On Melting Witches (Blog #544)

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Tonight I finally finished cleaning the house that belongs to my friends who recently moved. It’s been a process, and I didn’t tackle the master bedroom until tonight because we needed to get new carpet installed first, which happened last week. Anyway, this afternoon I filled a bucket with soap and water in the kitchen and hauled it upstairs into the bedroom. Then, like I did in the rest of the house a couple weeks ago, I scrubbed every wall from top to bottom, then wiped down the baseboards. It was a slow process.

Inch by inch.

This evening I took a break for dinner, then returned to my friends’ former bedroom to vacuum the new carpet, since the installation process left the place looking like what might happen if a litter of puppies were let loose in a store full of teddy bears. And whereas I began with the main vacuum attachment–the one with the motorized brush the “sweeps” everything up into the machine, the rotary motion of the brush just whacked all the little carpet pieces from one spot on the floor to another. Well, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so I used another attachment, one without a motor. However, since this attachment was the size of a pocket harmonica, it didn’t make for quick work. You should have seen me down on my knees pushing and pulling this thing back and forth across five hundred square feet of carpet.

Inch by inch.

Caroline Myss says that when you’re working on becoming conscious, you’ll inevitably create situations in your life in which you’re forced to face your fears, situations that will allow you to bring your shadow into the light. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is unable to speak up to Miss Gulch when the old hag takes away her everything, her dog Toto. (Toto means “everything” in Latin.) So before she can get back home (to her authentic, empowered self), Dorothy has to face Miss Gulch in the form of the Wicked Witch of the West. When she does, she soaks the witch with water, and the witch melts away. At this point, Dorothy has the witch’s broom. That is to say, her conscious self now has the power that previously belonged to her unconscious fear.

This tale has been on my mind today because I recently turned down a job offer, a dance thing. And whereas I’m absolutely certain that I made the right decision, it was a difficult decision to make because it brought up all my fears about scarcity and lack. Like, What if other opportunities don’t come along? And what if I disappoint someone?

Scarcity, lack, and what my therapist calls “fear of the response”–these are my big witches.

Joseph Campbell says that when you’re on YOUR path and not someone else’s, you don’t have to worry about facing your witches (he calls them dragons) because you’ll have help along the way. His term for this help is magical aid. Dorothy has Glinda the Good Witch, Cinderella has her fairy godmother, Luke Skywalker has Yoda, and Frodo has Gandalf. Personally, I have my therapist, who’s reminded me on a number of occasions that you can NEVER go wrong when you trust yourself (as in, this isn’t right for me right now) or act from an attitude of abundance instead of lack (as in, there will be other opportunities).

There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven.” I often say that I don’t suggest the path of personal and spiritual growth to others. My point is–this path, though rewarding, is not fun, since once you give the light of your consciousness permission to go roaming about in the dark of your internal basement, it will end up cleaning your entire house inch by inch. In other words, it will affect every part of your life–every relationship, every dynamic, every personal viewpoint.

Toto.

Melting witches is messy business.

This internal cleaning and process of transformation feels like being slung about by a tornado and NOT like skipping down the Yellow Brick Road. You will WANT to look back and you will WANT to quit, since it is in no way whatsoever enjoyable to have all your witches and dragons trotted out before you so that you can stare them down and become empowered. Granted, the results are lovely, but the process itself is terrifying. Often, there’s (figurative) bloodshed involved. (My recent situation worked out well, but in facing other fears and confronting other issues, I’ve lost friendships.) Simply put, melting witches is messy business. I don’t recommend it.

That is, of course, unless you want to get back home.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It’s not where you are, it’s whom you are there with.

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well, that’s disappointing (blog #8)

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There’s an English slang word that I learned about earlier this year. The word is coddiwomple. It means “to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination,” and that’s exactly what’s about to happen. In other words, I don’t know where I’m going with this blog, but, like any good man, I intend to make good time getting there.

For breakfast this morning, I walked to Hardee’s, and although I didn’t realize it, I had my heart set on a steak and egg biscuit, which was a staple item for me several months ago when I was in the midst of fixing up the old house I was living in and getting ready to move. Well, when I got to Hardee’s, I was informed that the steak and egg biscuit was no longer available. It actually took three people to confirm this fact, and the last one, a lady, said, “That was a seasonal item, and the season is over.”

Well, I almost walked out the door, like, Screw you people. I’m taking my business elsewhere. But I was in a hurry to get to the dentist to have two cavities filled, so I decided to stay and eat a fried chicken biscuit instead. (And yes, the irony of eating fast food thirty minutes before going to the dentist to have cavities filled is not lost on me. All I can say is, make hay while the sun shines.) Anyway, it wasn’t the worst breakfast I’ve ever had, but it certainly wasn’t worth getting a cavity over and tasted a lot more like disappointment than chicken.

Always one to overanalyze, I started thinking way too much about why I was so let down about the steak and egg biscuit season being over. I mean, it’s just a steak and egg biscuit. From Hardee’s.

