and not doing what I'm supposed to do, when it comes to schoolwork.

Anyway it's interesting and I will go and see what it's like.

Have heard through the grapevine that there's pretty much zero chance of me getting my friend's soon-to-be-vacated position. Ah well. I was terrified of it anyway.

Marriage is MUCH improved. Very, very good conversation and connection in therapy on Sunday. Normality is somewhat restored after a while of thinking we might split up at any moment. We are still taking it as it comes, one day at a time, but those days are going well so far.

So, you know. Options. Choices. Life.

better today

started one tutoring job today - no kids yet, just training.

one of my former colleagues quit his job at our old school, and i wrote/called everyone begging them to give me his job (teaching sixth grade). severe anxiety last night about whether i can do it or not if i get it - the classroom management piece is the toughie. well, we'll see what happens.

in the meantime things are much improved with wifey. so... one foot in front of the other.

missing you

Lonely today. Thinking about other times in my life when I have had more friends, love, companionship. Recent times and back to college, to high school... I've been blessed with extraordinary friendships and extraordinary people in my life...

Read over some old emails I probably should have left alone, and then, thanks to Facebook and a reminiscence about going to Emack & Bolio's with Amy for oreo ice cream in an oreo cone ;-) , I got back in touch with Peter M (!) and reminisced a little... just wish I had a circle of good friends now like the ones I had in college, like that day a bunch of us hung out at Peter's house and invented weird dances, or remember the "Amy Appreciation Party" with strips of printer paper as streamers?

Ah, I catch myself: this sounds like 'poverty mind.' I worked with this on retreat - the delusion of not having enough, even though the world around me is filled with incredible richness.

The instruction was to sit with the feelings instead of trying to fill up the holes with stuff. And to do tonglen for all those who, like me, experience this sense of basic neediness, this loneliness - for all those who wish that other people could take away the fundamental human condition of alone-ness.

I've also worked with this same mentality in my psych program - the focus on loss, instead of on what I still have. There, the solution is different - join groups, take classes, make friends. My life in the last two years has been painfully narrowed by an all-consuming focus on work. For better or for worse, I'm liberated from that, and can try to meet more people.

I'm already doing that through my meditation activities. I hung out with two of my retreat buddies this past week, and met the roommate of one of them, who is hooking me into the campaign for universal healthcare.

I'm also going to take salsa and print-making classes, so I'm excited about that. And today is the first meeting of an artists' group I'm starting, so that's cool too.

So... pulling myself together, getting off the couch, going on with my day. With my life. I think if I can enlarge my life, the marriage stuff may fall into place as well, one way or the other - I will see it with more perspective and I will also be better equipped to fully live whatever solution ensues.

boiling II

Or does it boil down to this: can a crazy person live with a sane person, without the former getting worse and the latter getting crazy?

Just how crazy am I? Is this problem inside my own head? Why can't I be who she needs me to be? Why can't I keep from hurting her? Why can't it be enough - the tremendous love and bounty that I am lucky enough to be blessed with?

What's wrong with me?

Is there something wrong with me? Am I sabotaging something amazing and wonderful, or is there some fundamental flaw that is breaking this apart? Or both?

Those are just rhetorical questions.

My heart is just breaking.

We both want there to be a way through this but we can't see it.

Mirror maze, bramble path, cliffs of fall.

What compass, what north star, what god, what divination can we scrounge out of our scrambled guts?

I keep hoping...

So yeah. Happy anniversary.

boiling

So it all boils down to: can a person who easily gets hurt, live with a person who easily gets angry, and for how long before they're just... done.

But, perhaps that's a gross over-simplification. When there's enough love, none of that matters.

That's a cliché.

Mirror maze.

approaching anniversary

As you might have guessed, I went ahead to that Buddhist meditation retreat last week. It was really, really good in a lot of ways. More on that tomorrow.

Instead, I bring you a conversation from the bus last night, the aftermath of an honest but painful therapy session. But, honesty is a good thing. Really. It is. It felt good to be honest - like a fresh start.

Anyway:

Me: So what are we doing for our anniversary [Wednesday]?

