I want to escape to the Rialto. See Peanut Butter Falcon again. But I can't.
I want to believe that the human condition is improving. But I can't.
I want to recount, to process, the seven intakes I did today with female victims of crime experiencing homelessness -- each with a story more horrific than the last. But I can't.
I want to escape to the Rialto. See Peanut Butter Falcon again. But I can't. I want to believe that the human condition is improving. But I can't.
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This painting, hanging in a restaurant a few blocks from our house, is across the street from the hotel where we got married one year ago today. The man's predicament is self-evident. We've all been in the tree, out on a limb. Some hold on. Others let go. I let go. The dog, however, seems open to interpretation. If the dog represents fear, I like to think I outran it. If the dog represents security, concern and support on the way --- as in, what are you doing way up there so far out on the limb? Come down! I'll be here when you fall! I'm a man's best friend -- we have nothing to fear by letting go. Check her out! Tara Brach, that is ... in particular, this podcast:
www.tarabrach.com/good-othering/ Tara is helping me navigate some lingering, inconvenient emotions (okay anger) about a certain person. No, not my ex. This person, Tara reminds me, can't help that he was born with a silver spoon up his ass. Nor his propensity to lie under oath despite his Ivy League pedigree. It's not his fault that he has to hide in his spacesuit, having drowned his gold with Jack Daniels (hidden in the garage) and deception. His secrets, from cross dressing to infatuations with women other than his wife, are the least of his issues, when considering his blind, boundless ego. All of which make him fodder for thinly-veiled fiction, perhaps as here. My therapist, through EMDR, allowed me to see him as a deeply sad person. Then as a young bully who--like the bullies in every movie we've ever seen--has been a victim of bullying (which would explain, but not excuse, the aggression and cheap shots on the soccer field well into his adult years). Then as a flawed human ... afraid of loss, of disappointing others. And in that, surely there's a modicum of goodness and gold, no matter how adept he has become at suppressing it. "Write about it; move it through and out of you," my therapist said. Done. Quote used by my yoga teacher to close her crowded (for a reason) 6a class today.
Fresh off two days in Tahoe with college besties and extended family for my friend's father's 80th bday, where I was reminded what if feels like to be surrounded by tender hearts. Answer: very, very good. We made a promise to focus on WHAT IS RIGHT in each day, each hour, each moment, each interaction—headwinds, small minds and news cycles be damned. She fled an eleven-year abusive marriage. They had a daughter. She took her with her. Modesto might has well have been another country. She responded to the right-hand star command. She relapsed when she was exited from the shelter for smoking downstairs, while her child was upstairs. Which was not allowed. She had been warned. She was reminded -- repeatedly -- that she was unworthy. She did her best. Finding the job, the car, the apartment. And yet ... She was reminded. She was not enough. She wrapped her hands around the stranger's waist -- full chain. Because she had to begin again. Somewhere. Why not here? Why not now? She just needed that hand. That right-hand-star hand. New student college orientation with my middle daughter. The push/pull is painful. For both of us. She walks ahead of me, but I'm not allowed to leave. She channels her stress at me (bullseye), but I'm not allowed to react. When I parry--not a good strategy--it escalates. When I burst into tears (I'm losing a limb, for God's sake) while she's just trying to take a shower, it's not ideal. When she allows tears on Day 2 because she skipped lunch because because she had to be "on" for 12 hours after four hours of sleep after canceled flight (re-routed from IND to ORD into four-hour drive into 2am arrival) because advisory appointment on her own because a zillion people she doesn't know because humidity hair because ALL THINGS utterly foreign because mom and dad got divorced because life is f'n scary and hard and thrilling because mom brought the wrong clothes because away from sisters for the first time in 18 YEARS because loss and gain and growth and pain ... because life. Elizabeth Gilbert was not pulling punches last night. In response to the first question -- Why this book, why now? -- she said, matter-of-fact: "I wanted to write a book about a woman whose life was not destroyed by her sexual activity." With