Beyond Oprah

Post-Epilogue :)

2011-06-11T10:32:00.001-07:00

Ok...I may post here from time to time, but it's not likely to be too exciting, just the odd thing I need to share in the world, like this exercise I did yesterday. I went to see someone to support me with my writing and she put a plate in front of me with hundreds of paper chits with individual words on each. She asked me to grab a small handful and arrange some of the words of my choosing into something that spoke to where I am wanting to go with my writing. The following emerged:

astoundingly lost hunger
fences grip
long distance

please
real belly now
eventually dazzling heart

I cannot focus on a theme right now nor write self-help material for others, but since I do write the occasional thing I want to share somehow, perhaps this forum can at least allow for that now and then....

Epilogue: Note to Self--I Am Here

2011-05-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm still here. Underneath the extra layers, and underneath my work. Underneath the top of my head and above the soles of my feet. I'm here, really I'm here. I'm here. Please, I'm here. Come find me, I'm here. Still.

I have nothing to say and there's nothing else to do except to love my kids a whole lot and earn a living and care for people and not do anything too wrong. But underneath all that I'm still here. And beyond Oprah and Dr. Oz and a thousand gurus, I'm still here and I have something to say but I don't know what it is.

And somewhere, in the darkest part of the night, huddled underneath my blankets, someone will find me and hold me tenderly. Surely they will. Surely someone will find me. Inside this mechanical shell, I AM. And I want and I need. But I'm dying a slow death. I'm not really alive. I am a dishwasher. I am a line cook. I am a house cleaner. I am a child hugger and a dog walker.

But too, I am a writer and a dreamer. And a believer--somewhere within me, still, faith waits to be released...and dance loud and sing wild and be in nature and be loved and love and hope and see and be seen and suffer and rejoice. And laugh, yes laugh until I can't stand it anymore, and then giggle. And tickle gently another and be caressed.

I AM HERE. Really I am. I am falling. It's different now...there's no crisis, just the ever so silent haunting of aging, crushing responsibility, and a deep, long ago rooted belief in deprivation.

Bring forth abundance and plant a new seed in my depths. Help me see the seed even as my eyes get old. And lead me to water to tend the seed. And let me grow, finally, please let me grow as the seed grows into exactly what it is and is meant to be, let me grow like that and finally flourish.

Sometimes things reach their natural ends...

2011-04-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

...as has Beyond Oprah. I thank you deeply for your engagement here, and hope to engage again in some new way somewhere else in the future...when I know what that way is. I feel like I need to turn in different directions to live my way into my next steps. I think I may take on a substantive writing project just for me. Or not. I hope you are where you need to be, or are moving in a direction that feels authentic, and that this has been valuable in some way. Namaste.

Spring: New York City

2011-04-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

As March turned to April, I was privileged to attend Omega Centre's Weekend in New York. I have wanted to share some highlights from there--in truth there were only a few. I knew it would be big, but 1500 people showed up--it was just too big. Geneen Roth spoke, and she was funny and wise and engaging as I had imagined she would be. She signed my copy of her new fabulous book Lost and Found, and it was lovely to meet her.

There were a few other speakers, and they were fine. They did say a few things I cared enough to write down, and I will share those here in a blog post to follow. But I think what I found distressing was what felt like massive room full of people looking toward the stage for an answer, and forgetting to look inward. It was ironic that some of the speakers did in fact admit they "didn't have the answer" and--Geneen Roth in particular--pushed people beyond their bullshit....but still, it felt like so many looking wide-eyed for someone to save them. Was I also doing this?

I don't know. I think it is legitimate to seek support and ever new perspectives on fundamental life lessons. I did come home using Geneen's "guidelines" regarding eating, which are hugely helpful. And I think it is legitimate to be on the stage giving that forth in a humble way, which some of the speakers like Geneen were doing. Perhaps I just felt sad because I had thought I wanted to do that too and I don't. Because some part of me still does want to be saved. Because I still won't leap as much as I feel I need to into my own depths and passions.

I don't know.

Yellow Tulips

2011-03-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

Spring. Yellow tulips open their mouths to eat the sunshine. I open my mouth to speak something new, but only old words emerge. My bogged-down-ness in old shit feels heavy. Still I watch the tulips in awe. I stretch my body so as to mimic them, to embody their simplicity. A dear friend's baby is born. I need to send tulips, pink tulips.

Days are longer now, and the days feel long. Not money nor any imagined perfect other person or career or vacation or body will lift me. All the shit is my shit...imagined, really. It was real long ago, not real now, but so familiar I choose it as home even though I hate it.

A wonderful man walks into my life. I see him, I am loving to him, I need to open. He sees flowers in me and that scares me. I want and don't want to be seen. He says there are tulips everywhere and it makes me want to stomp on them it's so raw and true and beautiful. But I listen. And I notice how apart I feel from flowers about to bloom, and how alike I feel. I dig deep within for the courage to choose to blossom.

Just Like Me

2011-03-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Martin--see his comment yesterday. From this, I found a fantastic collaboration between Run DMC's Darryl McDaniels and Sarah McLachlan--click here. I have not been touched directly by struggles related to adoption, but I am moved nonetheless. I am also moved by the contrast of firm rap and Sarah McLachlan softness, all wrapped into grace. I always appreciate reminders like this that grace is not so much about purity, but about allowing the fullness of who we are.

Answer

2011-03-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I was blessed to attend a Sarah McLachlan concert at Massey Hall. She played with "friends" including Melissa McLelland and Butterfly Boucher, also delightful. I have heard Sarah McLachlan play many times and am always moved, but I surprised myself when she started her set very minimally and acoustically, going straight into "Answer", a song that is one of two precious ones that for me represent love songs to my children. I was alone, and I allowed the sea within to flow all down onto my chest through the song, and then bowed by head in thanks for its beauty. Click here for Answer.

Born This Way

2011-03-19T07:39:00.000-07:00

For some reason I have been touched by Lady Gaga's connection with 10 year old Maria Aragon from Winnipeg. Maria came to Toronto on March 3rd to sing with Lady Gaga--click here. I have been moved by several indie Canadian artists lately that I have heard on CBC, and will come back to them soon, but today as I battle it out with my mood, I need a bang of inspiration which I find this song by Lady Gaga to be--add the kid, and it's all sunshine.

The Flip Side of Gratitude

2011-03-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Nike has long told us to "just do it", and pop culture infiltrated with New Age everywhere reminds us to be grateful. I am all for gratitude, but I often see its messy underbelly in myself and others who indeed are grateful, but for whom there are associated complexities.

Today a wise one taught me something I had not considered. Underneath my inability to "just do it" regarding taking care of my physical health lies anger. Under anger lies hurt regarding the ways I have not done this and the ways I was not nourished to do so. Every time I try to "do it", I am reminded of the places like this in which I have felt deprived. In other words, my genuine effort to nurture a sense of gratitude and abundance inevitably brings up old hurts, feelings of desperate scarcity--until I heal to them.

I make a list of things I am angry about. The list breeds tears, and hurt reveals itself. I experience that it will not kill me, and instead that feeling the feelings releases me.

I want to be a Nike ad, but It is truly more complicated for me. I allow compassion for myself in this place to seep in, and I keep doing. Keep feeling. Keep moving. Perhaps not yet running, but at least stepping out my front door.

Stay Up Late

2011-03-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

Stay up late, waiting for what? Holding on to what? Everything is ok enough in my little world. I am full of feeling and worry, but it's all fine. There has been an earthquake in other places. Not to compare, just to remember.

I stay up late waiting for my heart to soften. Waiting for myself to allow love in deeper. Waiting for myself to cut the knots binding me to old stories. Waiting for a plan to be more perfect? Waiting as if I won't have to face tomorrow if I stay up forever tonight? There is nothing wrong with tomorrow--why do I stay up late, when my eyes are stones and my dog is snoring lullabies?

I stay up late. I stay up. I don't let myself go down? I don't let my belly release in all its current fullness? I stay up to buff my armour? I stay up so I don't have to dream disturbing things again? I stay up late. Do you? Does Oprah? Why? What could she possibly worry about that real people worry about?

If I could, I would stay up many more hours. As I get older, I feel closer with the deepest hours of the night. But I know I cannot survive without sleep, and I cave to my practicality, my early morning alarm clock daughter and my first thing work commitment. But if I could, I would stay up late. I would write and write and write...and read and read and read...and I believe that somewhere before dawn on one late night like that I would find that piece of myself that is still missing, that I so yearn to recover. That in the silence and stillness and darkness I would no longer feel alone. I like that fantasy.

Vulnerability

2011-03-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

Nothing to blog from my own head and heart lately, only can share the brilliance and loveliness that comes my way from others, like this video well worth the twenty minutes of attention to watch--click here.

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T19:17:00.001-08:00

A lovely person sent me the following video for International Women's Day today.
Hope you enjoy it--click here.

Weekend From Hell

2011-03-06T17:57:00.001-08:00

Hell inside my head. Hell in my younger daughter's endless whining and complaining. Hell in my inability to feel I can help her significantly. This weekend almost nothing works, until finally we both collapse in tears. I rarely do this kind of drama with my children, but my little one she was relentless and I just couldn't take anymore. At times like this I absolutely loathe being a single parent.

I allow the final drips of serotonin to leave my body, and I try to replenish this more naturally. I get out to walk beautiful Jake, and he glimmers in the blinding snow. For these few minutes I am ok, and then the barrage starts again. I consider O Mag's article about the therapeutic benefits of crystal meth. I want some.

When my little girl and I fell apart last night, she suggested we sit with our backs straight and our legs crossed and clasp our hands in prayer. We sat in silence together like that. Tonight before I sleep myself, I will watch her sleep and clasp my hands again like she told me to.

Assume Nothing

2011-03-03T18:22:00.000-08:00

Don't assume that people hate you. Don't assume anyone else is happy just because they are driving a fancy car. Don't assume that there is a god (purposely not capitalized, thank you) or there isn't. Don't assume that bad feelings will go on forever, even the deepest despair. Feelings move.

Don't assume that someone speaks your language. Don't assume the weather today will be the same as yesterday. Don't assume that guy who held your glance is interested, or even if he is, that he's available. Don't assume people always mean what they say--but at the same time, don't be cynical. (How's that for confusing?). Listen closely to your intuition, it's all we've got.

Don't assume you will be healthy or sick. Don't assume you are doomed to be like your mother. Don't assume your children will listen to you, unless you actually listen deeply to them...and still, don't assume.

Hope? Yes.
Try? Yes.
Assume anything? No.

I notice lately how I hurt myself with assumptions and expectations. So I begin to question them, to re-evaluate. I'm irritated that I have to. But I am also titillated by the possibilities that open as I let go of assumptions and begin to sense more and more what is truly present.

Melting

2011-03-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

I sit this afternoon in a cold, dark hospital administrative room for a very long meeting. From time to time I look up above the meeting, and glance across the room at a shabby picture entitled "Peace and Serenity." It feels rather like an oxymoron in this place, yet at the same time I hold my glance for a few moments here and there. I open my imagination and fly away to a peaceful place inside myself, and then glide back into the room. I am a better worker, a better person, for these momentary flights of consciousness.

The glass on the picture is cracked, more irony in this institution in which we supposedly fix people. Or maybe the cracked glass is just a plain truth--beautiful pictures we all are, cracked personas and all.

I am acutely aware of my own longing. I book another trip, not letting myself loll about in questions about it. I just know at this time in my life I must go, as often as possible, away--or rather back to myself--even for a few short days here and there.

Life gnaws at me in my perception of its monotonous content and my inability at times to open my eyes wider. I tell myself grounding mantras, but I don't hear. I put a chocolate in my mouth for escape, but I don't taste.

Soon I will hold my daughters and my senses will burn like sunshine.
I need right now to take in every moment that melts me.