Loopy: What do you want to do?

Me: I don't know, we could go to dinner... [discussion of dinner plans ensues]

Me: So, are we exchanging cards?

Loopy: Do you want to exchange cards?

Me: I always like cards.

Loopy: OK, I'll give you a card.

(...pause...)

Me: It might be hard to find one that says what we'd like to say.

Loopy: You mean, "I love you/hate you"?

Me: "I love you, you make me unhappy, don't ever leave me"?

(...pause...)

Me: So maybe no cards then.



As long as we can laugh at ourselves, I think we're gonna be ok.

working out

When people say, of a marriage, "things just didn't work out," is that something that happens because of a lack of willpower? or a lack of commitment? or is it something that just... happens to you? something beyond your control?

I guess you'll say it could be either one. That's no help at all.

When I asked her this question, Loopy was no help either. She said no one could know, and we can't tell the future.

Rats.

daily Dharma: hope and fear

I've always loved this teaching... excerpted from Pema Chödrön's When Things Fall Apart. I won't put it in blockquotes cuz there's so much... blockquote it in your mind ;) .

The idea of "giving up hope" is weird to us... think of it as giving up aggression toward yourself... well, see how she defines it. I interpret hope as a sort of tension, being at odds with reality, harboring aggression toward oneself and toward life; hopelessness means relaxing, accepting oneself, seeing what's really happening and being present to it so that one can respond calmly and intelligently. I wouldn't call it hopelessness but I get what she means.

I excised so much in the hope that it would be short enough to be read, that it may seem a little jerky; you can read the whole thing here or here. Also, I didn't always use ellipses or brackets because they seem distracting... again, read the real thing at these links.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"[C]ompletely giving up hope... is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope that there is somewhere better to be, that there is someone better to be, we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

"We long to have some reliable, comfortable ground under our feet, but we’ve tried a thousand ways to hide and a thousand ways to tie up all the loose ends, and the ground just keeps moving under us.

"The difference between theism and non-theism is not whether one does or does not believe in God... Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there is some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us... Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment.

"The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it is happening because we personally made the wrong move.

"Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there is one, there is always the other. In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives.

"Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

"[Instead,] we can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We [can] renounce the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.

"Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what is going on.

"If we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores reality."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Where does meditation come into this? Meditation is simply (and difficult-ly) the practice of continually letting go of hope and fear and relaxing into the present moment...

That doesn't make me any less nervous as I try to get ready to go on my meditation retreat... which I still might panic and back out of...

On a lighter note, last night I had this whole complicated dream about looking for cookies with Loopy... there were many adventures on the road to cookies, and then the cookies were misplaced, and we got separated, and then I found the cookies, and then I was told not to eat those, that my cookies were somewhere else......... I don't know how to interpret this dream except to say that I like cookies.

Loopy-Loopy dialogue!

Yes, folks, I know it's been way too long since my last Loopy-Loopy dialogue... or since I wrote anything except long boring things. Sorry!

Me: I can't believe you're going to a music festival. It's so hot* out there, I wouldn't go see—name my favorite band!—I don't care who it is, I wouldn't go out there to see them.

Loopy: U2.

Me: Nope.

Loopy: Bonnie Raitt.

Me: Nope. I wouldn't go out for... for...

Loopy: Stevie Ray Vaughn back from the dead!

Me: Nope... Amy Ray. Amy Ray's the only one I'd stand out in this heat to hear. If Stevie Ray came back from the dead I'd watch it on TV.

Loopy: (laughing and shaking her head)

Me: (...pause...) OK, OK, I'd go hear Stevie Ray back from the dead!

Loopy: You KNOW you would!

Me: I would. (shaking head) But what are you going to hear?

Loopy: Tapes n tapes, baby, Tapes n tapes! [yes, this is the name of a band—some obscure indie band of course!]

Me: Yeah. You're insane.

------------------------
*Yeah, Tucson folks, I know, it's only 90, but if you could feel how utterly oppressively heavy the air is, you wouldn't scoff, Mr/Ms Yesterday-It-Was-110-And-I-Barely-Flinched. :-P

step by step

I loved Goblinbox's comment that I had such an optimistic post last time, so I was loath to post something less optimistic... which is good, because I had some low days there, and that would have been dull.

