Tell me something true, something really really true

Posted by | November 2, 2012 | 5 Comments

At the first sign of discomfort, I reach… I reach for something to put in my mouth. I reach for something to check. I reach for another something to drink. I reach for an old flame. A new flame. An extinguished flame.

People have their little families, their little groups, their little places, their little jobs, their little countries, their little clubs and the one thing all these little things have in common is that they’re full. When you ask one of the people with their little things how they are, usually they answer something along the lines of, “I’m SO busy!” They say “so” as if “busy” were a badge of honor. But the short of it is, they just aren’t available.

It’s not personal. I know that.  But I want more. So much more. I am driving an 18-wheeler down a bicycle path here and it is, um, what’s the word I’m looking for—

Inadequate.

There’s an expression for what I keep doing. Something about barking up the wrong tree.

Sometimes I want to pull a Henry David Thoreau. I want to leave all the little places of wrong trees and go build a cabin with and among the real trees, next to a real pond, with some real food I’ve planted and then watered and watched grow in some real dirt, the kind that gets under your real nails… and at the end of the day, which will end for real when the sun goes down, I will reach for my real paper and real pen to write it all down. And if I stay up past sun down, it will only be for as long as the wick of my candle, or the flames of my, very real, fire.

Thoreau quote at Walden Pond

Site of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden

I wonder what made Henry David Thoreau finally up and leave for Walden. I imagine he was tired of noise. Maybe he was tired of everything. He said he wanted to “live deliberately.” Maybe, left to his habitual ways, he was a reacher, too, a reacher tired of not being filled by the whats he kept reaching for.

I want to say, “Henry David, you have no idea, man! There’s this thing called Facebook now, and cable news, and the whole world has turned into a noisy dribble of soundbites.”

To which he might be all, “Soundbite? I am not familiar with that word.”

And I, “Oh Henry David, trust me. You don’t want to be.”

I am sitting on a little planet, like the little prince on the cover of The Little Prince. Sometimes I am sitting quietly, and sometimes I am flailing. Sometimes I get up and shout, “Are you there?… Anybody?” It’s dark and it’s beautiful and I am alone and so much I am wanting connection, but not just any old noisy connection will do. No. Not just any old faux connection I compulsively reach for will do. No. I want the real goddam cheese, not the processed orange bullshit. I want the flesh and bones arms around, not the “Like” button. I want the listening. I want the truth. The real, down-in-the-bones truth. The underbelly, beautiful, though not always pretty, truth.

I’m tired to death of regurgitated quotes. I’m tired to death of the rah rah rah and the blah blah blah. I want the grit and grime, but only if it’s true. True grit. Don’t pretty it up with bullshit, though I wouldn’t mind if you put a lovely scarf around your hips. But scarf or no scarf, make it true.

Right now I want to write about how the birds are making noise. Not singing, but a boisterous, somewhat excited, noise, like a classroom-full of middle schoolers the moment before the teacher opens the door. Squaw squaw squaw didyouknow didyouhear didyousee… That’s what I want to say. It’s true.

I want to write about how the only thing that gets anywhere close to expressing what is trapped in my chest is a drum. No other sound is big or raw or gritty or beautiful or loud enough for that trapped stallion.

Yes. Stallion. I have a fucking stallion trapped in my chest. It pounds from the inside, Let! Me! Out! And I’ll be damned if I know how to, except for this drum of truth. Bam!

Right now I want to go check on all the little people with all the little things again. I want to check on the man, yes, the one I let break my heart again. I reach to click on my Facebook app, only to remember I deactivated Facebook 10, make that 11 now, days ago.

This morning I meditated for 10 minutes. Ten wee minutes. And yet, 10 minutes more than I would have if I hadn’t. Ten straight up minutes. It was the most honest thing I did all morning. And the ground was strong and true.

You may understand nothing of what I’ve just said, and I don’t care. I mean, I do. Very much. But the stallion in my chest is trumping even my concern about what you might think. And that’s saying something.

Connection. For real. Like Christopher and Anne, our neighbors who knocked on our door the other night during Hurricane Sandy. I answered and said, “Come in, come in!” and they did. They goddam did. And we sat in real chairs, and we sipped on real tea, and we talked and we laughed and we sang. Verily, we sang.

Let’s play a game, wanna?

Tell me something true, something very very true
I’ll tell you something true, something very very true

OK. Here’s something: The hydrangea outside my window is purple and dry and makes me happy and want to cry all at once.

OK. Now you…

Categories: Heidi's Musings | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments

On death, on life, and on listening to our bodies on the eve of my almost-birthday.

Posted by | February 5, 2012 | 6 Comments

I want to write about how I feel the tug of the other side, about how an awareness of not being, at least not in this form, sometimes makes my heart skip a beat. I wouldn’t call it fear, exactly, though maybe it’s fear’s distant cousin, or a half-brother. It’s a bit heartbreaky, the tug, and it reminds me of everything I love about being human, being in a body: “You mean I won’t get to feel the goosebumps of a kiss anymore?” it says, and, “you mean I won’t be able to feel the ocean’s tug in my chest anymore?” …

Anymore.

I flirted with death when I was young and very sad. But it was not my time and, really, I did not want to die. I just didn’t know how to live and I didn’t understand that it is only life that can teach you how… Funny that. But death knew better, and he just would not have me then. He handed me right back.

Life is a kind, if exigent, teacher. And maybe death is her biggest, grandest lesson of all… After all, we don’t know what comes after. Not really, not for all the guessing in the world. Sure, we can make claims and say we know. But can we really? And ironically, the louder I hear someone claim certainty, the less I believe them, even while I understand the wanting of certainty.

Sometimes there’s a sense of urgency to the tug, a touch of despair about not having done what needs doing, said what needs saying, given what only I could give… Not that I am special, but more that there will never be another constellation of thoughts and cells like this… (Doesn’t everyone have a something so theirs, something the opportunity for which will be gone once they’re gone?)

“Why this talk of death,” you ask, “why now?”

Oh, I don’t know, really. I have a birthday coming up this week, maybe it’s that. I am aware of no longer being young, even though I’m not yet old. I’m in the middle here, somewhere, yet feeling the pull of the later acts like I didn’t in my 20′s or 30′s… Really, I have no idea where I am on my lifeline —for all I know it could all end tomorrow— but I do know that death comes to mind every time I see or hear something beautiful. Like Leonard Cohen’s new album, “Old Ideas,” which sounds to me like the best stuff of the hymns I grew up on —harmony, melody, and soothing repetition— minus pulpit, pews and sermonizing.

Something wakes me in the middle of the night. I want you to listen, it says. I turn over, pretending I didn’t hear. I have better things to do, I think, like sleep, for one.

It, on the other hand, does not have better things to do! I want you to listen, it says again. I turn on my iPhone and do my restless checking thing. It doesn’t help.