True Nature

2011-02-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

"Take no prisoners". Don't imprison yourself. My most significant prison is my own mind and the way it--like all human minds--spins its webs...into bars.

New storylines try to keep evolving, but the old ones taunt me. I am reminded that I have to both let go and also be a "spiritual warrior" for myself. Dangling in the slush of every day life, I try to anchor myself in writing and meditation and laundry. I recall the deep inner peace I touched during my last retreat. I aim to retreat here and there, moment to moment, in my every day life--it's hard to do this. Still I try. Still I remind myself to allow my true nature to be.

Heart

2011-02-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether to give my heart away or keep it for myself. I know it's all about both, about knowing and trusting oneself enough to navigate the ebb and flow of such mysteries. I just wish there were a simple mathematical formula I could apply and be safe and happy....forever.

O Mag would suggest this is possible with all its neat little solutions tied up in a bow. But yet again, I can't even open this month's issue with its sunny nonsense. Life feels shades of grey to me today, not bright Oprah colours.

As obvious with my minimal posting, I don't feel to write lately, at least not publicly. It's a winding inward winter time.

Highway

2011-02-18T18:49:00.001-08:00

Drive to Ottawa today for Winterlude with my lovely daughters and my older daughter's best friend. Kids amazing in the car overall, sweet relief. Hard to stay awake, a single coffee normally sparks me the hell up, but today even one large one not enough. I have been up since very early on a crazed schedule to be able to get out of town by noon. I made it.

I talk with myself again and again about reframing my old storylines. I notice that when I get tired I feel lonely, and it really is an automatic switch that needs to be broken. It's just not true. My older daughter is singing Wizard of Oz tunes, my younger daughter is teaching me about what she is learning in her meditation class, we bubble over with love for each other. We will meet my Dad and his partner in Ottawa, we will be a family. I am not alone.

I notice my desire to drive far. To keep going down mysterious wide open new roads. I honour the road I am on at this time in my life as well as the countless possibilities that lie ahead. I am at once apprehensive and ecstatic. Must stay with the ecstasy.

Rumi

2011-02-17T14:24:00.001-08:00

From one of my favourite poets, Rumi:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

A Billion Cheers for Children with Special Needs

2011-02-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Parent meeting tonight and my child is on the agenda. I don't expect the focus to be as tightly on us as it is, but it is, and I need to step up to the plate. The parents say yes, please share...no, you're not hogging the time...tell us, please, about your daughter.

I tell the most coherent story I can, but the bulk of the story is that I just don't know. She lives physically in this world, but spiritually in a land of unicorns and fairies with pastel colours all shining bright at the same time, and sweet music playing endlessly...and in her world, it is delicious to be covered all over in beautiful sensory input, but in this world it's just too much.

She gets lost and overwhelmed. She gets frustrated and feels misunderstood. She can't understand some things that you or I take for granted, like basic social cues of our culture, personal space...she is simply a big, dancing hug and endless kisses...

I have a sense that, although I am self-conscious and anxious, people are opening their hearts to me. I am aware of my own fear, but choose to let in some joy. Parents and teachers are kind and check in on me after the meeting, tell me darling stories about my girl. I know I have done what I have to do for my daughter today.

I am so wired and tired and confused...and kind of happy and hopeful.

Let There Be Joy

2011-02-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

Today felt largely joyless, but still I am committed to asking myself to "lean into joy". Even if I can't access it, lean toward it. The daily grind wears me down, an endless stream of clinical and then administrative work. The windowless hospital meeting room makes me want to implode.

But still, I enjoy the therapy work I do very much, and sunshine pours in my office there in the morning. There is no time for lunch, so I revert to sugar, but at least I don't go overboard. In moments in between work here and there, I ask myself...as I promised myself I would when I left the retreat..."Who am I in the presence of this?" This quote from Victor Frankl pulsates through my being.

Tired. Anxious about my daughter. Feelings I would have called loneliness in the past, but then I recognize that I just miss myself. I wonder how do I stay connected with me as a cold comes on and work demands and children call out? Perseverance...I am learning this. Standing for me no matter what. One foot in front of the other, committing to the belief that joy is as real as suffering.

Celebrate the Truest Loves

2011-02-14T10:08:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day. The bombardment of media and cultural attention to the commodity of love. I brace myself and step back. For the first time in my life, and not in a relationship, I don't feel very lonely on this day, but still I feel the need to honour something deeper than that foisted upon us from corporations Hallmark and the like.

I say to myself: Melissa, celebrate your daughters. Celebrate your big, black, furry dog--a perfect symbol of all that an open heart is. Celebrate your father and your grandmother and your dearest friends. Celebrate the sky's insistence on clouds when Laura Secord and her chocolate selling friends need sunshine to cash in on V Day.

Honour the hope for sustainable romantic love. Honour struggle, yours and all that beyond your outstretched arms. Honour compassion for yourself and as wide as the world.

Love day is every day, just we forget. I forget. The red and pink today can be a little reminder, but really I need to glitter pink every day. Let us celebrate our truest loves of all kinds today and every day.

Stories

2011-02-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

"I am respecting and honouring the time away from the blog...And...I am craving the usual intelligent, thoughtful, vulnerable, gentle, emotional, mindful, narrative, compassionate and loving words that are so often found on this blog...."

Kind blog readers, thank you for your written and verbal nudges lately regarding my absence from blogging.

I'm back. I had to be away, it just happened that way. I was away for a week, and meant to say goodbye before I left, but already I had lost my voice, or rather couldn't bear to hear it as it was anymore. You know the feeling, on the brink of change, the chaos that precedes the calm order...I was there, and my fingers could not release authentic words, I just didn't know what they could be then.

I visited New York City again, this time on my own. I found solace in the main branch of the New York Public Library, and in wandering Greenwich Village on my own for hours, talking only inside my head. It felt like a long time since I had heard my own voice, and it felt like something new was emerging. I saw plays and continued to wander the city at night. It was wonderful.

I got on a bus to a retreat, where my 5 day writing workshop was cancelled, but lo and behold the retreat I needed even more fell into my lap. I ate healthy food for days and slept and read and read and read...and did yoga, and danced, and...as my workshop instructor taught me, "leaned into joy".

Joy has been missing in my story. Some of the stories I have told about my life are not untrue, they just don't resonate anymore. Retreat allowed me to begin to hear from inside the new stories that were emerging, and to honour and cherish them. And even with the harried pace of life back at home and work, quietly the new stories continue to call me and I continue to answer them...and I feel more at home than I ever have in my whole life.

Thank you again for your patience. I do not intend to jump ship again for such a long time. It was just how it had to be. And I hope you are where you need to be.

Birthday

2011-01-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

Think process and creation and courage. Feel the sore throat burning and trust that it will pass after five days already of sickness. Wonder about sinking into my forties further, whether my youth is gone, along with any possibilities of freedom. Reflect on who am I really and how do I want to live. On this, my quietest birthday ever, am I lonely really, or longing for parts of myself too frightened to emerge?

Write. Feel. Sunshine. Cold. Look inward, not outward for answers, or at least for authentic paths. Sleep. Sit. Walk if I can muster it in the sickness.

Bitter winter day, haven't been outside for several now. Does the day call me out, or do my blankets beckon me to hibernate? Listen. Beyond Oprah. Beyond the most brilliant poetry. Beyond the internet. Beyond dreamy beautiful places. Here, now, on my 41st birthday I wonder. I lower my forehead into my hands. I consider prayer, and spiral inward for faith.

Sugar

2011-01-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

Martha Beck is bang-on in the January issue of O Magazine. As you know, I haven't been reading much of the magazine for months now, but with some leisure time this week I finally indulged--and was surprisingly pleased. Lounging about in the Laurentians lends itself to this, and I am grateful for the mountains and my family and the dogs and the hot tub and skiing.

That said, I'm frustrated by my decrease in physical fitness recently, and my addiction to sugar and the impact these states are having on the enjoyment of my life. This becomes apparent when my legs scream on only the first run down the mountain. Some of that is just using different muscles than I do in other kinds of exercise, but truth be told I know right now I am simply not in as good shape as I was last year, and this leads me to lose out a bit on this sport I have loved since I was a kid.

Enter Martha Beck this month on process-oriented goals (p37), in other words in re-focusing not on getting somewhere (like x pounds lighter) but on the process of being. Specifically, she suggests clarifying adjectives to define the process we want to be in, and letting go of the noun-based goals we are accustomed to pursuing. So instead of emphasizing "situations" we want to arrive at, which usually don't end up being what we hope them to be, Martha asks us to imagine the "experiences" we want to be living.

This translates for me into letting go (as I have been working on, but ever need reminders of) of wanting to look a certain way, and immersing myself more and more fully in the inevitably complex process of living how I want to live. I think more and more that this means living without sugar, at least for a period of time. This is the simplest way of being that allows me to let go of food as a vice, and feel more energized, free, hopeful, and connected to my body and its fuel and its movement. This is not new to me, it is an existing long-term process. Just still, I often aim to get to the "end", and fail again and again. Martha Beck's piece reminds me of what might really work in terms of quality of life. Of what matters.

What's Your Next Chapter?

2011-01-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

So according to the cover of the January issue of O Magazine, Oprah's next chapter has been conquering her great fear of having her own television network, and she suggests that we model ourselves after her in getting past our own fears. She just forgets the part where her frivolous endeavours which she labels "fears" are simply excessive privileges that have nothing to do with the rest of the world--like us. I wish she'd wipe that smug smile off her face and flush it.

Instead lets talk about real fear. About how "overcoming fear" in its most critical sense is usually a long and often tedious process that requires genuine courage from regular human beings. It is not something that can be accomplished with a to do list or a new year's resolution. It is truly a process.

I am afraid of being alone. I am afraid of the fact that I believe that in many ways we are all alone even though we are connected in some ways. I am afraid of certain kinds of connection. I am afraid of my fear and of the process of working through it. I am afraid of getting sick. I am afraid of getting old. I am afraid I will awaken again in the night panic-stricken over things I can't control. I am afraid to be out of control and afraid I am not doing enough regarding the small things I can control. I am afraid...

What are you afraid of? Even if this doesn't feel important or accessible to you right now, one time when you do feel afraid and want to just flip it off like Oprah suggests, just remember that despite all her phoney smiles, Oprah's "fearlessness" is still wavering on thin stilettos. When she takes off her patent shoes and peels off all that makeup she still has to look at her vulnerable self, and rest assured she struggles like all of us to see beauty and to let go of fear.

So as we enter this new year, let's let go of superhero mythologies like Oprah's and stand for real people with real fears and real abilities to come through what we face in remarkable ways.

December 31st, Evening

2010-12-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

Walk College Street with my dog. People stop to marvel and chat. I smile, we say to one another "Happy New Year", and each time I am aware of wondering really how was that person's year and what lies ahead for them in the year to come. The street is surprisingly quiet.

Last year at this time I was at a party with my boyfriend. I had a relatively lovely time, considering how not party girl I am. Also, then, I was happy to be with him. Tonight I send him a text saying happy new year, it feels like part of moving on.

New year before last, we were apart but soon after together again. The last new year that felt so much on my own was three years ago, the house just sold, packing to go, trying to orient myself into a time of disability. I don't remember new year's eve that year. If I were someone to turn to drink, surely I would have been drinking.

Now, today, I have slept most of the day but for a movie. I have more movies, and CBC is doing a comedy night. I say hello and i love you to my kids on the phone. I notice that I am pretty much where I want to be tonight. I am liking the quiet. Feeling less yearning and more patient. More wondering. The cool rain tonight feels just right.

Love After Love

2010-12-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

As I describe here over and over again lately, I know this viscerally and yet can't touch it right now. Still, Walcott puts it so very beautifully, it inspires yet another trickle of hope:

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Loveliness

2010-12-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day. In the pool with my child. Play. Boredom. Play. Light. Look up into the high, high up skylight, thank whatever omniscient being keeps the Y open during Christmas. Make sure I notice the light, really notice it. Hug my child closer. Giggle. Can't swim far with her yet, but can play.

