Stepping Out of the Garden

Alexa at age six, before her illness

I stepped out of My Sister's Garden today. I was asked to write a blog about pediatric cancer for sharewik.com. The story is about my child, Alexa, who died at age 7 from brain cancer. You can access the story here:

http://www.sharewik.com/blogs/item/the-saying-is-words-cannot-express-words-can-indeed-express.

Resistance Is Out to Get Me

You, Too, So Watch Out
If You Have Work You Love

Black is black.

Resistance is out to get me. Do the Work! and The War of Art, both by Steven Pressfield, warned me how insidious it is. Today, I am determined to fight the malevolent Resistance, and it’s putting on a show to rival the Fourth of July fireworks I will see tonight.

Cool, damp air beckoned me outside at 7 a.m., the perfect time for summer gardening. Stories were running through my head, so I took Pressfield’s advice and put a small notepad and pen in the back pocket of my Levi’s—no pencil because I figured I surely would get stabbed in the butt. I gave air and light to weed-choked perennials and paused from time to time to jot down a few phrases. I felt accomplished because while I played in the dirt, I also wrote.

The morning progressed quietly; the family was in New Hampshire, and not expected to return until later in the afternoon. My foot was poised to step into my room and write when shrieks ricocheted off the latched door downstairs. Desperate to use the facilities after a two-hour drive, my arriving family almost tore the door off its hinges. “Desperate” doesn’t do it justice: There would have been blood if we had only one bathroom.

I recovered from that shock and longed for my time at the keyboard, but listened to their weekend in review. I ate breakfast. At an opportune time, I sneaked away to start my laundry. I would finally begin writing while it was washing. I offered to wash my daughter Tarah’s black Apple business team shirt because I was doing a dark load. “Thanks,” she said, “as long as it’s dry in time for me to go to work.” No way would it take three hours, so her shirt joined the rest of the darks.

Ah… time to write. I started my story—about garbage, trash on the curb, rotting matter, junk, items that require disposal. I got a good start, after, of course, checking e-mail and Facebook, listening to voicemail, and answering a phone call. All Resistance with a capital R.

Keyboard time arrived at last.  I remembered some notes from earlier, but typed them quickly because I didn’t want to go downstairs again for my notebook. I completed a page and then my other daughter Vee called. She recently spent nine days in a 24-hour-a-day futile effort to save a too-tiny puppy. She is mourning, so I took the call. The call ended and I wrote another paragraph, but it was time to put the wash in the dryer.  I pressed save and trotted down the two flights of stairs to the basement.

“Huh? What’s this? Must have been a tissue in my pocket,” I mused as I saw huge chunks of white fluff on the clothes. My waterlogged pen was the next thing I retrieved from the washer. I then remembered the notebook—now dissolved and splotching every square inch of the darks. “Uh, oh.” Tarah’s work polo looked like a papier-mâché project on black cloth. I shook everything—hard—and put most of the load into the dryer, hoping for a lint-trap rescue. The blackest items went back in the washer with a prayer that the bulk of the paper would wash off.

I trotted back up two flights of stairs to resume writing. I got two more paragraphs into “Garbage” when my phone rang. I checked the ID and noted it was my other daughter who’s caring for the house in Florida while I’m in MA. “I’ll make this quick,” I thought. Hysterical cries seared my left eardrum. “I have a migraine,” she wailed. Problems of other sorts abounded as well. Mommy response runs deep in my veins. I could not, would not, hang up with the words, “You know, I’m writing right now. Can you save this for later?”

Fifteen minutes passed, I ended the call, and returned to writing. Knock knock on my door. Tarah wanted to discuss home renovations.

“Groan. This is Resistance!” I said to myself. “This is the real Resistance.” I knew its face well after reading Pressfield’s book yesterday. It is insidious. It will do anything to keep me from my work, my real work, my life work. I was determined to fight it even though this is when I usually give up, when I say, “Forget it. Why bother trying to write?” This is when I usually go scrub a floor, do another load of laundry, wash dishes, or, why not, check e-mail for the twentieth time. Not today. But… time to check the wash… again.

