Lion and Magic Boy

So the other night, while inwardly writhing with the sort of pain that only the result of Nathaniel or maybe Serena or no, it was probably Eric, having earlier stepped on a crack might bring, I had the pleasure of meeting in real life some people who previously only knew me online.

Including through this blog.

So, was it slightly weird knowing that the people driving the car I was in and therefore were responsible for my well-being and hello! you never know could just randomly drive into a concrete abutment! knew all about, say, the Ass Cork Incidents? Why, yes! About as weird as knowing my mother reads this daily. DAILY, mind you, as long as it is a MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday sort of daily, holidays not included. As if I’m not too important to post on holidays!

But lovely people, lovely. No, I mean it!  And I don’t mean “lovely people” like OMG what did I get myself into here??!  And can I escape??!  No, I mean “lovely people” like, wow, so much better in real life!  With hugs and everything! Who I hope to see again (but may have totally screwed that up due to blogging about them).

So here’s a question: is this like the matryoshka dolls? I mean, is there a world-within-a-world-within-a-world here? See, people read my blog. Which is a sort of a world (bear with me here; it is if I say it is, right?). And if I meet them in the outer world, the inner world meets the outer world, which means I can then blog about that outer world back in the inner world.

(I think I took a wrong turn there somewhere, but I REFUSE TO MAKE A U-TURN!)

Lovely people. Did I mention that? (Hi!)

Update on the back thing: after a second trip to the chiropractor, during which she kept muttering things like “cockeyed!” and “wow!”, and a hot bath and some massage and some other massage and some yoga, I can now think more seriously about touching my toes without causing inner convulsions and having to contort my body sideways (”cockeyed!”) in order to, say, put on pants. Or socks. So I have officially moved backward in time from being some 90-odd years old to maybe my 60’s, on a good day, provided I kept myself up all these years. Which I highly recommend, and I plan to get on it soon.

P.S. It is Serena’s birthday today. Yay for 8! However it is a huge indiscretion to attempt to phone her at any time (THE INTERRUPTION! HOW DARE YOU! WHEN I HAVE IMPORTANT TV TO WATCH!), so I will see her tomorrow and there will be cake and a candle that proclaims “8!” and some presents, and then the long long wait a whole nother year for the next one.

It’s kind of funny to discover after years and years that you’re apparently incapable of really resting. It turns out, though, and it’s odd I never noticed this until recently, that I pretty much all the time hold myself in a constant state of tension, of contraction, of defense.

You’d think such a thing would be noticeable, you know? That like ALL my muscles are constantly contracted?

It also explains my living on 4-5 hours sleep a night and the almost insatiable need to Just.Keep.Going.

Well, apparently I’ve had enough.

I first noticed this on my working/vacation in October. The one I still haven’t really posted about, oh, except for this and this and this and this and this. Um, so I guess I did sort of post about it. Whatever. But what I didn’t mention was that while I was there I was really, really, really tired. More so than usual. Even when sleeping in for days at a time for the first time in years and years; in fact, that seemed to almost make things worse. It was like something was telling me slow down.

Yes. Well. That feeling seems to have followed me, as if I am looking for rest, looking to finally unburden myself and just BE.

So we’ve been talking about True Rest recently, Matthew and me. This is a metaphysical-ish concept that’s talked about in the Michael teachings stuff and a lot of people are interested in knowing their own True Rest, True Play, True Study, and True Work. Often that’s the sort of thing I channel for people, and I think it’s useful in getting to know yourself and allowing the True You to come out a bit more, you know?

And I figured out this week what mine is, one of them, anyway. It has to do with watching the patterns light makes, form and shape and whatnot. Like watching the shadows made on a wall by the sun coming through miniblinds. Just observing them, looking at them. For me, it’s restful.

There’s much more about rest and what it is, what it does for you, at this wiki site about channeling. I found it fascinating. (Um, maybe because it’s my work, whatever. But it’s still good stuff, so do have a look! Plus there’s more channeling there too, with more added all the time)

I’ve come to the conclusion that I spend a good part of my time simply putting out fires, as it were. With three children in the house, I suppose it’s no wonder. And I do tend to be a bit, well, distractible. Or I lose sight of priorities (if I even had ever established them on any particular day) and spend, for instance, an hour online searching out a specific birthday present for Serena.

And then I look up, as I did not long ago, to realize that the sun is going down and where did the day go?