Boxing Day. Pool again. Frenzied shopping everywhere, not here. Today her lovely friend with ringlets and freckles and unparalleled sweetness joins us. We swim. Play. Boredom. More play. Laugh. Screech. Play monster. Play sea horse. Jump. Throw them. Catch them.

Not as cold outside today as yesterday walking home from the pool. Want to expire in a slump, but will make soup. Late afternoon...Tashy is now awake, cozied up in winter sickness comforts. I make her tea and apparently make the most perfectly buttered and toasted toast--ah, the gifts of mothers. I never remember being taken care of like this by my mother, only by my grandmother. Bless grandparents, including most of all my extraordinary father.

Part of me longs to share these quiet days with a partner with whom we can join in family. I had this, but I left. He loves them too, they have two homes. I think they are more than ok. I don't know if I am. I know I have to figure out (emotionally, spiritually...) this home of us three girls and the boy dog. As is. As we are. I have tried to nourish some other possibilities, but they have fizzled. They have had their loveliness, but they are no longer lovely for me. I feel pretty trashy, but I try to hold space still for my loveliness to come alive again.

Let There Be Play

2010-12-25T19:14:00.001-08:00

Let everyone play. Let there be snow. Let there be the possibility of romantic love in my future, and at the same time let me now stand with my arms open and the cold wind blowing on me, let me breathe it in, and do jumping jacks and dance and say thank you Canadian winter and open my arms further and twirl around and be romantic with myself and pine less and be more and let love fall where it may in the years to come.

Write about what you have waited a long time for....

2010-12-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

I have waited a long time to be free. I have waited not to have depression curdling under me. Is it depression? What does that mean more personally to me? It means that I am scared. It means I don't feel interested in a whole lot except sleeping and quiet. It means I eat garbage, though I am doing just a little better this week. It means I feel lonely. Like I can't connect. Like I don't belong. Like I'm waiting...still...somehow...for my real life to start. Thing is, chances are it's more than half over so maybe it's time to live it. I don't know what this means. I don't know who I am free of responsibility. I still don't know who I am when I'm not taking care of other people. I don't really know alot about having fun.

I don't know. I have been waiting. I have been waiting for a love and a community that penetrates and heals my wounds but no one else can. I am waiting for myself to show up. I am waiting for all the fluff and dirt and grime and guck to fall away and reveal my four year old self, maybe even earlier, some time very early in my life when I wasn't doing or pleasing.

I know over and over again that I cannot go beyond my capacity. I don't know what I enjoy anymore. What do I enjoy? Movies? A little. Books? A little. Walking? Sometimes. Gym? No, but trying to go anyway. Cooking and baking? I don't know. Is this depression? If it is, so what? Are more chemicals the prescription?...or is staying open to play?...asking myself as often as possible, "can I play with this?" Maybe I do grown-up automatically and can trust that, and it is in fact the flow and freedom of play I need to nourish now...PLAY. NOW. HERE. Exactly as things are.

What do you ENJOY?

This Is My Dog

2010-12-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

Voice

2010-12-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

I want to write more here, but feel like I can't access my voice. I'm not sure what's up, but I know I crave inwardness. I will write more when my voice and I re-connect, but if that's not for a bit then happy holidays to all...

Hope this finds you all well and feeling authentically connected inwardly and outwardly as you need...

Flavours

2010-12-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

I missed a whole month of O Mag and I do apologize--I did buy it but I never read it. Now the January issue is out and I again have it in my possession but don't find myself the least possessed by it. It's too sugary, and I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I am more and more done with being sweet.

It's not that I'm not kind--I am. But sweetness feels like something one has to embody superficially, as a thin coating. This wastes energy that could be devoted to deeper compassion, real caring, including caring for oneself.

So I'm done. Sorry if I am a crab, but so it must be at this moment in time. I did smile when I found out Montreal had decimated Boston in hockey tonight. I did experience and express my deepest gratitude when the principal at my daughter's school met me with complete humanity and opened doors I thought were absolutely closed. I did kiss and hug my doggie. I did care for clients with my heart as open as I could allow.

So I am not exactly bitter, not really bittersweet or semi-sweet. I need to explore the flavours of me and of possibility in the broadest senses of love and faith and compassion. I need ways to nourish values beyond sweet, sour, bitter, or spicy...beyond Oprah...what flavours are you living?

Boxing

2010-12-12T17:40:00.001-08:00

My body feels like a box. I think of myself (perhaps too flatteringly) as "outside the box", but in this box of my body I feel stuck. And I am getting more stuck, wrapping more and more duct tape around the cardboard to seal myself in. I am consciously building fat and physical weakness around my frame. I know this cannot go on and on, but am not interested in picking myself up superficially as I have in the past.

What would picking myself up for real look like? It would have to be an extension of my inner work, with the courage to honour my body and my physical health and my physical beauty and femininity like I honour my daughters. Like I honour my mind and am slowly honouring more my feelings and my spirit. Sounds lovely and easy and fluid, but it's not.

I probably need to re-visit Geneen Roth's work and explore it ever more deeply. I'm reading funny fiction, a book on Sensory Integration challenges (my daughter to a T), a little poetry, and Natalie Goldberg's work on memoir writing. These all matter...alot. And so too does my body and the way it loops back to everything else--in fact, this feels core again, all too neglected, fear beckoning courage...

Saturday Morning

2010-12-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning dance class with my daughter. She stands tall above the other children. She turned seven last week, but as she is a December baby who we held back a year, she is in grade one and therefore qualifies still for this class of 5-6 year olds. She would be lost in a class with older children, she already dropped out after the first week of a musical theatre class that was too demanding. And of course, the lovely Miss Jillian--rather a fairy princess herself--is kind to Jamea and has been teaching this class as far back as when Jamea's older sister took it seven years ago...she is seasoned and sweet and Jamea loves her.

So it's Saturday morning, the one when parents get to come watch the class, and Tashy hauls herself out of bed to come watch her little sister dance. She refuses to miss it. Jamea wears the requisite black leotard with ballet pink tights and her signature pink tutu over top. She loves to dance. She smiles and jumps and twirls her way to class.

At first she is calm and participates with ease, and then in not too long I can see the eyes darting, the attention wandering, the overstimulation. Many not too bright doctors would tell me to medicate her. I would tell them to go to hell--even better, to medicate themselves and leave my daughter alone.

In no time Jamea is nestled in her Dad's lap rubbing his beard and making the sucking motion she does with her mouth to self-soothe. For most of the class she refuses to dance. Tashy is angry, their Dad looks sad, and I feel beaten. What is happening inside this beautiful child's head that stops her from doing what she loves? Is she ashamed, feeling her dancing isn't good enough? Is she just overtaken by the lights and the people and the noise and must retreat for calm? Is she exhausted from the intense effort it takes for her to work through her motor delays and accomplish, even approximate, the dance steps? An incompetent professional would roll their eyes and call her ADD. I would tell them to fuck off and give them a long list of labels about themselves to loll over instead.

Eventually Miss Jillian plays a Strawberry Shortcake song and Jamea jumps up to dance again. She asks to be at the front of the line. She tells the teacher she wants to do the moves alone, not to guide her. She smiles proudly. She gives other kids space, which is hard for her to remember as her instinct is to move in close and twirl their hair. The class ends. I exhale.

I arrive home to a message from a very kind parent from school telling me she wants to talk to me about some bullying of Jamea that her kids have been seeing. I inhale again. I exhale slow, broken little breaths. It feels like there is almost no relief from this mysterious and painful journey lately.

Meanwhile, a rare and lovely thing, Jamea is off at a playdate. She is glowing when I pick her up. I glow too. I feel utterly dulled and at other moments wildly though quietly, cautiously joyful. I feel trapped and free, closed and open, chaotic and clearer than ever. I feel tired and awake, hopeful and despairing, alone and part of something more.

I haven't danced for several months. I dance the past few years in bare feet, having retired my jazz shoes years ago. It's time to dance again, to follow my daughter's courageous and graceful steps. Grace doesn't always look like the National Ballet...grace--I am learning--is sometimes clumsy, curvy, and confused.

Let there be all kinds of grace and let it flow.

Jammin'

2010-12-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the idea of a Writing Jam. I've been thinking that it could in fact spread like strawberry jam, for me it feels like it could be contagious...a writing jam like a poetry slam. Writing practice only, no craft. We sit together and write about any topic for ten minutes. Let our pens flow into our subconscious....beyond monkey mind...into soul.

I have started meeting weekly with a dear friend to do this--we do two rounds of the writing and then a guided relaxation. We write, read, no comments. Write, read. We tend to naturally bow our heads to one another after we read, and to give thanks. Then we relax or meditate or sleep, whatever we need as we listen to the guided CD that day. I think it may be the first time I have practiced anything for three weeks in a row.

This requires no money. A very small amount of space. A couple of mats or anything soft to lie on. A pen and a few pieces of paper. And even if I feel dead, I come alive. I want to keep going with this and witness its organic evolution.

Arms

2010-12-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

I lay down my arms. I lie on the soft ground and my dog snuggles me better than a blanket. I lay down my arms. My legs fall open and my hips release. My loving mother force comes back to me. This is a fantasy that I want to be a reality.

I lay down my arms. I want to lay down my arms. Everything feels like a fight right now. I just want to lay down my arms. Let me lay down my arms. Sing me a lullabye. Hold me. Hold myself--I won't.

What the hell is going on with me in my refusal to take care? In my abandonment of myself when I am more capable than ever of meeting my true self? I want to step out of my armour and to still feel strong, to feel stronger. Not strongest, not mighty, just stronger.

I don't want to crumble in order to make space to build a deeper foundation. I want to hold all I have created and harness faith to keep digging deeper. And to take care as I dig. And find. And hope. And despair. And laugh. And scream.

Do you want to lay down your arms? What would that mean for you?
I feel like I am losing my mind, but of course I am just finding my soul.

What I Know For Sure

2010-12-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

I am livid. I have been too wired to write here. I want to blame other people, but the feelings are mine to own. I don't want to own up to my responsibility, but I have to--there is no other way forward.

It's not often anymore that I even bother to wish I was a simpler, "happy" person. I know that is not what I am here on Earth to do--not that I have some noble mission, just that my mission does not reside in la-la land. Hear a little jealousy there? You betcha. I feel like a broken record counselling other people who are struggling about how much healing is possible through the pain, not around it. I just want them and me to be able to get around it. I want an easier ride, for everybody who is struggling.

I had a huge tirade on a dear friend, who was kind enough to talk with me about it. I had myself in an absolute knot with themes of abandonment, betrayal, failure, and so on. I learned through the conversation afterward that I was telling myself stories that had nothing to do with my friend. That these horrible stories about myself were things I had been yelling at myself since a very young age.

Finally, the indigo light went on and I knew I had to find a way to honour the pain of the old stories but write a new one for myself: Perhaps I am not inevitably going to be abandoned. Perhaps I am lovable just as I am. Perhaps people who have loved me for years will not turn on me on a dime. Perhaps if someone seems unkind to me, it is in fact that they are a bit careless in that moment and that I am prone to misinterpret things as negatively about me....perhaps they don't hate me all of a sudden. Perhaps even if they are mad at me (which they probably aren't in the first place), we will move past it.

How about that? What is there for me in maybe, perhaps, possibly? There has to be something sweeter than the relentless rush of ragging on myself
that rules now. On some level I know this for sure, and this seems more important to me than any of O's "What I Know For Sure" columns.

Whining

2010-11-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

I feel like feeling sorry for myself. I just do. I am very worried about my kid in a way that becomes consuming and impossible to settle down from , except to look into her beautiful eyes right here right now (well, on the weekend when I have her again).
Inner city work feels like an agitated grind. I get so excited about the possibility to do good work, and then I fall over in my recognition over and over again of the immense barriers. I fall flat. Then I get up, reach high, fall over again. You would think I had learned my lesson by now, but clearly there is still something I need to learn from this crazy work.