So, I think it's pretty clear I didn't get that job at the pre-engineering school. I didn't really expect to get it, but I had my hopes up quite a bit.

At the nadir of the previous few days, I felt like a complete failure at everything, and for some reason, I seemed to think that if I don't get a job this year, it's the end of my career and my dream is dead.

See, I told you you were lucky I didn't post at that point.

In a way it was good: I had a little mini-breakdown at my daily outpatient psych ward, after we had to draw our "inner critic" and write down all the mean things it says to us...

I wrote and wrote... "You're a failure" was the main idea... The tears flowed and my heart broke... it seemed to pull the cork out of a lot of work-related sadness from the past two years...

After the initial rush of feelings, I still feel a deep but kinda pure sadness as I go about my day... it's not even painful; it's just running out like clean water, and in a way, it feels good, letting it go...

The "you're a failure" voice has lessened and I just remember different things, and feel the memories, hopes and disappointments flow out with the water and flow away...

So, now, I also am now able to see with more perspective: if I don't have a full-time job this year, I'll cobble together an income between subbing and tutoring. Meanwhile, I'll have more time to work on my special ed degree.

Actually, I have an interview with a tutoring company this week... $10 an hour, hours not guaranteed, so kind of a shitty part-time job, but still. A job. I'll figure out a way to combine it with subbing or with another part-time job.

To be honest, it will be a bit of a break, not having a "real" full-time job with grading and lesson planning... and ya know, I can really use a break. I've been through the wringer. As you all know.

Speaking of which, I just enrolled yesterday in the special ed program for real. It's a master's program, though it's from a not-very-respected online institution; I don't think that matters much. I'll have a master's (salary bump!) and I'll be certifiable in special ed.

Once I have that certification, I'll be back in the saddle when it comes to the job market, and this time, on a winning horse - special ed is much in demand. I wonder if I can finish it by next year.

Meanwhile, slowly, inexorably, almost imperceptibly, day by day, Lovey and I are drawing closer again. I feel an upwelling of the deep happiness that I've always felt with her. We're not back to normal but we are heading in a good direction. Can't force it, can't announce that it's now better. Just... day by day.

Last but not least: sometime in the next week I expect to drive up to a Buddhist retreat in Wisconsin. I think that will be really, really good. I've been listening to my tapes and melting my heart, hungering again for the peace and the teachings...

So maybe this post isn't so much less optimistic than the last one... dang, is that a trend? Could it be... am I... getting better?

but what's been going on OUTSIDE my head?

So let's see. I went to a job fair a week ago. I wore the outfit at left, which I try to think of as having "retro flair" rather than being "Gidget-like." (The photo you see was actually taken so I could consider which outfit to buy... I ended up asking my psychiatrist about it because she's the best-dressed person I know. Weird, huh.)

Thanks to encouragement from my fellow inmates - excuse me, other people in my psych outpatient program - I am again looking for special ed jobs and finishing up coursework to be eligible for emergency certification.

Really, it's the best and most obvious move for me. I've always done a great job working with small groups and individual students, whereas thing I'm worst at is classroom management, i.e., making large groups of students shut up and behave.

I had a good lead at the job fair on another social studies job. Once again I impressed them with my social justice consciousness, my knowledge of the world, and let's not forget the Harvard degree, blah blah blah. I can sound pretty impressive when I want to.

But, I consciously didn't follow it up, despite urging from my teacher pals. I see no reason to try a third time something that didn't work the first two times. If I can do something easier, and do it well, for a while, I can always go back to trying the thing I have failed at when I have more experience.

I actually think it's good self-care that I'm choosing not to pursue something that has made me miserable, even though that's scary, even though I could end up jobless for the fall.

If I don't get a job this year, I can sub, I can work for a tutoring company, there are lots of things I can do. My crazy-camp buddies and of course my dear Bean have encouraged me to think bigger and not be scared.

