Periods and commas and questions, oh my! What’s punctuating the page of you today?

Posted by | June 6, 2011 | 11 Comments

I woke up with a big question mark inside… I wish I could say it was a wondering question mark, curious curly and cute… but no. This question mark was bold and lonesome, Arial Black-stark and in my face.

Actually, it wasn’t until I paused and turned toward what was there that I even noticed that it was a question mark. Before that? Queasy uneasy vague discomfort.

Even when what we find upon pausing is not entirely (or at all!) pleasant, there is something relieving about noticing.

Our first response, often, is to turn away from discomfort. We hope it’ll just go away. Maybe we are scared of what it’ll mean. Maybe we think we don’t have time. But ironically, ignoring what is there actually tends to do the opposite of what we want. And when it sees that we have no intention of noticing, discomfort can amp up its volume and pull out all the stops to make us notice.

Sometimes discomfort changes clothes and appears in a different outfit – it’s not uncommon for something like queasy in the tummy to become a kink in the neck or a pain in the ass!

Pausing and turning toward what is going on allows it to change in the way that’s best. Being with something now allows what’s next to unfold.

What if everything hard and uncomfortable in you were simply wanting you to notice? What if instead of turning a blind eye or pushing the hard thing under the rug you turned the gaze of your most loving presence toward it and listened as if to your dearest friend or your most beloved niece in all the world?

What mark is punctuating the page of you today?

Maybe it’s a question mark like mine. Or maybe it’s a period. There are different kinds of periods. Some simply mark space between thoughts. Some are followed by hard returns. Some mark ends of chapters or even books.

Maybe you’ve got yourself a comma in a flowing list of lovely things…

Maybe it’s a playful dash—! Or an unexpected one that interrupts you mid—

Maybe you’ve got yourself some elipses… soft and unhurried like lemonade on a porch swing… Or maybe your elipses are filled with suspense… whatever could come next?!

What’s punctuating the page of you today? I’d love to hear.

Categories: Getting curious, Mood detective | Tagged: , | 11 Comments

Wherein a pirate chicken of the high seas helps me with my writing

Posted by | June 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment

[You may recall back in February when a secret agent chicken saved me from crossing over from a regular into a full throttled meltdown. Yes? Well, yesterday another chicken, this time a pirate chicken, came to my aid... Here, I'll let you eavesdrop on our conversation... ]

HeidiHi!

Um, hi… you’re a chicken. With a pirate cap and an eyepatch. Um–

What! You asked for help, didn’t you?

Yes. But–

What’s wrong, sweetpea? You look terribly distraught.

Aside from thinking I’ve now gone a bit crazy what with you standing in front of me? Yes I’m distraught. I can’t write!

You can’t write?

I mean, I can, but just not about this thing I reeeally need to write about. I keep trying and thinking about it and there all these notes in my notebook about it, but when I go to write, I do one of a million other things instead. I’ve had 5 cups of tea this morning, chicken. Five! And it’s only 10.

Wow.

I just don’t know how to start.

How about you tell me about what you want to write. Maybe I’ll ask you questions, maybe not, but I want to hear… How about it!

OK.

And then maybe you can start writing it on me.

On you?

Yep. On me.

Like, on your chicken body?

Eggzactly.

Sounds like how my mom used to trick me into giving her a backrub by suggesting I spell things on her back and she’d guess what I’d written?

Maybe, ‘cept that I’m helping you, remember?

[I raise a suspicious brow]

OK OK it’s true that my left wing could use a little massagin’ ’cause steerin’ a chicken ship full o’ loot, well, it can take a toll on a chicken’s wings, you know? But how I see it we could both benefit from each other here, so how about you start moving that little finger of yours, and we’ll see what happens.

[I shrug, look around to see if anyone is looking, and then start to write on the pirate chicken]

So Heidi, tell me about this thing that you keep not writing about—

It’s about the quality that makes our newest potion so magical…

Ooooh! Potion! How exciting.

I know. It is. I mean, it would be, if I could just get this page written already so that our people will know what it’s all about!

So tell me about this magical quality… whatever is it!