A wise one told me that self-pity is just a cover-up for the deeper pain underneath. Damn right. And I don't feel like feeling that, so I'm going to pout and whine and complain. Anyone else want to bitch?

O would probably tell me to put on a smile and the world will smile with me. I would tell her to go to hell. Poll: Does Melissa have PMS, yes or no? Aaaah!

Here

2010-11-21T06:29:00.001-08:00

I notice lately how much I want to get somewhere. I don't know exactly where, but it's somewhere related to "success" in all aspects of life. I want to know my daughters will be perfectly well--forever. I don't want my father to die--ever. I want to have enough money that I don't have to worry--ever. Forever. I want to be in love with a man who will love me forever. I want to know right here right now that all this is taken care of. That the deal is sealed. I want to be safe.

I know this is impossible, that there is no certainty except in this moment, and that the more I try to clench certainty, the more it slips away. But still, I want to buy the December O Mag and immerse myself in it until I feel like I am one of the perfect eternal models in one of the ads with sparkling huge diamonds that say forever.

But here I am on a Sunday morning in late November, watching the first hint of snow trickle down outside my window. Haven't managed to put the snow tires on my car yet. Here I am, in my fantastic apartment, which is at the moment messy. Here I am with my beautiful dog snoring beside me, a huge dog whose life span is not so huge. This scares me, but I try to love him as though today is everything. I try.

Here I am, breakfast with one of my best friends an hour away. Sweet. Then I will be alone. Then I will have to clean. Tomorrow my daughters will return, and in the interim there are endless things to do, especially in trying to nourish my little one, the moving target with the "disability" label threatening to obscure the fact that really she is an angel.

Here I am. Where are you? I need not go anywhere. I need to stay here, live pleasure, clean up messes, find my way back to exercise, love, hope, seek greater faith, read poetry, wonder, think, feel, touch....now. Here.

Here. Now.

Suffering

2010-11-18T06:55:00.000-08:00

Suffering resonates with me, but not in a self-pitying way--in the acknowledgment of the universality of suffering, as opposed to the cultural push to bury suffering. Suffering is what it is, beyond judgment or comparison, and I notice personally and professionally ever more each day how suffering will have its voice--however, if it is not given its full voice, it will manifest in all kinds of disguised, ugly, and confusing ways. So, can we have the patience and courage to stay with suffering? Too, to stay with joy?

Write about....

2010-11-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

I wrote all weekend. I mean all weekend. I had the privilege of attending Natalie Goldberg's memoir writing workshop at Kripalu. It was warm and sunny in the Berkshires, and she worked us into the ground with ten minute writing drills. "Write, read, write, read, no comment, just shut up and listen...write, read, write". And at the end of a full day on Saturday, she ordered that before we gathered again first thing Sunday morning, we were to write for two more hours. I'm sure I was not the only one in the room who thought, "fuck you".....and...."thank you".

Thank you for pushing me, and for holding me in the places of tension that arose. Thank you for reminding me viscerally again and again that underneath tension lies truth...that only in this process of moving through the tightly held places does any good writing emerge--that is, through the practice of writing and writing and writing, even when you don't feel like writing.

If you are at all interested, you may want to pick up Natalie's latest book, Old Friend from Far Away--you can flip it open to most any page and find a jumping point from which to write for ten minutes. You will be amazed what can flow from you.

Blue

2010-11-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

I wonder what colour theme the next cover of O Magazine will be. I noticed earlier this fall a rave about the colour blue while perusing a fashion magazine in a waiting room. I am realizing more and more that, for the most part, reading magazines makes me feel bad, so yesterday--facing another wait--I brought Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, which I have been devouring. And how delicious it was, I will no doubt come back to it again and again.

I wonder about shades of blue, the sky an innocent clear blue today. My jeans, faded blue. My heart, purplish blue perhaps. What colours are present for you today?

I wonder about my childhood fairy princess wishes to have blue eyes. I was always told what beautiful eyes I had, but the fact that they were brown always seemed lesser, poop brown. What would I have seen through my eyes if they had been blue? If they had been a more light transparent blue, would I have felt more seen? Would I have seen better? I hardly think so.

Peeling away childhood fairy princess fantasies has been a major place of emotional work for me now. And, deep underneath the princess fantasies recently...pushing through rage and terror, and molasses stuck places, a 5 year old me emerged from the dark room I had left her in so many years ago, and I carried her outside into the sunshine. The image came not from any affirmation or structured visualization, but from far reaches within, places that had--almost, but not quite forever--been unknown to me.

In that image, the sky is blue like today. In that image, my heart...and her heart...are ecstatic red, flowing.

Clarity

2010-11-07T20:07:00.000-08:00

I'm going to continue free flow here, there is nothing authentically clear for me right now to share. O Magazine feels untouchable, the only thing less palpable being an even worse magazine like Glamour or something.

I met her in broad daylight, unexpectedly. It was like a nightmare in slow motion and a ripping sweet fantasy all at once. I wanted to hold her, wanted her to hold me, but there was too much space between us for holding. We both reached out with genuine smiles and motions to touch, but we did not touch. We each passed on.

I dreamed about her over and over again last night. She finds her way into my life past, present, and future. I cannot exorcize her from my psyche, I must integrate the image of her in a way that allows me to sleep. She is cold and kind, beautiful and icy, stone...and melted chocolate swirled with the leftover runny ice cream and streaks of maraschino cherry red. She is indeed a run-down chocolate sundae.

I hate and love her. I cannot exist as I need to without distance right now, and so it must be. It absolutely must. Typing words is never the same as writing them with a pen on paper, but still it is writing. Still I cry for yesterday even though I cannot access my tears.

Do you feel love and hate at once? Even just like and dislike? Do your struggles penetrate your dreams, and do you remember those dreams? Are you respecting yourself in your human relationships?

So much to consider...is life slipping by in my current blurriness, or am I just living into it so honestly, so fast and slow now, that I cannot see the clarity?

Problems

2010-11-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

You need not go to a book or scan the web for a taste of brilliance today--you need only read some of the comments from Beyond Oprah readers, like this reflection from Martin:

Every problem, as painful and frustrating as they can be, offers me an opportunity to face it, but not defeat it. Every problem affords me an opportunity to work with it, and train in it. Every problem allows me a way to sit with it and deal with it. Every problem allows me, if I let it, a way to get better at dealing with problems. Only by working out with problems, could I possibly get better at working out with problems. And my definition of happiness is definitely shifting, from one that defines happiness as living problem free, to one that defines happiness by the ability to gently and courageously deal with the inevitable problems in my life.

So much is spinning excitedly in my head these days related to turning some conventional approaches to well-being upside down, in fact landing them on their ass where they need to be. The medical model would be one such huge construct--and Martin's approach applies in the notion of individuals having the ability not only to cope with their "problems" (including seeking out appropriate help), but also to go beyond and explore into issues that arise. To stay with. To trust oneself. To be curious. To honour one's own story, not try to obliterate it with "fixing".

Buttons...In The Raw

2010-11-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

Write about a button. This is the topic I put out as a lead tonight for the therapeutic writing group I facilitate. I can't say much else about the group of course for reasons of respect and confidentiality, but I must say that one group member did an absolutely hilarious imitation of me, which made us all laugh, and for which I was grateful. It was hard for me to stop laughing, which was delicious.

Once in awhile I feel compelled to write from the topic I have given. I don't currently have a forum in which to be a group participant (it seems I myself am the only person who currently facilitates such a thing), but I do have the freedom always to write. I mean that broadly, and I think that the impetus to write free flow, and the healing that can occur from that act alone, is why I will share some writing I did recently that is a bit more raw than usual here, but feels like the most honest thing. Maybe you too will write, paint, dance, sing...freely...even just for a moment....

Write about a button, mutton. He called me mutton, my Dad did, when I was a little girl, a baby lamb. It was indeed a critical factor in my resiliency that my Dad would be my father and my mother to me, through him and my grandmother my heart survived and I now mother my own children well. Too, slowly, I learn to mother myself.

Button. Zip. Unzip. Rip. Fly. Eat. Don't eat. Drink. Lots. Water, more water, cold. Write. Button up. Polo button-downs were all the rage in grade seven, but even when I got one I still did not fit in. Go figure.

Button it. Push yourself down. Puke her out. Swim in the perfect mess you have released. Drink. Eat. Unbutton. Undress. Caress the folds that now surround your body, they are here for a reason, and you will not always need them. Love them. Stop hating yourself.

Button. Mutton. Futon--I remember the first real marital bed after the futon. Felt very grown-up for a day or two. Never gave birth to a baby on it, too scared for home births. Hospital births, midwives with the second, sweet. Surroundings mattered not, just each time the baby girl screaming.

Lately I scream silently. Sometimes in the middle of the night I open my mouth wide and let out a whoosh of a whisper of a scream. I mustn't wake anyone, especially not myself.

Am I awake, or asleep? I feel so tired, and yet in many ways more awake than ever. How do you feel? Marilyn, yay for the writing workshop, for needing, deserving, and as Martin eloquently said, needing to deserve. Marni, yay for walking and biking all through the grief. Martin, yay for your allegiance to music, and thank you for the music (and more) that you share here.

Sing. Dance. Romance. Does one get too old for romance? Is it time to button up love, or unbutton it? Who has the answer? Anything? I want one.

Buttons in a row. Buttons scattered on the floor. Buttons and zippers and snaps, closed and open, decorating the fabric of my life.

In due time my daughter will be able to do up her zipper on her own. In due time. In her time.

Old Montreal

2010-11-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

I left Toronto in a frenzy yesterday afternoon, and quite uncharacteristically barely made my flight. It is nuts to arrange care for 2 kids and a dog and get everyone ready for Hallowe'en and pack and have a day with the kids and feel on the verge of tears all day and so on. It was one of those days that just felt like too much. When I finally sat down on the plane, I leaned my head against the cold window, turned on my ipod, and wept.

This morning I awoke a little refreshed from the thrill of before bedtime cable tv and the silence and simplicity of my hotel room. I only awoke about three times in the night and fell back to sleep reasonably quickly each time, which was an improvement from other recent nights. I then was blessed with an unexpectedly inspiring conference plenary presentation from a health care centre serving thousands of Alaskan Natives in Anchorage.

I cannot begin to describe the richness of what they shared, of what they have done, but I do want to share a few key points that resonated deeply. One, the medical model is great for acute conditions and useless for chronic conditions. Two, health care providers must go beyond "patient-centered care" to support each customer/consumer/client in the telling of their own stories--they are the drivers, not us. And three, "health care is a journey". None of this new to me, but all beautifully expressed and boldly articulated in a prestigious, mainstream, medical setting with hard research to back it all up.

For the first time in a long time, it made me want to make real change. To have faith again that real healing is possible for marginalized people...and that I can contribute something meaningful. I walked the streets of Old Montreal in the evening full not only from the crepes at a perfect French creperie, but also from the possibility of meaning singing to me harmoniously again.

More Faith?

2010-10-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

The nights are long now. I stay up late hoping I will fall to sleep easier, but lately it is never easy. My shoulders scrunch up to my ears tightly and my headache introduces itself in its harsh and unfriendly way. Inevitably, at some point, I sleep for a bit, and then again, several times in the night at least, my crunchy shoulders and my racing mind and I start the violent dance all over again.

I find myself responding in the morning so hyper I can't feel the fatigue. The nights now are a curse. Daylight at times means escape from the shadows, sometimes endless "Niagara Falls imitation" from the eyes (as a friend said playfully), sometimes work, sometimes endless to-do's. Sometimes I am there with myself, often not.

Where are you? How do you check in with yourself regarding whether you are ok, really ok? How is your sleep? How do you soothe yourself...and are you doing this? Now I naturally wrap my arms around myself when I sleep, and sometimes I surprise myself by how tightly and dearly I am holding.

