On Being Stuck with Yourself (Blog #955)

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Lately I’ve been talking about my need for patience. I still don’t have any. At least today anyway. All I want to do is scream. For whatever reason, I’m currently Mr. Cranky Pants.

In an effort to keep my bad mood away from the rest of the world, I’ve spent this afternoon and evening locked away in my room watching movies. First I watched Damn Yankees, the musical about Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO, starring Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, and Ray Walston. Then I watched Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. Somehow I missed this one in the nineties. (I must have been busy in the closet.) Anyway, you know the film–“Show me the money,” “You had me at hello,” “I DID NOT SHOPLIFT THE POOTIE.”

Unfortunately, these wonderful films did little to uplift my spirits. It’s just been one of those days. This evening I stopped up the toilet. Later as I was leaving one room for another, I whipped around and hit my forehead on the doorframe. I can’t tell you how unamused I was.

Earlier this week I had acupuncture, and the lady read my pulses. Supposedly they reveal a lot about you. Feeling my right wrist, she said, “Stressed?” Uh, yeah, who isn’t? Then she felt my left wrist and said, “Are you VERY depressed?” I mean, she didn’t even asked if I WAS depressed, but rather stated it as a fact. Like, I know you are depressed, now tell me how bad it is.

“I don’t think I am,” I said. “It runs in my family, but I don’t struggle with it.”

Of course, her comment was the wrong thing to say to a hypochondriac. You know the power of suggestion. I started thinking, Maybe I am depressed. This lady could know something I don’t. I mean, my pulses SAID. Crazy, I know. (Don’t worry, I’m in therapy.) But seriously, it took me a while to convince myself that I knew more about my mental states than a total stranger did. (A very nice lady, but a total stranger.) A couple years ago I saw a woman who claimed to be able to interpret my physical health by looking into my irises, and although she gave me a long list of things that she thought were wrong, she said NOTHING about my sinuses, my major complaint at the time. My point is that just because someone has a certificate hanging on their wall (my therapist would call it a receipt) doesn’t mean they know more about you and your body than you do.

Take these things with a grain of salt.

Maybe the whole shaker.

All this being said, days like today make me think I could spend more time acknowledging my feelings. Not that I’m depressed–I’ve been depressed before and know what that feels like–but on a lot of levels I am worn down, frustrated, and irritated. Just last night I unearthed two emotions (anger and overwhelm) that were decades old. And whereas I’d like to think that one can take the lid off Pandora’s emotional box and be free from all consequences within twenty-four hours, I know that’s foolishness. No, if you’re going to invite your feelings over to play, you can’t tell them to go home for dinner. First of all, you are home. Second of all, your feelings show up and leave when they want to.

In other words, you’re struck with yourself.

Don’t worry. This is a good thing. In the story of Pandora’s box, the LAST emotion to come out, the one with the final say, was HOPE.

The poet Rumi said, “In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a sack; Sometimes Love hoists me into the air, Sometimes Love flings me to the ground.” To me this means that no matter what kind of day you’re having, there’s love underneath it all–somewhere. For example, in the midst of my frustrations today, I’ve managed to laugh–at the movies I watched, at my life (if it were anyone else’s it’d be hilarious), at my own stubbornness (I will have a bad day, I will). On an ever deeper level, my emotions have been inviting me to come back to myself, to make room for even this. So often when I have an uncomfortable feeling, I want it to go away. But more and more I’m realizing the work is about accepting all parts of yourself right here, right now. Even your frustrations, irritations, and anger.

In light of this, I’m considering getting a t-shirt made–Bad attitudes welcome here. And on the back–My bad attitudes, not yours.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Storms don’t define us, they refine us.

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On Being Distressed (Blog #604)

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It’s just before midnight, and my body is in rebellion. First, my energy meter has been in the red all day. Second, the muscles in my back are on all-out strike. I’m not sure what it is. My shoulder’s been jacked up for a couple months now. I should probably do something to fix that, like other than hope and pray about it. Because that ain’t working. Nor is Tylenol. And did I mention that I have dry skin on my right elbow? Ugh. It’s all so overwhelming.

I’m just falling apart.

Yesterday a high school senior in Alma I met while working backstage at The Wizard of Oz invited me to come paint sets with her for the school’s upcoming production of The Addams Family (a musical). So this afternoon I took the opportunity to get out of the house and out of my head. And whereas it was tough on my body (my right shoulder is seriously pissed about my decision to make it work), it ended up being the perfect thing for my soul. First, there were other people there, so I got some human interaction. Second, I pretty much got an entire set piece–the stairs–all to myself. So I got to do what I wanted. Well, three of us did put the base coat–brown–on the stair rails and spindles, but then I put on a second coat of gray and a third coat of black solo.