OH! But did I mention - I had an interview Monday and I think they really liked me. I got the feeling I wasn't necessarily their first choice, but today I got an email saying they are checking references and will be in touch. So that means I'm still in the running!! Very exciting!

It's special ed at a pre-engineering school that takes low-income kids, including those with disabilities, and trains them for a four-year college degree in engineering. They are also ready for production-line pre-management jobs if they don't want to go to college.

This is a fantastic job for me. I've always been best at tutoring math, and that's basically what this job would be. I'm excited, did I mention that?

Fingers crossed.

fresh air

Listening to my Buddhist tapes again this morning... ahh... starting to want it again... to emerge from the hell I've created in my mind, and breathe some clear air. Starting to remember that saṃsāra is unendurable...

It's like I had locked an iron bar around my chest and now I can get glimpses of what it would be like to expand my lungs and really breathe again.

Not that I'm there. But I'm wanting it now.

And knowing it's the only way to stop hurting others.

salvation

Rescue me
[rescue me, it's hard to believe]
Your love has given me hope
Rescue me
[rescue me, it's hard to believe]
I'm drowning, baby throw out your rope...
~Madonna (remember? hahaha)

Yesterday brought some clarity on two things that are the same: I keep wanting and wanting someone to rescue me. That's how I destroy things. I want someone to save me. And I've found it hard to stop wanting that.

As instructed by the group therapist in my program, I've written on a post-it, "I am an adult. I'm ok on my own. I can care for myself. Trying to get others to rescue me is only destructive." This goes on the bathroom mirror (with, like, ten other post-its from the program, lol).

Then in talking with Loopy I realized something else: this is the reason Mom is so difficult, so painful for me to talk to: this is exactly how she is.

She wants everyone to rescue her, ease her discomfort, fix her problems, make her feel good.

So when talking to her, she always wants something from me. It's like a giant vacuum cleaner trying to suck something out of me. Unpleasant.

That's why I want her to ask how I'm doing - I want her to care - yet when she does ask, I don't want to tell her - since she's not asking out of caring but out of a self-centered purpose (to be a "good mother.")

And here's the rub: if you want so much to be rescued and saved, then you have to stay stuck, you have to stay infantile, you have to stay rescue-able.

This feels like I'm stretching at something that needs to tear open.

Just a quick word of total gratitude to those of you who read and comment, or read and don't comment. Thank you. Words can't express how much it means to me to be able to write here and, at least sometimes, have readers. Thank you, my beloved friends.

forgive

After a long hiatus, listening to my Buddhist teaching recordings. In the car they make me go to sleep, but while walking I have no such excuse.

"How we usually proceed is like heaping suffering on top of suffering." ~Pema Chödrön

They say what we practice is what we get better at. What have I been practicing?

Selfishness. Self-loathing.

I am eager to give up the self-loathing. It destroys everything. I compulsively destroy what I want, what I love. I make it impossible for others to allow what I enjoy.

So. Self-loathing. Bad. Kill it.

But selfishness? I've been enjoying selfishness, haven't I? I grasp it to my heart, curling over it like a dog over a bone, growling; like a child over a toy when threatened with sharing. I love my selfishness. It has brought me untold joys. Hasn't it?

Reluctantly I have to see a glimmer of truth: selfishness and self-loathing are the same thing, aren't they. Grabbing, grasping, not thinking, not caring. That's how I destroy. That's how I lose what I love.

"If you can just make a little pinpoint in the narrowness of your heart and mind, by doing [compassion] practices, you can really trust that you can begin to go from frozen to begin to melt...of its own accord...But if you don't want it to happen, it won't." ~Pema Chödrön

Not yet exactly wanting it to happen. Maybe having a glimmer of possibly thinking about wanting to maybe want it to happen.

Dimly I remember what it felt like when I did these practices every day. Open and fresh. Or is that my imagination? Just a few moments perhaps? Amid a bleakness?

Part of me feels like letting go is a loss. A terrible loss. Must clutch. Must grasp. Must scramble to hold on. Must curl around what's left like a dog, like a child.

Part of me struggles to remember what it was like to practice regularly and feel clearer. Buddhist paintings arise in my mind: the people burning in the hell of their own minds; meditators among peaceful clouds.