I try not to get caught up in my own storylines, but they are pounding now in my life with some very serious concerns regarding my younger daughter, and escalating. In the night different parts of me discuss...first the tears utter themselves...when I am done listening to them, my powerful action force kicks in and starts getting organized, then I get overwhelmed and cry again. Last night a deep sense of being part of something bigger, of Jamea (and I) being held in that fullness, swept over me, surrounded me...our specific stories just a tiny part of a wholeness that mattered more than the details. I think this connects to faith. I need to be with that more. You?

The Life List

2010-10-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today I feel sad. I am angry when the sun comes out in the late afternoon after the sky has kindly threatened rain all day. I try to stay with rage as I write in my journal, not give in to the self-pity route that obscures the rage...or to the "fix-it" mode of to-do lists and have-done lists.

Lately I have returned to my dear friend from a few years ago, when I could barely get out of bed and showering was a massive accomplishment. Then was born my "life list" of very basics, indeed my friend, supporting me to eat a salad (or at least a cherry tomato), take a multivitamin, shower, walk Jake...and so on. Some days I could only check a very few things off, but every day I tried to attend first to whatever basics I could on the "life list" before anything else.

I seem to have pushed the life list down as I have been thinking I was building my life moving through this 41st year of mine. But one builds nothing sustainable without continuing to nurture the foundation. So here I am, back to basics. It's even harder than I remember it. It's a little easier now to bathe than it was then, and I'm getting back to a cherry tomato here and there, but even that is a haul. Some days are easier than others. Many days I want to find only an easy way, but this is the only viable way for me--one goddamn step at a time.

I know somewhere within me lies a deeper wisdom, but she will reveal herself only ever so delicately and quietly, and only if I stay slow enough to listen.

Grey

2010-10-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Met a friend for brunch on the Danforth. Cozy cafe, familiarity despite having not seen one another for a long time. After...Carrot Common, wander alone along the Danforth, discover an awesome second-hand bookstore. Am reminded of a book I very much enjoyed a few years ago called A Year by the Sea, a memoir by Joan Anderson. She had taken to a year of solitude by the water when she had reached a 'mid-life crisis'. I had tried to figure out getting to one of her retreats back then, but it had slipped away. Today when I got home I was back at her site, and also found her new blog. Click here to go to Joan's site.

I was surprised by the feeling of sadness in Joan's blog. To be honest, it felt comfortingly warm and dry and real on this wet, cool, grey day in Toronto. I noticed a retreat she is doing in January...may just end up there, just some competition from another endeavour I have been considering. No matter, the fact that I am considering retreat, spending more time alone, writing more, and holding space for my life to shift as it needs to now--this is what matters most. As Joan says in one of her blog entries, and as you know by now I fully endorse (as in at Gurus and Guck at 15minutebeginnings.com), we must be our own gurus.

Need to lift myself from this chair and walk Jake, hopefully before the rain. Yesterday we walked in pouring rain. He didn't care, and I didn't really either. I am yet again struck today--between the visit with an old friend, the discovery of Joan's blog, and my own experience--by how much the process of living is all that really matters. Nothing leads to an endpoint, only to an opening to yet another beginning, and so on...bittersweet indeed.

Rage

2010-10-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

I posted on rage awhile ago at 15 Minute Beginnings. I have been managing to bury that theme for awhile within myself, but of course rage will not be silent and rears its ugly head in the guise of depression and such. It needs to be met face to face. Terrifying.

My mind tells me to let it rip. Not at anyone, but on the page or in glass after glass smashing in a junkyard. My heart is afraid--where will it lead me? What if it's too big and swallows me up? But it doesn't matter what any part of me says anymore, the writing is on the wall--my rage is not going anywhere until I move it myself. Actively. Persistently. Courageously. There is no other way.

Late Bloomers

2010-10-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

So for the first time in what feels like a long time, I open O Magazine. I am somewhat baffled because the actual article on "finding one's calling" isn't nearly as bad as I would have expected from the ridiculously superlative lead on the cover. This seems to keep happening for me with O Mag--that is, a little more on the inside than appears on the outside--which I guess is why I keep reading.

There are many pieces to this section that I do find trite, but one piece
(p184)--"Never Too Late" by Robin Black--I enjoyed very much. This article on "late bloomers", of which Robin herself is a self-proclaimed one, is inspiring. Robin started writing just before she turned 40, and completed her MFA in writing three years later in 2005. She has now published a collection of short stories.

I like the fact that Robin is realistic about the genuine barriers that arise when one considers "following your dream", like financial concerns, "inner demons", and so on. I also appreciate her acknowledgment of the richness of who we become over the years, such that perhaps many of us weren't ready to "bloom" in our twenties, even thirties, even...

What do you dream? Not even so much big and shiny, but deeply, genuinely, tucked in close to your heart? While sitting in the park this afternoon, writing in my journal for the first time in too long, and reading that book "Lonely" I told you about, I realized that I need to live a more viable process. I understood this more viscerally than I had ever before, and am making some space to listen further.

Easy-Does-It Guide

2010-10-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you can understand how I wanted to swat her when I saw Oprah with her hands on her heart on the cover of November O Magazine, entitled "What's Your True Calling? An Easy-Does-It Guide". If there were an easy way, I would be making millions as a one-expensive-visit-for-a-cure therapist by providing people with that guide. Unfortunately there is no easy way, but O at least is reaching her "true calling" of getting richer still by selling vulnerable people this kind of lure.

I can't feel the sunshine today, but O Magazine apparently has a vitamin that will help me "lose weight, fight the flu (the least of my concerns), beat depression, and live longer!" Really, after all this struggle all I needed was the right vitamin to cure my depression and profound inner loneliness....how silly of me to be searching so tortuously through the confusion, questions, and pain, when O has an easy answer.

Screw "easy-does-it". I'm all for ease, but not the kind you find in a guide, the kind you find within and in connectedness with life and living beings. How dare people continue to profit from vulnerable people's longings and not only not help them but inevitably set them back. I often think about what a fortune I could make in the self-help industry were I just to apply my energy to nonsense "positive psychology" and such. But I won't. It would only betray my true calling.

Olive Kitteridge

2010-10-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

I am aware that my posts have slowed down lately. I want to read what others are writing right now, not to write myself, except deeply personally, journal-style...raw and rough...I do apologize...I am also feeling more disenchanted with O than ever...the cover emerging each month feeling more and more superficial, in a way alienating...my questions are deeper right now...can't connect on O's level...

That said, I did recently read a book called Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which had been praised by O Magazine, and which won the Pulitzer Prize. I appreciate why it has been so acclaimed--it is profoundly poetic and piercingly human. It's comprised of thirteen interwoven stories that form the breathtaking novel. I had so many feelings about Olive and the people in her world, people she barely noticed, people she loved and hated. I found the book painfully honest, somehow beyond fiction.

I want to learn more about the craft of writing. I'm excited about a memoir-writing retreat I'm going to in November. I had thought for so long that I wanted to teach, workshop, give in those outward ways, and it is dawning on me that something inwardly has been all too neglected. That this can lead to depression. And that I must make space to inquire spiritually within myself about this.

Lonely: The Book and the Blog

2010-10-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

I first saw this book by Emily White under a pile of others at a relative's house. She, of course, had hidden it there...Shame. Stigma. Lonely as lesser...Such self-judgments no doubt put the book at the bottom of the pile, but it was still easy to catch site of on the coffee table when sitting nearby on the couch. Was this also an almost silent yelp to be seen?

I have thought about the book often since then, wanting and not wanting. The not wanting part has been about my fear that it would resonate too deeply, that perhaps I was not yet ready for it. Then another person told me about an interview with Emily on CBC Radio, and the intrigue--especially emotionally--kept seeping in. I finally got Lonely on the weekend, and have been connecting with it slowly and appreciatively since then.

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night at 5:02am. I was restless. I turned on my computer and went to Emily's blog (click here to go there yourself). I was captivated. I read countless candid entries and many moving comments from readers. I had to drag myself away to try to catch a bit more sleep before the day began, but I look forward to going back again and again. It resonates with a feeling of home.

Thank you, Emily, for your courage and your chutzpah. I am comforted and mesmerized by your commitment to telling the truth. You are teaching me viscerally how "saving oneself" can in fact be the most powerful way to help others. Beyond preaching. Beyond advice. Beyond academic, and straight to the soul.

Piano

2010-10-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

I wish my pen could flow on the page like a pianist's on her keys, revealing music that could soothe me. I can tell you about some great books I've been reading, about scattered moments of sweet fluttering, about Jake's big brown eyes...but today mostly I am aware of feeling out of place, unsure in an icky way, lonely, and despairing. Not desperately, but despairing. Maybe sometimes that's all we can do...name the feelings, honour them, stay with them as they inevitably shift...how are you feeling today?

Conscious Living

2010-10-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

I began a course by this name last week. It felt very right at this time for me, raising questions about intimacy with self, visioning, self-esteem, and assertiveness, among many others. It continues to build on the themes and practices of the basic Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course, which is becoming a classic, and for good reason. If you're not at all aware of this work, you may want to look at the book Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn for starters.

I have not begun the practice again--sleep and making space to be dazed and confused has taken priority this weekend. It is a relief to be able to be comfortable with some alone time again. But I will no doubt find a groove, and get what I am able to out of the experience at this rather strenuous time in my life.

At the end of the first session the teacher led us through a body scan. Normally I feel so well in that flat-on-my-back relaxed and open position, but I couldn't bear it. I felt that I had to, absolutely had to, curl up in a ball on my side. Hold myself. Cry. Quietly. And I did.

I want to hold other people and to be held too, and at the same time there is something right now about holding myself, scary as those words are to utter. My heart breaks for Marni, and for so many people I know right now who are struggling with their elderly animals, and with the loss of those animals. I don't want to be trite. I reach into my heart and hope deeply that we are all taking care, however we are and wherever we are, in suffering and joy, consciously and with compassion.

Animals

2010-10-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

You may wish to read some of the comments from yesterday, particularly Marni's sharing about the loss of her beautiful dog Sami.

It always feels to me in the face of loss that all the rest of us can do is pause, send out caring, and stay steady with support. Hold space. So today I want not to fill this space with anything else but caring for Marni through this very hard time.

Writer's Block?

2010-10-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't been here for a few days. I could call it "writer's block", but it's not true. There is no paucity of things to write about, nor shortage of words and images through which to share...there is just the pounding need to turn inward...to heal...and sometimes this must mean turning away for a little, even from our greatest passions.

I am moving closer to some down time from work--very hard to carve out for myself, to put myself first, but I am getting there. Jake and I had a beautiful walk today and I ate less junk than yesterday. I saw a friend I had been missing in the morning and he reminded me about letting go of ego as a healing path....I know this, I just am able to let it waft in even more organically when we share this topic.

Time to crawl into bed with a book. Back soon about some great new book finds. What are you reading? I have catching up to do regarding books and films some of you have recommended which sound awesome....please keep them coming...in all these beautiful creations there is hope. More hope. And more hope. There can never be too much genuine hope.

"Mental Illness"

2010-10-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

Damn this stigmatized misnomer of a term.

Last week I am sitting in a room full of politically correct and diverse parents for a meeting regarding our 3-8 year olds at a very progressive public school. It is my seventh year as a parent at this magical place. I am mad. Everyone is sounding very smart and like kings and queens of social justice.

I am beyond being crowned for my good deeds and my related intellectual prowess. What I need, and what I eventually speak to, is to call them on their righteousness in its absence of consideration of equity for people with disabilities, in particular children with disabilities, aka my child, right here, in our school. People look bored with me, except a few parents and the teachers who I know love and respect my daughter for who she is.