I lie in the dark doing my best. I realize that it would have spoken to me during daylight hours, if it knew I’d listen, but the world is louder then and it’s harder to make out the sounds of silence. Plus, in spite of having no TV, in spite of watching no news (except fake comedy news that tells me all I need to know and makes me laugh) my days are too full of busy, of argument, of retorts, rebuttals, information and distraction. There is so much trying to talk people into or out of… everywhere I turn. So much advice-giving, so much advocacy for the devil… far too much advocacy for the devil. So much bullshit.

Shhhhh, it says, shhhhh… It’s a calming shhhh, not a shooshing shhhh.

I sigh.

I lie in the stillness that is Somerville, Massachusetts at 4 in the morning, grateful for my flannel sheets. It shows me how most minds —including, of course, mine— are made up and that minds that are made up can’t listen. It’s just not possible. It shows me how mostly we assume we know, and from that loud place we give advice and blah blah opinions. And that when we think we know, we notice so little, stuck as we are in broken-record ways of seeing and interpreting things.

It has me there. It knows that I love noticing things, that I get off on spying on the ordinary magic that is always everywhere.

I say, but what about my spinning? I can’t listen because there’s too much spinning and I don’t know how not to spin. By spinning I mean my endless distract-y, avoid-y habits, and anxious thoughts.

Ah my love, it says, spinning is just your way of trying to be someone else, someplace else, someway other.

Nuh-uh, I say, spinning is my way of getting some relief.

Ah, it says, how’s it working for you?

I sigh, tired. I was arguing again.

Shhhh, it says. It is the voice of kindness —there, there— and it knows I’m doing my best. I see how tired you are. I see how much you want to listen. I see you visiting The Pause every morning, and most nights before bed.

I say nothing. I feel the tugging on my chest again. My throat feels thick. I want to cry because I see and feel everything it is showing me, and I see how all of it —ALL!— is just all of us doing our best with what we know, with what we have, with where we are. And it all kind of breaks my heart.

Sometimes I look at people on the bus and imagine their thoughts. If all of our thoughts were one day to scroll across a billboard in the sky, we’d each panic thinking they were ours, our own, being made public… So similar, all of us. Solomon was right: nothing new under the sun. And yet:

Doesn’t every last one of us have our own particular taste and smell? Our particular and delightful turn of phrase? Aren’t we all so same, so different, so both?

All of that and more keeps tugging at me.

I turn toward it and whisper, not yet, please, not yet. I am speaking not so much about myself but about people I don’t want taken away. Leonard Cohen, for one. I have cried many a premature tear for the day he is no longer here.

(What can I say, I can be maudlin, OK? One day he was trending on twitter and my heart made what I thought was a full stop, but turned out to just be an end-of-paragraph return. He’d ‘only’ won a big prize, after all. Thank goodness and yay! But, oh my. The heart-stoppage.)

Maurice Sendak, for another. Mary Oliver, for sure. People, all of them, who don’t argue. People who say it like it is, no matter what anyone else says. People who show us their wrinkles, their hearts, their beautiful minds, without photoshop. Such courageous people, they. These are the people I gather round me when I am lonesome as hell for someone to listen in the middle of the night.

I touch people. Every day, I touch people and every day their bodies teach me to listen. I hear the beauty, the fragility, the finitude of life in our bodies. It moves me every time. I touch our scars. I touch the ways our way of holding our pain, our joy, our laughter, our sorrow has become particularized in our bodies. I touch where that pattern lives in someone’s shoulder. I touch pains in the neck and pains in the ass. I touch the knot that holds all the whys of how you can’t sleep at night. I touch what your body started flinching about so long ago. I touch what you say without a second thought and I touch what you don’t ever say but wish with all your heart you could. I listen with my hands.

Bodies don’t bullshit. They know they will end. They have no time to waste.

The other day a client who’s been coming to me every week for about a month told me that he’s been doing the stretches I showed him and that his shoulder and low back had been feeling much better. I nodded, I listened. But, he went on, there were still pains and aches that hadn’t gone away… I said yes. He asked why and what could he or I do about it… Good and obvious question, no?

I took a moment and then I told him that some things in the body aren’t about the bad mattress, or the wrong pillow, or the crappy desk chair. I told him that some aches in the shoulder couldn’t be stretched away even if we stretched our pecs in a door frame for hours… I don’t always go here with my clients, but I could tell he was with me, so I went on:

Our bodies have a way of expressing for us things that otherwise don’t get voice, things that have no other way of coming out.

Things?

Yes, things like how we were actually upset about that thing so and so said, even though we smiled and told ourselves it didn’t matter… Maybe our body is expressing that thing we want in our heart of hearts to do, or say, but tell ourselves we shouldn’t. Maybe our body is expressing the despair we don’t want to feel over ever righting that big regret… Maybe it’s about the way we swallow our words, our feelings, for fear of what people will think. Or maybe it’s about how we always joke and become witty when in our heart of hearts we know it makes for a wall between us and the world, the very same world we want to put our arms around… Maybe.

He got it, I could tell, and then he asked, in his slow and sweetly broken English, but couldn’t my body find nicer way of telling me those things?

I laughed. We both did. It was a knowing and rueful laugh.

Sometimes I want to stand in the middle of the road and let every single last piece of bullshit clothing fall away. To say: “This. Is Who. I am.” I want you to see. I don’t want to hide. And yet, I do. Not as much as in my 20′s when I flirted with death, but still.

It’s 4 in the morning. The world is quiet. And finally I am listening enough to hear. What’s been tugging wants a pen. I get up and find it one. My hand begins to move as if taking dictation. Something wants saying, something wants hearing. Hello, I’m listening.

Thank you, I hear it say, thank you.

It’s almost 6 now. Maybe I will sleep a bit more for having listened, and for having said things wanting saying… Nothing special kinds of things, as you can see, except that I wasn’t saying them and they were breaking my heart just a bit.

My neighbor’s kettle will soon whistle and she will soon clatter the pan that she makes her breakfast in. When I hear her, if I hear her around this time in the morning, it gives me odd comfort. I know a bit about her and hold it in a sweet place in my heart. If something happened to her, I’d care, and, for sure I’d miss the sound of her kettle when I wake early.

After all, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?” Mary Oliver said that bit of loveliness in her poem, The Summer Day. Sometimes I carry her words with me like a marble in my mouth.

Categories: Heidi's Musings, Massage Therapy, Poetry | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments

Some people have to-do lists. And some people have chickens. And secret missions.

Posted by | February 24, 2011 | 5 Comments

I now know why it’s called the red-eye. It was never meant metaphorically, no it wasn’t. Surely it was named by someone who looked in the mirror at the end of said red-eye and freaked the hell out at the sight of her red zombie eyes looking back at her in an airplane bathroom mirror. Surely.

This morning, when my eyes got home, they proceeded to have a red-eyed meltdown which revolved around the sense of nothing feeling like home. In the usual vernacular of meltdowns, the words “anymore” and “ever” figured prominently:

“Everything I thought would be home is not home. Anymore. Like the person whose neck used to smell like home to me, is not the neck of a person I can smell in that way. Anymore. And the person with the neck I would like to smell like home, well, that person and I had a bad day yesterday. And people I have thought of, in some way, as being home, are not. Or not really. Or not here. Anymore and ever amen.”

