wounded Doberman pinscher

from Citizen by Claudia Rankine

The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.

At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard?

It’s as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry.

I am so moved by this poem that I can hardly write.

I see Mic or Shamako or my god, Dione walking up to this house and it breaks my heart. 

I see any of my students from my many years of teaching.

 And I see that I have been the woman inside the house.

Fear runs through this poem on both sides.

There is the newness and the vulnerability of the patient and the therapist. We know that the speaker has had trauma in his or her life that was severe enough to seek counseling. The bond is tenuous, forged only by voice. They have not seen each other. We can also assume that the speaker “sound’s white” on the phone, which to the lady would only appear “normal.” In her world, everyone is light skinned. People with darker hues are deemed the “other.” It may be subtle. Sometimes it is just what is seen on a day to day basis.

I understand. I don’t like that I do, but I do.

The patient follows a path around the woman’s house to the back entrance but finding it barred by a locked gate, approaches the front door of the home. As a new patient arriving for counseling it is already disconcerting to find the entrance locked, but this image evokes Jim Crow, as well. The patient dares to approach the front door and surprises the woman.

We do not know why the woman answers the door in the manner that she does, but we feel her fear and anger. She is “a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd” guarding her domain.

She does not see the human being in front of her; she sees someone to be afraid of. This is not someone who reflects her own image of herself. The woman immediately changes gears when she realizes the mistake she has made.

“I am so sorry, so, so sorry.”

At least she stops. At least she realizes that her fear is not only misplaced, but hurtful. In this second excerpt, the pain is not even acknowledged.

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He’s okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. And yes, you want it to stop, you want the black child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet and be brushed off, not brushed off  by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of  bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

Solidarity and hope comes through at the end through the wall of “newly found uncles and brothers.”

There is hope in these poems. Hope and truth. We just don’t realize the small ways we touch each other’s lives.

I’m still struggling to fight past and “see” clearly. What I see is pain and fear and lack of understanding.

But I also see hope and beauty.

Onward to a better world.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

Moving Day

I am packing my stuff up again and moving it down the road.

I only lived in this apartment six months, but it has been my sanctuary.

So much has happened in those six months.

I came back from California in April not sure of what I was going to do beyond be closer to my kids. I mostly rested in this apartment, cocooned in its walls.

 It has served its purpose. It held me in, gave me some space, a safe place where there was very little outside interference.

In this container, I have been able to evolve into my next being. In doing so, relationships have had to be readjusted and reconfigured. It has been bumpy but fruitful.

There isn't much to move, but I need to get to it.

Namaste' ya'll!

November is a Dangerous Month

I’m attracted to the number 11.

Whenever I see the number on a clock, I pause.

My daughter was born on 11-1.

My father was born in November too.

We get our first cold, dreary days in November.

It’s the official start of the holidays. We get warmed up at Halloween and Day of the Dead. People start their Thankfulness practices. It gets colder and drearier. We need to remember what we are thankful for because life literally begins to get darker every day. We are going into the night, the end of the year.

It is no surprise that this month marks both the official and un-official end dates of my marriage. My divorce was final one year ago, and I began this blog. That marked the end of the year after my ex-husband announced his desire to end our marriage. The anniversary seems to call for some reflection but not too much.

We have a choice whether to accept the darkness or to fight against it. In this case, the weapon is love and a different outlook. Things have changed quite a lot in a year. I am very thankful. Not everything is exactly the way I would like it to be. That’s ok. I have to learn to accept these things that I cannot change. I am no longer angry.

I end this year of transitions in yet another transition. I am finally making a move back to the Texas Hill Country. It feels that I have come full circle. It will be a place to rest and build a foundation. I have been tying down my kite string in Buda for the past year. It is time for me to secure that attachment.

A year ago, I spent my first Thanksgiving holiday not with my children and husband. My friends Jim and Val generously invited me to spend it with their kids and grandkids. It was a nice time. It is the support and love of friends like these that has strengthened me. I am thankful for them.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

Kairos

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: Chronos which refers to standard chronological time and Kairos which refers to a period when something special happens. Most of us relate to time in a chronological fashion, but there is a second level of time without determining borders--a time that cannot be measured by the clock or the turning of the calendar. Kairos lives in the cocooning of  a butterfly, in the time that is needed to heal and emerge as new.

I witnessed Kairos in action this past weekend in a group of over 70 women. Some of us were ministering to our 26 guests for the weekend at a retreat center near Belton, Texas, but all of us experienced the power of unity and healing.

All of our guests and many of the servants share the experience of having a loved one who is or has been incarcerated. There were grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts, friends--all strong, loving women who have suffered and endured.

The women came in on Friday night scared, ashamed, and alone for the most part. They left Sunday evening humming and singing with their heads held high, buoyed by the love of their sisters and the time that they had taken to express their grief and find their joy again.

I was a table leader, which meant that I and another woman were responsible for holding space and gently guiding a group of four guests. We led the discussions after the talks, sat with them and took care of them during dinner, stood with them and supported them throughout the weekend. The six of us became a small family, sharing meals, sharing stories, and sharing our journeys.

Kairos is a prison ministry with three branches: Kairos Inside, which goes into the prisons to serve adult inmates, Kairos Torch, which serves juveniles and offenders under 25, and Kairos Outside, which serves the family members.

The Kairos Outside logo shows the image of a woman looking through the bars and a man looking out. The weekend is focused on growing a community of support, acceptance, and love.  It is based on the Cursillo movement and Walk to Emmaus, which are three day short courses on Christianity. I attended a Cursillo weekend through the Episcopal church several months ago.