The first place my mind went was this time about a year and a half ago when I’d asked a friend to do me a favor and host another dance instructor who’d come into town to teach for a convention I used to organize. Well, my friend ended up having some of his friends over that night, and my dance instructor was upset, partly, because he thought they were too loud. My first reaction was to get angry, since I thought my friend’s actions reflected poorly on me, so I brought it up in therapy thinking that I’d be agreed with. But I wasn’t. My therapist said that I’d asked someone to do something for me, and then I got angry because they didn’t do it the way I would’ve. She said that I should have been more clear about my desires, said something like, “I’d like you to host someone, please, but I don’t want you blast Michael Buble music until three in the morning. How do you feel about that?”

I said I could have said that, but this sort of thing had never come up before. And then my therapist said, “You’ve been really fortunate. You’ve been spoiled.” (Spin this however you want, but it didn’t feel like a compliment.)

So after the thing at Hardee’s this morning, I started wondering if that was it, if I was just spoiled. And then I started thinking of all the words that are associated with being spoiled, words like rotten and brat, and then I felt like shit because I was convinced I was an entitled little twit who almost always gets his way and throws a temper tantrum every time Hardee’s changes it’s menu. (Sometimes my therapist says that I’m married to suffering, and looking at what I’ve just written, she may be right about that.)

Then I started thinking what a perfectly disgusting word spoiled is, how we should probably ban it from the English language–at least when used to refer to humans and not eggs–because it’s never used to build anyone up. It’s always used to put someone in their place, like, “Who do you think you are, wanting a steak and egg biscuit from Hardee’s?”

So up until the time the dentist put a drill in my mouth, this idea of being spoiled was all I could think about, and I kept trying to figure out the difference between feeling like you’re worthy of good things (like a decent, fast food breakfast) and feeling like you’re spoiled, ready to be thrown out with the sour milk. I’m still not sure I have an answer, but I think it has to do with the difference in feeling like you’re entitled to something as opposed to just wanting it. And I think how severely you react to the disappointments in your life will let you know which side of the fence you fall on.

By the time my cavities were filled and I could no longer open the right side of my mouth, I decided I wasn’t spoiled. Yes, I’m fortunate, but there are so many things a lot bigger than breakfast that don’t go my way. And I didn’t throw a tantrum this morning, I just felt disappointed. More accurately, I felt sad.

A little over three years ago, I was about to break up with my ex. I’d been convinced we were going to get married, but we were fighting all the time, and it was usually about something stupid, like the fact that I wouldn’t go to McDonald’s a block away and get him a McFlurry. (And no, he was not in a wheelchair or somehow unable to walk or drive himself.) Well, I was fucking miserable. Some days I’d just lie in bed and stare at the wall. Then one night we went out to eat at Ed Walker’s, and all I really wanted was a piece of chocolate cake. I had my heart set on it. Like, my life may suck right now, but at least there’s chocolate cake.

So I ask the waitress if they have chocolate cake today, and she says yes. But then she brings German Chocolate Cake, and I start fighting back tears because IT’S NOT THE SAME THING, BITCH.

No, I didn’t say that, but it was probably written all over my face.

Later my ex said that the waitress probably thought I was crazy, which, of course, I was. But I wasn’t crazy because I started crying over German Chocolate Cake–I was crazy because I was dating him. And I was disappointed he wasn’t the one, and I was sad because I loved him, and there was no way in hell that it could work. So I shoved those feelings down at home, and they all came rushing back up as soon as they had a decent chance and I was too focused on chocolate cake to stop them.

So here’s where we ended up, here’s where we coddiwompled. First, the disappointment over breakfast this morning really wasn’t that big of a deal. But it did cause me to stop and realize that there are actually some pretty big disappointments in my life right now, a lot of things bigger than cheap biscuits that haven’t turned out like I thought they would, things that I had my heart set on. And although I don’t want to start feeling sorry for myself, I think it’s okay to feel sad about those things. I think it’s okay to grieve the death of my fantasies. It’s okay to be sad when seasons end. And maybe that means for a while, I need to spoil myself–sleep in a little later, eat my favorite breakfast even if it’s bad for me, go out for chocolate cake. After a while, I’m hoping, sadness will let me go because I listened to it and didn’t shove it down, and then I can strike out with purpose toward an as-yet-unknown destination with nothing to hold me back.

[As a side note, there’s part of me that feels my ex is largely responsible for this blog. In the first place, he’s the reason I went to therapy. In the second, he gave me this laptop. My therapist says that he doesn’t deserve any credit because it was how I responded to the shitty situation that made the difference. But as Andrew Solomon says, “If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes.”]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Just as there’s day and night literally, there’s also day and night emotionally. Like the sun, one minute we’re up, the next minute we’re down. Our perspectives change constantly. There’s nothing wrong with this. The constellations get turned around once a day, so why can’t you and I? Under heaven, there’s room enough for everything–the sun, the moon and stars, and all our emotions. Yes, the universe–our home–is large enough to hold every bit of us.

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