So, home. I miss it. Always have, I guess. Homesick and I go way back.

Um, Heidi-_ _?

Heidi-_ _?! Who are you calling me that? Show yourself.

Aw, Heidi, I’m your Chicken and I’m just playing with you. That’s what your mom used to call you, isn’t it?

Yah, so?

When she was happy with you–

Yah, so?

Well, she’d never call you that when she was unhappy with you, would she?

No.

Exactly. So, that was just me saying “I’m happy with you.”

Wait! Did you say “chicken”? Did you say you’re my chicken?

Yep. You asked for help, remember? This morning, when you got home, when you were so tired and crying, remember?

Wait a sec… Are you related to Hot ‘n’ Steamy Monday Momma?

[Blushing] Oh my! I take that as a compliment, for sure, though I’m not sure Monday Momma would… though I would like to think I’m sexy, too, in my own way–

So, are you?

Am I sexy?

Are you related! Are you related to Hot ‘n’ Steamy?

Yes and no. Like her, I too am helpful when you are feeling alone in all the world and believing all the thoughts zipping across your tired mind. But I’m a chicken. I come when you need help of the checking-in variety. And also, missions–

So you’re a check-in chicken on a mission?

That’s one way to say–

Wait! Are you related to Havi’s chickens?

Yes and no. You could call us cousins… cousins I like to drop in on to visit on Fridays. But I am your chicken with a capital Ch. And I am here to check in with you and help you in a practical way.

Are you going to give me to dos and all that? Because I don’t think I’m of a to-do list persuasion today.

Oh no, sweetpea. I’m not that kind of chicken. I am a just-for-you chicken. Since today I can tell you don’t need to-do’s, we won’t have to-do’s. Trooth be told, too? [Leans in and whispers:] I never was much of a to-do kind of bird. I much prefer ta-das.

Ta-das?

Yes, as in TA-DA! Voila!

Oh Chicken, you are kind to want to help, but I’m afraid I’m not much into ta-das either.

No worries.

I’m feeling soooo wobbly. And out of place. And sad that every place feels out of place to me. And home is not home. And my insides feel torn up: at once ancient (in an old outworn grooves kind of way) and strange (in an I just moved into this here house and I don’t know where anything is kind of way). And oh but what I want most in all my life is to find home. To feel at home. That all is OK. That I am cared for. Can’t I just find home? Please? I feel like Dorothy when she discovers that the wizard is just some short little old man amplifying his voice from behind the curtain. Also, I feel like the wizard, knowing I’m just an old man amplifying my voice. I’m afraid there’s no way home. And worse than that, maybe there really is no home. At least not for me.

Oh, sweetpea. That is a hard moment: when the things and people that you’d hoped and dreamed would be home, are not… Or when the people you’re with–

Don’t get me. Don’t understand.

Ah, yes, you want to be gotten, really gotten. I get that.

Yes. [crying] And to be listened to, understood. And I don’t have that right now and I know, of course, that no person can ever be all of that to me, and that I’m supposed to be that for myself and blah blah and blah… But that’s what I most want in all the world, to feel truly at home, like I belong.

Of course.

Oh Chicken, I can’t anymore. I miss the people that came closest to being home. And when things get to feeling really hard, I miss the neck that most smelled like home. And I hang on past when I should hang on… It is a very very lonely feeling this homesickness.

[Moves head side to side... listening, making clucking sounds...] Yes, my love.

[A few minutes pass] Heidi, now comes the part where I make a suggestion. Ready?

OK?  [looking at chicken quizzically]

Oh, oops. Let me try that again. [clears throat]: Heidi, prepare to receive your first assignment for Operation Home.

[Heidi's eyes widen]

What? You wanted a veteran chicken?

Uh, I did not even know I wanted a chicken.

Oh, Sweetheart, please, a tiny bit o’ trust, please?

[Heidi raises a brow].

OK. Full disclosure. You are my first assignment, and…  er… there were maybe a few days of Chicken School I missed —what can I say, they were going over horribly boring material and I preferred to be clucking about in the world, finding interesting matters to peck at— and OK… maybe those were the days they talked about how to deliver assignments–

Oh great! Just what I needed! A remedial Chicken on his first assignment–

Don’t worry, Heidi. I think you and I will get on just fine. Plus? I have Chicken supervision making sure I am helping you in the best way possible. And oh but I’ve been dying to get paired up with you!

Come again?

I’ve been reading what you write for awhile and I was crossing my chicken wings that I’d get you. And I did, I did! And too? I got a special commendation letter from the Headmaster of the Chickens I can show you it if you want– [reaches under left breast]

No that won’t be necessary. So, what’s your suggestion?

How about some soft boiled eggs? Two. With salt and pepper. Huevito a la copa, as you said growing up. Or Weich gekocht, as you also said growing up. Eggs in all your languages. Eggs with your words. I know you love to play with words–

[Crying again]. Chicken?

Yes, love?

Could it be that words could become some kind of home for me?

Oh for sure, my sweet. For you, for sure. In many ways, they already are. They’re how you come back to yourself. They’re how you listen to you. They’re also how you connect to the world.

And taste?

Oh absolootely. Ahem. Not for nothing I said eggs.

And smells?

Yes, sweetheart, of course.

[crying again] But I want the people of the smells.

Of course, love. And right now there just aren’t any around, and the people you were hoping to connect with in the home kind of way you aren’t feeling it with… But dare I say there are others that you do feel connected with?

Yes. Like the lovelies I knew only online that I got to meet in person last week and it was just great. And even though my gentleman friend and I had a hard time yesterday, after a hard time last week, well, there are some ways he sometimes smells like home.

Good find.

But I want it to feel that way all the time. And it doesn’t when things are hard, which is especially when I want home. And then, when it’s so hard, my mind goes to all the necks that once were home, and I feel soooo sad. I’m afraid there will never be home like that again.

No, my love, there won’t. I won’t lie to you. That is sad. My feathers don’t mind some tears, really. And I hear that some of your friends have hankies, silken ones. Now might be a good time for those.

[Crying ensues for several minutes].

OK Sweetpea. How about getting to our Chicken Plan for today!

Can you please just tell me what’s next?

I did. I already told you.

You mean the eggs?

Yes, I mean the eggs!

And after?

Well, you’ll just have to come back and check in again. I am a one-egg-at-a-time-chicken.

But you said two eggs, to cook two?

That’s because I know one wouldn’t be enough for you. Just come back after your eggs, alright? I’ll have your next Red-Eye Recovery Operation Home mission for you then.

OK.

Oh! Heidi! I almost forgot. You will need a chicken-code to contact me for your next mission.

Yes?

“Softboiled”

Of course.

Soft boiled eggs, per Chicken instruction.

~ * ~

[punching into keypad]: #7638264533

Yes? Can I help you?