As in the Cursillo weekend,  a series of talks and meditations are given by women who open themselves up to share their journey through life. I had the privilege of giving the talk on Anger, in which I shared my path through anger to forgiveness. The talks are a springboard for the conversations around the table where the women have the opportunity to express their own feelings on the topic.

One of the most moving and educational talks for me was the one on Isolation and Rejection. There is so much shame around incarceration. Some of these women went through public trials. Some of them have never spoken to anyone outside of immediate family about their ordeal. Some of them have been rejected by friends and family because of their association with their loved one behind bars. These women bear the shame and responsibility of having a child, grand-child, parent, brother, or husband who is in prison. Many of them are caring for children left behind. These women desperately need love and support. They deserve to be respected, not denigrated. They have been pushed aside for too long. A grandmother raising six children whose parents were both incarcerated spoke of her fears in being able to care for these babies: "How could she do right by them when her own child broke the law and went to prison?"

Many of the stories I heard were about children and grand-children who went to prison at an early age due to the influence of drugs. One mother revealed at the closing that her son went in at 17 and was 39 now: "He is still there, and NO ONE DIED." The sentences are overwhelmingly long. The faces are overwhelmingly black and brown. All the women are poor; many live in poverty. Opportunities to feel worthy are so few for them.

But I watched them bloom and grow over the weekend. Seemingly small gestures of love and kindness were accepted with such gratitude.

Listen, listen, love, love.

Namaste' ya'll!

Anger: The First Sunday in November

This is a transcript of a talk I gave yesterday at Kairos Outside. Namaste' ya'll.

I think the angriest that I have ever been was when my ex-husband told me that he didn’t love me anymore and wanted a divorce. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me…but it did. I was furious with him for lying to me for so long and for giving up on our marriage without giving us a chance to work on it, but I was even angrier at myself for letting it happen. Looking back now, I realize that it was for the best. We were both unhappy and lashing out at each other in unhealthy ways. I really didn’t realize the burden of that anger until I let it go. I had been carrying the weight of anger over the direction my life had taken for years. I didn’t know how to express it, so I attacked everything I loved, including myself. My weight had gone up to over 200 pounds and I just felt irritated all the time. I was not only living with a man that didn’t love me, but I also hated my job. I was a high school teacher, a job that requires one to see the potential and best in students that don’t always make that easy. I had lost that capability. I trusted no one. I felt trapped; I think I would have chewed off my own arm to get away. Even my youngest son, when informed of our separation, was unsurprised and said that he didn’t even think we liked each other. That’s pretty serious when your fifteen year old son knows your marriage isn’t working. I think that awareness is what made him the one child that did not suffer from our dissolution.

But on that November night I fought against the idea that ending my marriage of seventeen years was the way to do it.  I was so devastated and angry that I wanted to die. I had cleared the counter in the kitchen in a desperate swoop of my arm and cut my wrist on a piece of glass. As I watched the blood begin to ooze, I thought about how easy it would be to open that vein even more and let the life drain out of me. I wanted to punish him, but I also wanted to punish myself. How could I have let this happen? I was so ashamed that I didn’t even think that I deserved to live. I screamed, I cried, I hit my head on the ground, and I even tried to lash out at him. I wanted to hurt someone. Someone needed to pay for the hurt and anguish I was feeling, even if that person was me.

For over a year afterwards, I was still blaming myself and punishing myself for the shame I felt over my failed marriage. I started out blaming him for everything, He was distant, emotionally withdrawn, and cruel. He had lied to me, allowed me to feel unworthy, cheated me out of happiness, taken away my stability, and left me unable to cope. He had pulled the rug out from under me and thrown me out to sea without a life preserver. I thought I no longer had a future. He put a wedge between me and my kids, especially my daughter. I felt like I was floating in this sea of not knowing what to do. I felt like a victim… and that was the worst part. As long as I blamed him for doing this to me and myself for allowing it, I could not heal and move on. As soon as I decided to stop, everything got easier and the anger started to go away. I’m not going to say it is gone, but I have stopped trying to hurt myself and stopped trying to get back at him. I realized that all I was doing was hurting myself.

That’s why anger is such poison. I’d like to read you a poem by William Blake.

The Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

The speaker in the poem shows two sides to anger:

“I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

Notice the difference: when he lets his anger out, it dies. But, when he feeds it, when he waters it and allows it to grow it becomes a tree that bears poison fruit. In this case, the poison not only kills his friend but makes him a murderer. The speaker here does not yet see the havoc he has caused. He does not mourn the death of his friend but celebrates. We can see what he has become: a murderer. Instead of looking for foes to blame for our anger, we need to look for friends. It is all about forgiveness. That was my problem: I could not forgive. I could not forgive my husband and I certainly could not forgive myself.

Cesar Chavez said, “You are never strong enough that you do not need help.”  When I started to talk about my anger with friends, with family, with a counselor, in my prayers, the poison began to dissipate, to leave me. I began to see my ex-husband as a friend instead of a foe. I no longer wanted him to eat the poison apple and I stopped feeding it to myself as well.

Anger is an emotional response related to one's psychological interpretation of having been threatened. Often it indicates when one's basic boundaries are violated. My boundaries had been violated. In fact, they had been trampled. I felt out of control. Working on my anger helped me to re-establish those boundaries for myself and create the life I want to lead.

