Lion and Magic Boy

Wow. If you had told me how affected I would be by the receipt of one simple email, I would not have believed you. But wow. I did and I was. And since everything is connected in life, my response spilled over into other areas of my life too. How could it not? Everything, and I mean everything, is connected.

Hmm, by now some of you are wondering, Was it me? Was it my email that sent Karen into a tailspin of self-doubt?

And the answer is: I’m not going to tell you.

Actually, the whole thing was really connected to my frustrations with “Wonderful” WordPress and Damned Dreamhost (who did come through in the end with a random suggestion that ended up working, but I WOULD HAVE FOUND IT ANYWAY but the whole thing was their fault anyway so it’s only right that they came up with the fix. Sort of. I so would have found it anyway.) And now I am having the fun of trying to figure out why I cannot upload a 78mb file when it clearly says I can upload anything up to 2GB, so what’s the problem? And plus I can’t seem to install a simple plugin that will allow me to post and play mp3′s on the new blog I’m launching.

Oooh! New blog?? Sorry, not ready to post about that one yet, although the Curiously Missing Post and all the WordPress problems to begin with were all due to the new blog thankyouverymuch, which is a totally auspicious beginning. Way to go!

So. What else have I done this week, you ask?

Well, to begin with I’ve written some rather kickass posts over at Strollerderby this week. There was this one about immunizations, and this one about homeschooling, and of course this one about compassion. And for fun I wrote about vaginas and baby carrots. Ooh! Versatile!

Sorry. Had to take a pee break there. (Oh, is that TMI?) Something about this Unintentional Coffee Fast I’m on today. And then I had to stop to gaze in the mirror for a bit at my new tattoo.

Nice segue there! Actually, I’m not going to talk about the tattoo yet, so you’ll just have to keep reading if you want to know about it, but hello, I haven’t actually told anyone about it yet, so hi! People who might one day see me naked, I guess you know now!

Nope, what I really want to talk about now is cleaning. I spent 2 hours cleaning my house this morning so I’m damned well going to talk about it, and talk about, for instance, how my kitchen table looks without any fewer papers on it. There used to be a big pile (do these things spawn overnight or what? I’m afraid to get the mail anymore!), and now there are three much smaller piles. So that’s progress. Next I need someone to come and do the bathrooms, because I’ve become distracted with writing about cleaning and no longer feel like doing it.

The other thing I did this week was get a new driver’s license. Along with the Divorce That Is Taking Forever came the opportunity to change my last name. Hey, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to do that for a long time, and even jumped the gun and chose one at random two years ago, which is why most of you know me as Karen Murphy. Which isn’t even my name, at least not legally. See, someone told me that with divorce you can change your name to anything, and I believed that! Turns out it’s not quite true. To legally change my name to Murphy I’d have to go through a legal name-change process like anyone else, and I’m happy just playing with names, thank you. So that left my birth name, because I didn’t want to be Karen Divorcinghusbandname anymore. I was so happy at the age of 19 to move from being Karen Birthname to being Karen Marriednamefirsttime and leave the person that I thought was Karen Birthname behind, and all this time I’ve been running from that person, running from being Karen Birthname.

But you know what? Earlier this year I discovered that I’ve dealt with a lot of the issues surrounding who I thought Karen Birthname was, so I decided to take a leap and be Karen Birthname again and see how that feels. I’ve had five different last names including that one and each one brought out different facets of myself (there can be so much symbolism in a name!), but it really feels like it’s time to be Karen Birthname again and allow that to coax out whatever’s left inside waiting to shine forth.

But to do that meant I had to visit the DMV, which is so helpfully called something entirely different here in Pennsylvania, something like “Official Place Where You Get Your Driver’s License Stuff Done While Waiting a Very Very Long Time” but not only is that very long and tedious to type but I can totally say “DMV” and you know what I’m talking about, right? Lots of hard chairs arranged in rows, so comfortable for sitting in for long periods? And bring your laptop to maybe do some writing, which is sure to make everyone stare at you, because this is Pennsylvania for crying out loud, and who ever heard of bringing a laptop to the DMV! No, you should wait and stare into space with a blank look on your face like everyone else!

So now I have a new license. I was so hoping they’d take a new picture as well, because the picture they took a year ago when I moved back to PA totally sucked ass because I was angry and bitter about moving, and you could totally tell that from the photo even though I was smiling, but the new picture sucks ass way worse because I thought I would try a new thing and smile differently and even though I PRACTICED THIS IN A MIRROR I still failed miserably and now I am stuck with a picture that totally sucks. Yay!