I’m a bit perturbed to still be evaluating my days in terms of what I accomplished. Or did not accomplish. Haven’t we any better ways?

I’m pretty sure this isn’t what “being in the moment” is all about. Isn’t unlimited time available, stretchable, bendable?

[insert segue here]

Watched a movie last night with Matthew that I’ve been meaning to see since I heard about it, “Once”. It’s about two people who meet almost randomly, make a lot of wonderful music together, and then move on, their lives forever changed from the experience.

Kind of like life itself.  Huh.

Anyway, it’s highly recommended and the music was amazing.  If you haven’t seen it, do.

Today I spent some time hearing some of the music from my past. Music has the magical ability to evoke whole eras in one’s earlier life, whole perceptions and experiences, acting as a pathway to the you that you were once. It does for me, anyway. Sometimes I find I have undergone so much transformation that a particular piece no longer acts on me in the same evocative manner, no longer triggers memories, visualizations, and feelings that belonged to me in an earlier time, but more often than not I find myself transported, at least momentarily, across time to certain periods of my life that seem significant to reopen later on.

That’s what happened today. The era? The early 1990’s. Sure, I paint time backward in bright stunning colors, likely brighter and with far less pain than the original, but something in me today was really reaching out to that particular time in my life, reaching to the person I was then, reaching to all the possibilities that existed within me then. This was before meeting The Ex, before Nathaniel and Serena and Eric, before moving to Colorado and back again. Before. I was driving a lot for my job then, driving from one location to another, driving the spaces between when I’d have to don my Manager Hat again and become the identity I thought I had to be to get the job done, and in that driving time I lost myself in the music, immersed myself in finding new roads and pathways in it, new ways of expression.

I was struck today by the number of possibilities I remembered from that time, remembered now but that went unappreciated at the time, unappreciated since I was bent on paring them down quickly to one, one road ahead, straight ahead with no turning back, no turning aside, no stopping to look. Life for me can be like that at times, as often I have jumped onto a seeming fast-moving belt hurtling in one direction only, one direction with no turns, no bends, no stops, just onward to that destination experience.

I’d like to stop more now if I can, not out of caution but from a desire to enjoy the process, to enjoy the path rather than fixate on the ending. I’d like to think too that these paths aren’t simply one-way anymore, that they have lovely curves and twists and often even revisit some of the same places, places that of course look and feel different each time they are visited.

Touching that music today reinforced my desire to step onto a certain path, a path I’ve been tentatively reaching a toe to in the past year. I don’t know where the path leads, not exactly. I’m not even sure what places it passes on its way, but there’s something about it that calls to me, calls ever-strongly, unceasingly. It calls with music, it calls with touch, it calls me with everything that so much of me cries out for, all those long-released possibilities that lay dormant all those intervening years while I explored other paths, those possibilities that I touched again, recognized instantly through the magic of music. They’re not the same as they once were, those possibilities, as I can never look at anything the same way I once did when I saw it for the first time, but in the meantime those possibilities have grown and have become far larger than I ever imagined them when they were new, and it’s those I reach toward now, those that are part of the path that I am about to step onto, about to grab hold of, about to place my trust in.

That is, if you had a three-sided coin. The question? Why, what to post about tonight, of course. Here are the contenders:

1. Something about how the kids are cleaning their rooms. Yeah, yeah, it’d be both funny and poignant.
2. The cat post I’ve been mulling over since October.
3. Blah blah blah my childhood abuse issues.

Yeah. And guess which one won?

At 5, I started kindergarten. The school was around the block, a long walk up the hill and around the corner and then the next corner and then the short bit down to the school. Memories of this walk always mix up in my mind with the part in “To Kill a Mockingbird” where Scout and Jem are walking home from the pageant with Bob Ewell on their heels.

But usually I walked from a different location, the street that turned off of mine, at a house at the far end of the street where it turned into an “L” and made a right to some unknown destination. At the “L” lived Debbie, and it was her mom’s job to watch me before school and after.

Next door to Debbie lived Wesley, a so-blond-he’s-almost-albino kid my brother’s grade. Wesley’s family kept their milk out on the table during meals, a practice I was convinced would lead to lukewarm undrinkable milk. It tasted funny, too.

A girl who owned a hula hoop lived across the street from Debbie, right in the crook of the “L”. Another kid lived just around the corner. We’d gather on Debbie’s lawn and play “Mother May I” and “Red Light Green Light” until Debbie had to go in to pee after having waited so long she hopped into the house with her legs crossed. I always thought that was silly. Why didn’t she just go when she needed to?