Oh it’s just about the most magical thing ever. It is a way of being with yourself and in the world that allows you and the world to change in an organic, unforced way.

What’s wrong with forcing change?

Nothing wrong in and of itself with force as an energy when that is the natural way of something. But when there is a kind of pushing or pulling on something ahead of its time, before it’s ready? Well, then things can become muddied and tangled up, and then, even if on the surface the thing goes and changes (or appears to), it usually comes with a price because there were all these other factors that weren’t ready, parts of us or people that were not on board… maybe they were dragged along… Oftentimes, then, the change doesn’t really stick because those other forces were not accounted for…

Sounds like what plays out in our world politically.

Yep. Same. Usually the party or country or race or gender or part of us with the most power wins… Thing is, even if by all accounts the change that is forced is a “good” one, it will often backfire… Many times, then, there is some sort of violence that comes about because what was pushed away comes to the surface. Just because we shut something up doesn’t mean it went away, after all. Like all the wars that start seemingly out of the blue, until you look back and notice all the people that were exiled and the voices that were stifled…

Oh, Heidi, I know about something like this from my very own chicken life! I remember all those years when my momma told me just to keep laying eggs, saying that THAT is what chickens were meant to do blah blah blah… I tried, I really tried… And I kept pushing on myself to be an egg-laying chicken, telling myself I should… but I didn’t like it one bit. And then I thought surely something was wrong with me that I couldn’t be happy just layin’ eggs and so I made myself try to be happy laying eggs. Well, eventually I got sick and my feathers started falling out and the few that I had left were very lackluster… oh my but I sure was a sad chicken. “Depressed” is what I think you human birds call it.

I can hardly imagine you as lackluster. Just look at your feathers now… just you look at these golden & coral highlights here! Say, who’s your stylist?

Darlin’, them’s my natural hues!

No way! Surely thou jesteth.

I jesteth not! Cross my wings.

Wow. Just lovely. Mind if I snap a picture?

Yes actually. I’m rather shy ’round cameras.

You? Shy?

<shrugs>

OK… So what happened then? How did you get from the coop to the high seas? I mean, that’s quite a ways to go!

One night I tried to fly away. But flying turned out to be wishful thinking for a chicken with hardly a feather on his wings. You ever try flying without feathers?

Uh, can’t say I have. Actually, can’t say I’ve really ever seen a chicken flying, either.

Oh Baby, hang out with me some more. Just you wait ‘n’ see. But, back to my story… I knew if I stayed, I’d die. I had to get out. No matter how I did it, I had to. It wasn’t about forcing anything, it was just what had to happen. It wasn’t even a decision I made, come to think, I just knew.

So how’d you do it?

Well, I’d been noticing the farm dog digging at a spot by the fence and the farmer hadn’t had a chance to fix it. It would be a tight squeeze, for sure, but like I said, this was life or death. It was all I could do to crawl under the fence and hobble myself to the forest, but somehow I did, and there I holed up in an abandoned nest near a stream for a few days before heading on a journey the destination of which I wasn’t even sure. All I knew for sure was that the chicken coop was no place for me… Verylongstoryshort, now here I am a Pirate Chicken, JohnnyDepping it up on the high seas.

Oh Chicken, that’s quite a story. If Oprah still had a show, surely she’d invite you on as guest chicken. Maybe even with Johnny Badass Depp’s Captain Sparrow!

<blushes>

Your story is reminding me about a very important aspect in this thing I’m having a hard time writing about…

What’s that, Heidi?

A sure indication that one is trying to force oneself or someone else into change, is that it is accompanied by a boatload of shoulds… “You should be like this, or else!” What I’ve noticed is that the part of us that is shoulding is usually scared or concerned about something. I can tell because when I’m embodying this quality that I’m trying to write about, then I can listen openly and curiously to even the most difficult things inside me without pushing or pulling… The shoulding part often says things like: “If you don’t ___, then ___ [insert terrible or unwanted thing] will happen. You better or else!”