But now I have ID as Karen Birthname which means I will have to go fight with my bank and sit there for hours while they whisper to each other about what to do with this oh-so-complicated situation of changing my name on this account and that account and order new checks and by the way, when did stupid checks become so expensive? I hardly write any. And then I’ll have to sign my name on a new signature card, and don’t they know it takes YEARS to perfect a signature such as mine, essentially a squiggle but completely unreproducible by anyone except me, which means I’m totally covered against forgers, but what they don’t know is that the signature came from having to sign REALLYREALLYQUICKLY because otherwise Eric, who was always in my arms for the first 3 years of his life, would grab the pen out of my hand.

But the tattoo. You are totally wanting to know about this, I can tell.

So I walked into the place, the walls of which were painted black, of course (is there any other appropriate color?) and I was greeted by a girl with a lot of metal stuck to her face in various places and lots of tattoos: throat, hands, everywhere visible. Cool. I was in the right place.

She also had gigantic holes in her ears, big enough to fit, say, a sausage through. Or two of them. Or a…oh.

But I didn’t notice that at first because I was rather distracted by what was going on with her visually and I also had to converse intelligently while not seeming like I’m Staring At Her Tattoos, the irony of which of course did not escape me because, after all, I was there to get a tattoo.

So we talked for a bit about what I was looking for, and she invited me to hang out a bit until The Artist was finished with whateverthehell he was doing back there in The Back.

Meanwhile two girls came in, whispering and giggling. One of them was there for a piercing of some sort. It’s a small shop, and eventually, while they were looking at sample books of various piercings (Piercing Girl wanted to have her ear done, which I thought was a bit pedestrian but oh well. She didn’t want to shock her mom too much, she said), conversation ensued about what I was there for.

It turns out that Piercing Girl’s Fat Friend was quite judgmental. She referred to my previous tattoo as a “tramp stamp”. Not having heard that term before (I am such a delicate flower), I could do nothing but laugh incredulously. Did she just say that, really?

Tattoo Girl gave me a look at that point. She was clearly bothered by the rudeness. Piercing Girl and Fat Friend continued looking through the book which I had already seen and was quite impressed by all the things you can evidently do with wires and holes in ears. Who knew! If my hair wasn’t long and mostly covering my own ears, I’d totally go for some of those things, as they were (to me, delicate flower that I am) quite unusual and interesting. I do like to stand out a bit from the crowd, and those would certainly help accomplish that. But the girls were all “Ewww! Gross!”, and with every fresh page they turned and exclaimed over, Tattoo Girl became more agitated.

Eventually The Artist came out and we talked a bit, looked in the mirror a bit, and I eventually completely changed my mind about what I was going to have done, and he disappeared again to make a drawing of what I was getting.

Meanwhile the girls were still hemming and hawing, and Tattoo Girl began asking Piercing Girl about what she wanted, wise questions I thought, all about which side she slept on and which side she used the phone on and measuring bits of her ear and all, and eventually they came up with a plan. And then Tattoo Guy, who was pretty quiet and almost invisible up until then, ordered dinner for him and Tattoo Girl (white pizza with crab, pasta with marinara, and a chicken caesar salad). Before that he mainly just communicated with eye contact and eyebrow raises, so I was pleased to see that his powers of speech hadn’t been affected by his tattoos or piercings (why don’t I see people like this in public around here?).

So I was finally ushered back into The Back by The Artist, who never actually told me his name or made any eye contact with me whatsoever, a fact I was somewhat discomfited by at first but after talking to him a bit I realized that he may be just a teeny bit on the autism spectrum and has trouble dealing with people. His main focus in life seemed to be becoming more “dope” in tattooing (I think that means “better”), and liberal politics. He said he was from Minnesota and I mentioned Paul Wellstone and I thought he was going to have an orgasm right there while holding a needle full of ink in my back. The Artist turned out to be quite an interesting guy, just maybe lacking a bit in Social Niceties, not rude or anything like that, but I imagine many people find him to be a bit…different. But I quite liked him and appreciated his passion about his work and asked him about some of his own tattoos, of which he had quite a few.

When I came out from The Back, Piercing Girl and Fat Friend were gone and the air was filled with the scent of white pizza with crab, and Tattoo Girl was apologetic about the “tramp stamp” comment, at the same time expressing her pain over the comments the girls were making about the piercing pictures in the book, which was essentially a portfolio of all the work Tattoo Girl has done. I told her that what she did was art and she seemed to feel better.

