this is the woman i want to be:

a woman who breaks out in vibrant glory

regardless of the season

or of the colors that surround her.

No related posts.

sometimes cloth makes a better page,

thread a better ink.

Second helpin's:

1. it’s scrying time again
2. knots

they’re never on my packing list,

but i never leave home without them . . .

hot flash strikes.

out of the blue

no warning

no discernible trigger

just the teensiest little ole’ warning i’ve come to recognize

from paying close attention to myself:

nanoseconds before a hot flash arrives

i can breath more clearly.

my breathing passages just flat-out open up

heralding the arrival of

the intense heat that spreads rapidly through my body,

not discriminating against any one particular area.

i feel like i’ve just been wrapped in plastic wrap -

not the kind you buy in the store -

this plastic wrap sticks.

no air can get to me.

moments before, i could breathe expansively

now i can’t breathe at all.

while my brain races

frantically looking for an exit sign,

my body quietly points to the exist sign

and my brain calms down,

settles in.

i toss out the dismissive, overused phrase “this too shall pass”

replacing it with

“more women than i can count have survived hot flashes. i will be fine.”

then i tune in and notice my body like never before.

this amazing body

that has long been a source of embarrassment

instead of a place of refuge and strength.

on any given day and for far too many years

i scold it, scoff at it, ignore it.

and now, during this wildfire,

i find my way to appreciation.