Heidi, could you move over and write just a little bit to the left there… keep going… ahhhhhh yes, right there. Oh I’ve had a knot there for a week!… Oh yeah…. So what you’re saying is that being with yourself in this way you are trying to write about is what allows change to come in its time, in an unforced and natural way?

Yes! This way of being allows change to happen when is best, when everything is ready. Allows! I love that word. This quality is about allowing. Change that comes about in this manner usually starts happening way before it becomes obvious on the surface…

Like in Egypt earlier this year?

Yes, like in Egypt!

Like when I left the coop?

Yes, like that.

But you know, Heidi, I kind of already knew I should leave way before I actually left.

Ah, yes. But, for whatever reason, you weren’t ready, because you didn’t… not yet. Notice how there was still a “should” in how you were talking to yourself: “I should leave,” which implies that not all of you was on board. And when you were ready, you did. Not a minute before.

Interesting…

This quality I want to write about is so helpful during those stages when things are shifting below the surface… It can be a very hard time filled with confusion and fear and pressure… What I want to write about helps us be with all these conflicting parts of ourselves… I’m sure the part of you that wasn’t ready to leave could probably have used some understanding!

Oh Heidi, I’m going to cry just remembering.

That was hard a hard time, wasn’t it?

Oh you have no idea. All those years in the coop trying to lay eggs, surrounded by all these chickens who loved nothing more than laying eggs? And they were my friends too. I loved them. Still do. I didn’t fly the coop much sooner because I was scared. I thought they wouldn’t love me if I wasn’t an egg-laying chicken like them. I thought I’d lose my family and be alone in all the world if I did what I needed to do. But you know what? If I hadn’t been able to leave and live the way I love, I can’t say I wouldn’t have taken to desperate measures within the coop. As it was I was mean and grumpypants for a long time.

Yes, when things are forced to be a way that is not really of their nature, then other parts have to go into hiding… Maybe we pretend those dissenting voice aren’t there, but they are. They come out sideways. They come out to bite us in the ass when we least expect it. Or they wake us up at 3 in the morning. Eventually, if shunned or vilified too long, they amp up the volume. Sometimes they get violent.

Sounds like terrorism.

Yep…. Oh Chicken, you have quite a story! Who knew!

Now that you say it, and now that I’m remembering all this, yes. So tell me, this quality you want to write about, well, it is, I mean, it could potentially, um, change everything!

Oh the irony, yes! This quality, which is all about being with something exactly the way it is, without trying to make it change, can change everything! It has helped me more than I can say. Which is what I’m trying to say here. It’s amazing.

I want to know more. Please can you tell me everything? Pleeeease?

I will, I promise. But my writing block just lifted and I must go write that potion page about this quality.

Right now?

Yesssss! When you have to go you have to go!

But what’s the quality called?

Well you’ll just come have to read it when I’m done, won’t you? Thanks Chicken!

Categories: Getting curious, Self-care | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment

Oh noes! What now?!

Posted by | May 27, 2011 | 4 Comments

Sometimes the thing right under our noses is our best teacher ever. Plus, how convenient. Writing has been kicking my butt teaching me about showing up and getting out of the way.

I can really trip myself up and get stuck when I think I need to know and orchestrate what happens next. It’s like this: you’re walking along la-de-da totally enjoying the amazement of the moment or the oddness of the conversation you can’t help eavesdropping on at the next table, or the good feeling of a friendship, until you think: oh no! what now?! Or, oh no! I need to keep this going! And just like that, boom! Gone is the la-de-da.

Now you’re off and planning or worrying. A kind of self-consciousness descends upon what had been a sense of wonder, play, and flow, and, even if what was going on wasn’t entirely pleasant and maybe it was even hard, it felt necessary or life-affirming in some way and there was a sense of connection and rightness about it.

All of last week I was struggling about writing. I wanted to write about things going on, but I didn’t want it to be blahblah sadfest this happened then that happened boo hoo… When I write like that it puts me to sleep. Or makes me roll my eyes.

