"Love, I get so lost sometimes..."

from "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel

Last night, after a couple of hours of attempting to deconstruct our own and each others' mild to medium depressions, D. and I were finally silent. I had cried, struggling, D. had struggled mostly silently, back tense against my belly and the world and D'ness. I felt so sad, so overwhelmed with the sadness of human suffering, then it suddenly hit me. I could see how for the last hours we had each been so gentle with each other, and so hard on ourselves, we traded off this way, gentle/hard, hard/gentle. Finally, I said quite spontaneously, "You know what I wish?". "I wish we could be as gentle with ourselves as we are with each other.". I could feel D. smile (smiles sometimes even stretch into back muscles!) and, and then say "Yes. That, that's a good wish." I resisted the temptation to peek out of my insulated window cover to see if there were any breaking stars out there I could put the wish on, and we fell asleep to this wish, like a dream, like a reality not so far out of reach if we can smile about the idea of it, instead of just crying.

Last week, my therapist and I discussed a huge piece of my whole puzzle that had felt slightly off to me for years. A few years ago, my former therapist and I cracked a big one - that it's not so much that my mother was an alcoholic, as narcissistic. This might sound odd for those of you who've heard a lot about my mom, and for those who remember the myth of Narcissus, which is ostensibly about the "positive" attributes of his ego (how he adores his own appearance, etc), but actually the lesson (read a good writing of it and I trust you'll see this) is that ego absorption is dangerous not just in "I'm in love with myself" form, but also in "I hate myself and the entire world reflects this" form. This second version was my mother's. This revelation helped me a great deal because I always felt there was a drive to drink in the first place, and understanding a deeper psychology (which up to that point alcoholism explanations hadn't given me) helped me a lot to break open what I had learned from her and why, and face my own narcissism. Last Friday, we were talking about workaholism, the other "ism" I purportedly adopted from my parents, and I said "the only thing that is weird is I feel like I got workaholism from my mom, but she never worked a day in her life, outside the home, and really wasn't too hardcore about any other kind of work - caring for us, groceries, cleaning, etc (she could be quite neglectful, in fact)." He smiled. Then he asked me what makes me think of workaholism, and I talked about being at my former job (where I worked again for a week last week), where I would work through hunger, through having to go to the bathroom, for fear of being interrupted, or to keep myself attached to the pain or the work, despite pain in my back or insides. He asked me what I would think if someone told me their boss was "making" them do that. I told him that would be wrong, a bad thing to do to someone, abusive. There was a pause. I began to cry. He gently pointed out that it is not less abusive when one does it to him/herself, it's just that it's called masochism in that case.

I inherited masochism, not workaholism. As soon as he said that word it all clicked into place. The way that the only relief from masochism is indulgence. This is something I will have to explore more later, but was hugely evident in my mom's life and now has it's own spawn in my life. The fine line this carries with sadism, or, in my case, a former lack of compassion toward others in pain (rather than inducing pain in others, but a close cousin).

We also talked about compassion toward former actions - in my case, why didn't I leave a job for five years that my replacement could tell in 5 weeks is a severely psychologically unstable place, with all kinds of manipulations and awkwardness? I didn't *see* it, or rather, felt it but often blamed myself, or took it upon myself to fix it. I was so angry all week - why didn't I know, why didn't I leave. My therapist simply asked that instead of being angry for not knowing, that I try being *sad* for not having known. That really made me cry, to realize I could give myself some slack for not having known something. The weight of expectation fell off me and I felt (though it was momentary, it was strong) a serious relief. A Sisyphean-caliber relief.

Finally, I had watched an Oprah special the week before that had made me bawl. At first I just attributed it to depression/over sensitivity to abuse of children, which I tend to have. But after we reached this point in the conversation, I brought up the program, and half way through I realized I already understood what he was saying. In the program, they talked to the boy who has recently been discovered after having been abducted for 4 years (he's 15 now). Everyone wanted to know "Why didn't he call/email?" (he had access to both phone and internet). Even Oprah couldn't help but ask. The psychologists were unequivocating and clear: a) never, ever ask a victim something like this, especially a child, as they will get defensive and blame themselves and b)fear is a super powerful agent. Incredibly powerful.

So why didn't I leave? I was scared and I didn't know better. I was raised in a family so much like my former place of employment that as fucked up as it was, it seemed like home. And to rag on myself now for not having done something earlier will only make me feel worse. I felt such compassion for that boy, I felt like I understood why he didn't call, without words, without being able to say why, and so when I expressed this to my therapist, I could transfer that feeling to myself. Instant tonglen (compassion practice).