I don't even know what's in my heart anymore. I don't even know all my feelings. Sadness, anger, I guess. It's a hard lump, compacted. Like a piece of dog shit after the dog's been constipated. What a terrible image for one's own heart and mind...

I think before I go any further... I need to sort this out... try to calm my own mind first. So that as I gingerly try to rebuild, I don't end up destroying everything again, don't hurt everyone around me again.

and now for something completely different...

yesterday I was helping Loopy walk dogs and as I waited for her, I saw a big plant full of lovely big sprays of white flowers a few houses down, and I went to investigate. The flowers were a type of hydrangea with which I hadn't been familiar - growing in more of a cone shape than a ball. As I admired them I noticed a creature I had never seen before: the giant black wasp at left. There must have been at least ten of them all over the plant - some of them at least two inches long! After I got over my surprise at its size and color, I noticed its iridescence... there are always so many more beautiful things in the world to discover and enjoy...

In Wisconsin we used to have wasp nests all over the place. Many species parasitize harmful insects and are generally non-aggressive so we left them alone. I was going to write about their life cycle but apparently there are a bunch of different ones, and I'm running out of time to do my homework, so, 'nother time.

mourning & loneliness

One of the many gifts my outpatient group has given me is space to mourn.

The message I had from others and from myself was that I should be done with all that. But my outpatient group and the therapists there encouraged me to let those feelings out in that safe space, and I've done so...

Weeping at times... asking for the group's input and suggestions about how to move through the mourning and come out the other side.

Their input has been kind and wise.

Yet I'm still having trouble letting go of the last threads. I need to do that and to mourn more completely, instead of engaging in wishful thinking.

Bean also advised me... if there's any distant future, (which is unlikely), the only way to get there is to let go of the past.

I'm trying.

It's hard when I feel lonely in my daily life. I watch my Loopy engaged in daily, ongoing conversations with her online friends. Constantly (and I mean constantly) getting texts from them, texting back, bursting into joyful laughter in the grocery store over something they said.

She tries to tell me about it (after I asked her to talk to me more, involve me more in her life) but it's all inside jokes.

That's ok, really (though we've talked about setting some limits on the texting - not in restaurants, not when I ask her to stop and be with me) but I can't help missing that for myself. A lot. Especially when (it feels like) there's nothing to take its place.

I have tried to get closer to some friends from work, but they do have their own lives and it seems there's a limit to how much they want to integrate me in.

Have been IM'ing with Bean a lot more, and that does help.

As for my beloved wife... it seems our "cement," our "glue," I think is just enjoying each other - just enjoying doing things together makes us feel how much we love each other. Just being together gives us happiness. Enjoying each other's company. Never wanting to be separated.

We give each other joy and pleasure just by being next to each other in the grocery store, on the couch - we just feel the love in little things, a snuggle, a favor (taking the plate in, getting ice cream). Vacations are the best times because we are just so happy to be together. And, they give us things to talk about.

I'm finding that conversation, though cheerful and pleasant and connecting and thought-provoking, is not our glue, at least not right now. So when I get fidgety and miss that, I can't force Loopy to replace it. That's not how things work. Again, as far as Loopy and I are concerned, that's ok.

There's still a hole.

So... I tried getting a miksang shooting group together... that didn't work out. It seems people want to get together to look at their pix, but not to shoot. That's ok, I can do that too. So that's happening Wednesday.

I also started a meetup.com group for sketching and painting that I hope will introduce me to some cool people... at least it will also make space for creativity and art, which I need and miss.

One person has already joined... he sounds like he could be cool or he could be a little nuts. I'll wait and see. Our first meetup is in a few weeks.

Also, we're not allowed to be friends with other patients during the program (to avoid cliques and inside jokes etc.) but after the outpatient program is done, we can be friends. There are two people with whom I think I would really like to keep in touch after the program is done, and I think they'll feel the same.

So there are some possibilities.

Step by step by step.

"one part be my lover, one part go away..."

Awhile ago I was raging at fate and finding the urge to take pictures of "NO" wherever I saw it.