It is art, decorating the body. I may go back myself and see what she can do with my ear.

Anyway, the tattoo. I think it will look decent. Symbolic? I don’t see how it could be anything else.

I’m already planning my next one.

So is it weird that the major connections I had with people this week were with people I wouldn’t likely ever hang out with (though I quite liked all the Tattoo People), in seemingly random encounters? I don’t know, but I’m going to add it into the whole mix of the week and see what I come up with.

[tags]tattoos, name change, identity crisis[/tags]

So I was having fun last night with my camera. Seeing as how I never use it anymore. So what if I was dead tired and lying on my bed in the clothes I went to the airport in? So here you go, a little foray into not-very-creative self-portraiture. Not sure I really look like this; you be the judge.

I look good in bed, don’t I? Wait, don’t answer that.

And, because I have a “crop” function, you get a closeup:

There’s more here at Flickr. And a whole lot of outtakes on my computer. But you don’t need to know that, do you?

I love thunderstorms. I remember the first time I ever really experienced them, when at the age of 19 I moved from the Bay Area of northern California where I grew up (and where thunderstorms are about as common as snow) to the mountains of Arizona (who knew! mountains! and snow! in Arizona!). That first summer, the thunderstorms rolled in day after day, coming up over the mountain into the valley where I lived, then rolling through and out the other side. They’d come on fast and furious, and I’d dash out to the porch where our homemade wind chimes hung, made from a bunch of old keys, now jangly in the sudden wind, and I’d stand out there and soak up the LIFE that came along with the storms. I never felt so alive as when I stood out there in a storm, the rain pouring down in buckets and the lightning crashing everywhere, I mean, does it get more REAL than that?

We’re having a thunderstorm now, here in Pennsylvania where I live. In the summer they visit regularly, usually in the evening. Today was ripe all day for a break to the oppressive humidity, the air expectant and ready to burst, so I’m not surprised about the storm.

I just wish it hadn’t come just as I was headed out on my bike.

However! That’s better than if I had already been out when the storm started, so I can look at it that way. Riding like a drowned cat isn’t all that fun, although I find it interesting that biking up in Whistler not too long ago was enjoyable even in the rain. In fact, the rain got in my eyes and was thrown into my face by my front wheel and still I found the whole experience wonderful, now why is that??

I’m still savoring moments from my trip to Vancouver, large ones and small ones. Like how wonderful it was to have someone cook for me. Not out of service or obligation, but out of love and creation, the way I look at preparing food. And every day, too! I made my Strollerderby people crazy with all the talk of the succulent salmon and prawns and, well, everything.

But mostly the trip was about connecting with Matthew. Oh. I haven’t exactly mentioned Matthew yet, have I? My bad. But…can you fault me for keeping all this wonderfulness inside where I can savor it slowly?

I’ve actually known Matthew for years, but only online until recently. I’ve felt his energy before in doing some channeling for him a few times as part of the online communities we’re both a part of, and I knew Matthew to be a kind and warm person, but when we met in April there was an immediate connection, an immediate sense of belonging and acceptance and openness, a sense of what I always thought was possible but somehow had always been unattainable in a relationship. So clearly it had to be checked out further, and I’m happy to report that the reality exceeded even my high expectations.

So, that’s not very specific, is it? Oh well, you’ll have to keep reading then. I most assuredly will mention him again. And Matthew is a big part of something I’ve been hoping to do months even before we met, this collaborative book project, and it’s all come together so perfectly that I have to imagine it was planned somehow, on some level.

And right now I am all self-congratulatory for bringing all this wonderfulness into my life.

Just a year ago I was in Colorado, riding my bike a lot, and thinking un-neighborly thoughts about my neighbors while decrying false patriotism. Hmm, I was going to say, “Wow! Look how things have changed in my life!” but I guess only a few of those things have changed: I still ride my bike a lot, I still think un-neighborly thoughts about my neighbors, and though I haven’t yet today brought up the false patriotism thing, it’s been on my mind. So…other than moving 1800 miles, nothing’s changed, right?

And yet, so very much has changed.

In fact, if you had sat me down a year ago with a list of everything that’s happened to me since then, I probably would have just barely restrained myself from hitting you before going directly upstairs to hide my head under a pillow. And yet, I am supremely happy with my life now. Sure, there are a few frustrations, especially in the logistics department, but wow! Look how much I’ve changed!

So I am well pleased.

However, I have a few things on my list which require complaint to the appropriate department. Shall we have a look at them? (Oh, not a literal look of course, as that would require Extra Steps! Hooking up the camera! Uploading to Flickr! Which you should check out because there’s a few new photos up! Nice segue huh?)