I am not going to say it was easy. In fact, it was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. I not only had to look at the anger that I was feeling in the present but also all the anger that had built up over the years. Little by little, as it came out in talks with my friends, in my journal writing, in my meditations, the anger turned to realization that all the people that hurt me were also hurt themselves. Anger begets anger. But love and forgiveness also begets more love and forgiveness.

MLK said:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

We need to shine a light on our anger. It’s scary. I know. It hides in the deepest, darkest recesses of our souls. It is difficult to look at, especially for us women. We are not supposed to get angry. We are supposed to endure, but that endurance can lead to pain for ourselves and those around us. I did not realize how much pain I was causing myself and others with my closely held anger. It was so big and so bad that I thought it was best if I hid it. But when I finally looked at the anger, it was more like a dirty, raggedy child. The part of me that was angry was really more hurt. When I showered that anger with love, it bloomed into a beautiful flower instead of a poison tree.

I will leave you with a quote from Maya Angelou:

“You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'”

What the Bleep do Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle have to do with HIp Hop?

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend and participate in a small, but groundbreaking, event in Denver called "What the Bleep Happened to Hip Hop?" -- a new alliance with MovetoAmend and Hip Hop Congress.

I went into this under the impression that Hip Hop was loud, angry music about ho's, drugs, and violence. I have since been schooled that I was completely and utterly mistaken. That's what they want us to think; "us" being white, middle-aged Americans. I even said in the opening introductions that as a schoolteacher, I only really knew it as something to be "tolerated." There is a strand that fits the above description on corporate radio, but that is only a small branch of the tree. Like yoga and it's many limbs, hip hop is very diverse. I met a group of beautiful human beings who care about their environment, their community, and their art.

They reminded me of another group of musicians that I spent time with when I was with my daughter's father and bass player extraordinaire, David Waddell, back in the 80's. David played for Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle, as well as Billie Joe Shaver, Calvin Russell, and Blaze Foley. These guys also cared about their music and their art, while making a social comment.

During the two day event, the DJ's, rappers, and beat boys and girls talked about what it means to be a hip hop artist in a time when huge corporations dominate our lives.

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend about culture and community. I also learned something about prejudice and its implications.

I was listening to Mic C talk about his work with Afrikan Hip Hop Caravan. He was discussing his last trip and what he saw there. He described kids wearing big gold necklaces with guns hanging from them. That image exploded in my head and I thought, "That's what I am afraid of...?!"

Wow.

I didn't even know that I was afraid.

I suddenly saw this beautiful, sensitive man in front of me that cared deeply about his impact on the world. He came sharply into focus and this overlay that I had superimposed on him evaporated.

I had met Mic several times over the past year, but I had never really seen him.

I had seen my image of him.

That image was created by my environment and based mostly on corporate media depictions of rappers and African-American men.

I had unconsciously judged him.

I had been afraid of him.

I told the group about my experience. It was scary to admit that I had done this, but the response was beautiful.

Mic and I talked later at the show. He told me about going to Pet Smart and having the clerk not acknowledge him or even look him in the eye.

I felt so ashamed of myself, but Mic gently forgave me.

Blaze Foley used to sing a song about a lady who locked her door as he crossed the street. A houseless person, Blaze knew something about being judged for your appearance and affiliations.

The picture at the top of Townes and Steve was plastered  in the bathroom of Youth on Record amongst a wall full of Hip Hop posters.

Tears came to my eyes when I saw it.

We are more alike than we are different.

We just need to talk to each other, listen, love, and open our eyes.

We are all in this together.

Namaste' ya'll!

Watch Mic Crenshaw's TEDx talk. The content is very similar to the presentation I saw. He also performs and shows a clip from a show in Africa.
Listen, listen, love, love...

'52 Pickup

Namaste' ya'll!

Long time, no see! How ya'll been?

Isn't that a beautiful machine?

I could see myself driving that thing down hill country roads with my hair flying in curls around my face, kind of like when Bobby and I went on the Galveston Ferris wheel.

I would probably have a giant smile on my face just like that, so happy to be alive and with someone I love hanging out over the Gulf of Mexico.

I just returned to my little hidey-hole in Pearland after being up in the Austin area for the past few weeks. It was nice to be with friends and family while I was trying to get some work done on my latest enterprise.

Boy, has Austin changed! I actually spent most of my time in Dripping Springs, Buda, and Westlake Hills. The most dramatic example was when my cousins took me over to this huge shopping center that built up around where the old Backyard was. Damn! It was eerie. Not at all the same place or energy there; they traded groovy Sensei-bud trees and live music for big-box commerce.

Going back to Austin has brought up a new layer of healing and rejuvenation for me.

When I first went to Austin in 1981, I was a wide-eyed teenager with a wild streak. Naive and adventurous can be a deadly, but fun combination. I lived in Kinsolving that first semester and my best bud and I would run across the drag to the Hole in the Wall to listen to music and drink. Soon, we stretched out all along the Drag and beyond. I majored in party and theater, emphasis on the party. That first semester I worked as a dresser for summer stock at UT and took classes. I also studied the best places to listen to music and drink. Austin was full of beautiful men.

I went from dorm to duplex with my older cousin ( he was supposed to look after me.... ), to my own efficiency, to back in with my cousin ( maybe we could look out for each other?.... ).

What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?...........Homeless.

I was able to combine all my favorite Austin aspects: music, musicians, bars, dancing and alcohol. We moved out to the lake on a houseboat, and school just drifted off. Before long I was pregnant, and it was time for this Austin edition to end.