Recently I had the urge to take pictures of arrows... and all the arrows I saw pointed in multiple directions... which made sense because I felt torn in two directions...

Most of you know what happened recently that caused my Loopy to lose faith in me. I have been hesitant to ask her to take that leap of faith back to me, and hesitant to take that leap of faith myself, because I've been afraid I'll just hurt her again.

Yet of course, I missed that closeness with my wife and wanted it again..

I did some collaging (which, I'm finding, is my way to work through things, the way others do journaling - my left brain just won't relax its grip enough for me to find journaling effective) and a lot of thinking, probably too much thinking...

This song played in my head a lot:

If you know how, you might say 'em a prayer
They're gonna need all the help they can get
They remember too much about what went wrong
Might be they should learn to forget
Forget themselves in each other
And leave what belongs in the past
Carry their hearts like a newborn child
Cuz it's only the moment that lasts...
~Bonnie Raitt, "One Part Be My Lover"

Originally it was the leaving in the past, and the carrying the hearts, that appealed to me. Just let go of the past and be gentle and tender. Take that leap of faith. Then I came to hear the last line more and more, and people in my outpatient group encouraged me in the same direction: to also let go of the future, let go of trying to foretell everything that's going to happen, and just live in the now, enjoy each other now, love each other now. So I turned back toward my Lovey... trying to find a way through. When I talked with her about it, she pointed out that we are already there. There's no distance to travel, we are already together, our lives intertwined. So... trying to find a way to relax. Stop struggling. Let happiness and peace seep back in... or rather feel the happiness and peace that are right there, already all around me. Hm. I think I've said that before - about relaxing, ceasing to struggle.... Maybe I should tattoo that on my forehead. :-P

women; dogs; Cesar Millan

So... I was going to say, "why are women the way they are?" but my lovely Loopy hates rhetorical questions, so I'll just say, sometimes women are annoying. (Men can be annoying too, but this post isn't about them).

I passed many dog walkers on my lovely morning walk, which has become a habit - no, really a requirement - Mr. Pickles insists upon it, and drives us crazy all day without it. Anyway, the men had control of their dogs. And the women did not. I passed so many silly women pleading with their dogs not to bark at mine. Tugging ineffectively on leashes, seeming panicky, whining, "Fluffyyyy, c'mon now, c'mon, stop that now, now, you know better"... it infuriated me.

Stand up straight, tell your dog what you want, and make him/her do as you say.

I've been doing that with Mr. Pickles and I think it will make me a better teacher in the fall. Cesar (I always use his first name, as though we're buddies) teaches that the way to train a dog is to use exercise, discipline, and affection: in that order. If you give affection first the dog interprets it as weakness.

I've been practicing on my puppy and now I'm ready for humans. I hope.

waxing crescent

Saw a king snake, a crescent moon, a giant bat (really, like, pizza size), three Harris hawks, four or five families of quail, endless doves, a squashed 'horny toad,' assorted non-squished lizards, miscellaneous jackrabbits... it's only very recently that jackrabbits have started to look long-eared to me. and "regular" rabbits still look small-eared. heh.

i've treasured my time in the desert, in my grandmother's old house where i came hundreds of times over the years... the house has been gutted but the view out each window is the same, aside from the new houses that have sprouted up all over - but the patio and the sky and the mountains are the same. The windows and doors are in the same places.

Many of my childhood memories are uneasy, but there are some that are utterly content. Being up here, the sweet-smelling wind off the mountains (still smells the same - more creosotey than it does in Tucson), clouds in the sky... very carefree. Heart floating on the breeze, tethered to my wrist... I remember standing on the patio with Petra on New Year's Eve, almost 1985. It was so cold and we were trying to watch the fireworks all around the valley... can't see the valley anymore, there's a house in the way... my grandmother used to love to watch the storms come and go across the wide expanse of flat land ringed by mountains, really much wider than a 'valley'... i don't mind that the house is in the way. things change. i don't mind any of the changes here. but i remember. i remember mornings and breakfasts and evenings and starlight and changing seasons and my grandmother. i remember.