breath holds my hand

until the hot flash recedes,

regrouping for next time

it will show up unannounced and uninvited

to beam me into my body,

into the present.

~~~~~

This post was birthed by my participation in Bindu Wile’s 21.5.800 project, and (even though it’s officially ended) Dian’s Self Evidence project (self-awareness).

Technorati Tags: #215800, #SelfEv

Second helpin's:

1. yoga, betty crocker style
2. small things/big things
3. diving in, at last

a few weeks ago, the amazing, engaging funny one called bindu wiles threw out an idea: c’mon everybody, she said, for the next 21 days, let’s do yoga and write 800 words at least 5 days of every week.

it was a mantra from the mantra fairy.

for about 2 years (times, oh i don’t know – 5 maybe), i’ve been fantasizing about doing that very thing. and the fantasies had whipped themselves into a veritable frenzy a mere 2 days before bindu revealed her idea. (that’s when i was SURE she loves me.)

i was all over it, sending out tweets encouraging others to jump on board. if you look at her site, you’ll see my name beside #6. it says something about how wholly jeanne is leaping, grand-jeteing, or maybe just jumping off the porch. i bought marianne’s yoga 4 writers and made sure it was on on my computer and my spanking new ipad. i researched writing apps for the ipad. i was ready. eager. frothing at the fingertips. i could hardly wait the 5 days or so till day one.

but here’s the embarrassing truth of it all: i watched the yoga video once. one single time. it’s wonderful – that has nothing at all to do with it. i just haven’t done it. i go to bed everything and see myself doing yoga on the deck as the sun rises. i took the ipad with me to the falls a couple of weeks ago, imagining how fantastic i was going to feel after doing yoga beside the falls.

and writing? oh my goodness, i’ve written way more than 800 words every day . . . if you count checks and emails and thank you notes and grocery lists. some days i’ve written 800 words . . . but only in my head. listen, i have a masters in transformational language arts, i lead writing workshops – i know better. i absolutely know better.

and when i think about where i would be if i had done these 2 smallish things every day for the past 21 days. shoot, when i think of how i’d feel and the size clothes i’d be wearing and how many books and plays i’d've finished by now if only i’d sat myself down 5 days a week for the past umpteen years that i’ve been thinking about doing it. some days a memory lights, and i ache to sit down and reread an old journal to refresh the details and see how i felt about it all . . . but there are no such journals because i’ve been doing everything else.

i have ideas, people. ideas. for plays (4), books (2), films (1 – book first, then film.) ( yes, i’m unabashedly milking it.) and i can see myself smiling uncontrollably at the thrill of having the spigot on full blast because we all know that creativity begets creativity. i’ve been carrying around the seeds for decades – and the good news is that they still intrigue me, but the bad news is: they’re still just seeds.

i tell a few people about my plans, about the book i’m working on, but i don’t tell them how i’m just piddling around. “how can i help you?” friends ask . . . friends who would do anything – anything, i tell you, to help me get these things written. but we all know that, as we say around here, can’t nobody do this but me.

then why don’t i do it? why don’t i avail myself of the marvelous yoga video and sit myself down at one of the numerous inviting (and never used) spots i’ve created here at home that beckon-to-the-point-of-begging me to stop and drop?

damned if i know.

and damned if i want to waste any more time trying to figure it out.

Second helpin's:

1. this changes everything
2. yoga, betty crocker style
3. rightful sound

with each passing day, i become more concerned.

i struggle to keep concern from turning into full-blown worry.

i battle worry for fear the object of my worry will materialize.

see, the thing is:

i don’t care any more.

it’s alarming how i don’t care any more.

am i losing my ability to empathize if

i’m not brought to my knees with shared, imagined pain?

have i lost all self-respect if

i don’t flare into full-blown despair in response to criticism?

has my dignity completely disappeared if

i don’t get angry?

what’s wrong with me?

have i succumbed to acedia?

are my hormones drying up?

is it time to set aside concern and move into out-and-out worry?

wait.

wait just a minute . . .

what if it’s something as simple as,

i mean,

could it be that i’m just developing

patience?

No related posts.

when you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

she’s just jealous.

turn the other cheek.

play nice.

be good.

behave.

rise above.

i’ve dealt with enough bullies in my lifetime to be absolutely certain that there is no one single right way to deal with a bully. there are bullies who will push you into a wall, backing down only when you stand straighter than ever before, look them square in the eye, and say “enough.” there are bullies who will back off only when you scream and shine a light on them for all to see. there are bullies who will wrestle you to the ground, twisting your extremities into unnatural and painful positions and holding you there until you cry “uncle, already.” there are bullies who never get tired and never run out of tactics. there are bullies who will never backdown. ever.

when it comes to guidelines for conduct becoming a female when dealing with bullies, i’ve heard it all. most of them sound real pretty – noble even. but my best how-to-deal-with-a-bully advice came from a kenny rogers song about playing poker: you’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.

i dealt with a bully last week. a man who’s old enough to know how to behave himself. a man who has enough letters before his name indicating rank that’s impressive enough to make me think he was out the day they taught the Army Core Value of respect. all that talk of wrestling with pigs and turning the other cheek and rising above flew right out the window as i dealt with this guy in what sure felt like my native language. i wasn’t rude, wasn’t aggressive, didn’t bully him, but i didn’t let him wipe his feet on me, either.

and it was exhilarating. it felt good.

afterwards, two men who overheard the conversation commented on how i’d conducted myself with “civility, discipline, and showed great restraint.” those were conversations i played in my head the rest of the day – to the point that i felt silly that i even remembered it, let alone put that one 15 minute period on such a lofty marble, diamond-encrusted pedestal. why did it feel so good? why were these 2 incidents of validation so incredibly important to me?

[insert lightbulb]

years ago, as a teenager still learning how to navigate my way through life with non-related others, i was in an abusive relationship. every minute of every day was a huge eraser as i made myself invisible to others because for something as simple as talking to another person in the hallway between classes, there was hell to pay. the confident, carefrree, kickass girl i had been up to that point had to go.

it was the ultimate ambush makeover, and vestiges die hard.

so last week when the bully started into me with his condescending tone and his berating, belittling words, my spirit said “never again a doormat” and balanced all those admonitions about pig wrestling with what i learned – what i still carry: visceral memories of from that one abusive relationship.

when the bully on the phone interrupted me, i called him on it, then finished my sentence. when he smartassed me, i asked him to choose different words and use a different tone. when he asked, “are you finished?”, i answered “for now.” and i did it from my core so there was no hysteria (even though he resorted to the dominating eraser phrase “calm down” more than once.) i never raised my voice, i never cried, i never wrung my hands. though i had never spoken with this man before and had no idea what he was like, i intuitively stood up at the beginning of the phone call when he uttered his first words.