The voices of the ancestors called me back to the Island to bear her as a BOI (born on the island, very important, something I didn't get to be), but I returned her by the time she was 6 months old. I finished my degree, learned to cut hair, and continued to work in theater and film; I also continued to enjoy the Austin experience.

I left Austin by degrees. The house was too small for new babies. From Kyle to San Antonio, we crept away.

I have always wanted to return.

What I have learned is that this is a new Austin, and that if I want to embrace her it will have to be on her own terms, the way she is now, not the way she was...

I used to love to play '52 Pickup when I was a kid. You threw all the cards up in the air, and someone had to pick them all up. My brother used to do it to me, to tease me, but I loved it.

You can put all your cards in order from Ace to King, matching all the suits: hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, but when your brother comes along and throws them all up in the air, you're going to have to pick them up. They may not all be in the same order, but they are all there. You may have to look for one or two that might have flown behind the couch. It can be a fun game to pick them all up or a vexing experience. I have tried both. It works best when I laugh and find delight in the hunt and reordering of the cards. It really gets crazy when you throw more than one deck up in the air. Then you have to separate and realign the decks. The more decks there are, the more difficult it becomes.

I'm still working on it. This time I am staying with my cousin again. He doesn't need to look out for me anymore, but he does.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (That's French, look it up!)

Namaste' ya'll!

Reflections from Yoga training

For the past nine days, I have been in yoga teacher training every day from 8:30 until after five.
For four days before that, I was at a yoga and meditation retreat.
That's two weeks of pretty solid going within.
I'm exhausted both physically and mentally.
I'm also feeling refreshed and primed.

Today is a resting day. My body says, "take it easy." I'm sitting on my friend's back porch with my feet up, resting my sore hamstring. I didn't pull it, it just is tender. I'm listening. I look at the grass and want to mow it for him, but I know that it can wait another day.

I finished some things that I started in the last few years these past two weeks.

The yoga retreat was the bookend to another retreat that I went to with the same two ladies two summers ago. In the first retreat, I opened up the energy of change, invoking Kali and her destruction of an old life. This one was more like a rebuilding after a rough storm, healing the still wounded areas. It completed that cycle for me. There was a very sweet camaraderie among the ladies and an overall feeling of well-being and healing. It was a very nurturing group.

I went straight from that into the second half of a yoga training I started last summer. I became very aware of how my yoga practice aligns on and off the mat. We spent a lot of time on alignment and being bodily aware. We spent one afternoon looking at the natural alignment of all of our bodies. We found that everyone has imbalances in the body. Which hand you use predominantly, if you compensate for something like a vision impairment, if you overwork one area of the body, you see it show up other places.People's hips and shoulders are not naturally even; we place our weight more strongly on one side than the other. Injuries long past healed may influence our posture today. I have a strong curve in my lower back. I naturally raise my sternum too much. This leaves me open and vulnerable in the core, allowing my power to bleed out from the front and keeping me unaware of my back body. I learned to drop my tail bone down, engage my core and retain my strength and power, instead of  it seeping out. I can still open my heart, but I don't have to let go of everything. For me, this is about setting boundaries as well as about finding my own personal strength. How I hold myself and practice on the mat directly influences and is influenced by how I practice my life off the mat.

But today, I rest.

Namaste' ya'll!

Lull - A quiet port

REINVENT YOURSELF
Be the Change!

These words pop out from the collage I made yesterday to focus myself.

Change has been a keyword for me: change of life, change of habits, change in relationships, change of address, change in career...

I seem to have reached a lull. Tired of the storms, I sought out a calm and stable port.
My little apartment has afforded me a refuge, a quiet and secure place where I can rejuvenate.
The yoga studio and my kula of friends there have offered me support and sustenance.The church offers sanctuary.
My family and I are relaxing into our renegotiated relationships with each other. We have had some beautiful moments together.

The job search has not gone so well. I am at the point where the level of rejection is getting to me a bit.
I want to be useful. I need meaningful work.
I am a service oriented individual. I like to help people.

I have tried to stay busy doing things for the yoga studio, helping friends with writing projects.
In July I will finish my yoga teacher training.
I have been doing a bit of tutoring, but summer seems to have slowed everything down. I really enjoy working with students one-on-one.

So, like I said before, I am at a bit of a lull. Patience is not easy for me. This appears to be a time when I am waiting to see what plays out. I need to just relax and submit to waiting, while I try to get clear and focused on what it is that I want.

I am also reminded that reinventing does not mean that I have to throw everything out and start over. I can build a bridge between what I have and what I want. Like people keep telling me, I am an intelligent person with a good education. I have years of teaching experience. I have good organizational skills, I can talk to people, and I can problem solve. I'm even good with computer programs. I seem to work best with projects. I want to travel. My desire is to make a difference, to illicit change in people's lives. My level of empathy requires a deep connection with people and community.

I feel like I am on the edge of something. I want to press forward, but I am also hearing that I must have patience and wait.

What's next?

Namaste' ya'll!

I feel like I have been hibernating; I've been asleep for a very long time, and it is very difficult to wake up.
I've been a grumpy bear.

What keeps me down?
Feelings of not belonging, feelings that I am not good enough, unworthy.

A group of people showed me this weekend that many of us feel that way and that it is just not true.
We can be loved and accepted just the way we are, no strings attached.

Still, those old habits of thinking, "just who do I think I am" are hard to break, but break they must if I am able to move forward. Thinking people are judging me harshly is really just me judging myself harshly. I stop myself before I can even get started.