it's also been great to spend time with my cousin and his wife... lots of good discussion, politics, family, life... good food... and love.

i spent the day at the hospital today but... my aunt is basically already gone. she looks up with huge, uncomprehending, infantile eyes when spoken to, or mutters without enough thread to grasp any gist, half in French at times. today my cousins decided to discontinue any further treatment and just provide palliative care (reduce pain).

the mix of emotions that all this engenders is... not impossible to put into words but... i don't really feel like trying.

up next: saṃsāra

so i have been reluctant to move on to the fourth of the "Four Reminders" that i planned to spend time contemplating.

i edited Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's poetic version of the fourth reminder to this: "saṃsāra is unendurable, unbearably intense; all beings suffer."

karma was a stern lesson. but saṃsāra is harder somehow. saṃsāra is the suffering created when we run in the hamster wheel: the pain of always reaching, never obtaining (or not for long), the pain of always fleeing, never escaping (or not for long).

it's hard to accept that all that striving just ends in creating pain. the shiny apple dangles just beyond our fingertips... surely if we run faster... the wolf is at our heels... maybe we can escape.

but pleasure ends and death comes. just as pleasure comes again and birth comes. this has remarkably little to do with our striving. and the striving causes pain not just to ourselves but to everyone else.

i am acutely conscious of this right now. that the striving, the reaching, the desperation creates collateral damage. those we love are hurt as much as we are.

maybe that's why i didn't want to consider this one. (ya think?)

but always, the balm to my soul: "would that the emotions of sentient beings could just calm down, and they could experience comfort and ease." just calm down. just relax. just stop this endless struggle!

it's so simple really. heh.

pulling out

So I just wrote an email to cancel my candidacy for the Chinese job.

I'm terrified I did the wrong thing: I have no other prospects. I was awake half the night worrying that I did the wrong thing.

But I know I didn't. This job would be so painful...

Except that sometimes I think, no, I could have done it, and I shouldn't have let fear get in the way. The response to that is, it wasn't fear, it was good sense.

I struggle: every Disney movie says you should climb every mountain, fight impossible odds, tilt at windmills. My last two years say that doing so leads to failure and suicidal thoughts.

... agh...

Well, it's too late now. I had an interview this morning and there's no way I would have been ready for it. They required a lot of documentation and work. So... done.

Sigh.

happy.....?

I've been feeling good the last couple days (course, before that, I was feeling awful, so ... but...)

I wonder if it's the exercise. For as long as I've been any kind of crazy, "they" (doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, well-meaning friends, wives - ok only one wife - and assorted random passers-by) have been suggesting that regular exercise would lift my mood. Maybe all those Mr. Pickles walks have helped.

Or yoga?

Or is this positive mood because of the collage I did? I did a collage - which, I'm learning, is better for me than journaling, which tends to make me spiral down into my own craziness - about our marriage. I expressed a lot of bottled-up emotion and sorted things out, figured out how I was feeling, how we were feeling, where we are right now...

Or maybe it's both... both of them helping me let go of things...

Mr. Pickles is lying contentedly near me, looking up at me. He's really a great dog.

If you think I'm over-analyzing the good mood, well... I just want to know what caused it so I can keep it going or get it back. Clinging? Yes, guilty.

If I were just meditating and doing art, my life would be, like, perfect.

Oh. Wait. There's that job search thing.

Amazing how my good moods correlate with NOT doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

more on karma! and my purpose in life

Coincidentally (cuz I don't believe in anything else, having grown up with parents who saw signs from God everywhere all the time...)

...the talk at yoga this week was on karma. The teacher told a story illustrating that cause and effect are as inevitable as pebbles sinking in water or oil floating on top of it...

In other words, it's just how things are, it's not someone doing something to you. You dig your hole, you climb out of it. Step by daily step.........

But enough about that. So, one of the activities at "day camp" (my psychiatric outpatient program) yesterday was to think about all the ways we self-sabotage. Well, I can write a whole separate post about that. But one of the things we were asked to do (since self-sabotage is about self-hatred) is think about the ways we add value to the world, and think about a statement/decision/goal about our purpose in life.