What I have noticed is that I tend to discover these things when I am ready to handle them, which usually means partway through healing has already begun. My work habits have changed dramatically in the last few months, between the model of gentleness D. exhibits toward me (today is our three month anniversary!), and the inavoidable evidence that, in being my own boss, if anyone hurts me, it is myself. Plus, and this is no small shakes, my students too inspire me toward gentleness, and all of my other contemplative practices help to set stronger habits and precedents toward picking the kind way instead of masochising myself (new word). So it makes it easier to see because it's changing, and I have new, positive and healthy things to compare it to, instead of being mired in the habits (trees for forest). But also the last couple of days have been tiring - in the masochistic way where even cooking dinner (something I normally like) feels tension-inducing, where teaching feels overbearing and awkward, where writing feels like pulling teeth. Erika and I talked this morning about needing new-ness, open-ness, breaking open the cycles, trying something new (something I insisted would help D. last night - and we're talking new at a really deep level, not just novelty). Still lost today, but some things feel slightly clearer. This is how it goes. Shifting allegiances from hurting myself to being gentle to myself is hard. It's a long and deep set of habits. But knowing I am doing it is inspiring - and realizing things half way helps to keep me inspired.

And finally, as birdfarm reminded me today (through telling me about her own experience) and as Erika and I talked about, sometimes it's really tiny steps that work best. When I am feeling really fierce, really masochistic, I have to give myself gentleness a spoonful at a time or I will spit it back out. I had what we think was the Norwalk virus this last weekend, horrible puking and diarrhea for 12 hours, with cramps and fever. I got so dehydrated that in the end, D. had to bring me back by giving me a quarter of a teaspoon every quarter of an hour. Sometimes, (I am listening to Pema Chodron talk about how we can't scratch our itches or they get worse) it's not even just about stopping habits, especially when it is so dense it's hard to see what is happening, it's about sneaking in a 1/4 tablespoon at a time of care, until I am back to the present and no longer wanting to hurt myself. I really didn't believe that would help last weekend, I was so fucking thirsty. And I find myself skeptical of it today, but I suspect it is right, and I will try it. Bit by bit, I'll try to work my way out of the trees and the forest and see the sky.

"Wait for me underneath the water"

from "Water" by the Sugarcubes (Bjork's old band), Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!

We received 6 inches of snow yesterday, capping off last week's little forays into deep winter - 2 inches here, an inch there. It was necessary - occasional days were a sunny 50 degrees, but mostly it was a kind of dour murky barely freezing occasionally raining tell-me-again-why-this-isn't-seattle-only-colder kind of winter. A friend and I left a Shambhala Graduate level early, due to the horrendous amount of snow and fear of facing it at night. I was home so surprisingly early from these monthly weekends in Milwaukee, and it was really nice - came home, spent dinner with Erika and Aaron (home from a trip to Mexico while I was gone, and now engaged to be married!), and then trundled over to D's in the snow to watch Firefly.

Preceeding all this slow bliss though was a weekend of serious internal aggression. Or not so serious, but I took it rather seriously at the time. At the end of the weekend I had a conversation similar to one I have been having a lot lately, with birdfarm, with D., with Erika, about how if I am panicked, anxious or stressed out, it feels like I am working, getting things done. I finally realized the reverse last night, lying in bed next to a sleeping D, still a bit wound up from my weekend's aggression overload, that if I am *not* anxious, et al, I *don't* feel as if I am getting anything done, to the point where when I do work that doesn't feel stressful (like actual teaching) to me because it feels natural, I feel guilty, as if I am getting away with doing nothing for something! This can even happen when, for instance, finishing up my WCATY class this last week (it's done! yay!), I am way ahead, doing all my prep ahead of time and have time to relax - I worry that I must have forgotten something, because in all that space, I have, ironically, remembered absolutely everything. The thing I have usually *forgotten* in that case is to be stressed out! Ha!

In 2005, when I went on my first real retreat (the writing residency at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT), birdfarm gave me a series of photos encapsulating our tendency to see ice and think it will stay frozen forever, forgetting that ice is made of water, and will melt. It is the nature of things to change, and both the sometimes seeming curse and the real grace are embodied in this. Becky reminded me of this this weekend, discussing depression and how we have to really feel it again and again to understand that we are not always happy, that most people are not always happy, to touch on our humility. It is not a punishment "You haven't understood this yet so here it is again", but a reminder to relax into the process (birdfarm's water or moons). For some reason I really heard this, though this teaching has come to me many different ways from lovely friends or buddhadharma, and I was able to relax into the undue amount of aggression I was feeling all weekend. I was still tense, but not tensing against the tensing, and I could see how I have spent much of my life this way, again, somehow believing that that, in itself, is work, and that work will somehow redeem me.