And even worse, I cut myself off from the very people that I need and that need me.
It's a hard habit to break.

I'm ready to wake up and leave my cave.
I'm ready to stop limiting myself.
I'm ready to step forward with confidence.

Let's go.

Namaste' ya'll!

Wow. It has been a long time since I have written.
I have been busy, processing quite a bit, leaning into my new life, settling into the apartment, trying to find a job.

The main thing on my mind at the moment is my son's graduation tomorrow.

This is the end of an era. So many things have drawn to a close
This is not the way I dreamed things would be when he graduated. I thought two proud parents would stand together and we would breathe a sigh of relief and go off hand in hand.
No, it won't be my hand he is holding tomorrow.
And that's ok.

With every ending comes beginnings as well.
My son will start the next portion of his life, and so will I.

I am so proud of him.
Not so much for graduating, although I am glad that he has finished high school.
I am proud of him for being the caring person he is.
I am proud of him for being so comfortable in his own skin.
I love that boy.

Tomorrow will bring its own challenges and rewards.
Children grow up and move on with their lives.
Parents are left to figure out what to do now that their children are grown.

My relationship with my children has changed.
Once, I was their whole world; now, I am just a part of their world.
That is how it should be.
It all happens so quickly.

He fell asleep on my couch the other day, and I saw that small boy.
My heart tugs.
It is not easy letting go.
But let go, we must.

Namaste' ya'll.

Waking up...

I feel more hopeful today than I have in a long time.

In teaching, we learn to create successes for students, even if it is a small improvement, a tiny step forward in understanding, we praise them. It gives them hope and makes them want to strive harder to achieve. If we focus on the negative, the things they can’t do, then they will be stuck, not only not able to move forward, but actually regressing, feeling incapable of ever being good enough.

Today, as I took the seat of the teacher in the yoga studio, I drew an angel card from the deck sitting on the platform. It was labeled “Relationship.” Appropriate, I thought, as I have set an intention to heal relationships with my family, with people that I have hurt, lashing out in my own pain, and with people that I have made promises not kept. But the card wasn’t about relationships with other people; it spoke of healing the relationship with yourself first, how important it is to have a positive relationship with yourself.

Whoa.

I have not had a good relationship with myself.

We fight all the time, and the messages I have been sending to myself have been about focusing on mistakes, about how unworthy I feel, about how broken and pitiful I am.

If I want to nurture my own student, I can’t keep being so mean to myself. I can’t keep giving myself messages that come from a place of lack, of emptiness, of unworthiness. If I do, I will never be able to break this cycle of self-abuse.

The card went on to say how the relationship with ourselves is reflective of our relationship to the divine.

Now, I believe that the divine (in whatever form you wish to see it) exists in each and every one of us, that it is our connection to this energy that connects us all as one.

So, if I am abusive to myself, then I am abusing the divine.

Ugh!

About now, I want to start beating myself up for this transgression, but I am going to make a conscious decision to stop right there.

I have been looking outside of myself for answers, relying on others for their favor, their opinions, their concept of what I should or shouldn't be. But like Dorothy and her ruby slippers, I have had it inside of me all along. I have been fighting witches and flying monkeys in my own head, running from my own truth. Time to click my heels and go home again, put a rag on my head and smile at the familiar faces around me.

I am so fortunate. I enjoy the loving support of many friends and loved ones, people who have been right beside me all the way, ready to guide me back to the road home to myself, people who have encouraged me to replace this negative self-talk with positive possibilities, people who have been willing to hold up a mirror so that I can see how truly beautiful and worthy I am.

I am blessed.

I can’t promise that I won’t backslide and start sabotaging myself again, but I can say that I am aware of it now, ready to gently remind myself of the vast ocean of wonderful, capable, and strong that resides inside me.

I’m going to celebrate my successes, small and large.

I move into my new apartment in a few days. It took a lot of courage for me to sign that lease.

I taught my first yoga classes this week and was well received.

I have started therapy and the scary process of healing my dysfunctions.

“Hi. I’m Ruthi, and I’m addicted to my own emotions.”

Is there a support group for that?

Namaste’ ya’ll!

Hope is Replacing Fear

This past year has brought many changes, most of which I have resisted tooth and nail. I have done everything I could to either ignore them or run from them or avoid them in so many ways.

And all that has done has made the changes more difficult.

One of the biggest things I have resisted is getting an apartment on my own.

I have thrown up so many reasons not to get my own place: I didn't want to be alone; I couldn't afford it; I didn't want to sign a lease when I didn't know what I was going to do.

I was so scared of being by myself.

A dear friend of mine told me the other day that hope and fear cannot coexist.

I have been allowing fear to drive me, and it has made it impossible for me to make decisions. Instead of acting consciously, I have been re-acting and allowing my emotions to take me away. Since my emotions have been volatile, this is not a positive current to follow. Allowing fear to be my guide has made me live only in flight mode.

"Run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me..."

Or:

Fear has left me paralyzed, vulnerable to any attack, unable to move or act at all, susceptible to any outside force, a doodlebug balled up ready to be squished.

Operating in a fear-based place has not worked so well for me.

Time for hope.

Yesterday, I decided that enough was enough. The number one area that I needed to take care of was a place to live that was mine. I did it in Eureka, there was no reason why I could not do it here. I loved my little genie-bottle apartment with nothing in it but a bed and a yoga mat. I treasured my alone time in there, even when I was scared of being alone. I loved being able to go in and shut the door and just be with myself. How am I going to ever know myself if I don't have a space to be alone?