I thought nothing expressed my purpose better than the "prayer of St. Francis," which I used to say fervently every night when I was a true believer (also believed he wrote it, which turns out also not to be true). The original was in French, which I like better, because the subjunctive ("que je mette la paix") seems more like a wish/aspiration than "let" in English ("let me bring peace"), which seems more like a prayer/request. So... nonetheless we can cut god out of it and it could maybe say this...

May I be an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, may I sow love;
where there is injury, reconciliation;
where there is fear, confidence;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
May I bring consolation for myself and others;
understanding for myself and others;
love for myself and others,
for it is in giving that we receive,
in forgiving that we experience forgiveness,
and in bringing peace, that we experience peace in our own hearts.

OK so it's a lil christian still. Hm.

My main mantra for a long time has been:

From the ocean of samsara may I free all beings.

And when I can't manage to wish such a noble wish, I say this quote from Longchenpa:

Would that the emotions of sentient beings calm down, and they could experience comfort and ease.

This touches the heart of my own turmoil and calms it, as well as extending that wish to all others.

So overall... purpose... may I help everyone, including myself, run more slowly in our hamster wheels, our karma wheels... help us all calm down, and get closer to the goal of liberation from them altogether.

I think that's ok for a purpose in life. It's good to remember that... helps me want to get out of that hole and look into the long distance, the big picture...

in the previous post, the second picture is engraved in my mind, one of those perfect moments, the beautiful sky and the sound of the grass, the clouds moving over the forest, the lake in the distance, and the wonder of standing on top of a volcano... I want to be there...

Hold that thought.

karma is inescapable

"Unalterable are the laws of karma; cause and effect cannot be escaped."

Karma is not what people think, at least in the tradition I (sort of) follow. It is not meted out like reward and punishment by some deity. It is simply the fact that everything we do has results, good and bad. It's not really a belief - more of an observation, a description.

Karma is a wheel, like a hamster wheel. The faster we run the more we feel desperate - this even applies to obtaining good things and escaping bad things.

Enjoying wonderful events and beloved people and objects is not a problem. It's when we chase them, run after them, hunger for them, feel desperate without them. It's all about the running, the need, the desire, the attachment.

So. Karma. That's what I had decided to contemplate this week.

It seems kind of appropriate. I feel like I dug this big deep hole and I have to slog my way out of it. It was a long way in and it's a long way out.

I did it myself, 100%. I dug and dug and dug.

There are a lot of "what ifs" but I try to drop them. I couldn't stop digging: this is just a fact, easily observable. I couldn't stop, even when it was obvious that I was destroying so much.

I was digging my way away from all stability and peace - I dug and dug and dug, more and more into my own mind, my own fears, disappeared into them. I chased and begged for things I already had in plenty - causing so much suffering - until the only thing anyone could do was cut my ropes and leave me alone at the bottom of the hole to come to my senses.

So. The climb back out. Razor rocks and loneliness.

I dug the hole. I caused it.

But at the end of writing this, some compassion. The description helps me see: my obsession, my compulsive digging... not to be hated or disdained but... feel sorry for that person, that me, caught up in pain, creating more pain for everyone I care about, creating more pain for me.

I feel compassion for that me and I comfort me. Just keep climbing. Keep climbing. The hole can't go on forever. It's ok. It's ok. You're not alone, and you can do it.

tired of being crazy

The thing that exhausts me most is that I can't trust my own thoughts. They come in sometimes ridiculously quick succession... opposite ideas... e.g. first that I am utterly alone; 30 minutes later, that wifey loves me and I'm safe with her. Often enough, no provocation for either thought. No outer change. And both feel like revelations - "oh now I see the truth."

It's exhausting and leaves me bewildered. I feel like my thoughts are pointless, since they're obviously meaningless, and yet they keep coming. And, just because they seem pointless doesn't mean they don't make me cry.

Yesterday and today I couldn't stand to be alive so I went to sleep. It's like death but less permanent. I'm tired of feeling that way too.

I don't know what to do about the job situation. Put in for my special ed certificate, but totally unsure about that too.

Why am I awake? Orange street light... wifey, doggie snoring.