Ripped from a Page (Blog #138)

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This afternoon I went to physical therapy, something I’ve been doing on an almost weekly basis since someone slammed into the back of my car a month and a half ago and turned me into a real-life bobblehead doll. Honestly, physical therapy itself been going great. A couple of weeks ago I got moved from twice a week to once a week, and today I got moved to “almost done,” which means I only need to go back if I feel like it during the next month. That being said, when I walked in today, the therapist said that my posture was “almost perfect,” that my left shoulder was “a bit” high and my head was turned “slightly” to the right.

Well, shit.

Of course, part of me is thrilled with the progress (or whatever), but a bigger part of me is “a bit” stressed out and “slightly” terrified that I’m not–well–perfect. Maybe that’s my perfectionist talking. It’s difficult to say.

Yesterday I started making a dream board, also known as a vision board. It’s one of my 101 creativity assignments, and it involves collecting pictures and phrases from magazines that represent dreams I’d like to come true. (If anyone has a teeny bopper magazine filled with Zac Efron photos, please drop it in the mail to my address.) So this afternoon I went to the library, and while upstairs streaming an episode of Will (the new TV series about young–and hot, let’s not forget hot–William Shakespeare), I searched for dream board additions in some of the free magazines I found downstairs.

When I was in junior high, I worked my ass off on an insect collection–you know the kind where you stick a pin through a dragonfly (that you caught with the lid of your parent’s barbecue grill) and another pin through a tiny piece of paper that says “dragonfly” along with the scientific name. Well, it really was great, since I’ve always been a rule follower and extremely anal retentive. HOWEVER, I got marked off four points (for a total of 96 percent) because the edges of my paper weren’t completely straight, since I’d creased the paper on the side of a table and torn it rather than using scissors. At the time, I was devastated. Looking back, I wish I’d known enough to look my teacher right in the eye and say, “Bitch please.”

Obviously, the event stuck with me. I mean, that was over twenty years ago, and I still can’t help but wonder if my life would have turned out differently if I’d gotten those four extra points. Now that I think about it, I’ve wasted a lot of time on perfectionism, which my therapist says is just another name for fear (fear of not good enough, fear of rejection). This is something I’ve been working on–letting go of being perfect–so when the instructions for the dream board said to tear (literally tear) out whatever I wanted to add to my board, it honestly felt great to rip, rip, rip the magazine pages apart and see all those jagged edges. Fuck you, 100 percent.

After gawking at young–and hot, let’s not forget hot–William Shakespeare and working on the dream board, I ran into one of my former students with whom I always have fabulous conversations. When I talked about the blog (as I tend to do), my friend referred to my daily self-reflection as “encountering yourself,” which I think is the perfect (there’s that word again) phrase and something everyone should make an effort to do before they die.

Encounter yourself.

Before I left the library I signed up for the online course I mentioned yesterday about healing your emotional wounds. I’ll let you know how it goes, but one of the ideas presented in the lesson today was that the two natural responses to having a wound are shielding (for protection) and soothing (for healing). The guy teaching the course, Artie Wu, says that shields can show up as anger, people pleasing, and–get this–perfectionism. Soothing can show up as drugs and alcohol, food, or working or using media too much. (I wonder if binge watching hot Shakespeare counts.) None of these responses are bad in and of themselves, but the question to ask is whether the behavior hurts more than it helps. In my case, if I’m going to get real about it, the idea is that perfectionism is a way to avoid criticism (you’re not good enough) and engender praise (you’re the best boy ever). And whereas there’s nothing wrong with that strategy, it does come with a lot of baggage, like the inability to relax with crooked pictures on the wall or walk out the fucking door without every hair on my head just so.

This evening I went to hear my friend Donny play at Core Brewing Company in Fort Smith. He and some of his friends have a band called The Wren Boys, and they’re currently playing every Tuesday night. (Come join the fun.) Here’s a video from their set tonight.

While the band played, Donny’s wife, Vicki, and I discussed the idea of being playful, and as I’ve thought more about it, being playful–curious–seems to be the opposite of perfectionism. Just watching Donny and his friends, it’s the most laid back thing–off the cuff, unrehearsed–fun. And isn’t that the point–to life? I mean, where does it say that all your edges have to be straight (or even that you do)? Maybe this means that one of my shoulders will always be “a bit” higher than the other, my gaze may always be “slightly” off, but clearly I’m the only one taking points away from myself for having “almost perfect” posture. But that’s changing. Honestly, the more I encounter myself, the more I realize that all my edges are torn–almost as if something bigger than myself had ripped me from a page and dreamed that I’d come true.

[Seriously, if you have any old magazines (with or without Zac Efron) you’d like to get rid of, I’d love to have them.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You know when someone crosses a line. You may not want to admit it, but you know.