So, I bit the bullet and applied for an apartment.

It's a tiny thing, but with hardwood floors and just enough space to feel secure without being overwhelming, at a decent price, close to my children and between the two yoga studios. When I walked in, I knew it was mine. I should be able to move in next Friday.

Hope is replacing fear.

Namaste' ya'll!

Ready to Climb Up

Coming back from East Texas on Friday, I began to panic.

I was heading "home," but there was no home to go to. 

The thought of returning to the stranger's house was inconceivable. I needed a soft place to land.

Thank God for good friends. I have a dear friend who has been by side since the very beginning of this landslide, helping me negotiate the shifting earth beneath my unsteady feet. She has nurtured me through the divorce proceedings like a mother bear; she understands. She's been going through all the twists and turns herself; she's just a little further down on steadier ground.

She welcomed me into her home the way her guide had welcomed her.

Finally, I feel safe.

And, not so alone. 

It won't be long until I have a job and can get my own apartment. I have my first interviews this week. I am starting to dream of my own place, which means I will be able to do it.

I can see the fog beginning to lift.

I know that the difficult times are not behind me, but I do think that the worst part is passing.

I have a long climb to get back up the mountain, but I finally feel like I have my climbing gear on.

Namaste' ya'll!

Beneath the Water

I'm trying to be patient with myself.

It's not easy.

I came back to spend time with my kids and let them know that I am here for them.

I'm doing that.

I have spent time with at least one, if not all three, kids every day since I got back on Monday just doing simple things.

I've gone to yoga everyday.

I've filled out applications for work every day.

I have a place to live, even though it is not perfect. I rent a room in a stranger's house that I found on Craig's list. It's weird. It's not even been a week, but I know I can't do this much longer. I need a home. I will get my own place when I get a job. I need to know where I will be before I sign a lease and I am not even sure I can get a place until I have a job.

Every day I meet with someone to talk and get perspective. Yesterday, it was my mother. We had a wonderful afternoon, talking and healing.

Healing. That's what I'm doing. I'm finally allowing myself to heal. No more ripping bandages off.

The tightness in my chest and feelings of apprehension sometimes go away for minutes at a time

I'm just trying to be present. To keep breathing, even though my chest is tight.

Oh God, please help me. I feel like I am drowning sometimes.

I have to remember to float, let the water keep me buoyant, just relax and rise to the surface. There is peace there. I need that peace.

I'm learning to stand up for myself, to not bend myself into a picture of what someone else wants me to be.

This is not an easy place to be. I feel like I have gone down into the depths of the ocean, so far that I can no longer see the light.

But I know it's there.

I'm not staying in this place, but it is a place to start.

Namaste' y'all.

After a long journey, I have returned to where I started. I have found that not much has changed and yet, everything has changed. Maybe it is me that has changed.

I'm not going to lie; I have no idea what I am doing.

I am here because I need to be near my kids. Seeing Bobby and Jackson yesterday was fabulous. It felt so easy being with them.

This morning I can barely breathe.

I went to yoga hoping that would help, but I have this tightness in my chest and belly that won't let up. I have been in flight mode so long. I am trying to face things; it is really uncomfortable.

What am I doing? What is my purpose?

I am trying so hard to figure that out. I know I just need to relax and flow, but it is really, really difficult.

So many people I know are dealing with difficulty and hardship; I try to see myself as fortunate.

I found a place to live, at least temporarily. This is not going to work in the long term.

I need a job, a way to make a living. I have put in so many applications.

Breathe, breathe, trust, trust; keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Hope.

I am here to rebuild relationships, to stay open and communicate. That's my mantra.

Everything else will follow.

Right?

I sure hope so.

Namaste' ya'll.

Re-entry

"When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a clear blue sky..."

You know you are back in Texas when the name of the yoga class is "Yoga for Y'all." I felt right at home this morning driving down 290 in the Hill Country around Dripping Springs, thinking, "Yes, this is where I belong."

I felt like I could breathe easier even when I first landed last Monday morning.

It was an arduous trip from Eureka to Austin. I had to take a bus from Eureka to San Francisco, a train to the airport, a plane to Austin, then a bus to near Buda, and finally a taxi the rest of the way to end up on Jim and Valerie's porch. The whole thing took a total of 24 hours; I was exhausted, but so glad to be back.

For the last week, I was working Production Crew at Old Settler's Music Festival. What a great bunch of people. They made me feel like family. We worked hard and listened to lots of great music under the trees of Driftwood. Posh camping in Jim and Valerie's trailer and group meals around the fire. I felt embraced by the atmosphere and the people; I couldn't have asked for a better landing. Reminded me how important those things are to me. I had worried that I kept saying I wanted to go home but didn't have a home to go to. I needn't have worried; home is here, among friends and family. That's different from a house.

Now, I am in Dripping Springs with my cousins, and I couldn't be happier to be here.

I've been applying for jobs and looking for places to live. The anxiety is abetting. Things are starting to flow easier. I have confidence that "what will be, will be." I don't need to control it, but I do need to put forth the energy to receive.

I've been worrying that I don't really know what I want. How can I manifest the life I want when I don't know what that is? I'm learning to be patient. It will come. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If I find I am going in the wrong direction, all I have to do is change course.

I'm visiting friends, people I love here and then heading down to the Houston/Galveston on Monday for the people I love there.



N'amaste' ya'll.

