Adolescent

I’m so embarrassed I could die.

When we reunited after separating 

years ago, I thought we could sit on the couch 

and watch TV like a normal couple because 

everything was fine, but that was a lie.

Now I drive around in my adult life 

going to work, keeping appointments and 

listening to depressing songs: “Fast Car” 

by Tracy Chapman, “Disintegration” by 

The Cure, wondering how we can be 

so far into this thing, and still 

not be sure of each other.

We should be nearly there, that age where 

we’re ready to sit on a porch peacefully 

together holding hands, looking back 

with wonder on our lives.

Gratitude and wisdom, not this

adolescent anguish and indecision 

sheer ridiculousness of this mess.

But there is no “making it” in relationships 

(my therapist reminds me), and in the world 

there is no safety, it is always already 

the “full catastrophe”*

And if I was going to grow up

finally, I guess it may have been 

necessary to regress 

a bit first. 

*”Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.” Alexis Zorba in the movie “Zorba The Greek” - The full catastrophe - Wikipedia

The full catastrophe is a comic phrase usually used to characterize any kind of disaster.

This is the Year….for Creativity!

Sometime back in November one of my closest friends from college asked me if I wanted to do The Artist’s Way (TAW) with her. For those not familiar with it, this book published in 1993 is a 12 week course designed to assist artists of all types to “unblock” themselves creatively. 

I think I said yes almost right away, and then amazingly when I went to look for it on my bookshelves, there it was. It apparently was one of the precious few books that I kept through 3 decades of moves, including the one to FL in 2009 when we stripped down our possessions to the bare essentials. But when I opened it I could see at least one reason why I had saved it all these years: it was my Dad’s book originally.

I don’t know if he ever made it all the way through the book/course, since his ruler-assisted underlining of passages and few margin notes seem to peter out after the first couple chapters. I suspect he may have given up and given it to me in the summer of 1994, because that was when I did a post-college graduation road trip from Seattle to my friend’s home in Minneapolis (the very friend now suggesting we do TAW), and when I opened the book I found a bookmark from a Minneapolis feminist book store she had taken us to on that visit. It’s very possible that I had the book with me on that road trip, which kind of blows my mind, honestly. 

The book talks a lot about synchronicity as it relates to creativity and just discovering the book with bookmark inside was that on so many levels.

At some point in the last 30 years I’m pretty sure I tried to read the book and do the course on my own, but doing it with my friend now is such a a different experience, I’m having so much more fun and I am pretty confident that I will actually finish this time. It just feels like the right time in my life also. We’ve been having weekly check in calls and sending texts about what we are experiencing as we continue on into week #7 of this supposedly life-changing course. 

We are also talking a lot about running (and have floated the idea of meeting up somewhere mid-way-ish between our respective homes on opposite coasts, in the next year or so to do a half marathon together), which has been so fun for me. And the two topics are not as unrelated as they might seem. 

Some of my most creative thoughts and best writing comes from my long solo runs. Just this morning on my 9 mile last training run before next weekend’s half marathon, I wrote parts of this blog post. But I’ve also discovered seeds of poems I’ve ended up loving and had ideas about how to solve problems at work or new approaches to take in my relationships.  

It may help that I do what’s been called “naked” running where even though I do bring my phone with me (for safety reasons), and I do wear a Fitbit as my watch, I don’t track my distance as such (using pre-mapped routes or just running for the amount of time needed for where I’m at in my training), and I don’t listen to music, podcasts or audio books; instead I listen to the sound of my breath, the cadence of my footfalls, any sounds of nature and the world around me, and the dialogue in my head. 

I love the simplicity of it. And I also love love love that today I ran all 9 miles with zero pain (thanks compression leggings! and the discipline to use lacrosse balls to nightly roll out my troublesome left hip). As my friend and I talked about today in our weekly TAW check in, these small tweaks that can end up making such a difference are also absolutely creativity. 