I removed about a quart of white stuff so the dryer’s lint-trap magic was working. I checked the washer and, blessed relief, the black polo is black; all the black clothes are black. I decided the lint trap would eat anything that remains, so into the hot dryer they went to spin dry and spit off the balance of the lint. Tarah’s shirt was ready in time. I finally accomplished something—no writing, but life, err… Resistance calls.

I again exercised my calves trotting back up the two flights of stairs, sat at the keyboard, and pondered Resistance. The phone rang again. Hysterical daughter is doing better; the migraine is now a simple headache. I put off discussions of travel to conferences and new tires and said, “I really have to get off the phone now.”

I wrote. I wrote about Resistance. If I didn’t believe Pressfield before, I do now. It’s more than just the internal stuff—the voice that says I suck at writing, I’m no good at this, I’ll never be a success. I put the internal stuff on mute yesterday when I committed to writing today. I would ignore the wretched voices that belittle and damage me and keep me from my work. I won that particular Resistance battle.

Resistance, however, used different tactics today—external ones. People clamored for my attention, crises of the family kind engaged me, laundry beckoned me, papier-mâché projects on black clothing vacuumed up my time.

In ten minutes, the dryer will be done. In another five minutes, my plunging blood sugar level will signal that it’s time to eat. In a few more phrases, this story will be near completion. The ongoing battle with Resistance, however, will never be over. In the future, I will look for Resistance not only within, but also without. Resistance is in here, but also out there, and I’m not going to let it get me. After eating lunch and finishing the laundry, I will turn off the phone, put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and write—about garbage—Resistance be damned.

If you want to know more about Resistance (and how to fight it), read The War of Art: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/

Check out Seth Godin as well: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/quieting-the-lizard-brain.html

Zen Habits has a great blog on Resistance, too: http://zenhabits.net/7-powerful-steps-to-overcoming-resistance-and-actually-getting-stuff-done/

Taking License(s) on the Highway

HOT DERN – K8SK8S

Hot Darn! Kate Skates!

O HAPY DZ. Kate skates. Spell check would go into overdrive deciphering license-plate speak during a 1346-mile drive from Florida to Massachusetts. The long, unwinding road from I-95 Exit 156 in Sebastian, FL to I-495, Exit 31, Littleton Common/Groton, MA gets boring. Scenic it is not. The leaf-filled trees overhanging Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway in are a welcome sight after Newark's factories, the gritty streets of New York, and merging hell trying to access the George Washington Bridge. Keeping track of license-plate speak is a great way to keep my eyes busy and my psyche alert.

Personalized license plates abound these days, but it’s hard to figure out what DONUT H8 (do not hate) means when you’re barreling down the road at 75 mph. Having a willing scribe in the passenger seat is helpful at such times. My scribe, my 18-year-old son, however, was not willing and complained most times I called out “FA8 WIZ—write that one down!” Slow-motion, tortoise-style, he would reach for the pen and pad of paper and say, “What was that again?” Meanwhile, I would repeat, “ENDURANC—endurance without the e at the end,” five or six times so I wouldn’t forget.

My enthusiasm was not shared. Some plates were so bad, he refused to even write those down. “I want the bad ones, too!” I would say, “for comparison.” Nothing doing. “I am not writing P LUTTU,” he would flatly state. I finally convinced him to write each one when I took my hands off the wheel and said, “Give me the pad and the pen!” He (wisely) figured anything was better than having his distracto-matic mother writing while driving—even if that meant writing – STAR – when it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Had my scribe been more cooperative, and looked for plates with me, our count would have exceeded 51 I’m certain. Of those 51, a smattering are worthy of sharing (and, of course, my comments).

DOCS MOM and DR MOM 18 mean at least two moms on the highway are proud their offspring is a doctor. Perhaps that child went to an Ivy League university, like one driver. Not content with bragging rights after being admitted to Harvard, he decided none shall forget he still meanders the Cambridge campus: IN HARVD.

Misfires are more common that we might think, even if spelled differently: MIS F1RE and MSFIRE.