Here’s a picture of where I left things this evening about 10:30. To be clear, someone else did the walls. I just worked on the stairs and railing.

It takes a village.

Here’s another picture from the side of the stairs, closer up, so you can see the different colors. Adding gray and black on top of the brown is one way to make new wood look old, and in theater, sets that have had this done are referred to as being “distressed.” Once they add in the correct lighting–Voila!–it’ll look totally creepy and kooky (and all together ooky).

Distressed. That’s how I’ve felt lately. Not only is my body out of whack (it’s hurting as we speak), but I also don’t know what to do with my life. Better said, I don’t know HOW to make my dreams come true. This is a tape that plays constantly in my head–that I SHOULD be doing SOMETHING more than I am–but I don’t KNOW what that thing is. Talk about stressful. Meanwhile, I really don’t feel well enough TO BE DOING any additional work. So in my best moments, I try to be thankful that I have time to rest, take things easy, and figure things out.

Recently I read this poem by the mystic Rumi–

The spiritual path wrecks the body
and afterwards restores it to health.
It destroys the house to unearth the treasure,
and with that treasure builds it better than before.

Boy, if that first line doesn’t make you want to be spiritual, I don’t know what will. Seriously, I’m always saying I don’t recommend this work, and here’s yet another reason why. Your body will suffer. Let’s put THAT on a church billboard and see who shows up on Sunday morning. That being said, the part about the body being restored sounds pretty delightful. Ugh. I’m personally still waiting on that part, the being-put-back-together part. And that’s okay. Things are better than they were a year ago. Really, better than they’ve been for the last twenty years, at least in terms of sinus infections. I haven’t had one of those in about eight months. That’s huge. Plus, it clearly takes time to distress oneself, so it’s only natural that it would take time to un-distress oneself as well.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Beating yourself up is a far cry from self-respect."

believing in magic (blog #12)

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​About a month ago, my therapist gave me a book called Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There. She kind of stuck it in my face and read me the title three times in a row–I guess for emphasis. Maybe she thought I needed to chill the eff out. (She probably got this idea from me, since I’d just said that I needed to chill the eff out and stop judging myself for sleeping in and not being productive constantly.)

The book is written by Sylvia Boorstein, a Buddhist, and is about developing the practice of mindfulness, or being in the present moment. (Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a Buddhist in order to be mindful.) There’s a concept Sylvia talks about called “seeing with fresh eyes” that’s been popping into my head a lot, especially today. It’s the idea that you can look at something as if you’ve never seen it before.

So tonight I drove about an hour to Springdale to teach a dance class, and on my way home, I kept noticing the full moon. And it’s like part of me thought, Oh yeah, there’s the moon. But then I thought about seeing with fresh eyes, and it was the most gorgeous thing, this floating, glowing, giant orb, hovering over the shadowy mountains, illuminating the night. I mean, have you ever just stared at the moon? (If not, I don’t recommend trying it while you’re driving. But still, definitely try it.)

The poet Rumi says, “Trade your cleverness for bewilderment.” I could be wrong, but I think this is the same idea as seeing with fresh eyes. I know that for me it’s so easy to look at things like the moon, or another person, or the fact that I don’t really have a job right now and automatically label or judge it. It’s easy for me to be clever, to think that I know what something means, like, this sucks because I said so. But I think what Sylvia and Rumi are suggesting is that fresh eyes don’t judge. They look at things in wonder. Every moment, every moon is new. Each face is beautiful. Sitting there is just as good as doing something, maybe even better.

After dance tonight, I had dinner with my friend Andrew. (That’s his picture above. Obviously, he blinked.) When I told him I didn’t know what I was going to write about later, he asked what I did today. I told him I went to Springdale to teach, so he said I should write about the tunnel you have to drive through to get to Springdale. At first I thought that was a terrible idea. I mean, it’s just a tunnel (it’s just a moon), but then Andrew, who recently turned twenty-eight years old, kept talking. He said that every single time he goes through the tunnel, he holds his breath and makes a wish. Well, he also touches a piece of metal (like his key ring), which I didn’t know was a thing, but he said was “basic wishology.” He said this hold-your-breath-and-go-through-the-tunnel-while-touching-a-piece-of-metal ritual had been going on for close to nine years now.

Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?

Honestly, I think it’s beautiful. Maybe it’s a little superstitious, but beautiful nonetheless. I think it’s like looking at life with fresh eyes, trading your cleverness for bewilderment. Andrew called it believing in magic. And whereas I don’t know that I want to start holding my breath every time I go through a tunnel (I have terrible lung capacity), I do think I want to renew my belief that anything can happen. What’s more, anything can happen even without my having to do something every minute of every day. Anything can happen while I’m just sitting here. I mean, there’s a moon in the sky!

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Patting yourself on the back is better than beating yourself over the head.

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