Debbie’s mom sewed things. The house was dark and there were piles of things everywhere, boxes maybe.

Years later I noticed how much I hated waiting. It was the anticipation more than anything. Playing hide-and-seek was painful, almost, waiting for what I knew was going to happen eventually. It was the same when I was briefly in the military, playing at army games in the woods of South Carolina: that sense that someone would find me, that I wasn’t safe anywhere, was chokingly stifling. In those instances I’d want to scream but nothing came out.

I left Debbie’s house abruptly, I think. It may have had something to do with leaving that school after my strange combined kindergarten/first grade year to accompany my mother to a town several miles away to go to school where she was a teacher; then again, it may have been something else. Debbie’s mother gave me two gifts, though, for Christmas: a stuffed penguin made from blue corduroy and a stuffed bear made from fabric printed to look like a bear (all one had to do was cut out the outline and sew around it), also blue. I placed them on a shelf in my closet and rarely took them down or played with them. They made me feel a little funny, those pathetic apologies.

Later in high school Wesley was circulating a rumor that he’d had sex with me when we were all kids. My brother asked me if it was true and I knew it was ridiculous but all I could remember was that somebody’s older brother was in a shed out back without his pants.

But the worst part I think was Debbie’s house. There’s a reason I don’t remember there being a dad there. I can feel him, though. I can feel him and I can feel the waiting, the knowing what was coming next.

Somewhere that year a little girl was lost.

I want her back.

Well, not apathy exactly.

But something has to change. Correction: something IS changing.

Because the person I have been says, “No! That’s not enough! There’s more!”, and the “more” comes from a place I have long spent so much time and energy keeping buried because the fears about all that comes along with it.

Things happened to me when I was little that shouldn’t happen to anyone. I know it; I acknowledge it; I know it’s there. It’s all still quite hazy, but that plus a whole lot of other things that are all connected began shaping and crafting an image that developed in order to hide and protect the part that feels broken.

And through the years more images were crafted, more personas if you will, until they are all just as real now as that original but hidden part. But the feeling of an emptiness inside remains, and it is this I intend to fill by bringing through that buried part.

But my body resists this. Our bodies remember things, and hold those memories. And right now I feel the tension, can feel the fear, can feel the resistance. Which feels a lot like pain, actually.

I’m not afraid of this process, really. I know where it leads and I know what’s on the other end of it, more or less.

It has real-life consequences, though (doesn’t everything?). Yesterday I showed up for an appointment an hour early because I got confused as to the time. I am forgetting things. Oh, this is temporary, I know this, and it doesn’t worry me beyond just having to operate in the world and having that be rather inconvenient just now. Plus, all the things I normally hold myself to don’t seem to matter as much as they did. I think that’s a good thing, really, playing with what matters. Because, really, what DOES matter? Precious few things, actually, and it’s those that I’d like to give my energy to.

So it’s not apathy exactly, but more like a sifting and discarding and keeping.

So, I’ve been dutifully trying to keep up with all the manic posting of NaBloPoMo, and daily over at Fussy, who’s responsible for the whole thing anyway, I’ve also been enjoying daily posts about shoes for NaBloShoeMo, which is clearly for those people who actually have 30 pairs (or more) of shoes.

Women supposedly have a thing for shoes. Girly shoes. Pretty shoes. Or just…shoes. I am not one of those people. To wit, this is the contents of my shoe closet. If I even had a closet devoted to shoes.

• 3 pairs of running shoes, so ironic considering how I feel about running. But one pair is more than two years old, one was bought more for hiking/trail running (I love my idealism!), and one, weirdly, I WON just last month. They’re all size 9 1/2. But I measure a 7 1/2.
• 2 pairs cycling shoes, including one with cleats for clipless pedals. The other pair cuts off the circulation in my toes. I love them.
• Wool Haflinger slippers that are falling apart. I love them.
• A pair of Uggs bought on the way to the airport for a trip to Finland where they were much appreciated and have continued to be since. I don’t care what people say about them. I love them.
• Crocs.
• One pair of black pumps. For those court appearances. They may one day be comfortable.
• Jeweled sandals. Worn once, and I had the blisters to prove it.
• Black sandals, bought for my trip last summer to BlogHer that I didn’t go to.
• Nondescript ugly brown leather slip-on shoes that must be about 6 years old and that have been everywhere with me, including hiking in Whistler. I hate them and love them both.
• A pair of brown short side-zip leather boots, about six years old and barely worn.