1. I received a call last night from the mom of one of Serena’s first-grade classmates. We got as far as, “Karen?” “Yes…?” “This is Firstname Lastname…” and then she trailed off oddly. To fill in the awkward silence, I said, helpfully, “Hi Firstname, how are you?”

More silence.

Then she came back and said, brightly, as if she had been thankfully let off the hook somehow, “Oh! I’m getting a call! Can I call you back?”

Sure. But you, uh, called me. Which, excuse me if I’m wrong, implies that you might have wanted to talk to me? But of course, you go and talk to whoever’s calling you. That you could have called back because you see, you already have me on the phone. But obviously, that other person? is far more important.

So thank you! I now know for sure where I stand with you! Good thing we cleared that up!

2. Being all concerned and stuff for the environment and for underpaid workers and all, while at Trader Joe’s the other day I thought I’d check out their organic shade-grown fair-trade coffee. It would save me from ordering online the way I usually do, I reasoned, and would save in transportation costs and the associated costs to the environment in terms of exhaust from the truck to ship it here to me and the airplane to ship it to the roaster, and…well, I was already in Trader Joe’s getting enough bagels to last us three months or so until I go back there again because it’s a long drive but the children only like the bagels from TJ’s so we go there and drop like $100 each time because of all the other stuff, like organic maple syrup and tiny chocolate cookies shaped like cats, that somehow magically levitates into our cart, and well, I was already there so why not check out the coffee, right? I mean, I’m already there and all.

So I bring my coffee home, noting that it costs less! than what I usually spend on coffee, which is of course always a good thing, and hey! Maybe TJ’s can be my regular coffee supplier, why not?

I open the bag of coffee and peer inside. The beans, normally a gorgeous chocolate brown color, seem tiny, wizened, and charred to a blackness not normally associated with coffee or anything, really, related to food or consumables. I have a look at the back of the package. “Dark roast.” Oh, ew. These charred black bits? Is that what “dark roast” is all about? Bleh. I put some in the coffee grinder anyway, hoping for the best, and grind it the proscribed 11 seconds. I open the grinder and inhale deeply of the aroma, which usually is pure wonderful coffee. I smell nothing but burned blackness.