When one licensee is not driving, he is doing something else: IRUNALOT.

This driver advises stressed out fellow commuters: ORUN MILA.

It would have been interesting to see these two cars side by side:
EYE BLEAF and FLY2 HVN.

Veterans want us to know they have served and I salute them (in my mind, I must keep my hands on the steering wheel): VETREN and IRAQ 02.

I am blessed to have two of these: GR8 SI5.

Did someone get weary from too many honking horns? RU DEF 2.

One family bought a huge van for their pet: 4R POOH.

I couldn’t figure out if this person likes a state or a gaming console:
ILUV WI.

One driver would B HAVNA better time if she did not spend so much creeping down I-95 in Virginia (along with hundreds of other motorists inching forward minute by minute). At least R RAGIN didn’t get too upset and crept along with the rest of us. Another driver was nonchalant: SHRUG.

“That one’s dumb! I’m not writing it!” said my scribe. “T ROSE is my favorite perfume, so just write it!” I retorted.

We saw an OGRE 5, a misspelled CHOLE, LE DADDY passed us twice, and the University of Florida fan plates must be taken for the most part:
G8TOR 5.

My favorite? K8 SK8S. I picture Kate, ponytail flying behind her, as she whizzes down a sidewalk alongside the Indian River Lagoon, a huge smile on her face. HOT DERN!

Water Is the Hand That Holds the Staff of Life

Thirst That Isn't Always Quenched

Thirst is on my mind these days. Thirst defines my craving throughout the day. Thirst defines the state of my yard. Thirst defines the state of my state—Florida. Summer officially started mere days ago, but we swelter here in the southeast and northwest areas of the state. We are scorched. We thirst. Our land is parched. Water levels in our wells are diminishing. Lake Okeechobee is diminishing. Rainy season is delayed. Mother Nature or whomever is in charge of the skies and the earth in this dehydrated place has turned aside and from a distance views the dusty roads, the evaporating canals, and the withering lawns.

Not enough clouds in this sky

Obsessive-compulsive proclivities in full gear, I watch the sky, I check weather.com. I wait and delight in dark clouds, yet am disappointed when the few spits of rain that fall are quickly sucked into the hot griddle path of concrete that wends it way to my door.

Water glass at my elbow, I quench my bodily thirst throughout the day. Were it so easy, I would attach an elbow and water glass to the outside world and have it replenished as soon as it is drained.

Patience is difficult as I see the green of the earth fade to browns and tans. I want it to rain now. Wanting doesn’t make it happen.

I don’t have facts, figures, and statistics to prove how much the greed of civilization has hastened the browning of the region in which I live. I read about estates using millions (millions!) of gallons of water each month to keep landscaping lush, green, and tropical. During the heat of the noonday sun, I drive past houses and see sprinklers fling precious drops of moisture into the baked air. Others, I am certain, hide under cover of darkness and irrigate away to keep their properties verdant.

I appreciate water in these dry days. I conserve it, and use only sparing amounts to keep my herbs and flowers alive until the rains come. Physical thirst is easily slacked, but even that can be trying. Softened water flowing from my faucets has too high of a sodium content for me to safely drink it. Every week, we head to the reverse-osmosis water-filling station and fill our jugs. We are blessed. We have access to potable water, when millions throughout the globe do not.

I am grateful for that blessing. I am grateful I can take a glass and fill it and drink. Treasuring this gift, I will not waste it.

Artesian describes the well at my home in Massachusetts. It’s 300 feet deep; the water is clear, cold, and tastes marvelous. When I return to New England, at the end of my 1350-mile drive, I pull into the driveway, stop the car, get out, and stretch. I hug the people I love, and then I walk to the kitchen, get a glass from the cabinet, walk to the sink, and fill the glass with that delightful liquid, which I then cherish as every drop flows across my lips and tongue and into my body. “Ah, water is good.”

It’s more than good. It keeps us alive. It’s important to be aware of how we use water, of how we abuse water, of how much it matters to us. If bread is the staff of life, then water is the hand that holds that staff.