My will to fight is clear and sharp. The ignorance around this is huge and heavy--that is, ignorance around any mental "challenge", if you will. Perhaps mental "uniqueness" is a more appropriate term, because everyone I know who has struggled this way has depth and has blessings to share. I have been fighting a good fight about depression, anxiety, and so on, and now it must extend to people with "learning disabilities", or rather people who learn "differently" from the mainstream.

I too used to be ignorant about learning disabilities, especially the way they affect social learning as well---until Jamea. One day, as a society, we will be honouring these brilliant people, like my daughter, for the wealth of texture and presence they bring. Until then, I'll be speaking out.

Ottawa

2010-10-02T06:10:00.000-07:00

I fly in Thursday night for the next morning to talk to some docs again about burnout prevention via 15 Minute Beginnings. I eat a veggie burger in the dumpy lounge and then watch late night tv until my eyes won't allow me awake anymore. I have no cable at home so this is an unusual treat.

I sleep through my alarm, but thankfully I have set it for much earlier than absolutely necessary. With considerable effort, I pull on my tights and my dress and gather my hair back. Then I paint on the lipstick, the only thing I add approximating a mask. I promise to myself to be genuine and to take care during and after the presentation, as they so often leave me empty.

But today, with ease, I am filled. People are present and their eyes are twinkling. The energy in the room opens with each little exercise we do. I pretend to be nothing other than who I am. I make no pretense that the struggle is over. I feel alive and energized. Beautiful people approach me afterward, and I am so honoured that I have been of some small help to them in the last hour.

I wander Byward Market for the afternoon. I wonder...about feeling well in that moment, and if it will last. I know that nothing lasts, but that life is always beginnning, again and again. I breathe in the perfect fall day, and on the ride out to the airport I swallow the magic of the leaves turning everywhere along the canal. I am grateful for this day of colour, and for the grace with which it has come over me in a time of relative darkness.

Drama of the Gifted Child

2010-09-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

This book by Alice Miller is a classic, but one I never read until very recently. Once I did open it, I devoured it. It puts into words things I have come to know viscerally both personally and professionally, things I learned theoretically long ago but couldn't ingest deeply for myself until now.

It was, for me, a demanding though short read. Miller highlights the fact that there is no unconditional love to be found except in childhood if we are blessed with it. If we do not get that as children, we make the "mistake" of trying to fill that empty place in relationship or with addictions etc throughout our lives, to no avail. The only way to heal this is through love for the self.

This perspective is both painfully provocative and titillatingly liberating. The way she delivers it pierces me in a way I need to be pushed right now. For this I am grateful.

Cold Day in July

2010-09-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, I love the Dixie Chicks and I like the oxymoron of the title of this song. It just fit for me somehow when I heard it today. Though I am mainly done with the break-up theme, which this song speaks to, I like the notion of a day that just shouldn't happen...the misfit of temperature and season, mood and 'reality'..."the moon is full, my arms are empty..."

My children's light also forms an oxymoron against my darkness. On Monday, having not seen them for their five day stretch with their dad, I come home from work and hear the yelps of delight already as I walk up the steps to the porch. The armour on my chest falls hard to the ground and my heart blasts open with sunshine. They open the door to me, and as I have described before, I drop to my knees with reverence for them and to meet my younger daughter face to face. I melt.

Children in general continue to delight me. I am grateful for this as little delights me now. Even my smile most of the time feels like it cannot extend fully across my face, cannot emerge from deep inside like it often can. I know the answers are within me, and I am scared to continue the journey inward. May the courage of children in all their goodness and vulnerability inspire hope from my core.

Communication 101

2010-09-27T05:33:00.001-07:00

Ok, folks. I have been equivocating on whether to share this here, but it all made me laugh and cry, and demonstrates the vulnerability of the professional caregiver and at the same time our ability to walk the talk and ask for help when we need it...so here goes....

I walk into the ER on Saturday morning. A nurse I remember from my residency over ten years ago asks me how he can help me, and I say I need to see a doctor. He sits me down and gently asks me some questions while he takes my vitals. Another younger nurse butts in and asks, "ARE YOU GOING TO KILL YOURSELF TODAY?"--like that, loud. There is no privacy, other sick people all around in the triage area.

I answer quietly that I know where my boundaries are especially because I have two children, but that I have been feeling more and more at risk. I hope he will follow my modelling lowering my voice, but instead he practically screams again, "HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT?" I almost laugh he is so ridiculous. Clearly he has never been here and has missed the nursing school class on communication 101.

I explain my plan and also again that I know where my limits are, and so I have only ever developed a plan to a point and then have had the good sense to seek help at the tipping point. He looks unimpressed and tells me to sit down over there. I am too exhausted and needy of help to respond. On one hand I think his behaviour is hilarious in its absurdity, and on the other I think it is a travesty that someone so vulnerable should be so disrespected by one of the very people that should be helping her. I start writing a letter to the hospital administration in my head, but am not together enough to hold that train of thought. It doesn't matter, I know to let it go, and I giggle to myself in my belly as I lower my head onto the metal bar of the chair to rest.

The assessments that follow over the next eight hours are of course gruelling and in the end confirm my suspicion that I can escape admission and carry on my life, albeit scaled down. My friend calls and insists I sleep at his house. His son is away and his little boy bed has a warm child feel that lulls me to sleep.

The next morning I return home and begin to ponder more seriously the mystery of how to keep muddling through, and what 15 Minute Beginnings means for me now. I notice that I have far more healthy infrastructure than I did three years ago when everything fell apart, and I am grateful for what I have created. Still, the questions keep burning and I decide yet again that the only way through is one step at a time, bumbling along a curvy path that need not arrive anywhere.

Faith

2010-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Martin sent in this unbelievably beautiful poem by David Whyte. He is one of my favourite poets, but I had not come across this poem before....thank you...

Faith

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

Clouds

2010-09-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

It is sunny but I see rain and dark clouds, hear ominous thunder. I know my eyes are looking ahead as I drive methodically home, but they feel like they are darting back and forth in panicked disarray. I feel empty and a l o n e. That is so hard to say as there are significant people who so kindly break that feeling for me with their warmth and compassion...and I am grateful beyond measure. Still, the loneliness prevails.

I own my journey. I no longer entertain notions of saviours. I know I have to step up to the plate for myself, but I feel ever weaker and less able as the days steamroll over me. My ability to help myself deteriorates. My ability to ask for help deteriorates. I deteriorate.

I hesitate to write this here. To write straight into darkness, instead of my most characteristic emerging light. I feel that I must. That everyone who suffers needs a voice, and that I need to stand for that in the hope that this act shines even the faintest light in another's darkness, moves another to speak their truth, and so breeds a little more freedom.

Dear Readers

2010-09-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

A reader writes in eloquently on the notion of "depression" as (at least in part, and at least sometimes) acquired "illness", and the virtues of incorporating a "medical" approach as part of healing in her experience. This resonated with me deeply:

I used to struggle with 'depression'(don't really like that word). With skillful therapy, I realized much of my anxiety and 'depression' was inherited in utero. This direct felt, embodied realization allowed me to dis-identify beyond the cognitive, rational knowing. However, this was not sufficient to deal with the black mind states. In spite of not wanting to be on 'antidepressants', I did take them on and off since 1980 ish. I was grateful that the meds allowed me to function and prevented my from burning bridges. But I always judged myself - that if I exercised, meditated, did yoga, ate well and was grateful enough, then I would not need the drugs. Therefore I always had legitimate reason to self loathe. Then I had the great good fortune to meet a psychiatrist who is also a pharmacist, and extremely compassionate. After many questions and discussion, she recommended I try slowly some state of the art meds to increase dopamine and then seratonin. My brother is diabetic and he cannot meditate, exercise and eat right to be able to not take insulin. I call my meds brain medicine. My doctor monitors me so that I have the right dosage where my moods are not flat - I experience a full human spectrum of emotion - deep sadness and great joy - deep disconnect and great connect. Of course I would prefer not to be on meds. And I am utterly grateful for this modern medicine that allows me to be a full participant in the fluctuations of this life. And be of service is the way I am called. I applaud your ability to offer beautiful service in the midst of deteriorating mood. From what I have learned, the brain chemistry will deteriorate unless nourished. Same for the diabetic.

Unlock Your Inner Superstar!

2010-09-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing much has cracked me up laughing lately, but this lead on the cover of October O Mag almost did. How utterly ridiculous. I mean of course it is preposterous to me particularly right now when I can barely get through the day, never mind unlocking some superstar within, but even under more optimal circumstances the notion of an "inner superstar" can only be destructive. Inner light, for sure. But the Hollywood-ness of the star notion yet again leads readers down a garden path to nowhere.

To boot, O has a 4-step plan for this. I can't even bear to open the magazine to read it yet. I mean, isn't the whole thing about healing connected to the notion of being "enough", "innately worthy"...not to making a big superficial splash? Readers may find an outer superstar and blast that blinding light for a short time, but long-term well-being for sure is in something much more subtle, and in its subtlety far more powerful.

Down with superstardom. Up with light and love, even when one can barely feel it.

Feet

2010-09-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

I scour my mind for a way to get through the day. Given that I cannot access my heart except for pain, I hope my mind will help me. My mind tells me to treat myself like I would treat my daughter were she suffering depression. Another part of my mind tells that part to fuck off, that it's too much to ask of myself to treat myself with an iota of the loving-kindness with which I treat my daughters.

Yet another part of my mind asks me desperately, "just keep this in mind, this vague notion of a tiny kindness to yourself, ok?" And I say, "Fine." So I begin today of course focused on my children, which is part of the survival, and also trying to honour what feels like a remote part of me that will be well again. Doing the laundry and catching up on e-mail and eating the odd fruit or vegetable--if nothing else, just to honour the possibility that the way I feel is a feeling, not who I am, and that who I am will emerge again...and so trying to keep the basics of life afloat, so that when I reappear as my more balanced self I will at least not be entirely discouraged by a mess the self-destructive me has left behind.

The unfinished board game from me and Tashy last night is on the dining room table. We laughed alot. We will play more tonight. Jamea and her friend who slept over are giggling, and a kind babysitter is here to ease my morning and presumably so I can go to the gym. Maybe I can. At least I will walk Jake. Friends reach out and remind me this is not forever. Life continues to extend her hands to me, and though I cannot reach them I can at least see flickers of that presence.

I continue to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that has to be enough.

Kol Nidre: All of Our Vows

2010-09-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

On this holiest night of the Jewish year I attend a secular service with my daughters, something I have done for many years now. They acknowledge soul in the absence of God, and focus on the importance of social justice. Naturally I am in my element.

Kol Nidre is the evening before the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur--Day of Atonement. The religious idea is to ask for forgiveness for all of our sins and renew our vows for the coming year. I don't need much of anyone else's forgiveness these days, I need self-forgiveness. I'm not even sure what for, but I know this is at the heart of my healing. I hold this with me tonight in the service.

At this service, year after year we have the blessing of the awesome David Wall as our secular equivalent of a cantor. When I first heard him there, I remembered him from the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, a major local band of a couple of decades ago, whom I had always liked. I believe he has actually also trained as a cantor, and oh-can-he-sing. Tonight, when my 6 year old wasn't dragging me out of the room to play, I put my arms around my daughters, closed my eyes, and revelled in his soothing voice. Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. Jewish songs from my childhood and songs of Leonard Cohen and Pete Seeger. Songs sung in a way that opened my heart into a place I needed to be opened today. Relief.

How is your heart today? Is it closed, open, or somewhere on the continuum? What is opening your heart these days?

The Soft Place

2010-09-16T17:52:00.001-07:00

Inside thinking is feeling. Inside feeling today I experience many moments when I am aware I too have a soul. I turn on myself a little less.

Does Oprah have soul? Does she have feelings underneath the polish? Might she ever have the courage to show her audience that real movement and healing come from the vulnerable places?

It's probably time for me to check in on the October issue of O Mag, if nothing else then as a distraction from my weighted down place. That said, other people's humanity right in front of me--beyond magazines and media--still brings me out of myself, and I hope I still resonate a little humanity back.