Um, hi! Chicken, it’s me! Remember? I did the code. [Whispers]: softboiled

Lemme see your eye? Bring it over to the Operation Home Mission-Heretofore-Impossible eye scanner, would you, and then look straight ahead?

[digital code confirmation information activation sounds]

OK. Identity confirmed: eye previously known as red, proceed. I will buzz you in and then you must remove your clothes and step into that there softest of all robes awaiting you and then go into the secret sauna where your next mission will be uploaded to your hands and arms, feet and legs.

Hands and arms? What about my brains?

Oh no, sweetpea. Chicken missions require hands, feet and limbs. We bypass the brain, thankyouverymuch. For some missions —many chicken missions, actually— brain power is highly overrated. We chickens know.

OK.

How were your eggs?

Soft and yummy.

Good.

Um, chicken? I’m still on the street here in case you forgot, you going to buzz me in or what?

Oh lordy, of course. Proceed as instructed.

——

I get buzzed in to find a purplebluewithshadesofgreen robe (with silk hankies in pockets) on my right. I put it on and proceed to the chicken sauna to await upload of next step in Operation Home (a.k.a. mission-heretofore-impossible) to my hands and feet.

Later in the day I visit The Pause, my new favorite spot, where my Chicken has an undercover agent relay my next assignment which involves Ninja, Ninja practice.

And tonight finds me writing this here note, which you there, dear reading visitor, now find yourself reading. There is more, of course, but that, like my full agent name, is classified. If I told you I’d have to kill you. And that wouldn’t be good.

COMMENT ZEN:

Hi! Come in, come in! I love company. The kettle’s on the stove for tea. And, of course, there are plenty of soft boiled eggs.

If you’d be so kind, please leave your shoulds at the door (even though I know the advices you might be thinking are oh-so-well-meant!) — they tend to track in winter mud.

What I’d love? Maybe you’ll “get!” what I’m talking about. And maybe you’ll feel less alone with you own hard stuff. Maybe you have your own version of homesickness to tell about. Those are the things I’d love to hear over tea and eggs.

Categories: Heidi's Musings, Mood detective | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments

Meet me at The Pause?

Posted by | February 14, 2011 | 9 Comments

The Pause, my favorite new spot. It’s on the corner of Now and Notice, where that old dive, Reaction, used to be. Happy hour every day. Come in any attire, including tears. All moods are welcome.

Hottest bartender, his name is Presence. Ask him for their signature drink, Patience. Not sure what their secret ingredient is, but from what I can figure it’s got some muddled Time, macerated in oak barrel-aged Joy. Seriously, best drink ever. Get drunk on it. Even the hangover is great.

Categories: Heidi's Musings | Tagged: , | 9 Comments

Connection. Chilean miners, ukuleles, pianos, and Laika.

Posted by | October 13, 2010 | 6 Comments

This morning I watched live footage of the miners in Chile being pulled out of the ground in a capsule after 70 days of entrapment. I heard the Chilean Spanish of my childhood, and felt very close to what I watched. I was amazed by the silence and sense of calm about the whole operation, and moved by the embraces of loved ones, men hugging men, mothers hugging sons, people wrapping arms around one another and patting, again and again… Lots of patting. Not a lot of words.

Tonight I walked home under a sky just shy of dark. It’s my favorite time, that time of in-between. You get to play I-spy on the magics. Tonight I spied a man walking down the street carrying nothing but a ukulele. He strummed his uke as if strumming a uke was the only thing in the world to do.

He reminded me of a night this August just past. I was walking home at the same magical time, though the hour was later and the air was sultry. It might have been winding down, but it was Summer still. That’s what I was thinking when I heard piano notes which I thought surely I was making up. Except that I wasn’t, because right there, on Brattle Street, sat a man playing an honest to goodness old-fashioned piano on the sidewalk.

In that moment, like this morning and tonight, I loved being human. And alive. Intimately connected with this world.

There are a number of things in my life I regret doing. One or two I regret a lot.

When I look back on Me-Then it is now with some measure of kindness. It wasn’t always like that, and the kindness surprises me. And sometimes makes me cry. Kindness tends to. Me-Now sees the young woman that was Me-Then as a girl wanting, more than anything, connection.

In some way it’s still what I want most. Connection. To you. To another. Something bigger. Something other. To nature. To myself. Even when I retreat into aloneness it’s about wanting to connect and come back. For isn’t the loneliest feeling ever to be far away and cut off from oneself?

Over the weekend, my guy and I made a little roadtrip. We drove home late on Sunday, in the dark, listening to Mecano. If you don’t know them, they are an 80′s Spanish group. I adore them. Their lyrics are stories told in poetry. I wish the whole world spoke Spanish, just so everyone could understand Mecano. Just like I wish everyone spoke English so they could delight in Leonard Cohen. But I digress.

The song Laika came on and I tried an on-the-spot translation for my guy who doesn’t speak Spanish. Laika was a Soviet space dog, the first animal to orbit the earth. She died hours after take off.

The song has been tapping me on the shoulder for three days. Tonight I stopped to write it down. Laika is not alone.

Laika is on Mecano’s album “Descanso Dominical.” Here it is, on YouTube:


YouTube Link to video

 

Here’s my very quick translation, which is a far cry from its poetic, original Spanish. But it tells the story and loosely fits the syllabic meter of the song, in case you want to Karaoke it up.

She was Russian and her name was Laika
just a very normal dog she was
she went from being simply regular
to being an A-class superstar

They placed her into a small space rocket
to observe her signs and reactions
she turned out to be the world’s first astronaut
on a mission into outer space

Now the rocket is set and ready for take-off
and ground control on earth bids her farewell

At home base everything was stark silence
waiting for some signal to be heard
Everyone’s attention on their earphones
heard the sound of her familiar bark

Back on earth there was a grand old party
shouts and laughter, weeping and champagne
Laika surely watched it through the window
noticing the big bright colored ball
wondering how odd to be circling it

Now the rocket is set and ready for take-off
and ground control on earth bids her farewell

Then one night stargazing on the heavens
a new light is observed by telescope
no one can explain the apparition
of this new sun in the skies
But if we pay heed to the great legend
surely we must know it to be true
that while on earth there is a great dog missing
in heaven there is also one star more.

Categories: Heidi's Musings | Tagged: , , , | 6 Comments

Somebody made that bell for me. (And, keeping you abreast).

Posted by | June 16, 2010 | 5 Comments

Today I want to write about sound. About how a sound can sneak up on you and kiss you when you need it. About how it can keep you company when you’re alone. About how it can surprise you with things you’d never thought of.

On a lonely day last year, probably winter, I was believing the thought “I am alone in all the world.” And then, into the dark and cold of that moment—(is it just me or does lonely always feel cold?)—came the sound of bells and an accompanying cascade of fresh thoughts: SomeBody. Made. That. Bell. Wow… I loved whoever it was. I felt a bit more connected, even if just to that person. I thought about how once upon a time there weren’t bells… I mused about the first bell ever and about the thoughts, needs and desires that lead to its creation… surely matters of resonance, connection and community had played a part in the bell coming to be… And in some way it was as if that bell had been made for me.