Hard, long lesson, but clarifying. Very clarifying. And good timing - I am going back to my old place of employment today - Rainbow Bookstore - for the week, on pay, to help out during textbook rush. This is particularly poignant because it was in leaving Rainbow for teaching, and in the meditation practice I was just strengthening in at the time, that I learned how I do this, making non-work into work by stressing about it, making up for some sense of inadequacy by worrying about things all the time. Becky said last night of her job, to paraphrase: "I rush around the whole time and if I stop rushing I worry I am not really working". This describes how I felt at Rainbow almost all the time. The key thing is that not only could I see then what I was doing, but also that it wasn't Rainbow's fault, as much as I might have wanted to blame them or one particular person, but *my issue*, and as I was about to become self-employed, I should go about owning that, so as not to be totally surprised/insulted/overwhelmed when I would pull the same tricks in the future, alone, at home, preparing classes.

And this foresight has lead me to here - where I am beginning to see the depth of the aggression, which is so human, as natural as ice. And I sit and sit and sit and it melts. It could take - can take - all fucking weekend, but eventually ice turns to water, and flows again. I woke up this morning and Erika was overwhelmed - home from vacation, she was sick at the end of the trip, and she has a lot of work to do. I looked at her icy face and I understood - she's not mad at me, I'm just going to take the dog out and give her some space. I came back and there was a big thank you note to that effect to me. I felt like I understood better what she needed because of the whole experience of the weekend. We wait for each other underneath the water, and when it melts, we can flow together, even if there are still pointy chunks on top.

Shout outs to Morgan, Erik and Marijka, who all recently pointed out to me that they read my blog, and even though they don't comment, they like catching up with me here. Thank you for letting me know you are listening in! I promise to come in more often.

J'y Suis Jamais Alle

First song off Yann Thiersen's soundtrack to Amelie:
"I have not yet been there", loose translation.

Last night, D. and I left the house after days and days of cuddling, sex and eating. It was the end of our long holiday together (patches of three days at a time over the holidays, interspersed with work and occasional outings) and we were reluctant to go out, but the weather was beautiful and our heads ached from *too much* sleep(!), so it was time to go out. We ventured to the large sprawling tree at Tenney Lapham park, and crawled under and over and around it until we were out at the tip of the mini-peninsula, our view packed with a contrail-streaked sunset. It was glorious; cold (but we knew we were going home to warm curry), clear, very good new day of a new year.

Usually I hate New Year's Eve. I am not totally sure why this is. Nothing traumatic happened on it, that I know of. I'm not a party hater, persay, though the older I get the less they appeal to me. All I can think of is that I used to spend New Year's Eve day perusing old journals and trying to get a reckoning on the year, which quite often was not a pleasant exercise. But in the last couple of years, as I have not gone out to big parties or made much of a fuss over new years, it's gotten better. This year's was the best yet.

We went over to a friends' house with Erika and Aaron, after a long day of being in bed, reading, hanging out, being close. There, hot tub and steaks, small conversations about big things (including music and tinned meat) intertwined with big conversations about small things (yiddish words and poetry). Midnight was barely noticeable, all of us turned into happy mush from the hot tub, and we decided that the "Year of No Consequences" (last year) should become the "Year of Good Decisions". On New Year's Day, D. noticed that we were overusing it already - that we were back attributing "good decision" to nearly everything anyone decided, including things that definitely don't normally resemble good decisions. But assigning the idea that we can make good decisions from moment one, even if sometimes only seeable in retrospect, does seem a good idea, still. So we're sticking to it.

Standing in the sunset, reflected around us in all that water which may yet freeze this winter, I asked D. about how all former relationships have ended. "There's not really a pattern" was the answer. And the question came back to me, of course, and I said "Well, there's a pattern alright, but it simply isn't here." I looked out over the constant new moments that sunsets remind me exist all the time, and realized we are in a totally new world, with all kinds of amazing joy, and all kinds of new ways to fuck up, too. We had our first quibbles these last weeks, spending so much time together, beginning to miscommunicate, and some more serious renditions of conversations about the big issues each of us have been dealing with. But all is calm, all is bright, actually.

We also set up a schedule, workable for both of us, to build in regular breaks from one another. In the holiday/semi-vacation era of the last weeks, it's gotten so nice, so easy to be together, neither of us remember to take off, and it never feels like too much. But too much of a good thing can still be too much...as the saying goes, and so we will take off a couple nights a week, so I can work on my novel and decompress after teaching, and so D. can make music.