I mete out a paltry bit of what little real coffee I have left so I can have at least a cup and then dash online to make my order from the roaster who will roast my beans exquisitely to a nutty brown, then package them and ship them to me via exhaust-spewing airplanes and diesel-spewing trucks, to land at my door in a day or two before my last bit of stash runs out.

~~~~~~~

Okay, so maybe some things about me don’t change much. But on the other hand, a year ago I wasn’t writing and getting paid for it. A year ago I wasn’t writing a book, nor was I learning to live what’s in the book. A year ago I was a year less confident about my work than I am now, and the number of clients I have now as compared to then shows the difference. A year ago I viewed my life as out of control. Out of control and under the control of others. Ew! A year ago I viewed relationships much differently than I do now. A year ago I didn’t know myself as well as I do now. A year ago I was essentially unhappy and didn’t know what to do about it.

So, like I said, a lot has changed.

I am still in Vancouver. Still with excellent hair.

There is so very much to say about all this, but where to start? How do I break it all down into bloggable experience, when everything is completely connected with every other part?

What I can say for sure is that I am irrevocably transformed.

Lest you think that’s a big deal, and it is but that’s beside the point, we are ALL irrevocably transformed by each and every experience. Just so you know.

Still.

And again: so much to say, yet…

And, as always, inspiration comes from unlikely places. Which means I can talk about the Cat Visitor. Out back where I am staying is a small garden, underneath the fence of which come various Visiting Cats. Zippy is the most frequent visitor, and from what I hear she likes to remove socks and take them back to her home for various nefarious cat purposes, but mostly she scoots in, rubs herself over available surfaces, shakes the bells on her collar, and leaves again. Too impatient or distractible to stay for any length of time, she comes and goes throughout the day.

Having a parttime cat has its obvious advantages.

Hey, you want to see where I was this weekend? Have a look:

And you want to see evidence of my transformation? Here you go, then:

Do I look different? I sure feel different. I wonder what it could be, exactly… any ideas?

[tags]vacation, Vancouver, British Columbia, mountains, transformation, Love[/tags]

There aren’t many people who know this, least of all my dad, but we’ve had kind of a rocky relationship, though it wasn’t always like that. In fact, not that he picks favorites among his children, but if he did I think I would be it.

One of my earliest memories of my dad is from when I was about four or five. My older brother was in the hospital having his tonsils out. Maybe my mom was with him and Dad was filling in, I don’t know, but he took over the story-reading for awhile: “Old Mother West Wind.” I sat close to him with a Dixie cup filled with little pretzel sticks and listened as he hammed it up. It doesn’t get better than that.

For my dad, it always seemed that academics were paramount. He has an IQ of 190 and will tell you so if you ask him. At a paltry 150, I knew I could never compete with him: he was a physicist, clearly brilliant, and I was just a kid. And he liked to expound and prides himself on being able to speak extemporaneously on practically any topic. And he can! Which either charms people or frustrates them.

At the dinner table, I’d hold whatever piece of exciting news I had that day anxiously, awaiting the time when he’d take a breath and I could squeeze in an interjection. I still find myself doing this when speaking to people.

Once I listened in horror through the wall between our bedrooms as my Dad berated my brother for not doing better in school. Eric was, to me, the Perfect Older Brother and was a huge role model for me. Hearing “Why aren’t you more like your sister?” was just plain wrong. Sure, I was an A student, but I also knew that Eric was smarter than me. He just didn’t care as much as I did about making an impression and did what he wanted. And now he’s a brilliant guy who does mysterious computerish things that I am clueless about and for which people pay him much.

Being brilliant, Dad can do anything. When I was growing up he was a consummate chess player, and he took it upon himself to try to pass along the chess genes. I found chess an interminable game. It bored me and I continually made excuses to abandon games. I couldn’t win anyway, so what was the point in prolonging the torture? I could anticipate all sorts of possible future moves but never knew which one Dad would actually make. In fact, I only ever finished one game: I was losing badly and even had lost my Queen, but with a Knight and a couple of pawns, and likely a Bishop, I won. It was the only game I’ve ever won against anyone, I might add. I caught him completely by surprise, setting up moves in between being chased about the board. He never saw it coming. I was ten years old and triumphant! I beat my dad!

He doesn’t remember this.

My one hour of triumph, and I’m the only one who remembers.

When my parents divorced when I was 18, Dad was sort of lost for awhile. I dropped out of college and moved back to my hometown. For awhile, we were roommates, and he suggested I refer to him as “Gordon”. I found this awkward, and we lasted as roomies for about 3 weeks before I found my own place. He still signs his emails to me as “Gordon”, by the way, but I no longer find it weird. It’s just Dad.

It was Dad who introduced me to the spiritual path I’ve been on ever since, the one that now forms much of my vocation. Prior to that I had never thought of him as a spiritual person (or myself, for that matter), but he’s a well-known voice within the community at this point.

In my twenties, I often turned to Dad for advice. There were times I felt I had no one else to talk to, yet I always came away slightly dissatisfied. I felt unheard. He always turned the conversation around to himself. I always felt that sense of competition. Sometimes it was maddening.