I’d signed up for trial periods of AntiSocial and Freedom (highly recommended!) and woke up several mornings without internet connection and ready to write. And then…

Hello blank page… (nothing came). Or, hello all-over-the-place page… (blah and blah). It was more than a bit frustrating. But I kept showing up, even if all I did in my internet-disconnected time was to straighten my living room. I know some people would not call that showing up, but for me it counted since I was not frittering energy away down that endless online rabbit hole and I was, even if just the eensiest bit, closer to the writing.

I hear of writers who know or at least have a good sense of the whole story plot before they ever begin to write. I’m not one of them and I thought I had to be in order to write stories, and so for the longest of times I stuck to writing letters and personal reflection pieces. (Possibly you’ve read some of them).

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing letters. And reflection? Yes. It’s just that there have been stories floating around me for some time now, wanting me to give them voice.

On Sunday when I sat down to write, at first it was more of the blahs and then Doubt and Regret knocked on the door and off it went… It wasn’t mine anymore. It became its own. Yay! It was moving along swimmingly and most of the piece was finished when, boom! The dreaded “Oh noes! What now?!”

Enter self-consciousness. Enter trying to make something happen. Enter contrived. UGH!

But I also became curious. I saw that there were things I knew: Like that Presence was key, even though I had no idea in what form he, she or it would show up in the story.

Would I go to The Pause and have Presence, the bartender, serve me a drink? Nah.

Would Presence call me? Nah. (He so doesn’t make phone calls. Plus, I’d been realizing, Presence isn’t always a guy. Or a bartender. Ha!).

So I slept on it and walked on it and washed dishes on it. I wasn’t trying to noodle the plot, but there it was in the back of my mind.

On Tuesday I read my draft to my friend Barbara and she listened as I sensed into the whole “next” thing… And then I told her that there was something I saw next but I didn’t like it. Aha! I didn’t think it was, er, how to say, proper for my story: the picture that kept coming to me was of Presence, an old woman, sitting on my porch, smoking.

I was all, smoking?! But I don’t believe in smoking! It’ll seem like I’m endorsing smoking! And what about my friends who are trying to quit?

But whenever I went back to the story, there she was, still smoking. She just would not leave.

Finally I cried “Uncle!” and said, OK. I’ll go with it, even for just a few minutes.

I’ve got to tell you, that old woman came through in a surprising way. I just had to show up and let what was happening next, happen. Without trying to pretty it up. Without trying to make it different than it was. Without bossing it around. And without, in this case, making Ylang stop smoking.

Things and people show me where they want to go, what they need, what they want, and situations, no matter how stuck they seem, have implied within them the next and best thing. Funny how when I know something, I just know. If there’s a doing involved, I just do it. There’s no hemming and hawing blah blah. In fact, I don’t even stop to think “I know.” Things are just swimming along.

What if not knowing could be just as swimming? What if instead of “Oh no! I don’t know!” I said, “Oh my! I wonder what gets to happen next?!” It seems that not knowing is where it gets exciting.

Am I speaking of writing or am I speaking of life?

Yes.

What a relief not to have to boss myself around. I don’t have to play the puppet master of my characters or of my life. I get to show up, get myself out of the way and then see what happens. Plus, that potion that Presence smokes? Best thing ever. (And, ahem, turns out it contains no tobacco after all. Ha! My story just winked at me.)  Spare a light?

——

(If you missed the story I’m referring to, here: Meet Ylang! And, I dare you not to share a smoke with her.)

Categories: Getting curious | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments

“Love is not a victory march.”

Posted by | May 24, 2011 | 11 Comments

This being human is a guesthouse…
– Rumi

It was probably the last day of sun before a string of rain days descended upon us, but on this day Spring was decked out in her softest and sunniest white, pink and purple ruffles and her youthful joy just made me all the sadder.

Oh, my love, it is best for us to part. It breaks my heart and yet it must be said.

That was the gist of the letter I’d just read again before sending. It had been on my mind for days, no, weeks, and in some way maybe even months. This was not a surprise of a letter to anyone, which didn’t take away from my sadness.

When I awoke the next morning, Regret and his brother Doubt were standing at my door, anxiously shifting their weight from leg to leg, weary from their travels through the night. Barely the door was open, they hurried into my living room.