While I haven’t yet noticed any seismic life shifts, I do think the course is slowly working its magic on me. Lately I’ve been pondering how to do anything more creatively, even things as mundane as washing the dishes or driving to an appointment. Or bigger things like facing and fixing work and relationship problems. I’ve concluded that creativity above all requires presence. As I get older I think more and more about how our time and attention are finite, and at the end of the day they are all we have to give. 

And maybe most importantly, I really want to apply this lens right now to my marriage. As two consenting adults we can really make this relationship whatever we want it to be. So maybe we will stay separated for longer but not divorce, like Jada Pinkett Smitth and Will Smith; although I have not read her memoir, only heard a snippet of her NPR interview so don’t know that full story and maybe regardless don’t want to compare us to them!

But it’s up to only us to get creative and figure out what works, going forward. Which is quite liberating but also a little terrifying! Which is what being wide awake and alive is just like sometimes, I guess.

Happiness Is A Hirning Christmas (And Family is a Mirror)

So we pulled it off! The Florida Christmas I started planning almost as soon as we finished our trip to Cancun last Xmas. It was maybe not as magical as Mexico last year but we 4 siblings (plus Steph’s husband Noe) were just glad to be together for the holiday and we had a great time!

The weather did NOT cooperate so we spent a little less time at the beach (which was the whole damn point of getting an Airbnb out at Indian Rocks Beach versus accommodations closer to my apartment), and more time indoors than I would have liked, but that led us to learning and playing several new games, and also exploring the nearby nature preserve, which is a little hidden gem.

The one day we did brave the beach (the day after Xmas), the fog lifted momentarily only to return and we gave up and went back to the house. 

But we gave it our best shot!

Since becoming roommates with my brother, I’d noticed little things he did or said that slightly annoyed me that I realized I do also. And then something similar happened with another sibling, where I mentioned a behavior that bothered me, and while this sib was defending, explaining and justifying instead of taking in what I’d said, I had an “aha” moment because I saw this was EXACTLY what I had been doing with my husband. 

Literally, for YEARS. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I think this is no small part of what we’ve been struggling with as a couple.

It’s totally human to want to handle it this way, but the insight I gained by seeing my own behavior reflected back to me, is that if we have any hope to understand each other’s perspectives and show the love and respect that strengthens relationships, we have to try to do something different. And I could see how it felt so invalidating to have it handled in any other way. 

So, as we are almost entering a new year, my hope and my prayer for us humans is that we have more real connection with each other, even when it means having to hear hard feedback about our own behavior and even when the sun doesn’t shine on our long-planned family Florida vacation.

 

 

No Children

I don’t actually feel this way about my marriage. I was going to post these lyrics in November, after my brother first introduced me to the song, and in the first flush of grief related to separating from my husband. But I’m glad I took a pause, because hopeful things transpiring since then are leading me to think that I may NOT be getting divorced after all; and even if I do, I feel pretty sure I can avoid falling into quite this much acrimony and bitterness. 

But because I find it darkly funny I’m posting it anyway. And I can certainly identify with the “No Children” part, and grateful for how that gives a certain freedom for grown-ass humans to figure out their relationship shit without affecting any innocent tiny humans.

As a friend told me, after listening to me talk about my marriage, “When we reach this age and people who’ve been married a long time separate, there’s often more pushing them away from each other than pulling them together but you guys seem to still have a lot pulling you back towards each other.” In other words, still a lot of love and affection and even compatiblity left, after sifting out all the other (conflicting) feelings and issues. 

So, with that hopeful note for my own situation, feel free to enjoy this song about a couple who probably will or did divorce! I’m sure they are much happier now, apart.