that, she had my attention, along with several hundred people (99% female) gathered at the Sebastopol Community Center, despite the sweltering heat, to catch some of her magic wisdom. And indeed, wisdom was dispensed. Pearls like ... At the end of the day, we are all just walking ourselves home. Suffering is universal; your task is to turn your suffering into something. Who would you be without your life? (A nod to Byron Katie, a source of Gilbert's inspiration, along with Glennon Doyle ) more tk ... She's an authentic-relating facilitator who hails from Berkeley. (Where else?) She sat in my living room last night across from my Voxer posse and me. We are seven women who spend an hour or two a day "voxing" (read: keeping each other company during our commutes and otherwise, sharing things that shall remain in the VoxerVault forever, till death do us part), and several weekends a year, give or take, supporting each other, SEEING and HEARING each other, cementing sisterships (coinage mine, a la friendships). We've cried, individually and collectively. We've told each other things we haven't told our partners. To say nothing is off the table would be an understatement. We've laughed uproariously. We've become a tribe of trusted advisors, board members, soul sisters, processing in real time, our complicated (to put it mildly) lives. In July, our families will go river rafting. Someday, we may carry each other's urns. It's been a long time coming, and an interminable decade. I'm deeply grateful for these amazing, imperfect, high-feeling, formidable, brilliant women. There's a common thread. We've all survived ... and lost ... something. Or many somethings. Grief comes in many forms. We've got them covered. Our facilitator — whose ex founded Voxer, no joke and no coincidences, as in life and NorCal — split us into dyads and/or triads, gave us "sentence stems" to finish (e.g., "What I notice about myself when I'm with you is ..." or "What I love about you is ..."), had us look into each other's eyes and talk for minutes, uninterrupted. "First, share an 'I notice' sentiment, followed by an 'I feel' sentiment, followed by an 'I imagine sentiment'," she counseled. We obliged. Crying, hugging, connecting, relating.* We felt all the feels. (: Sans wine! There were epiphanies, new "shares," and deeper connections. We confirmed once again that women are, from start to finish, complicated creatures. In our case, complicated, surprising, fallible humans who show up for each other. No. Matter. What. "You're such an important part of my life," said my friend, through tears. "You're not just a friend but a daughter, sister, mother to me," said another, not knowing this was possibly the most welcome thing a female friend has said to me in ... a long time ... at exactly the right time. Earlier in the day, we did a two-hour hike at the gorgeous Helen Putnam Regional Park during which we did an exercise called "Drop the Rope." In Drop the Rope, per the therapist peeps, you let go of the shit you've been carrying that no longer serves you. My list is long. Or was long, I should say, because now it's cleared. In the rear view. Going. Going. Gone. * In short, my husband's worst nightmare. Fear not, he was in Tahoe at a friend's 50th -- they brought their man-means-of- connection -- their road bikes. It's a lot to process, fresh off my Narcan* training yesterday.
A woman put in a dog crate at a party by her intimate partner, for example. Where it got worse from there. A pregnant woman, trafficked, in the back seat of a car. Every night. A senior disabled veteran dumped on a curb outside an out-of-Marin-County homeless shelter by his Marin County daughter. So I leave on a Friday, having booked a fleeing mother and her several children into a hotel far, far away, where he can't find them. On the commute, I Vox with my posse, my Voxer** Mamas (my lifelines), three of whom are therapists, so the rest of us WIN. My husband has been assigned a "daily," (new vernacular for us ... which means a story assigned and due the same day), so he will be late. Cancel dinner reso. Take dog to dog park to exhale, where she is ... herself. #notperfectbutfun Ease in, meet other dog owners. Migrate to Our Favorite Place, where local creative, interesting people play live music nightly, and I am reminded how deeply. blessed. I. am. * ya know, for Opiod overdoses, like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/us/opioid-children-addiction.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage ** It's an app. You should get it. *** My posts are based on composites. |
AuthorHere, I am a writer and change agent. Opinions: not vetted. Stories: my own. Archives
May 2022
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