one thing that abusive relationship taught me is keen sensitivity as a means of self-defense and survival.

though it seemed endless, the phone call actually lasted only about 15 minutes, and when i hung up, i smiled. big.

okay, self, i said later that day, i get why you feel such a rush having dealt so efficiently and effectively with this man. but why do you continue to shamelessly replay the comments from the two men who were impressed enough with the way you handled conducted yourself on this phone call to say something?

[insert another lightbulb right about here]

when i look back on that abusive relationship, i realize that he was one of the most congenial, affable, friendly guys you’d ever want to meet . . . publicly. but in reality, that friendly, affable persona was methodical, designed to make me a liar before i even thought about talking to anybody. with his public image of mr. congeniality, he made quite sure that nobody would ever believe anything i said about the way he behaved privately.

but last week, two men whose opinions i happen to value saw this man through my eyes. with no convincing from me and without hearing his side of the conversation, they recognized him as a bully – their positive remarks about my side of the conversation proved it. they didn’t dismiss me or erase me, they validated me.

with their words of support and validation, i’ve turned a page in my life story. it’s big, i tell you: big. that validation is so big, it’s all i can do to resist the urge to embroider their words on a pillowcase marking the day i was a pencil with no eraser.

Second helpin's:

1. not a good girl . . . yet
2. coming to terms with our grips
3. diving in: 2

amanda farough offered me a new dress for my blog, a little something she stitched together from her own creative hands. but i thought i needed more color. i selected my current blog dress (aka template) because it is colorful and messy, more than a bit of a chaotic conglomerate – a virtual snapshot of my life. inside the chaos, in the space where my words are, is orderly. calm. uncluttered. there’s space to breathe there . . .

we spent memorial day weekend in room 545 at the hospital, only a few doors down from the catherization lab where they discovered the need for – and ultimately inserted – a stent in his restricted artery.

things like that change everything.

as an occasional end-of-life doula, i’m pretty much in touch with my own mortality. but in touch with my husband’s morality? well, that’s something else entirely.

for a while now, i’ve been carrying around this postcardesque image of Jeanne’s Ideal Day. it involves yoga, writing, walking, cooking (i honestly can’t believe i wrote that), yardening, maybe teaching the occasional workshop and speaking to a group somewhere or other every now ‘n then.

in other words, i want to live in the bubble that is my blog’s text box.

so i organized my calendar, blocking out boxes in my days and started poking around in search of yoga classes. in an act of desperation, i shook my tin cup out on facebook, asking for recommendations of yoga classes in my area. i heard from a few who were only about a 2.75 hour drive each way, then – in the same day, i want you to know – i hear from bindu wiles that she’s throwing a party that involves 1 part yoga and 1 part writing.

i guess they’re right: when the student is ready, the womentors appear.

it’s only day 2, so i’m still pretty much moving around in the chaos, looking longingly at the text bubble, but i’ll get there.

eventually.

hey, anybody got a plan combining yardwork with facilitating a workshop?

Second helpin's:

1. small things/big things
2. damned if i know
3. best project(s) of 2009

” . . . and so,” the cardiologist said in wrap-up mode after reviewing the results of the nuclear stress test, “i say you go straight to the hospital and let’s do a catherization tomorrow to see what’s going on.” armed with a direction, i launched into native jeannemode, directing my brother-in-law to go to the airport to fetch our son who was flying in from colorado; calling our daughter, alerting her to the change in plans; and plugging my phone in to recharge the battery for a few minutes. that done, i exhaled and said, “i feel better now.” to which hubs said, “this isn’t about you. this is about me.”

a simple statement of truth delivered from a man who seldom redirects the spotlight on himself. and let me tell you: those 8 truthful words unleashed a cacophony of voices past, hissing and spitting and chiming in to remind me of things they’ve told me repeatedly in years gone by: who do you think you are, missy? nice girls don’t talk about themselves. good mothers sacrifice. you’re bossy. you’re manipulative. good girls don’t say bad things. good girls let people talk about themselves. you’re too sensitive. you need to think more than feel. why are you focusing on that – it’s not important. this is not about you. you’re too self-absorbed. lighten up.

and a whole lot more.

that nasty, piercing chorus has chipped, chirped, and harped at me ever since. i second-guess every sentence that contains a personal pronoun. i replay various happenings in my life and find the aha’s – you were, too [insert horrendously selfish behavior of choice]. but mostly, i ponder where we separate and where we come together. where is the line drawn between andy and me? where is the us? we’ve always had spaces in our togetherness, and true: it’s his body, it’s his life, but this sure seems to be about me, too.

drawing boundaries, they call it – something i’ve never excelled at, honestly. i’m good at empathy. lean towards the inclusive more than exclusive. i shop for cards and gifts, but they’re always from “us”. i can’t watch shows like america’s funniest home videos. i compare other people’s experiences to my own. i learn from other people’s stories. when my kids were in high school, i read the books on their required reading lists so we could talk about them (and yes, i was accused of living vicariously).

for the past week-and-a-half, i’ve wrested with the lines separating wife from mother; caring from smothering; support from dictating; allowing from detaching. i’ve pondered where and after much (and i do mean much) consideration, a lightbulb: i see lines as suggestions. i tweeted it, given the few times my realizations fit comfortably into the 140-character space. “for crossing or guiding?” asked my twitter friend mrs. mediocrity. “both,” i told her.

lines in a coloring book? suggestions.

lines on the blank page? suggestions.

lines in the sand? suggestions . . . tinged with warnings.

line outside the ladies room? suggestion to station a friend to guard the door and use the men’t room..

and that circular, insulating, would-be impenetrable line around hubs and his heart issues? a suggestion for separation that after much consideration i’ve decided i’m not buying into. his heart may be the one that now houses a stent and his heart may be the one that endured the catherization and angioplasty, but over the past 36 years, 10 months, and 8 days, the line between our hearts has faded.

and i am not interested in drawing it back. period.

Second helpin's:

1. gretel never had it so good
2. when we gather around the campfire
3. small things/big things

we have lived in a hurricane of activity the past 72 hours. focused, but nevertheless chaotic. in my head right now, a small jeanne wears hip boots, and tromps  around in a large vat of squishy oatmeal (steel cut, of course. and no sugar.) in search of words and phrases that can be pieced together to tell the story.

she finds no words or phrases, this tiny bootclad jeanne, only oats.

tomorrow, perhaps. after another 11 hour sleep, maybe then i’ll be past the oatmeal effect and will be back to tell you my . . . our . . . story.

No related posts.

still drenched in color week, making my way through the crayola box called nature.

wednesday sent us in search of oranges and yellows . . .

sunset blazing

sunset amazing

sunset waning

today, we were on the lookout for purples . . .

aunt rene’s azaleas live on and bloom, just like memories of her

Second helpin's:

1. nature’s crayolas: reds, blues
2. a checklist to close out the day
3. it’s sunday, so it must be fidgety out