Teachers

2010-09-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have missed yesterday--I couldn't muster writing. Today is similar, but I will try :)

There are a bunch of things I want to write about, but none I can focus on. There was the moment this morning that my daughter ran with delight and hugged the new teacher at her school, in fact a special ed teacher. I was so touched at how they had already connected just a few days into the school year, and I was just plain grateful that Lise was there (first time public alternative schools are getting special ed). She seemed so lovely, and already so loved by my child, whom she can help so much, whose life she has the capacity to impact substantially.

That took me back to my profound respect and gratitude, in fact reverence, for teachers in general, and particularly intimately for the team of teachers that now are on their eighth year teaching my daughters collectively. The big one has moved on, the little one is just in her second year of the seven years she will spend with this spectacular family of educators. They hold her mind and heart in their hands delicately and with grace and strength. I am eternally thankful.

The beautiful image of Jamea and Lise keeps recurring during the day, yet still my mood deteriorates. I have to put secure Melissa catchers in place again. I do so with difficulty, but I do it. I curse myself for not being grateful enough, as though if I were more appreciative I would not be "indulging" in depression. I notice how mean I am to myself about my mood. I can't stop that crime, but I do stay aware. I know intellectually that mindfulness matters. Even though I would prefer to be unconscious emotionally right now, I continue to try to honour consciousness and awareness as I muddle through the muck.

A Day

2010-09-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Day comes over me in that dreaded pattern, but with way less intensity today than a few days ago. I wake and feel off but able to get moving. Coffee at work infuses me with hope, but I know that fuel will run out as the day goes on. I never recharge on coffee, so the first hit is all I have.

Sure enough I slowly notice my demons creeping in. I scan over them, taking note and asking them to chill so I can do my work. I do my work. Like always, it is deeply fulfilling. But still, by the end of the day the demons are chattering and my ability to keep them at bay is weakening.

Blessedly, I have my daughters to come home to today. Double blessing, we are able to flow lovingly together with ease through the evening. The persistent awareness of a haunting lurking in my heart disturbs me, but I drop into the cuddles and the chores, and though I don't dare to hope much, I am grateful I have made it through the day.

Waking Up

2010-09-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

I wake up this morning and notice that I am ok. I am relieved beyond measure.

I eat some fruit. I sit down at the computer and catch up on some work. I am grateful for my ability to focus. I open my agenda and note that my week is full but manageable. I look forward to my daughters returning to me. I consider some exercise.

It dawns on me in a profoundly visceral way that my struggle with my mental health is so not over, and is so not going to be over. It will continue to be a journey, hopefully with breaks long enough that sometimes I almost forget about it. It strikes me further that if I want to struggle less, I am going to need to try to be more regimented about self-care. In my love-hate relationship with structure, this is agitating, but I stay with it. Maybe a few minutes of meditation today.

Clearly I have drifted from Oprah lately, and no doubt the October issue is on the stands or almost so. It seems fitting, however, with the sheer inner terror of the recent past, that I should be focused on my own survival rather than on making myself over with the help of The Makeover Issue.

There is nothing wrong with me. There is so much wrong with me. The voices in my head continue to battle it out, but this morning the protective parent within wins. She says clearly again, "There is nothing wrong with you. You are innately good and well. You are coming back to yourself. Even if you slide again, which you probably will, you can come back again and again to this fundamental emotional truth."

I hope some version of such a mantra is helpful to others in some way too.

Sunny Day?

2010-09-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

This beautiful sunny day began as one of the darkest days of my life. All for internal reasons. All the facts were pretty much the same as any other day, give or take a few stressors and whatever.

I knew that come hell or high water I would meet my early morning obligation to talk to the docs about their well-being. And I did. And I was genuine, and it all was fine. Momentarily, I thought I had even perhaps licked the wound inside me that had been feeling so raw when I fell asleep the night before and when I awoke this morning.

But no. I got into my car after the workshop and was raw again. And afraid. Afraid about my ability to get home safely. Terrified of my own desperation. I called a few friends and left messages, and eventually I drove home--safely.

I then went on an emotional roller coaster ride at a pace that is unusual for me, with calls returned from friends taking me back from the edge, but silence in between finding me awash in my own tears and imploding. Still, I kept putting one foot in front of the other and expecting nothing more of myself.

One friend took me to TIFF, followed by another having me for dinner. Another called to check in. The self-destruction in me wanted to withdraw, but I knew where that would take me and I couldn't afford that ride. So since the afternoon I have coasted toward the closing of my day now, thanks to the kindness and caring of you-friends-know-who-you-are.

I am exhausted. I don't want to get back on the amusement park rides--they are not amusing me. I pray to my higher self to protect me into tomorrow, and continue to support me to take one painstaking step at a time, and to ask for help. I am not looking back or ahead, just getting through the days and nights, and caressing every moment of relief.

Wild Horses

2010-09-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry I missed here yesterday. I celebrated the Jewish New Year by sleeping all day covered in a ton of blankets and with warm fuzzy sox on. This was interrupted only by scattered awake moments in which I listened to my ipod with my headphones under the covers, talked briefly with my dog, and ate leftover challah from the night before. In the evening I got out of bed to walk Jake and meet my Dad for dinner, then back to the cave.

I think I found a new singer/songwriter who moves me, that is Michelle Malone. Click here for her unbelievable rendition of the Stones' Wild Horses with the Indigo Girls. Since finding this, I have been listening to more of her music, and I love it. Her performance of Wild Horses, though, blew me away--I had long loved Alicia Keys and Adam Levine's live version of this, but Michelle Malone blew even that out of the water.

My friendship with music continues to be an ongoing exploration. My mental health feels fragile and not fragile, painstakingly clear and entirely fuzzy, unfixable and yet heal-able. Mornings are fine, and afternoons sometimes trample me. I feel displaced from myself and more myself than ever. Tomorrow morning I will present on personal well-being to a bunch of doctors, and I will let them know that I am crazy and not crazy, well and unwell, fearful and fearless. I will share something genuine and useful about burnout prevention, and in doing so will give my own flame a little more fuel.

Oprah feels obscure to me. The search for meaning, emotional and spiritual understanding, peace, and love--most of all self-love--continues to consume my personal time, and I relent.

Shana Tova...

2010-09-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

...Happy Jewish New Year. Apples and honey. Challah. Candle lighting. Wine. Family. Nostalgia. Pain for people not with us. Flowers.

Feel happy and sad. Energized and exhausted. Fulfilled and longing.

Battling it out with my mood, all intellect failing to help me--no surprise anymore. Leaning on friends more--terrifying for me and yet so comforting to be held when I feel I am falling through the cracks.

Wanting to manifest my grandmother's wish when we parted tonight that this year bring more happiness.

A bit lost, scared no one else can find me, hoping still I can find myself.

Overwhelm-ment

2010-09-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

Tiina Veer coined this brilliant term, and it describes my state of being tonight very well. I therefore am unable to write tonight but shall return soon...

Hope this finds you more peaceful than me tonight :) , and taking care....

Soup

2010-09-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I stand in the kitchen chopping veggies for my daughters' favourite soup. It's that time of year again, and though I feel drained and I would rather just order pizza, the image of us all eating this nourishing meal tonight, and there being enough for tomorrow night...and lunch the next day...this image of my daughters nurtured warms my heart and sends me into fiery cooking.

I notice as I am cooking how lonely I feel. This must be getting boring, but the theme is painfully central for me right now. I have not yet turned the corner on it, just made baby steps here and there in all kinds of scattered directions, or so it feels at this point. Anyway, the loneliness starts to feel desperate. My little one's bedtime comes, and we cuddle, and in the grace of her embrace words on a page arise in my head and I remember that no matter how lonely I may ever be, as long as I can write I can survive. And of course I pause in gratitude for her and her sister.

What are you cooking these days? Is it nourishing you? What soothes your loneliness if this is something you feel?

Beyond...

2010-09-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

Whenever I sit down here to write, I ask myself what I can say that is honest. Beyond judgment. Beyond image. Beyond fear. Beyond pretense. And yes, of course, beyond Oprah.

Tonight my feelings are too deep to say anything truthful about them here. It is easy to doubt myself and the stand I took on a very emotional interpersonal issue, but the truthful thing I can say is that deep in my heart, and in my gut, and in the fiery force within me that protects my daughters, I know I did what I needed to do.

Are you doing what you need to do? Are you being as truthful as you can with yourself? I'm not saying you "should" do any of that, just wondering...

The Big Apple and Rotten Apple Moments

2010-09-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

Just home from New York City with my older daughter. Incredibly delightful. High Tea at the Park Plaza. Strolling Central Park. Museum of Natural History and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fifth Avenue, Soho, and Noho. Funky meals like at retro Vynl in Hell's Kitchen. Cupcakes at Magnolia and musicals like American Idiot and Memphis. Fun, fun all around day and night with my beautiful girl.

A bit of a shock to return home. New York pulsates so fast it's hard to remember my day to day life when I'm there. I feel caught up in the energy of the place. The world feels big in a mystifying way, and anything feels possible. I love my home and my family, and at the same time here life inevitably encroaches somehow. Like when tonight my little one accidentally whacks me on the side of my head so hard I cry--and the loneliness starts again.

In New York City, loneliness feels like part of a process that somehow matters. At home, or at least in the contrast of day to day life, loneliness feels mundane. The pain of it feels raw and ugly, not artistic or inspired or passionate. It just feels like plain old biting loneliness tonight...my girls and our dog settled, the apartment quiet...and my heart that felt so full earlier today feels now pretty achey. So flows the movement of living.

Adventure with a Twelve Year Old...

2010-08-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

...is sacred.
Tomorrow my "big girl" and I embark...may be out of reach for the next few days...

Hope this finds you well, and soaking up the last days of summer in whatever way you need to.

Ordinary People

2010-08-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

I've mostly been exercising outdoors this summer, which is delightful, but today I felt the need for my gym routine. I was also craving to listen to my ipod, and I don't do this when I am cycling, rollerblading, or walking my dog...only inside on the elliptical...

I found myself almost marching--in a peaceful way--to Chantal Kreviazuk's song Ordinary People from her latest album Plain Jane. It felt like an anthem for humanity, and in a sense in particular it resonated as a Canadian anthem by a great Canadian artist. I have followed her since her first release, have admired her commitment to supporting mental health issues, and have found solace in many a song of hers.

To listen to Ordinary People, click here.

Daughters

2010-08-28T18:39:00.001-07:00

My daughters came back to me today after the longest hiatus of the year spanning two weeks with their dad. I dropped to my knees to cuddle my little one close and exhaled more breath than I even knew I was holding. When my dog was done mauling my older daughter with delight, I then took her in my arms--my 5'5" baby--and breathed her in and out for as long as she would let me.

Beautiful. Present in the moment. Loving. Kind. Funny. Warm. They are all these things and so much more, as all children are. Mothering them, having them back with me today, brings me back to myself more fully. I am so grateful for my daughters.

Femininity

2010-08-27T12:11:00.001-07:00

Is Oprah feminine? Yes or no? Or is she only feminine when she stands pretty in a glittery pink dress? Is she feminine when she speaks out--loudly--for something she cares about? Or is she only feminine when demurely discussing O Book Club matters? Is she still feminine having gained back her 40 pounds, or can she not be feminine if she's not thin?

Am I feminine? I like feeling connected to my femininity, but what does that mean? Like most women, I have been a victim of corporate cultural definitions, and am feeling a pressing need to redefine. Like--am I feminine when I am sweaty and hot riding with my helmet on on my bike across the city? Or am I just stinky? Am I feminine when I yell "you fucking bitch!" at a chick in a huge black high-end SUV that nearly clips me as she hurries to pass me on my bike? Am I not a mother trying to protect herself for her children? Isn't that feminine? I always feel that she is the feminine one--long nails, coiffed hairdo, big rock on the left ring finger...me, I'm not someone's wife anymore..."She is feminine", I usually say to myself, "and you Melissa are a biker brute"...but today I pause before passing judgment on either of us.