In my marriage to The Ex I recognized similar patterns. Yuck. Who wants to be married to their dad? I was slightly skeeved by this. Of course, there were other things going on there as well, but that’s another story.

Last year when we lived in Colorado, Dad moved out there also. By that time he was supported just fine working parttime in a Barnes & Noble (an excellent place for someone who reads 4-5 books a week, and we always got great Christmas gifts). He started coming over for Saturday night dinners. His grandkids got to know him. Nathaniel beat him at chess. It was very nice. I still felt unheard, but by then I was used to it. Then we had to move back to Pennsylvania, leaving Dad behind. I wasn’t pleased about this.

So by last year I had resigned myself to always feeling slightly dissatisfied after talking to Dad. I had “issues”, but doubted I could get past them. It’s just how things were. At the same time, I knew that the process I’ve been going through, the one that resulted in being able to really see and appreciate my mom for who she is, would likely extend to my dad as well. It was a matter of time.

But I wasn’t holding my breath.

A couple of weeks ago I had the best conversation I’ve ever had with Dad. It included all the things that previously left me feeling dissatisfied: I had a personal and emotional issue that I wanted to talk about. Dad doesn’t do emotions so much, not like me, a person who lives in them most days.

But this time, I had a new understanding not only of Dad but of our relationship, and my perceptions. It was huge. And, that sense has lasted, so a shift has really occurred.

So now, when Dad turns the conversation to himself, I know that it’s because that’s how he processes things, through his own experience. Plus it’s his way of helping people see their own stuff, thinking that maybe by relating his experience he can show people things. It’s not about competing. It was huge to let go of this, huge!

And I know too that Dad’s not comfortable being hit up front with a lot of emotion. I need to move into it slowly with him, because he has a sense of stubbornness that makes him resistant if you go too fast. This doesn’t work well with my impatience, but I see now that if I back off a little and allow it to unfold he’s very receptive. Who knew?

And now I can finally begin to see Dad through other people’s eyes. Sure, he still pisses some people off, but most find him “delightful”, as someone said to me recently about him. And he is. He’s a brilliant, caring person who loves talking and relating to people. He’s accepting of others despite being hard on himself.

I realize now what being a teacher is really about. It’s not about telling people things. It’s more about holding yourself true to who you are, and allowing others to come up against that and have experiences based on it. That’s the epitome of “teaching by example”, by not even being an example but instead being the essence of Truth, against which everything is measured and evaluated. I’ve been throwing myself up against the pillar that is my dad all my life, and I think I finally see what the lessons have been. I see him for who he is, perfection and flaws all wrapped up in one, and likely the greatest teacher I’ve ever known.

Happy Father’s Day, Gordon. And thanks for everything. I love you.

[tags] Father’s Day[/tags]

A few weeks ago I wrote a post up at Strollerderby about an alphabet based on color. It sounded really cool and like something I could relate to. I have always corresponded colors to letters, and to all sorts of things: days of the week, numbers, names, certain words. If I thought about it, I suppose everything verbal would have a color associated with it, but generally I turn off that option when processing information.

So imagine my surprise and pleasure when I heard personally from the guy who designed and developed the color alphabet!

Well, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, being all famous and a rock star now the way I am.

And then I re-read my post and found that I had sort of almost made light of his creation. Oops. I really thought his alphabet was great, but I was dubious about its usefulness to others, simply because people are typically resistant to new ways of doing things. And I said so, but in a sort of snarky way. But he didn’t seem to take that personally and was really friendly and helpful…just a guy excited about something he created and wanting other people to enjoy it too. Artists are like that.

We got an atlas the other day. I wrote another post not long ago about a new children’s atlas and I started reminiscing about hours spent as a child lying on the livingroom floor flipping through the huge atlas we had. Nathaniel was ready for that since he’s already been making me quiz him on world capitals from his globe. It’s a huge book, weighs more than Eric. I have no idea where we’ll keep it, but it’ll have many uses, I’m sure: flower press, weight training, door stop…

Last night, late, I heard anguished sounds coming from Nathaniel’s room. I went in, and the light was still on. That’s not much of a surprise since he regularly falls asleep with it on (it must be my job to turn it off, because I do, every night). He was hopping up and down next to his bed, face screwed up in pain. His iPod fell from his ears. I had the impression he had a cramp. In his foot maybe? Leg? I kept asking, but all he did was groan and hop up and down. He wouldn’t let me touch him. Then he abruptly lay down on the floor and closed his eyes, clearly asleep within 3 seconds.

Weird? Um, yes. But he’s been doing that kind of thing for years.

I had a dream sort of like that once. I had just begun a really stressful job that I took extremely seriously and it inhabited my entire being: daytimes, nighttimes, 24/7. I was in the midst of trying to hire people to get fully staffed, and it was an arduous process. One night I awoke to find myself standing in the middle of the room, holding my hand out that was (I thought) holding something. In my dream I had been about to use a copy machine and was holding someone’s hiring information to copy.