“No Children” ~ by The Mountain Goats

I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a fail-safe plot
To piss off the dumb few that forgave us

I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late

And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
Someday burns down
And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
And I never come back to this town again

In my life, I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises
We're pretty sure they're all wrong

I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
And I hope you blink before I do
I hope I never get sober

And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way

I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

I Wanted You to Go

but you were never really here 

sad still-packed-from-the-last 

separation boxes in the 

spare bedroom until 

you made them disappear

a sense of an ending 

in these last few months 

a sense of doom

despite all the work we’ve done 

with all its costs, the upheaval 

of one more false start

and my heart, my heart 

can hardly bear this loss

can only let go in increments 

taking the grief in small bites 

like you eat an elephant 

they say, or stay sober one day 

at a time, but what kind of monsters 

are eating elephants anyway? 

what kind of monster are you 

that my best wasn’t good enough 

or maybe you didn’t want me well?

because of course I needed you 

more while I was sick and suffering 

and if that is true, it has everything 

to do with your damage

and I am damaged too 

I am - if nothing else - an agreeable fool 

for love, accepting mistreatment, 

since first boyfriend in middle school

when we first met, you said

I was like a bright light but then

you tried to make that disappear 

and so began my 27 year 

mistake 

so much time I spent torturously 

twisting myself into a pretzel

catering to and caring for

accommodating and excusing

tending to and tip-toeing around

your emotional needs 

and triggers 

I could never get it right 

but I kept trying and you, 

perfecting your gas-light, 

tried to make me disappear 

and - maybe I was never really here

Rock ‘n’ Roll, Baby

Belated post for my first half marathon of the running season, last weekend! The inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Clearwater Race finally happened Sunday the 8th, after being postponed from last year due to Hurricane Ian.

Having done only two other Rock ‘n’ Roll races before (Savannah in 2021 and New Orleans way back in 2001), I had forgotten what huge races these are! Thousands of people made for a late start but the weather was unexpectedly perfect and for sure the bands playing on the side lines every 3 miles or so helped with the energy. 

Besides the bands and the finish, my favorite part was the “Biofreeze” station somewhere near Mile 8 or 9, where you could pull over and get the pain relieving spray on various body parts, like you were getting new tires and gassed up at a NASCAR pit-stop. 

The medal is small and my time slooow at about 2 hours 38 minutes (there were 3 big bridges soooo), but I had a great race and I am still and always - 

Baby Love

I’ve never been a person who is wild about babies. 

I mean obviously, since I chose not to have any of my own, but in general terms also. Probably due in part to my starting to babysit younger sibs and neighborhood kids at a very young age (shockingly young in retrospect and compared to what I believe is standard age to start babysitting today). The in-home day care center my mom ran for most of my childhood didn’t help either!

But maybe I was also just “built” that way. I have a pretty strong opinion that the assumption many people have, that all women want and need to have children, is inherently sexiest.

And yet, I recently fell in love with my granddaughter. 

To be fair, I was pretty well primed for it, hearing my equally not-wild-about-babies husband gush non-stop since returning from New Hampshire, where he visited his son & partner, and met Jubilee for the first time. 

He visited in August for Jubilee’s first birthday, but I waited to meet her until this recent trip to Milwaukee, to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 100th birthday. So much to celebrate! And to be grateful for, too.

You Sure Can Run, Baby

Why do I get up at 5:30am on a Sunday morning, drive 30 miles to run 9? What’s it all for? I have to say at some points I am not really sure. 

It’s become akin to this famous question and answer: Why do I keep hitting myself over the head with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.

But I guess I still love it, though it’s getting harder and harder to do the long distances. Especially in the muggy hot weather of still-summer in Florida! 

But I did it, my first race of the season (which I also did last year and wrote about here), the Fort De Soto “Distance Classic” - 15k put together with slow 12 min miles and some walking to manage a stitch in my side. Even so, I felt better than I expected, with minimal low back & hip pain! And didn’t even realize it was Dad’s birthday until I got home and saw my sibs’ texts. 

Here’s to you Dad, I hope you are running and hiking and fishing and living it up in Heaven! We still miss you down here, but I am often thinking of you, especially when I go running.

You Sure Can Write, Baby

I got my first rejection letter when I was probably no more than 10 years old. It was from “Cricket” children’s magazine (do they still publish it? I wonder), to which I was encouraged to submit my story “Adventures on Crane Island” by a neighbor lady who had taken an interest in me and my writing. 

A sucker for flattery (even at that young age), I was deluded into thinking this smashed-together recitation of various events that happened on a trip to the San Juan Islands with a friend and her parents, was good enough for publication. As the rejection suggests and upon re-reading this, my earliest piece of creative non-fiction, while recently clearing out our childhood home, I can assure you - it was not.