My loneliness did not magically go away that day, but in the newly-appreciated company of the bells from St. Johns church on Massachusetts Avenue in North Cambridge, I was able to take Lonely by the hand—which, by the by, it totally appreciated—and go about my business. And as the day went on, at every quarter hour, whether I noticed or not, the bells were there along with everything their sound conjured up: connection to myself and parts of myself I had neglected or forgotten, connection to others far and near, connection to animals and plants, connection to Morning Glories, appreciation for powers and things beyond my understanding, connection to kindness and humor, connection to our dear world and universe… By the end of the day Lonely had changed its clothes to something more fitting and comfy—an outfit that probably included a turquoise silken scarf and a big cozy sweater—and, if I recall, by late afternoon Lonely did not even answer when called.

I notice that I am more likely to appreciate sounds when I feel receptive. I also notice that feeling open is not required. Good thing! Sound is kind like that: it does not withhold itself when I am distracted and closed down. It still does its thing, asking nothing back from me, not even a thank you. Although I like to think it loves to be noticed because the moment I turn its way, it invariably says something along the lines of: “Oh hi! I’m so glad you came by. I have so much for you, so very much!”

The other day I started a list of sounds I love. Why stop with bells. There’s the plaintive call of mourning doves. And children singing. And Bach’s violin concerto 1 in A minor 3rd movement. And my guy whistling. And basketballs in city parks on summer nights. And unabashed laughter. And waves lapping. And babies babbling. And my clients taking their first big breath or sigh (= mind chatter slowing down)… so many sounds to love.

What else? What sounds make you feel loved?

—————–

On another note, some of you’ve been asking for an update on my last post, so…

After my breast got called “pretty” and all that I was to have a biopsy… you know, where they go in and probe what’s there, get a bit of it out, and then get up in its face to have a good look-see and figure out what the heck it is.

After a long moment of feeling pass-out-y about it, I talked to my people and was able to wrap my head around the thought of having a needle poked into my breast.

Except that I came to find out during pre-biopsy consult that they didn’t intend to just poke a needle in after all. What they had in mind was to do “surgery to remove breast tissue where the cyst(s) are and around.”

“How much tissue are we talking?” I asked the doctor.

“Probably 2 grapes-worth.”

In addition to the fact that I haven’t been able to look at plump and juice grapes without feeling a wee bit queasy since, that was the part where I yelled out “no”. Exactly just like that, “NO!”, with no thought of being polite.

It didn’t help that the doctor telling me, who I quickly figured out was the surgeon intending to take grapes out, had the warmth of a fish, and that if and when her mouth did the movement that in most people would be considered a smile, her eyes did not participate. Like at all.

I asked for details and listened as best I could given the rushing in my head. And then, summoning up my calm I said: I need to talk to my people. And then I walked into the hallway, sat down on account of feeling pass-out-y again, and called German Dude I’d reassured didn’t need to come with me.

After talking to my people I decided to have a second consult, hopefully with a doctor whose eyes and mouth were in sync. Let’s call him Dr. Sweetheart because that’s what he turned out to totally be: his eyes were warm and he drew pictures for me on the examining table paper, and he took his time talking me through my options. Dr. Sweetheart explained that the medical profession, and most especially surgeons such as he and Dr. ColdFish–whom he didn’t call that–see things as very black and white: if there is a problem, something out of the ordinary, even if the mysterious something’s harm is questionable, they tend as a profession to err on side of caution and excision.

But he also said–and this was so helpful–that if his wife were in my situation and decided, like I was leaning toward, waiting to follow up in 3 months with another round of pictures and ultrasound, he’d feel good about her decision.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m waiting. And I’m talking nice to my pretty breast. And I’m listening to it and the bells and the sounds around me. And wearing a turquoise silken scarf and potioning up with Night Queen.

Thanks to all who’ve been asking ;)

Categories: Heidi's Musings, Mood detective | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments

Was that my breast you just called ‘pretty’?

Posted by | May 20, 2010 | 18 Comments

I wasn’t really too worried except for maybe a bit…

Last week I had a routine ____ (I have no intention of gracing my screen with that word… it simply does not do justice to the beauty that are breasts). Anyway, the chick doing the ____ had no breastside manner whatsoever and it hurt like crazy. Enough said. Goes to show what a good mood I was in, I pretty much let it go right away. Until she kept me waiting for what surely was going on a half hour in a cold room in a wimpy hospital gown, only to come back and tell me I needed to keep waiting in said gown in the waiting room, because the doctor reading films still had to review mine and there were 3 people, more specifically women, more specifically sets of breasts, ahead of me.

So I, thinking all would surely be good, asked if I could leave… they could just call me if they needed to take more films. Right? Surely they wouldn’t need to.

But they did.

My doctor called and the word “shadow” came up in the same sentence as “your right breast.”

I still wasn’t too worried, and my doctor thought it could very likely have to do with the bumpy lumpy matter of having been premenstrual, but still, I needed to come back for more ___, plus an ultrasound.

Yesterday was the day. I asked my good people to put me in their pockets. Or in special little nesty bags they’ve knitted. Or in their caps. Really, anywhere warm and cozy and soft, while I went for a follow up round with the cold machine. And then I went off with potions in my bag: the sweet and comforting Chocolita and the warming and grounding Losing It, oh and what the hell, Night Queen too, because my breasts weren’t planning on quitting on me any time soon and Night Queen has plans for me, baby! All that, plus my friend Deborah Weber’s Comfort Spray in my pocket! Not bad at all: me tucked away in my favorite people’s pockets and all my favorite things stuffed in my own pockets.

I can’t say I was happy when the very same hardly-a-day-older-than-19 ____ technician called my name in the waiting room. But while she still had no breast-side manner to speak of, she did make a remark about the gloomy weather, and yes, it was a crumb but I appreciated her effort to connect. Then she had me wait in case they needed more.

Which they did.

In all this, German dude I’m dating–ahem!– texts me that he’s right there with me. He knew I was having a follow up to last week’s routine thing, which we’d talked of in code, but never outright on account of my aversion to the ___ word for one, and for two, call me crazy but, whoever would want to talk of her breasts in these terms to a guy who’s barely even just seen them? Yeah. Thought so. But he’s the smart. And he had picked up on my code language without a single lesson.

I texted him back: “you are so not in here with me!” (“Here” being the unsexiest place ever. And yes, in all this I notice I still have brain room to think of sex. And death, more on that later. But yes, sex.) “But, I appreciate the thought.”

Then 19-year-old comes back to take two more pictures before having me get dressed for ultrasound. She tells me she’ll come find me in a moment to give me the films to take along.

But she didn’t come back. Another ___ technician came out to tell me they need more.

“More!?!” I didn’t say.

“Did they change their mind?” I did say, wanting to make sure she had the right breasts, and wasn’t confusing me for someone else.