Did I tell you? I had some more thoughts recently relating to personal power. I’ve realized that I’ve been giving power away by being in fear over what others could potentially do, which caused me to want to do something in response. But defensiveness doesn’t work. Resistance doesn’t work. Not when there’s someone bent on applying aggression. Realizing this, at first I felt powerless. I knew what I had been doing wasn’t working, but I didn’t know what to do instead. Now I see it: by not resisting, you can allow the other person’s energy to carry them up, over, and back down again. Meaning that it will expend itself before it can really harm you.

It’s kind of a frightening concept, though, because you do have to allow yourself vulnerability. So imagine the very worst-case scenario that you can and live with that possibility for awhile. Realizing that “everything will always be okay” (my mantra for years: why did I abandon that one?) and that things do develop as they need to, releases the need to manage the situation. Remembering, too, that no one can take anything away from you unless you give them that power, helps too.

So I may still be knocked off balance from time to time, but I remember now that I always come back to center. And within that center is my own personal core of power, which we all have access to at all times. And my inner strength is far superior to anything anyone can throw at me, because like you, I have access to all the power in the Universe at all times. Power through aggression is self-limiting, fed only by negative thoughts and emotions, but the power of the Universe comes from Love, which is greater than everything.

I have a confession to make.

I have a mistress.

Oh, she’s a sly one, she is. That’s right, out of the blue she’ll appear and whisper in my ear, whisper things so insidious that at first I don’t hear them.

“What?” I say, straining to hear her better.

My mistress obliges me.

“No one likes you,” she breathes, oh so softly, into my waiting ear, “You’re a failure, and people don’t like you, and nothing you do is right.”

Soon I find myself nodding along with her. After all, my mistress has been with me for so long. She must really know me, right?

She knows me, all right, and all too well.

Her name is self-deprecation.

It’s been defined as being the Fear of Not Being Enough, or Fear of Inadequacy; not being able to live up to your own or someone else’s standards, leaving one feeling weak, insecure, and incompetent.

And oh my does it ever have a hold on me, sometimes. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, because if you have this mistress it can eat you alive. It can make you give up before you ever start trying. It can make you want to crawl into a deep dark space and live there forever. It can make you quit jobs, end relationships, self-medicate, give up on your dreams, give up on life.

There is a bright side to all this, however.

It turns out that everyone has a main fear. I happen to have two, aren’t I lucky? One is the fear of Missing Something, and the other is as above, the Fear of Being Found Wanting. Fun stuff, huh?

The trick is to realize that these fears protect us from something, and once you know what that is, it’s all downhill from there.

Working on it. Sometimes, noticing something is half the battle.

Though you’d never know it to know me now, when I was 15 I clearly said to anyone who would listen: “I will never have children.”

My friend Paula would wax rhapsodically about how much she enjoyed them while I simply shuddered. I never understood children when I was one, and they still mystified me. In the summer between 8th and 9th grade, for lack of anything better to do (and perhaps a small income? that part escapes me now) and a sense of filial obligation, I assisted my teacher-mom with her summer school class of soon-to-be 5th graders.

Oh, what children! I was so far above them (I thought), being, what, three years older and four grades ahead? Yet I was also petrified by them. They looked up to me, yet did they really? I found this strange, and I often willed invisibility for myself, existing in this weird juxtaposition of superiority and the feeling that they were judging me, laughing at me. One girl in particular latched herself onto me, and I could not understand this. I wasn’t especially nice to her, though I talked to her from time to time. I figured she maybe didn’t get much attention at home or something. I wish I could remember her name, as I suspect there was a lesson in that for me somewhere. Something about unconditional acceptance. I hadn’t done anything to earn it, as far as I could tell, yet there it was.

Back to Paula. She has five children now. I should point that out. And I have four. How did that happen?

At 19, immersed in the whirlwind world of Making Life Happen, I found myself married because I couldn’t bring myself to tell the people who had planned my last-minute wedding that I had changed my mind. I was afraid they’d be, what, disappointed? Embarrassed? After all, they had spent money on this! So I walked down the aisle anyway, alarm bells ringing wildly, trying to look like I was enjoying myself. It was a lot like being in a play, except I hadn’t studied my part and I wasn’t so good with the improvisation.

Three months later, I was thinking about babies, dreaming about babies, suddenly coveting babies, which is how Jessica came to be.

All my life I have allowed emotion to take hold of me, pulling me this way and that, while at the same time I felt that I was pushing, willing life to happen, creating experience. It’s not a bad way to live necessarily, but it does account for some of the more abrupt changes I’ve made as I threw myself into each new passion. Experience! Life! Here! Now! And again!

I’ve been passionate about each of my children as they arrived and I’ve thrown myself headlong into the role I have assumed. While once I never thought I would even have, let alone enjoy having children, it’s been to a large degree what my life has been about and I am content with that. I love each of them like breathing; there’s no denying that.