I’ve had a few more rejections letters since then, but I’ve also had some poems that were published, mostly in high school and college journals but hey, they still count (I think). 

And, the rejection letters are part of being a writer, the important thing is to make the attempts! I haven’t attempted any submissions in a very long time, and only now am I finally thinking of what it might take to get published, as I make what feels like the big step of taking an online memoir writing class. 

This is my first writing class since graduate school many many moons ago, and it feels so incredible to once again be part of a small group of like-minded lovers of language, reading and critiquing each others work. 

We meet 6 weeks of Monday evenings for about 3 hours and tonight during our 3rd class my submission is up! I’m equal parts terrified and delighted. My piece is from here of course, and it’s basically all 3 parts of “The Day the Music Died” - this labor of love blog finally getting some much needed feedback, and of course I had to start with the story of the biggest and worst thing that ever happened to me. I’m too close to all the material on this blog, so if I have any hope of turning it into something that could possibly be published I really really need the critique.

As a child declaring (to whomever may have actually been listening and interested), what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was the usual creative and impractical aspirations: an actress, a dancer, a singer, and a writer. 

Only one of these dreams has stood the test of time, is actually still possible and has any substance to back it up (although my rendition of the song “Maybe” from Annie had a lot of fans on the playground, at one time, so if we’d had “American Idol” back then, who knows what might have been).

So, here goes nothing! And since I know that rejection letters are part of the process, I can only hope that I have more of them in my future. But maybe, just not too many.

You Sure Can Read, Baby

One of my most vivid and favorite childhood memories is of Mom loading us all up in the car and taking us to the Seattle Public Library. Most vivid probably, at least in part, because it happened so frequently, maybe every two weeks or once every month. Favorite because I can’t remember a time before I absolutely loved to read.

Our closest location was the Henry Branch library, just off Broadway on Capitol Hill where we grew up. It has since been replaced by a much bigger and fancier structure (and renamed the Capitol Hill Library, as this article informed me), but to me it remains that small two story building with the funny bridge/ramp up to the 2nd floor from street level, that to a child’s eye always seemed like it should have been over water, but it never was.

Mom brought a big cardboard box to bring back all the books and I recall having limits placed on how many I could check out at one time. And then there would be the summer reading challenge, where the library encouraged kids to read more (yeah, like I needed that!) by giving them a fun way to track the books they read. 

My favorite one (or the only one I specifically remember) was a large placemat with outline of a roller coaster and every book you read you got a colorful coaster car sticker until you built the whole train. I’m not sure but I may have built two whole trains!

Because this old photo, sneakily taken by my Dad I think, is pretty representative of how I was most summers of my youth; whether we were on a family camping trip (as in this photo), at the Oregon coast with relatives from Portland, or just hanging out at Madison Beach, I always had a book (or three) with me.

(I’m pretty sure here I was reading Christine by Stephen King.)

My reading program this grownup summer has consisted of more books than I can really post about (or possibly even remember), but recently I’ve done a lot of non-fiction with no particular theme other than they are all interesting to me. Unless you count the two anti-fat bias/body positivity books which is a topic my sister sort of got me into, and I didn’t even know how much I needed to read those books but I did.

The David Copperfield I only picked up because I recently read the new Barbara Kingsolver Demon Copperhead, which she loosely based on the Dickens classic, and I realized I had never read it. (Or maybe I did, but forgot, with so many books read over the years, who really knows?)

Sad to say though it’s slow-going, I still haven’t finished it and I’m 50/50 chance going to give up because life is LITERALLY too short, to read books you don’t enjoy! So there you go Moby Dick, I spent 20 pages on you but I just couldn’t, so that one too will be consigned to my personal heap of “just not interesting enough to get through.”

I’ve actually sort of realized, since I hit the big 5-0 that I am probably not going to have enough time to read all the books I want to before I die. Which makes me sort of sad…but also CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! There’s technically still at least a month of summer left. 

🤩