“Um, no, the doctor just needs more films, more angles, so they can point the ultrasound tech to the exact place.”

In my estimation they had, by now, taken 8 X-rays of said breast. What I didn’t say was: “Um, hello! I think your 19-year-old ____ bitchy technician sucks.”

Thankfully, this new ____ technician was a woman who’d had breasts of her own for more than 5 years. And had probably gone through a few ups and downs of her own. She was an immediate improvement: from her touch, to how she talked, to how warm her hands were… No, it didn’t take much, but I warmed right up in spite of the machine and contortions, and I told her she had a lovely boobside manner and she laughed and said they call her the boobs and tubes lady… and we both laughed and it was human and I was grateful.

Then I waited for Mr. Head of Radiology whose actual name was Dr. Homer as in Simpson to walk me through the maze of buildings to ultrasound, on the way explaining that what it looked like was cyst or dense tissue, but they couldn’t tell for sure so they needed another way to see in. Hence the ultrasound.

Thankfully, this part doesn’t hurt at all. But the screen was not facing me so all I could see was ultrasound tech’s face–poker poker poker puzzled poker poker puzzled–as she kept on and on with looking for and at whatever it was that had me there.

Finally she says she needs to bring in the doctor. And, this being Boston, Mass, teaching hospital capital of the world, in comes the tech plus a doctor plus a doc in training.

While alone, I got a bit scared, truth be told. I got out my friend Debra’s comfort spray, which I’d already been misting on myself every time I had to change. And I thought of all the warm pockets I was in. That helped.

And then I entertained thoughts about what I reeeeeally would do if I only had a certain amount of time left. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be thinking this, but I was, and I know better than to try to push thoughts into closets when they come to me for noticing.

And I remembered Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “The Art of Disappearing,” which I’d just included in a poetry bouquet I’d sent a friend across the world that very morning. Especially I thought of the last lines: “Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second, then decide what to do with your time.”

It actually felt rather comforting to be realistic about possibilities, because we all know that things do happen to young and vivacious and amazing people just getting to what they really want from life like you and me, right? Plus, I was milking the chance to zoom in on Heidi’s heart priorities.

And you know what the heart priority was? It was writing. If I only had, say, 6 months, or even 3, I’d write my ass off. And I’d gather all my favorite pieces that I keep saying I don’t know how to get published and I’d send them off already to anyone and everyone I know and don’t know. Because I have things to say. Things so important to me, things that only I can say because nobody else is me although they are human things, and maybe someone would be helped by these things someday somewhere. Whatever it is would be something about meeting anything and everything about me, about us, about this being human, the good the bad the ugly the scary the hilarious, with curiosity and kindness and a wide open heart, even if the wide open heart was towards the part of us whose heart is shriveled up and scared, or the parts of us we are still at war with.

I’m not saying I want this to be my time, oh no, but no one ever said I wasn’t dramatic, so this was just me working with my worst case scenario, meeting my mind kindly.

Then I held my breast, talking sweetly and confidently to it, apologizing for the cold pressy machine that was surely invented by a man who’d never ever in a million flippin’ years consider putting his dick in such a thing… the cold hands… the 19 year old… I let my right breast know that I’d be OK no matter what. I didn’t want her to worry. We’d be OK. And my left breast too, so she’d not feel left out. I started crying just a bit, but Night Queen was right there and she’s the strong and the tears would wait til we were in a cozier place.

Then poker face tech plus 2 doctors came back in, and Night Queen-potioned up, totally in her sovereignty-Heidi says, “could I please see the screen while you do this?”

The doctor looked at me, considered, and gave the only answer she could have given a queen. Yes.

Things got more interesting as I saw the parts they were puzzled about, which seem to be cysts. They were trying to determine if the cysts are clean or not… clean being good and not clean being not necessarily bad, but not as good, and possibly bad. That’s my plain English take on the matter.

So there they were, moving the gooped up wand over my breast, when the doctor says, “oh, that’s lovely. Oh… ”

And I’m all, “Excuse me?!” But I kept that in my head.

Then she points at this one part of the screen, obviously talking to not-me and says, “How pretty.”

Sassypants Heidi was totally not going to let that slip by unnoticed: “Why thank you. Was that my breast you just called ‘pretty’?”

They laughed and remembered I was there, and then the good doc said, “how many days can you say someone says that about your breast!” I think my eyebrow may have raised a bit, though playfully, and she instantly blushed and tried a quick but too-late recovery, “I mean, I don’t know, maybe they do…” But we were all laughing now. And she’d just become not the doc but another human being with breasts. And I hoped one day soon someone will talk of her breasts in the most endearing of terms.

But the three of them together still couldn’t determine where to go with the matter of those dark mysterious ovally things we were seeing, so they called up the best doctor in the department who came in and called me “Honey” and she was Indian and I liked her instantly.

The 4 of them had a look and determined I need to have an MRI… If the cysts were someplace else they’d just keep an eye on them over time, but they are in an unusual place for breast tissue.

So that, my friends, is what I was up to yesterday afternoon. Last night I saw a client, and again I felt so grateful that I am at a point in my life that I get to do things I love. And afterward I made myself some popcorn which I popped in a combination of coconut and black truffle-infused oil fitting for a queen. Yum. YUM! And today, I’m writing this post, because that’s what I do, write. Even, and especially, about the hard stuff. To make sense of things and practice at this thing we call life. And later on I’ll work in my new massage therapy office, which I still *squeeee* about whenever I think on it. And maybe you’ll come see me there.

P.S. Doc just called. They want to do a biopsy. Oh boo. I have no stomach for needles. Oh boo.

***

About comments… You know I love them! But please, do not even think about spelling out the ____ word or mentioning the C word. Because I will delete your ass off my blog in a heartbeat if I see those words. Even if you are my favorite person in the whole wide world! Consider yourself warn-ed.

Categories: Aardvark Essentials, Heidi's Musings, Self-care | Tagged: , , , , , | 18 Comments

Couples counseling: Me and Time.

Posted by | April 1, 2010 | 5 Comments

Time and I, we go way back. But things have gotten hard… Oof! So I called Curiosity and booked us a session.

Curiosity is a frighteningly insightful dude. Most of the time he doesn’t even have to say anything at all, although he does have this one eyebrow that ventures up ever so slightly when he doesn’t quite buy something. But his eyes are always kind and oftentimes they twinkle. And, as you probably know, he’s my favorite superhero for the hard stuff.

Our session started off kind of rock and roll. I am the more verbal one and since I’d taken the initiative and made the appointment thank you very much, I just went right into it. Why beat around the bush! Time was right there, of course, sitting at the other end of the couch.

I said to Curiosity that I often feel at Time’s mercy, like he’s some ruthless taskmaster whom I will never quite please, who then “has the freaking nerve,” I said, wagging my head side to side, “to take away my goddam evenings and weekends working. You know: work-working, think-working, worry-working, not-working… He just won’t let up.”

Curiosity nodded slightly and turned toward Time. But excuse me very much, I wasn’t done.