“You spoke too soon,” said Regret.

“You don’t really want to lose him, do you?” added Doubt. “You sure do love him. Look at your puffy eyes, would you? Oh honey…”

His voice trailed off and a heavy silence descended upon the house of me. They are right, I thought.

“What a good guy,” said Regret, looking wistfully out the window.

“You certainly could do worse, you know. What a find he is. I mean, was—” Doubt piped in. “He spoke your dad’s language. Remember how you practiced German with him on the dock that day last spring, sitting on the piano bench in the fog with a blanket pulled around you?”

Regret, still looking out the window, added: “You were planting a garden. How could you leave when you were planting a garden! The baby basils were just becoming toddlers—“

I nodded. A set of furrows was settling itself into my brow and a huge lump had lodged itself in my throat.

“And now you’ve gone and lost him. Just you tell me where you will find another chap like he.” Doubt spoke with such old-fashioned grammar.

Minutes later, another knock on the door. I peeked from behind the curtain to find a youngish woman who looked like an over-caffeinated step aerobics teacher from the 90’s with her hair pulled back into the tightest of ponytails. Her shirt said, “Ain’t nothin’ can’t be fixed!” and her shirt sleeves, rolled up to her armpits, gave brand new meaning to “rolling up one’s sleeves.” I do not know how her tight ponytail allowed for even a hint of movement in her face, but she managed to raise an eyebrow while glancing at her watch, then knocking again.

When I opened the door, Ms. Fixit’s knuckles almost rapped me on the forehead, and then she marched right past me, brushing Regret and Doubt aside.

She unzipped her backpack in the middle of my living room and tools of every size and shape spilled out and a hundred bolts of advice went rolling across the floor. There was, “You need to see him. Like now!” And, “You need to stop wanting so much.” And, “You should take the train up there now and fix this. Here’s a schedule.” And, “You should try couples therapy.” And, “You shouldn’t be so bossy–”

That’s when I found my voice. “Excuse me very much, I shouldn’t be so bossy?! Pot ‘n’ kettle, hel-loh!”

She just rolled her eyes, flashed me a “whatever!,” and picked up a tool that, sweartogod, looked like a machete and a hammer and a chainsaw all in one.

Around then was when the movies started: a year’s worth of pictures, snippets of conversations, voiceovers and commentaries on various fight scenes, love scenes, hope and dream scenes, all began scrolling across my mind’s eye, ending, finally, with last Friday’s skype-call with the coach lady, the call that had mainly succeeded in reminding me of just how hard our hard stuff was. Afterwards he had texted me: “I’m going out for a run,” and I had texted back, “A run sounds good. Me too.” And then, without further ado, I did. Go running, that is…

All the way to Whole Foods. All the way to the chocolate-covered almonds that sugar-free-me justified by pointing out that they were made with fruit-sweetened chocolate after all.

The movies left me feeling like my heart had plunged down an elevator shaft into my belly. Someone coughed and that’s when I noticed Rumination running the projector from a chair over in the corner.

Rumination had the longest, most ancient looking of faces you have ever in your life seen. Seriously, his eyebrows had grown so long that I’m quite sure his eyes had only a vague, ancestral memory of sunlight. Also, earhairs? Put it this way: there were no ears to be found.

Blame and Shame did not want to be left out of the sadfest and, sure enough, by midday these two rolly-polly ladies with waggy fingers and not quite securely anchored false teeth had arrived carrying casseroles. (What else!)

“Dahlin’, you’ve gone and lost the best thing ever. You’ll never find better,” muttered Blame as she waddled into my kitchen. “You are a piece of work and you know it,” she went on, taking a red Jello mold out of Shame’s hands and proceeding to cut it as if it were cake.

Back in the living room Shame started in on a long list of thisses and thats, all preceeded by the words, “You are too…” while Blame kept muttering, not enough under her breath, that “no man would want that in a woman…”

My cheeks got redder and redder and it was all I could do not to cry.

“We should know, shouldn’t we!” exclaimed Blame, looking over at her sister. Shame, the quieter of the two, nodded.