It's so domestic, so simple, but all of this stability has made writing easier. I can't help both a feeling of relief, along with gratitude and love. It's so simple, but all I have to say for now. I've never been here before, and I am loving being here all the time.

Ghosts with the Mosts

I have had a lot of nostalgia lately. D. lent me a copy of Depeche Mode 101 - the film version - which I watched with amazement, as the album really got me through 7/8th grade. I was shocked to see the film behind it - mid-80's reality show, live men running around on stage making a big show of it all. *My* sole copy of 101 was a poorly dubbed tape from my dj brother's record, and it's scratchy sound was matched by my hastily scrawled out titles of songs, frequently abbreviated or lopsided. To see the clean decadence of the 80's on stage was something else altogether, and not at all like dancing in my living room, alone on a Friday night, writing BAAAD poetry that was just thinly veiled DM relyricing.

When I am triggered and reminded of older traumas (which has been happening quite a bit lately), I recently seem to crave childhood comfort foods I hadn't realized meant so much to me. I have habits of food, just like everyone else, but most of them I hand't traced back to childhood - most are things I got into as an adult. The list is quite odd when you add it all together - like a pregnant woman's list of cravings:
-green olives with the red bits in the center on crackers with cream cheese
-toasted peanut butter sandwiches (only now also with butter, as I discovered this summer)
-7up or sparkling water and orange juice (Erika and I call these "spritzers")
-bratwurst (?!)
-popcorn

These, combined with a romance like I honestly haven't experienced since high school (in terms of how "new world" it feels) have made for a strange string of ghosts in my life. Streams of ex's who continue to call or email. People who have been asked very politely but firmly not to call me, calling me. And, of course, my own personal ghosts: memories. Memories that carry with them the weight of worry and fear, and yet, are so heavy if I don't acknowledge them. It's like dredging - when the river is being cleared, the boats pull hard behind, struggling to keep moving forward. This cleaning feels very clearing, but there's a lot of repetition: yesterday I did this and it didn't hurt, today I am doing it and it does. That is, repetition that seems like repetition, but proves there is no such thing as real repetition.

But my head is above water. Every time I think I am going to lower my head, just to rest (and drown in my own misery) D. gently calls out to me to pull my head back up and be present. I am reminded I have tools, I have methods, I have support, I have myself and others. I have worked hard to be able to work this hard on healing. In Courage to Heal, the authors note: "If you care as much about healing as you have cared about surviving, you will be just fine". These ghosts have got a lot. But I have more - a whole army of a living life, and we are ready with our swords and boundaries and every-ready real moments that put memories in their place, swiftly, gently and with compassion.

"There inside the garden

came my lover's lips...
"I will give you golden mountains
if you stay a while with me""...
The Garden, PJ Harvey, off "Is This Desire"

I waited 1/2 an hour this morning to give D a rose today at work. I came on a day I knew would be busy, but it's our first real anniversary - one month since our "first real date", when neither of us were impeded by other romantic things we had been previously engaged in. The funny thing is that I had waited outside the florists for 15 minutes, waited before that for snow-delayed busses the whole way out to my Friday "crack and poke" appointment. It was a day of waiting, and I was happy to be patient, if cold. The new snow makes it all so glorious, and I was replete with opportunity to consider how beautiful it is to be in love.

By the time I made it to the teller window, D was overwhelmed with what appeared to be a quite distressed foreign customer trying hard to transfer money from...China, I think? I didn't want to pay *too* much attention, trying to preserve privacy. After awhile, the other "customers" flowed around me and I resolved to lean against the pole and half listen to D meticulously and patiently talk bank while I watched silent Packer replays above the tellers' heads. At a moment, a tiny break, I busted the little red bud out of it's myriad layers of paper protecting it from the cold, and met D on the side to transfer my little representation of love in a moment's reprieve. "You are such a romantic", a friend of D's clucked before I waited in line. In the end, the gesture felt much less romantic and much more -- contrived, waiting for so long, but I didn't mind. After all, I stare at walls for fun and a profession; I'm pretty patient. Just one moment in the middle of stress means something, this is one thing I have learned, and I am happy I didn't give up and go home and save it for the evening.

So here's a shout out to all my friends and my lover, at their customer service jobs, plugging away at their days, being patient or hard on themselves. I send you all virtual roses. I am struggling on my own time to get things done without a boss over my shoulder, but I realize the privileges of my position, regardless, and I send out my love to all you working hard in your own ways right now. Let Friday bring you some repreive...