From the Redwood forests...

I left Eureka, CA this morning, taking a bus down Hwy 101 to San Francisco.

That’s quite a cultural as well as a geographical leap, so forgive me if I have a bit of a lag. Giant redwoods and craggy rock formations of the wild Pacific north coast gave way to wineries, wider roads, and way more cars as we approached the Bay area.

In Eureka, people perpetually look like they just got out of bed and layered on whatever was laying on the floor. More men are bearded and people wear their hair longer. There is a reason for that. The days start chilly or just down-right cold, and they can warm up or re-chill at a moment’s notice. People don’t shower every day, because it is just too darn cold. Besides, they don’t want to waste water. There’s a drought on, you know. People up there are very aware of the environment because they can see it. Right there. It’s visceral. There is not a blanket between them and the natural world. When you see the ocean, mountains, and trees every day, you don’t forget they are there and need protection.

 The bus drive down reminded me of how stunningly beautiful the natural world can be. I sat in the front seat and just admired the scenery as we drove. I get carsick, so I can’t read or look away. I had hours to just be with the passing view. There are few towns out there with wide open spaces between that are filled with trees, rivers, and rocks. The road mostly follows the rivers. One can easily imagine what it was like before people started building stuff.

That’s much more difficult to see in a highly urban area like San Francisco.

After we crossed the bay, the road was full of cars and the scenery was much more consumed with man-made objects. On the walk from the bus terminal, downtown buildings reached for the sky instead of the giant redwoods I hiked through just yesterday. As I watched out the BART window on my way to the airport, I saw the crowded streets of San Francisco. Prime real estate, the houses are lined up in row upon row with no space between.

People here are different too. Cleaner. Stylishly dressed. Urban.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. Just different.

Tomorrow, I will be in Austin, Texas. That will be different, too.

I'm glad I have had a chance to see how other people live and experience their environment. It's changed me, changed the way I look at life. 

Namaste’ ya’ll.

After the storm has passed the real work begins...

You think that the storm is the bad part, but it is really the clean-up and rebuilding that takes guts.

Here I am with a little over a week left in Eureka. I wish I could see into the future. I try to stay optimistic, but it’s difficult.

Two out of three of my children are not speaking to me. I am going back to Texas to try to rebuild my relationships with my children. It seems like my life has crumbled around me, blasted apart. I need to mend, pick up the pieces and bind myself back to my family. They need me; I need them.

I feel like the thin, fabric veil was rent, torn apart in one short sentence: “I don’t love you anymore.”

This whirlwind started that night, a storm of pain that I had been trying to hold in was let loose and consumed me and my family. I know now that the pressure had been building for some time. Even when I tried to sit calm in the eye of the storm, the damage was happening all around me. Pretending it wasn’t happening didn’t help. Giving in to the force of the storm and riding the winds and waves didn’t make it stop. I feel like I have been thrown clear, washed up on a distant shore, a car stuck in a tree after the water recedes. I see the desolation and destruction all around me. It seems like an almost insurmountable task to try to clean up the damage and move forward.

Hurricane Ike hit Galveston a few months after we moved back to the Gulf coast. I was in Friendswood, so I was not in the worst part of the storm, but I remember the wailing of the wind, the crack of the transformer blowing, the relentlessness of the rain. My ancestors survived the 1900 storm; I tried to imagine what it must have been like for them in that house, cowering on the upper floor while the water of the Gulf tried to reclaim the island. My great-grandfather Willie didn’t let it wash them away. I have a picture of the house after the storm, rubble piled all around it, even a boat leaning up against the house.

You think that the storm is the bad part, but it is really the clean-up and rebuilding that takes guts.

Like so many people do after natural disasters like hurricanes, I wanted to just move away, leave the devastation behind me. It seemed easier to just move on and start over somewhere else. The problem is that in doing that I had to leave behind almost everyone that I loved. I kidded myself by thinking that was ok. It wasn’t ok. When my oldest son stopped responding to my calls and texts, I knew just how wrong that I had been.

So I am going back to Texas.

I am going to do anything and everything I can to clean up this mess. My three children are the most important people in the world to me. I need to show them that.

The storm is over. It is time for the hard work of cleaning and rebuilding. It’s going to take some time and a lot of hard work and dedication.

I know I can’t do this alone.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

Treading water

Dhumavati

This morning I talked to Meg, a friend of mine from church back home. She is an older woman, a former nun, who always welcomed me with open arms and held me on my last visit to Good Shepherd as I cried, unable to bear the sight of my ex-husband with his new girlfriend and my children going to communion. It was my last visit to church before I left for California. I told her that I had run away because I felt that everything that I was and had been was gone. I came to California hoping to start a new life, but I have been pulled back by my need to be a parent. My children still need me, and I need them. Just because I am no longer married to their father does not mean I can't be their mother. I am not giving that up; time with my children, the people I love, is too precious.

At the time, though,  I didn't know how to face my loss. She told me that I had done the right thing, that everything would work out as it should, that I was loved, and that I could come home without shame or regret. She also told me to "tread water" in these last weeks in California.

"Stop trying to swim," she said.

I realized that I had been fighting the current that I thought I had just been flowing with.

But this was something more.

"Treading water" means to neither allow the flow of the water to take you nor to try to swim against it.
To tread water is to attempt to stay afloat, to use the least amount of energy to stay in one place with your head above the waves in order to avoid drowning.