“We’ve held onto our men for, oh, what is it now—eleventy hundred years?” Blame went on, proudly. “Oh how time flies when you’re bound in holy wedlock.”

It was the word “lock” that brought me back and I glanced around at the motley crew in my living room. And just when I thought it could not get any more crowded one more guest arrived.

Panic was out of breath when I opened the door. And also? Terrified. The end of the world was upon us, after all. His vocabulary was very limited and pretty much all he managed to say was “On no, oh no, oh no,” which he chanted like a mantra gone awry, all the while pacing about my living room wringing his hands and then smoothing back his hair with a sweaty palm. He knew my deepest fears and managed somehow, in spite of not being able to stand still for so much as a second, to lay a slew of pictures out on the table before me:

There was a snapshot of me hungry and alone… another of the Aardvark leaving me and going back to Africa… another of Heidi’s Table failing disastrously, my appointment book completely empty… another one of never another kiss, ever… culminating in the predictable—Urgency School of Redundancy trained as he is—clincher: a framed 8 x 10 of me dying a godforsaken and lonely death, alone, with nary a soul around.

What a state the house of me was in. And, whatever was I to do with these guests! I did not like them and yet there they were, all doing their best to, from their point of view, help me.

With my heart still in my belly and that lump still in my throat, I walked over to the window. That’s when I noticed her. She was sitting in the big white Adirondack chair on my porch, smoking.

Wait, what?!

I know, right? Smoking! On my porch. The nerve!

I was about to go out and yell at her but something kept my feet glued to the floor, watching.

I was still perturbed when I noticed that the smell wafting in through my window was not of any cigarette I’d ever smelled. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was a cigarette. What was it, Sandalwood? Cedar? Definitely some Clove. Yes. And something a bit citrus, a bit floral…

I sank into my senses and inhaled deeply—Bergamot! Of course. And something else I hadn’t yet managed to place when she took her last drag and, letting out a loooooong exhale, slowly began turning her head—

I could have ducked but it wouldn’t have mattered. She knew I was there, I could tell, which was confirmed by the fact that she did not even so much as almost blink when her eyes rested on me.

I could not look away. Her face was forever wrinkled in a way that made me look forward to one day being that old. And her eyes were the most curious blend of calm and attention. I could tell that this woman never missed a beat and that nothing ever ruffled her. I wondered if she’d always been that way or if it had something to do with the wrinkles.

She looked at me with kindness, without even a hint of pity, and in that moment I saw myself and the motley crew in my living room through her eyes.

When I turned my attention back into the house of me, my guests were different. No one had left, and yet they had changed.

Regret had found some watercolors and was painting what looked to be an herb garden.

Doubt was talking philosophy over a glass of port with Shame, and in the kitchen I could hear Ms. Fixit and Blame tidying up. Ms. Fixit was saying that there was nothing better than waking up to a shiny sink, and Blame said, “oh, our Heidi could certainly use a little shine these days.”

Panic and Rumination, thick as thieves, were plotting techniques for making a new movie from the footage and photos they had. Rumination wanted some kind of a film noir, and Panic wanted some sort of a mystery-drama.

They were all fine.

I looked back out and the old woman nodded and motioned toward the empty chair next to her. I went out to join her and we shared a smoke. And then I cried and cried. She didn’t mind.

~ * ~

“Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”
– Leonard Cohen

 

Postcript:

Thanks to my guests, clearly I’m all set on the advices! But if you care to share a cry or a potion-smoke or a story with me here in the comments, I’d love that. I’m still hangin’ out on the porch with this curious old woman. Turns out her name is Ylang and she’s related to Presence, the hot bartender at The Pause. *ahem!*

Also, gossip alert!  I just learned that Presence is their family name. When I asked Ylang about Presence, the bartender’s, first name, she told me she had been sworn to secrecy. Whatever the name, I am so taken by them all that the Aardvark and I have named a potion for them. Go ahead and guess what it smells like! (And, yep, you can get it over here).

Categories: Getting curious, Heidi's Stories, Re-imagining | Tagged: | 11 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