TOTAL = 13 pairs. 5 of which are for some sort of athletic activity. I guess I’d better get off my ass then.

I just came from my eye doctor, and I am now wearing a pair of bifocal contacts. This sucks. I never thought it would come to this, actually, but I’ve noticed that the font on my Macbook seems to be getting smaller and smaller. I increased the font size, much to the relief of my overburdened eyes, but knew deep down that maybe I needed a new prescription also. My penchant for wearing each 2-week contact lens until it actually begins to fall apart before replacing it may be backfiring on me slightly.

When I was there I thought I would try on some frames as well. Why not? I have been not wearing the same glasses for six years now, why not upgrade to a new stylish pair and then not-wear those as well? I reasoned: having lesbian-chic new glasses might encourage me to actually wear them from time to time, probably to the chagrin of all the children who prefer me not to change my appearance in any way. Ever. I asked Serena to visualize me in a skirt with some awesome boots once recently and she told me that I could only wear jeans. Since that’s all I have worn for like 8 years. Whatever.

So I tried on all 632 pairs of frames in the store at least twice and narrowed things down to three pairs by a Danish company. All three were complete deviations from anything I’ve ever worn. I conducted an informal poll of the four fifty-something women who worked in the office and they all agreed on one pair, something I am told almost never happens, so I took that as an omen (they were actually my favorite too) and ordered them. I may regret the color choice (red! and blue! together! surprisingly attractive!) later however.

Don’t bother going to the Parentricity site yet. I’ll let you know when it’s operational.

There are 1000 hours left until Christmas, by the way. Spend them wisely.

Oh. And I had to tell my eye doctor that I cheated on him when I lived in Colorado and saw another eye doctor, but he seemed understanding of my dalliance and even appreciative that I was taking care of my eyes. And then when I left he told me he was reaaallly glad I was back. Um. Ew.

All this birthday talk. Or maybe it was watching “Neverending Story” tonight, which brought me back to like 22 again, which somehow translated into being 7. I don’t know, but I recalled the birthday party I had that year. Which was so memorable that I never had another.

The big thing at the party was going to be the giant balloons. Giant balloons that you could sit on and bounce. At least, this was my idea, my vision. But it was to be the highlight of the party, bigger even than the miniature golfing. And the Shasta black cherry cola.

I think maybe 5 or 6 other girls came. Or maybe there were boysthere too; it’s all a little hazy. There was probably food. And my dad likely disappeared for the afternoon, leaving my mom to seem unnaturally convivial, jovial even, not that she was usually morose or anything, but there was definitely a heartier-than-usual “company face” that she donned for occasions like that which were fortunately infrequent. Which I am afraid may be a genetic trait.

The balloons were quickly abandoned. They were difficult to blow up and didn’t become nearly the size required, plus, hello, they were balloons? Not so hot for bouncing on.

My dream shattered, I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave. And never found it desirable to have another party.

Though if I could get one of those really big balls with a handle? For bouncing on?  Or, like, 20 of them?  I might change my mind.

Posts. The good posts. There will likely be some this month. But I make no guarantees.

However, if you’ve forgotten, I am awesome.

Wait, let me repeat that with enthusiasm. I am awesome! I am!

(see what a little punctuation does?)

But that brings a little something up. The rationing of the good stuff. I have a history of that. In childhood I was totally okay with waiting for Christmas. I knew where the presents were stashed (hi Mom, you think I never looked in your closet?), but the anticipation was too delicious to forego by peeking. Besides, I did that one year and felt awful about it. And the present sucked.

Except, sadly, often the anticipation was greater than the actual gifts themselves (but not YOURS, Mom!). Which means now, hello, you’re going to be all disappointed when you actually come across a “good” post. Shit. How will you know it’s a “good” one? Should I tag them somehow? A gold star? Shit. This is getting complicated.

I think I need to consult the blogging hotline.

Shit.

So I convinced Nathaniel to sign up for NaNoWriMo too. The Young Adult version, since he’s still under 12 (though almost as tall as me dammit). He started writing yesterday and has a respectable 600 words logged in already (we chose a do-able total figure in line with his likely output, which you’re allowed to do if you claim to be under 12, which I may have to do if I don’t get to writing soon). I don’t think I’m allowed to read his novel, though. So I’d better keep pretending I haven’t.