“And what is it with just slipping away so fast? What! End of month already? And the years! Forget about it. Half the time I don’t even know what year we are.” Hrmph! And here I turned to yell at time (and no, I’m not proud of it): “You move so fucking fast I cannot even think. I’m exhausted!”

And then I burst into tears. Curiosity nodded and with soft eyes pointed over to the pile of silk handkerchiefs he keeps with him at all times. But do you know who beat me to them to hand me one? Yes. It was Time. Which made me cry even harder.

I didn’t notice right away but Time had taken the handkerchief as an opportunity to sidle up toward me. He didn’t say a word but his hand from the short arm took my hand that was closest to him, and his hand from the long arm started smoothing the hair from my face. Which yeah, made me cry more. Because, oh my. It had been awhile since we’d had any affection, he and I.

“Please, can’t I just turn you back and time travel and take back things that I said, things that I did because I’m so sorry about those things, especially that one, but you have passed and and and snot snot snot I can’t get you back– and now I’m forty freaking two and I don’t know what to do–”

By now I had my head buried in Time’s chest and he didn’t even seem to mind at all about the snot. I whimpered like a 3-year-old and couldn’t speak for a good long while because the pressure in my chest and throat were so tight and had been building for some kind of forever and I swear I thought my heart would explode.

Thoughts, they kept flitting across my mind. Like about how every so often I wake up at dark:thirty in the morning with surges of some kind of restless impatience coursing down my legs. I’m not sure what exactly that is, truth be told, and it used to freak me out. I’ve noticed it’s related to wanting to get to the important stuff before it’s too late… before time runs out… And oftentimes it’s when I’m putting things off, both the niggly things and the big things…

Time kept holding my hand and I remembered how much I’d once loved those very kind hands. (Because, my man Time he’s not some cheap-ass digital infrared, oh no. We are talking steady and strong old-school hands here. And, if you must, I’ve always had a thing for hands. Shhhh…)

At some point I turned to face my man Time and through snot and tears I said, “Please don’t go! Please don’t leave me. I know things haven’t been good between us. And often I come to bed and just fall asleep exhausted without even so much as a kiss, but I’m not ready for us to be over. Yet. Please–”

And he kissed me, right there, not to shut me up or anything but because he must know that kisses hands-down beat words sometimes, no? And then, forgoing the handkerchiefs, he caught my wayward tears with more kisses and those steady, kind hands. Until the tears ran out.

And then, in the first and only words my man Time had uttered in our whole session with Curiosity, he said: “I’m right here, Sweetheart.”

Although it was time to go, that’s the part where Curiosity didn’t say anything like “That’s our time for today.” Because Curiosity? He’s the supersmart.

*******

On the practical side, which is always where change can really take root, I was very excited a few weeks ago when my friend and itty biz colleague Eileen Corrigan Valazza released “The Sailboat Kit.” The timing couldn’t have been more synchronistic, given my relationship work with Time.

OK, you should know that pretty much anything Eileen does I love. But I was very excited because The Sailboat Kit is a time help-y thing “for people who hate structure (but love metaphors).” *Jumping up and down* Metaphors!!! “Me me, sign me up!”

A sailboat is Eileen’s metaphor for the kind of vessel she wants to navigate through her week in, but she invites us to pick whatever metaphor works best for us. I fell so in love with Eileen’s sailboat, that I kept her metaphor.

Eileen’s kit has helped me see things differently and make several shifts in how I relate to time:

In the last 3 weeks, since boarding my sailboat, I’ve re-discovered this thing called “an evening.” You know, evening, as in a time after which work stops. Wow.

I’ve also gotten way curious about this thing called “rest.” And about making time for it so that it is more likely to happen.

I also get to have a day that is called “a weekend.” (As a massage therapist, much of my hands-on work is on Saturdays and Sundays). OK, so right now my weekend is only one day: Friday, which I renamed Freeday. But, one day? Wow. Compared to No-day, that’s grand.

Envisioning my week and putting it down on paper in the fun way Eileen has me do has also helped me consciously set aside a little time for the niggly things that end up cluttering my brain waves when I put them off for important things.

Oh and too? I’ve made explicit space for self-care and movement and joy.

To sum it up, Eileen’s Sailboat Kit is the awesome. I love it. You can read about it over here and get yourself one if you want.

Categories: Getting curious, Heidi's Musings, Self-care | Tagged: | 5 Comments

Missing: My own business. Have you seen it?

Posted by | August 9, 2009 | 7 Comments

Dear—

Can I just say: frustration! It woke me up today. In the wee hours this was me: toss turn toss turn… cold arm hot arm cold arm hot… too much fan too much blanket… skunk… skunk? skunk! yes, being blown in by my trusty fan, at that point turned on high. Oh my. The smell. The having to breathe through my mouth when I hate breathing through my mouth on account of— oh, never mind.

So yeah. I woke up with thoughts all over the place.

Warning: Disparate and disconnected ensues. Segue? Never heard o’ one.

When I was growing up we used to refer (in Spanish) to crazy-talk as “disparate.” When you add an accent to the first a, the word becomes “dispárate,” which is the command form of “to shoot.” So if ever you find yourself in need of telling someone to shoot themselves? Yeah: Dispárate, which yes, I almost felt like doing (not so much for real but like in a comic strip) while tossing and turning in this morning’s wee hours with the smell of skunk being piped into my bedroom.

One of the things I learned in Mark Silver’s Heart of Money (link in P.S.) course was to ask for/find a next action step in an area I am bringing kind attention to. We did it every week in his class in relation to money, and this morning, in all my frustration about a certain area of life-stuckness, I muttered to myself, to life, to what/whoever hears heartfelt, insomnia-induced prayers:

What’s an action step I could take in relation to ____ ?

Don’t do a drum roll here. OK? If you are looking for choirs or angels, voices from beyond, do not get your hopes up because what came back was beyond mundane:

“Clean your apartment.”

“Wha—-?”

No, that’s not what I said. I might have, a year ago, but these days I have somehow managed to begin trusting in the little nudges and inner voices, maybe even moreso when they seem ridiculously simple.

So I breathed a sign of relief and muttered “OK” and rolled over hoping to sleep, only to have Marilyn Monroe pop into my mind. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Disparate. Dispárate! Just shoot me, really.)

Marilyn. Beautiful, talented, troubled Marilyn. I wonder if she ever thought: what the hell is my strength? What the hell is my talent? How can I give voice to all that’s inside? What is my part in life? What do I have to give?

I wonder if she ever doubted her acting. I wonder if she said to herself: I’m only halfway decent at acting because I’m a queen of melodrama in real life. I wonder if she discounted her ability, chalking it up to coping strategies she developed so early in her childhood that she didn’t even know what she was like before the coping-stuff showed up…

Yeah, pro’bly she did. (R.I.P. dear Marilyn). And yeah, I’ve been thinking on that lately. I have such dreams of writing writing writing. And I am writing. But also I am discounting the writing I do, the only writing I seem able to do, by saying things like: “no one is interested,” and “it’s too personal.” As if being personal makes writing not as good as, say, someone who can write amazing stories and movies, which is what I dream of doing.