Part of me says, "fuck femininity", but I think most truthful for me is now the careful defining in my own terms. In my kick-ass refusal to sit down quietly when something that matters to me, like care for a homeless person, is at stake. In my sparkly pastel-coloured flowing tank top, giant silver hoop earrings, and favourite pink lipstick on a Saturday night. In my tears. In my laughter. In my voice, quiet and vulnerable, and in my voice, clear and cutting when I care. In my utterly tender mothering. In my firmness with my daughters when that is what it means to love. In my pink pedicured toes. In my eyes when they twinkle. In dance. In singing with abandon with my ragged voice while ripping down the highway...to new places...

Tell me about femininity....

Home from Muskoka

2010-08-26T18:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry not to have written here for a few days. Tuesday the internet was inaccessible where I was, and Wednesday I felt like I needed to be inaccessible to the internet. Now I am home, and I am grateful for the constancy of Jake's breath (and snorting!) to help me make the transition--it's always hard to return to city from country.

I did some writing, but what stays with me most is sitting by the lake. Clasping my hands together in meditation rather than holding them classically apart and upward. Hearing the lake ripple and a very loud bird squawk in the sky. Sensing Jake beside me. Feeling the sun and the breeze at once. Telling myself explicitly that this peace is here for me to choose at any time. Deeper, caressing my heart with the message that loneliness is not who I am, that I am love just like all other sentient beings. That I have the capacity and innate worthiness to receive love. And that I must stay with my heart, not relent to the yammering of the tapes that reel round and round in my head. They are not who I am. I am peace even when I feel like chaos, just as you are.

A Lake in Muskoka

2010-08-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

Two hours from the city and a world away. Jake my incomparable companion. We walk to the lake and lie down together on the dock. I take a deep breath of country air, scan the beauty around me with my eyes, and lay my head down on my arm next to Jake. He exhales loud, deep, rumbling Jake noises. I love him.

I feel poised to write. I know it's something about the pendant she gave me. That it is a she who in the end gave me the most beautiful thing anyone has ever graced me with (i.e. object, not quality or being--but still very special for what it is). It's something about the meltdown and the gem that survives. About coming at once full circle and yet to a new place.

That probably all makes no sense, but in my head it's all coming together and it feels like a blessing. It has been two years since I sat down and really worked the manuscript. I knew then that I only had a piece of the story I needed to tell. I don't know if I have the whole story now, but I do have some new dimensions. I am excited about the process of writing and healing through the flow of the pen.

Are you creating anything you need to? Think small. Think want and need, not should. Then don't think. Feel. Feel into kindness for yourself and allow your unique creative form to emerge even in the smallest way.

Procrastination

2010-08-22T20:12:00.001-07:00

Tonight I bring the last of this task I have been delaying to a close. Each step of the way in the past few months I have done everything related to this at the very last possible minute. I at once wonder why, and yet accept that it is daunting and try to congratulate myself each time another step is done. It is truly agonizing. And now it is almost over.

Lazy really doesn't describe me. I probably need to be a bit more lazy in general. What describes me, unfortunately, is that I am afraid. I am afraid that the outcome of the task will be unbearable, even though I know it won't be. I am afraid that I will always have to take on everything alone--even though that reality is that someone dear to me was at my side today, essentially holding my hand as I worked through the papers. I am afraid, somewhere deep inside me, of whether perhaps I don't in fact deserve the relief that can come with getting such things off my plate--sometimes it's easier to have "so much to do" to be "stressed"...than to just be...me...without the noise.

Slowly these days I am exploring music, little by little, perhaps as an elegant step between silence and noise...a place beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond procrastinating, beyond waiting....just being.

Date with Me and Myself

2010-08-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

By late afternoon today I had slept in and then worked all day from home. It was grey. There was still more work to do. I was a bit sad that I hadn't made plans with friends and that I didn't have a date, but in my own way I had chosen it to be so.

I flipped through the movies and realized I had time to walk Jake and still take myself for an early movie date. I questioned whether perhaps I should just keep working. I told myself I was worth more than that--that I had worked enough and deserved the pleasure. That I have always enjoyed dates with myself, even though it has been awhile since I have had one. There is something sweet about talking only to myself after the film and then wandering the bookstore completely at my own leisure.

There is also something lonely about it. But the loneliness is not cutting like it had been for awhile, it feels more like a place I'm wandering through...and through it I am finding new friends not only in people, but also in my relationship with my dog, with books, and in my warm bed just for me.

How are you?

Holding Space

2010-08-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me later what I had really wanted as a response to something I told her I had done recently. My chest clenched, my words were stuck sharply in my throat. I gulped back my tears and grabbed the box of tissues.

Finally I replied that all I really wanted was to have space held for me. To be who I was and have that be ok, in all its beauty and perhaps even ugliness.

Holding space is a big part of the work I do professionally and it is an honour to do so. At the same time, I have to cultivate relationships in which space can be held for me, not so much therapeutically but even more basically "humanly".

A few days later I returned, and before I even asked for what I needed it was done. I asked anyway, just to practice saying the words.

There has to be emotional space for every person and everyone's unique life story in order that each of us feel alive. This is how we nurture the space within from which we can keep spreading our wings to care for others. I don't think it can be any other way.

The Allure of the Fix

2010-08-18T15:56:00.001-07:00

[See Martin's comments yesterday regarding fixing--no doubt many of us can relate.]

Though, as you know by now, I struggle daily with wanting to "fix" my life etc, getting back into inner city work has been helping me re-focus my lens. Today when I visited a couple of shelters, one for refugees, I found myself so immersed in their implicit present moment struggle, in the beauty of their languages, and in the courage of their journeys. I am a child of immigrants and a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, so a certain "sympatico" is in my blood, but still I have been blessed to walk on the ground my parents and grandparents laid down for me in Canada.

For a few minutes today at the shelter, all my own concerns fell away, and when I returned home afterward I was just filled with gratitude. There was much to fix and so much to control, and still "so much wrong with me" , but I sat down here to write because that mattered more.

That said, I like Martin's suggestion of not trying to stop the impulse to fix, but of staying with the impulse and examining it with "beginner's mind." It's another way to slow it all down, to come back to the heart of what matters, to feel human. There is something dehumanizing about our impulse to fix and our culture which preys on and perpetuates that impulse. Kudos to all of us who pause and honour new ways as we continue to struggle with the old ones.

Einstein

2010-08-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

My day was touched by deepening connections again to the inner city, feeling at home (but not complacent) in the midst of the rawness and realness of the street.

I was also very moved by the quote Martin shared from Einstein in yesterday's comments:

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

Learning to Exhale

2010-08-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Meet me on p206 of September O Magazine for this great summary of the concepts of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. I have come to at times take his brilliance for granted as it has become an implicit guiding force in my personal life and professional practice--so it felt good to read this short, fresh, clear reminder that what can seem so simple can be so core, and is a lifelong journey.

Furthermore, on p209 Sally McGrane highlights some specific research on the impact of mindfulness on depression, weight loss, and relationships. Of particular interest to Canadian readers may be the discussion of the work of Dr. Zindel Segal, a Toronto-based psychologist who is one of the co-authors of The Mindful Way Through Depression, which I think is a key read even for those who don't suffer from depression.

This article made me smile. It is a real read on a real topic--no hype, no garbage about makeovers on these pages of this issue of O despite all the other fodder. The article is sweet relief and reinforcement for the soul as we approach the change of seasons, but hardly need a makeover.

Adventures of a Single Woman

2010-08-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Today I am more powerful than Oprah. I managed to get a huge armchair my grandmother handed down to me from my car into my apartment--by myself. Now, two big guys had brought it from her place to my car, and I was going to wait for a friend to help me to unload it in a couple of days, but I got impatient. Creatively and reasonably carefully, I manoeuvred the thing out, along the sidewalk, up the stairs, into the living room...my back was admittedly not so happy, but I survived, I did it, and now my little one is relaxing in the awesome chair.

I wake up these days feeling well, and then often start to decline. I need to stay outward and nurture inward. I need to remember balance, not extremes. And truth be told, I actually have some real fun/adventures a la single woman ahead this weekend, so as much as I am proud of my chair accomplishment I seem to be moving in other ways too.

Oprah, all made up and edited and airbrushed, can look beautiful all the time. Me in my lavender sundress dragging a chair bigger than me, me waking up on my own in the morning...I'm not always looking so hot, but I am grateful for the opportunity to keep exploring beauty without and within.

Two Posts

2010-08-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today's post below. I have also posted at 15 Minute Beginnings today.

The Makeover Issue

2010-08-13T07:28:00.000-07:00

This title for the September issue of O Magazine makes my stomach churn. It just leads vulnerable people down yet another garden path to nowhere.

In my individual psychotherapy practice and therapeutic writing groups, many tears are shed over the longing to "get somewhere"; over the desperate sense of failure along that path; and of course over the heartache time and time again of never "arriving". I understand this well--I embodied this approach in my own life for a long time, but not for several years now. That shift has been critical to my surviving...and thriving.

It's a scary thing to understand, that so much of living is in the process not the outcome, that there is no perfection, and so on. It forces us to be still and look inside for "the place". Even then, it's not fixed--we move through many places in emotional journeys--some feel like hell, others feel like home...for awhile. We crave to grow--I see this all day long in my work: the deep desire to evolve, and yet the profound terror of change.

So, Oprah can have as many makeovers as she wants, but me I'm staying right here. Going to myself, not away to another quick fix that inevitably leaves me empty.

Perfectly Lonely

2010-08-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

Fantastic John Mayer concert at the Amphitheatre last night. Had no idea he could play guitar like that, and the whole band was awesome. As I don't drink much alcohol, I found myself floating as a lightweight on the beer I drank. It was sweet.

My friend nudged me lovingly when he played Perfectly Lonely--I hadn't known the song, and we smiled over it as becoming my current my "theme song". I finally feel like I'm coming back to myself, or more than that, coming into myself in a beautiful new way.

For Perfectly Lonely, click here.

Indigo Girls

2010-08-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

Indigo heart. Indigo day. Indigo clarity and elegant indigo unclarity.

If you feel like it, click here for Least Complicated, one of my favourite songs from this incredibly talented and soul-nourishing duo. New live album out too--can't wait to listen to it, and poised to travel if I can align myself with one of their upcoming tour dates.

What are you listening to?

Wisdom

2010-08-10T04:38:00.000-07:00

The new O Mag is out. In O-land it's already September, but in Melissa-land it's still mid-August and I know there's limited wisdom in O, regardless of the season. But I continue to feel far more comfortable with the wisdom of others than the junk in my own head right now, and below is a beautiful piece Martin shared recently--you may also wish to read all the comments from the last post...Tiina and Marni were there too, insightful as always.

From Martin:

In keeping with the spirit of sharing other people's wisdom and the universal concept of grace, here is a quote from Aldous Huxley's Island:

"There!" said Vijaya when the last brimming bowl had been sent on its way. He wiped his hands, walked over to the table and took his seat.
"Better tell our guest about grace," he said to Shanta.

Turning to Will, "In Pala," she explained, "we don't say grace before meals. We say it with meals. Or rather we don't say grace; we chew it."

"Chew it?"

"Grace is the first mouthful of each course---chewed and chewed until there's nothing left of it. And all the time you're chewing you pay attention to the flavor of the food, to its consistency and temperature, to the pressures on your teeth and the feel of the muscles in your jaw."

"And meanwhile, I suppose, you give thanks to the Enlightened One, or Shiva, or whoever it may be?"

Shanta shook her head emphatically. "That would distract your attention, and attention is the whole point. Attention to the experience of something given, something you haven't invented. Not the memory of a form of words addressed to somebody in your imagination."