After we talked, I meditated a bit and then found myself reaching for Sally Kempton's book Awakening Shakti, which details the different goddesses of yoga. I have been reading this book for many months, meditating on one goddess at a time. Durga helped me find strength, Khali destroyed and helped me clear, Parvati taught me devotion.

Today, I opened to Dhumavati, the goddess of loss and dissolution, the goddess of smoke. She is not one of the favored ones; she is not beautiful. Her boon is the resurrection after losing everything. Facing her and looking into her eyes means facing all the fears of being alone and without all the things that one has been accustomed to having. I have been running from her.

Meg asked me what troubled me most. I told her that the loss of relationship with my children and the sense that I had lost my identity were my greatest torments.

She told me that I still was myself, that I would find my true self in this loss, and that I would one day see that I had become even more true to myself than I had ever been because of it.

Until then, I need to tread water.

Namste' ya'll.

big yellow taxi

“Don’t it always seem to go…that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone…”

I have had to face quite a few realities lately.

When you lose everything that you thought was important to you, that is what tends to happen.
It certainly puts things into perspective.

I had the seemingly perfect life, and yet I was unhappy. Was it my circumstances or my attitude that made it so?

I think I had to lose it all in order to see the truth.

It was me.

Ok, it wasn’t just me.
Relationships are a two-way street and in families, it’s really one of those cloverleaf interchanges on the freeway; the more people are involved, the harrier the exchange of traffic.

I think I had to step back in order to get some perspective.

I had to go far, far away.

“No matter where you go…there you are”

There are so many simple things that I miss.

But mostly, I miss my family.

The things I lost: the house, the car, the job…those were nothing.

What is important are the relationships with my family and friends. Those things you can never replace. Sure, you can make new friends, start a new family, but unlike material possessions, no two individuals are exactly alike. I will never again be able to spend time with my father or grandparents. People I loved dearly and who at the time, I didn’t realize I could lose forever.

I have blown up relationships with the people I love.

It started with my mother. Now that I have experienced the other side, I am horrified at my behavior towards her over the years. I still have time to work on that but maybe not so much.

My children are growing up, but that does not mean I need to abandon them. And, I have.

I have been in so much pain over my divorce that I have been unable to see that.

I want to be with my boys. I want to have a relationship with my mother. I want to mend my relationship with my daughter.

I am missing so much.

I feel like I have been asleep for the past year. I thought I was being present, but I was napping.

And the nightmare started.

I was so hurt by losing my husband’s love. It was something I relied upon. Something that I thought I could never lose. But, a big, yellow taxi took it away.

I know that it sounds old-fashioned, but I married for life. I took those vows seriously. I never expected to break them. I thought we would grow old together. I was sure of it; maybe, too sure.

But it wasn’t so, and when it happened, I couldn’t even imagine living in a world where it wasn’t.

What I have learned is that even if I am no longer John’s wife, I am still Sarah, Bobby, and Jackson’s mother. I just have to figure out how to do that in a different context, no matter how badly it hurts.

Maybe Sarah was right; it’s not about me.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person. –Airline Hostess

One thing that I have not written much about, but which is really the most difficult part of my divorce is the change in my relationship with my children.

I miss them.

I miss being a Mom.

All of my children are nearly grown. They are not little kids. Even the youngest had mostly begun to see me as a food source; “What’s for dinner, Mom?” seemed to be the only topic of conversation in the last few years.

My daughter is an adult in her late twenties and the boys are late teenagers. They all have lives to live, and that separation from the mother had already begun long before the divorce proceedings.

When I left, part of my reasoning was that they did not seem to need me anymore. They were settled into their lives with their father, and I felt like I was no longer needed. My daughter had shunned me for most of the time leading up to the divorce, angry and hurt. Just walking into my old home was so painful, I could barely stand it. Taking my kids out to dinner was awkward, and I often felt like I was intruding on their lives. I didn’t want my sons to start to resent me the way my daughter seemed to. I was in so much pain that I didn’t know how to relate to being the “absent parent.”

My daughter kept telling me that this wasn’t about me, to which I still have no response. How could my divorce not be about me? Everyone else seemed to be moving on, staying with the same attachments, while I was flapping my wings and trying to take flight.

“Taking flight” has a double meaning: I could be flying away from something, and I could be soaring to new heights. I think it is a little of both.

Being a mother is difficult. I have been a mother since I was twenty-three years old, which is more than half my life. I have spent so much time caring for other people that I barely know how to take care of myself.

And that seems to be the crux of the matter: I really don’t know how to take care of myself.

On the airplane, they tell you to put the oxygen mask over your own face first and then take care of the child. You can’t help the child if you cannot breathe yourself.

I have not been able to breathe. I am still finding it difficult.

My greatest fear is that while I am learning to breathe, something will happen to my children.

I have to trust that my ex-husband, the church, and the school community will take care of them, and more importantly, that being young adults, they will learn to take care of themselves.

My second greatest fear is that they will resent me for leaving.

The absolute worst part of the divorce for me was my daughter’s reaction. It brought up so much pain, anger, and fear in her that it was overwhelming for both of us. She has barely spoken to me the last year, and when she has her words were filled with resentment. I hope and pray that she will heal her wounds and I will heal mine and we can be close again. I miss her so much.

Until that day, I am trying to come to terms with all that has transpired, to lean into to the wind.

A friend compared me to a dandelion seed last night.

A dandelion grows where it falls. It is blown into the wind, and the seeds dance through the air until the wind dies down, then they grow where they fall.

I am dancing in the wind.

Namaste’ ya’ll.