Waaaaah. Like I said, Frustration.

So my pattern has been looking like discounting my writing by saying that I’m only any good at it because it developed out of unhealthy needs. To cope with loneliness. To hang onto a thread of connection, writing letters home as if my little 11-year-old life depended on it.

Which gets me wondering about back then in relation to now…

I’d always had others to focus on. Others to mother. Others to take care of. Others to worry about. And now here I was at boarding school, alone. With me. What now!

I’d only ever been good at pleasing people and being good and taking care of others. (I so didn’t know this then).

Now, at school, my younger-by-10-months-brother, someone who’d never needed my caretaking nor appreciated my “goodness,” (smart boy!) was in another world called the boy’s hall where, apparently, he was having his head pushed into toilet bowls by the big guys. And, even there, he took care of himself, thank you very much, even in the worst of it, without his big, good sister.

When I turn to look at her, by which I mean me, at 11, what is there? Who is there? A girl far from home who spoke English with a Spanish accent and whose clothes looked funny. A girl who started getting up early every day to write letters home. A girl trying to stay a part of things, feeling so apart of things, and as adolescence fell, falling more and more apart inside herself.

When I turn to look at her, by which I mean me, now, what is there? A girl-woman without anyone but herself to take care of. A woman with no business other than her own. Which is probably oh-so-good but can feel oh-so-scary.

Ahhhh: 11: 41: Life comes full circle. No business but my own.

So, what IS my business? WHAT is my business? For years I’ve been seeing through the ever-skimpier facade that is caretaking and minding other people’s business, but now here I am, truly with only me. And, hello! Do you mind? What the hell IS my business?

Who am I, after those who would define me are no longer here? Who am I, falling asleep and waking up in my own company? What do I love when no one else’s preferences are considered?

What is essential to me? That is the question. The beautiful, hair-pulling question.

If you catch a glimpse of my business, would you kindly tell me?

Love,

Heidi

P.S. I want to tell you about 2 things that are somehow related to the above. These are affiliate links, which means that if you go to these sites and end up signing up for a course or buying material, I will get referral monies. Wheeeeee!

1. Mark Silver’s Heart of Business — mentioned above. I recently took Mark’s Heart of Money course, which he is now offering in an e-book, and it shifted many things inside of me in a very good way. July was my best self-employed month ever.

2. When we need help with cleaning and clearing out clutter (even, and maybe especially, the kind we can’t see!), I highly recommend the ever down-to-earth, ever brilliant, and ever hilarious Lisa Baldwin, @zenatplay on twitter. Lisa is offering a decluttering e-course that is starting in September. (Psssssst! There is an early-bird sign up going on right now!)

————
Heidi E. Fischbach ~ mmmm… massage!
Discover what it’s like to feel at home in your own skin
Do you twitter? I’m @CuriousHeidiHi
Call me for a massage 617.297.2266
Visit my blog (you’re here! this is it!)

Categories: Heidi's Musings, Minding my biz, Mood detective, Self-care | | 7 Comments

Babbling fool on the 83

Posted by | May 13, 2009 | 3 Comments

Yesterday, on the 83 bus (yes, the very same soggy sardine 83 which we may as well rename the where-all-things-happen-83), there was a guy in the back talking to himself. OK, really more like babbling incoherently.

It’s one thing to babble discreetly. But this was not that. And I was seriously annoyed.

WTF, I thought, why me!

Is there nowhere in this city a sensitive girl can get some peace and quiet? thought the sensitive girl with a short memory of a lovely nap she’d just hours before taken in the sun under a birch tree in a hidden courtyard of said noisy city.

So there I was feeling sorry for self.

And then, with some smidgen of willingness I can only call grace, I sunk just past the annoyance and there, in the midst of noise noise noise, I began what ended up looking a whole lot like:

Bonding with a babbling fool

That’s right. I looked for what we might have in common. And from there, as things are wont to do, one thing led to another thing to another…

I found that he certainly had a mother. Maybe a mom that at that very moment wondered where he was, hoping he was OK.

Maybe he wondered what he’d have for dinner when he got home. I thought about the brownie in my bag.

Maybe he too thought the 83 sure does take a freaking long time to come! I’m with you, babbling brother.

Maybe he found this world a bit hard to take at times. Oh man, can I ever feel you there!

Somewhere along the way my imagination game became a matter of heart. And as his sounds became louder, faster and god-help-us-feverish, I imagined any number of things his sounds might be about.

Some girl who broke his heart.

Some plan of all plans gone awry.

I had no idea, of course, but it didn’t matter. By the end of my ride, all I could really find different between this babbling fool and me was that he gives his stuff a voice, a sound, whereas I tend to keep my mental chatter and drivel locked up inside my dear innocent head. Basically:

Babbling man, me: same, same.

I’d be lying to say I wasn’t relieved to get off the bus, but relating to this man allowed what would have been an insufferable 15 minutes to be bearable, in the least. Maybe even, good.

Good? Yeah, I got off with a smidgen more patience. And patience? Huge. HUGE.

In case you couldn’t tell: I am not one of those people that always walk around seeing the world through rose glasses. Oh no. In any given funk, truth be told, I look at a glass and see not only half empty but also the smudge that you missed while cleaning it. And the crack that is bound to happen sooner or later. Pro’bly tomorrow. And you’ll probably step on the broken glass too. (OK, I exaggerate. Writing license. But still.)

Lately I have been going head to head with my cynicism. Impatience. Paranoia. Suspicions galore. Envies. It’s enough to bring a girl who cares a whole lot about love and beauty and kindness to desperation. Even curiosity about all this wasn’t giving me much relief.

A few weeks ago, visiting my dear friend Lizi in Vermont, I happened to be on what can best be described as a horrible bender of cynicism that even the fresh Spring air of Vermont was not loosening. Not even Lizi’s adorable baby Isabelli was putting much of a dent in my misery. I was doing my best to keep it to myself, not being, after all, one of those incoherent loud babblers, but the more socially acceptable thank you very much keep-it-to-yourself kind.

But two days into my visit I broke down. I cried about how even in such a beautiful place and even doing the best a girl freaking could, I felt so scared. Life sucked. I knew it was all about my thoughts, but goddamn! All I could see, everywhere, was what was wrong, including with me: demanding, picky and critical. To utter anything that was good, would have been utterly fake and pretend. Lizi just listened.

Never, ever underestimate listening.

She was utterly present but said not much at all. (Which was huge: her not trying to fix me. Her not inviting me to “just shift my perception.”)

A while and a bunch of tears later I said: “the only good thing I can find in all this is that it softens my heart toward the tight-assed, the demanding, the perfectionists, the fascistas of the world.”

To which she simply lifted a brow and chuckled softly: “well, there you go.”

Categories: Getting curious, Heidi's Musings, Listening | Tagged: | 3 Comments
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