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Flexing the Right Muscles (Blog #124)

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It’s three in the morning. Bed sounds really good right about now. Last night I got home from Springfield at four in the morning, slept for four hours, and woke up early (for me) to get a massage and see the chiropractor. Then I came home, slept for a couple of hours, and went to physical therapy, since healing from the car accident is now my new hobby. This evening I ran around downtown Fort Smith, came home, and took a nap on the futon from midnight to one to try to recharge before writing. I’m not sure that it worked.

Now that we have that out of the way.

This morning my massage therapist, Gena, and I were talking about how tight my scalenes are. Scalenes are the muscles that run from your ear to your shoulder on both sides. She said one of the reasons mine were tight is because my head juts forward rather than sitting back directly over my shoulders. She suggested one way I could “gently coax” my body into the right position would be to purposefully jut my head and neck forward, and then pull them back–like a turtle–and that I could do this in the car whenever I stop at a stop light or stop sign. (Thank God for tinted windows.) “Whenever you engage or flex one set of muscles,” she said, “BY LAW the opposing muscles have to relax.”

So every time I’ve stopped at a stop sign today and tried the exercise, I’ve thought, This has to work–it’s a law.

This afternoon I did something I rarely do. I voiced my opinion on Facebook. (Hell, everyone else is doing it.) One of my friends whom I respect posted an article about being punctual and asked (SHE ASKED) what everyone thought about “being late.” Well, all the other comments were basically “I hate that shit,” “Late people are rude,” “Late people are arrogant,” or–slightly kinder but not really–“Being late is arrogant behavior.”

Okay. Maybe I’m sensitive because I’m usually right on time (which apparently is the new late) or five to ten minutes late (which apparently is “unacceptable”). I admit–this is something I could improve on. Maybe we’d all be happier if I did. I definitely think being on time is professional and courteous. That being said, I take issue with the idea that the fact that I was slightly late to physical therapy today (because I left the house with just enough time to get there and then got stuck in traffic and saw a friend in the parking lot) makes me arrogant. (Feel free to disagree.) A mediocre time manager and horrible psychic, maybe.

My therapist says that online communication is froth with misunderstandings, so I don’t want to read more into those comments than were intended. Still, I’ve been thinking tonight even if the whole world agreed that being late is arrogant or rude or “something Jesus would never do” (although Martha did say, “Lord, if only had been here [on time], my brother would not have died”), that still wouldn’t change the reality that people are late, that traffic jams do happen, that–well–shit happens.

Shit happens.

One of my creative homework assignments this week is to initiate a conversation with one of my friends about synchronicity. I’m not sure if blogging counts as a way to do that, but it’s worth a shot, so here I go. (If you have experiences you’d like share, please message me or post in the comments so this conversation won’t be one-sided.) This afternoon in the middle of my finding my fifth chakra (which is at your throat and represents confession and speaking your truth) on Facebook, I kept thinking that I needed to message my friend Vicki to see if she was going to hear her husband Donny play Irish music at Core Brewing Company tonight. Well–guess what? Synchronistically, she messaged me first (and said she was).

So later I met Vicki to hear Donny play, had a great time, and lived happily ever after.

When I started blogging tonight, I noticed that the last time I wrote about Donny, I spelled his name wrong. (Sorry, Donny. I fixed it.) But get this. Tonight when I saw Donny, he didn’t say anything about it. I mean, there wasn’t a single comment about my being arrogant or rude or a bad friend because I spelled his name incorrectly. Go figure. Maybe it didn’t bother him at all, but if it did, he chose to be gracious about it. (Thank you.)

I guess a person can always choose to be gracious.

During the course of conversation tonight, Vicki said, “The more forgiving you are of yourself, the more forgiving you are of others.” My therapist says, “You don’t treat anyone better than you treat yourself.” In other words, if you’re a hard ass with yourself–about being on time, about having good grammar and correct spelling, about being “perfect”–you’re going to be a hard ass with everyone else. (So if someone is rude, unkind, or judgmental to you–have compassion–that’s how they treat themselves on the regular.) But if you extend grace to yourself, if you give understanding to yourself, you’ll naturally extend those things to others.

I’ll say it again. You don’t treat anyone better than you treat yourself.

I’m thinking now that our judgments–of ourselves and each other–are like muscles. If we “flex” our impatience, BY LAW, our patience must relax. However, if we “flex” our patience, BY LAW, our impatience must relax. (It has to work, it’s a law.) Ultimately, we’ll never be able to control what someone else does. Sadly, at least as long as I’m in it, we’ll never be able to make the whole world be punctual. But the good news is that we have plenty–PLENTY–of opportunities to practice patience, to extend grace, to treat ourselves and those around us better.

[Here’s a picture of one of the downtown murals at night, just because I checked it out this evening and wanted to put another picture on the blog.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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So perhaps perfection has little to do with that which changes and everything to do with that which doesn't. For surely there is a still, small something inside each of us that never changes, something that is timeless and untouchable, something inherently valuable and lovable--something perfect.

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