But just as it’s dangerous to allow another adult to define you and provide your identity, it’s also limiting to allow one’s children to be your defining criteria. So many women struggle with this as they look to find their identity as something other than wife and mother. There is an unwritten cultural assumption that there must be a black-or-white choice: either you are a person, or you are a mother. Can’t be both. Sorry, not allowed. Sign here, please.

I don’t accept that. Or at least, I don’t want that. It’s important for me now to step away somewhat from the identity I carefully carved for myself while I immersed myself in a community of women doing the very same thing. And now it’s time to claw my way out of it again.

Therefore I have begun to look at this time away from them that they spend with their father as a gift rather than a punishment. I have found myself in an externally-imposed stasis, so rather than pushing at this to make it go away, I am choosing acceptance in the trust that the gifts from this situation will be revealed eventually. It’s important to remember that there is movement at all times, even if it is imperceptible. I say this, however, while I don’t quite believe it, simply because I know that if I say it enough I will eventually know it at that deep knowingness level.

At the same time: Impatience is a bitch.

The hardest part? I can’t make any sort of plans in my life other than the boring day-to-day ones (broccoli tonight? or a salad?) and the deep soul-wrenching inner ones. As a person used to the wide, sweeping, grand gestures, making changes within this tiny confined space feels challenging to say the least. Would it be a matter of perception, I wonder? Is this box I see about me really formless after all? Does it truly stretch into infinity on all sides?

Like everything else: time will tell.

And what I said about Impatience. Still a bitch.

The germs, they finally caught up with me.

I don’t know, maybe it was being coughed on forty-zillion times in the past few weeks.

[Come here, Mama, she whispers weakly. I want to tell you something. I bend down, eager to hear what is of such import that my child, my spawn, must impart to me with her few oxygen-starved breaths, with her fever and semi-Waldorf-approved videotape-addled brain. What could it be? The secret of the universe? Her last will and testament? What?

Closer, she croaks.

I bend still closer, doing my momly, nay, my patriotic duty, listening to the fevered warblings of a seven-year old.

Suddenly, her face contorts. I know what is coming yet I am powerless to stop it.

Uuuuaghaaghaghaghaaagh! she coughs, directly into my face.]

Or….it could be the Twin Rivers O’ Mucous festooning nearly every surface in the house, courtesy of this boy.

Regardless of the cause, I only know that I awoke Sunday after a devil-may-care-fuck-it-all Saturday night feeling…tired. And somehow…off. So over and over I repeated, “I am not getting sick, I am feeling better and better all the time, I am feeling better and better all the time”, and it worked! For awhile. Long enough to make french toast to commemorate Serena’s First Day Of Feeling Like Eating Something In Days, and to vacuum the accumulated cat fur and other detritus from the crevices in the stairs, and to do all manner of laundry and other head-of-household type duties, as well as to help Serena organize and execute a very cool surprise treasure hunt game for Nathaniel, complete with clues and a prize, which had him looking all over the house and us finally yelling “Hot!” or “Cold!” because I GUESS some of clues were a little too ambiguous, though they were perfectly obvious to me.

But then I began noticing how very cold it was, and I kept asking everyone, “Are you cold? Are you cold? Is it cold in here?” and being baffled by their negative responses, even from Serena who usually can be counted on in things like that, and then it began dawning on me that maybe my affirmations from the morning weren’t working so well and maybe this was why I was so tired and looking forward so much to Eric’s nap when I could just. lie. down.

By evening I had gone from cold to very very hot and even Nathaniel remarked on it, my hotness, and I could feel the heat pouring from my fingers, which felt as if they were on fire.

Worse, the head pains had begun. Random yet searing pains, the result of a myriad of red-hot icepicks jabbing repeatedly, ripped through my right temple at odd moments with no warning. (Later I began to wonder whether a brain-eating worm hadn’t been set loose inside my head somehow. In fact, I was convinced of it, if only from the randomness of the icepicks, which ranged from four to twenty seconds apart, that’s between six and fifteen times a minute, every minute, for hours. And hours. Days now, really. It still hasn’t gone away, though it has been dulled somewhat by judicious applications of Tylenol, which it is learning to scoff at, that worm.)

Still having faith in the affirmations, I went to bed at an embarrassingly early hour, expecting to awaken feeling much much better. And I did, for about 20 minutes, which was not long enough to get the children off to school so I could crash again, but I did my best, and even made omelets! What was I thinking!

So Monday was a blur. Eric came home midday and I spent the afternoon in bed with him nearby, singing or chortling about some private joke, and me periodically begging him for quiet, and when 4 pm came I was happy for the first time that the children were going with their dad for the night because I knew I could recover in that time.

This morning I had to go to the grocery store to pick up things I knew we needed since the children were coming back today, and I wandered the icy caverns of the store rather aimlessly but still managed to get what we needed, but why was it so cold in there? I had on twenty layers of wool and cashmere and everything, but still! so cold! Which told me I wasn’t recovered yet, but this afternoon I managed to make a pot of chicken noodle soup and care for Serena, sick again with yet another fever, and here I am! writing again! Which means I am getting over the malaise that has accompanied the other symptoms, because I really didn’t like that feeling of Not Caring About Anything.

UPDATE:  The Brain-Eating Ear Worm still burrows.  Gah.