What’s the best water you ever tasted? When you next take a drink, can you be grateful for the life-giving essence of water and be mindful of how you use it, how you conserve it, and how you honor it?

Courage to Connect

Missed Connections of the Non-Craigslist Kind

Can I Find the Courage to (Re-)Connect?

Courage to connect? I’m a coward. I am now living my fifty-ninth year of life. Even with the Internet, Facebook, e-mail, and snail mail, I could make a long list of missed connections, and I don’t mean the Craigslist kind. As we age, must our social circles always shrink? I feel the limits of time, the limits of responsibilities, the limits of work and pleasure. Time left over, that nebulous thing called free time, I tend to spend in the circle that emanates toward those with whom I share biology—my children, my grandchildren, my sisters, and their families.

Biology circles, however, have limits. In my biological circles, I share similar cells, DNA, and heredity I embrace as well as heredity I do my best to avoid. Family is foremost, but it isn’t always first in many life experiences. Other connections once existed in abundance for me. I miss those connections. In my teen years, I stayed as far away from my biology as I could. Friends and their families provided me a refuge, because the term dysfunction does not do justice to any definition of what awaited me in that place I lived; it cannot be called home. A living horror, an alcohol-soaked, violence-laden existence was prevalent there. If biology was destiny, I was having none of it.

As an adult, I have managed to escape much of that biological destiny. The scourge of alcoholism and drug addiction are not a part of my life, nor that of my children. I can attribute that to self-determination—alcohol and drugs would not define me, would not be my life. Self-determination aside, during my teen years, I had friends who afforded me a glimpse into what life could be like when I visited their homes and even lived in some of those homes for months at a time. Those glimpses, each one a hiatus from hell, provided me a respite from the dirty biology I faced when I opened the door to a broken house, a broken home, the place myself and my siblings went when there was no place else to go.

I am grateful, infinitely grateful, for that respite, for those times of laughter, love, safety. But I have lost those connections. Time and distance and fear, yes fear, keep me disconnected. I am marked by the days of hell on Date Palm Drive. I fight them, but I’ve been left with a lack of sense of home, a sense of place. I am afraid. I never felt good enough, and I still do not. And it’s not the fault of those with whom I’ve lost connection. They never made me feel less than, not good enough. It’s me. It’s as if I’m afraid I haven’t transcended those awful times, that even the glimpses of normalcy I gained and since achieved were never enough, are not now enough. I’m afraid that someone will think, “You know, she really hasn’t come that far from Date Palm Drive.”

My fear cripples me in many ways socially. Biology is easy. Family is coming… I’m comfortable. I’m free. They know the past. They accept me. But my dis-connection with those outside my family circle hurts people. I imagine they wonder what they’ve done… nothing. I am pained over the connections I have clipped—those I have kept clipped because of my misgivings about myself. It’s time to stop. Even writing this… today’s prompt… is difficult because I have to be honest. I’ve hurt people. I hurt myself. It’s time to widen the circle, to transcend the limits of biology. Friends are part of my destiny as well.

Today, June 22, 2011, this blog post on the “Courage to Connect” is part of participating in the #Trust30 30-day writing challenge from ralphwaldoemerson.me. The prompt for June 22, 2011 can be found here: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/david-spinks

Love My Enemies? How about No!

Must I Really Love My Enemies?

Love my enemies? I don’t think so. The word enemy precludes that whole notion of love. If someone is my enemy, there’s a reason for that status, usually a pretty solid one. I don’t just randomly decide, “Okay, you are my enemy, and I don’t love you.” No, to attain enemy status, a person must commit a grievous error, sin, or action toward me, or especially toward any of my children. Therefore, I do not love that person. In fact, once someone has achieved enemy status in my scorekeeping book of life, I don’t want anyone else to love them, either.

Love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness (a whole other topic) are difficult enough to extend to those I love on a regular basis because relationships are a challenge. After someone has crossed into enemy territory, it becomes a gargantuan feat to even think about love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. A huge part of me prefers the “eye-for-an-eye” approach, the feud that passes from generation to generation, the path of “I don’t love you, and I’ll do my best to make certain that no one loves you.”

Ah, but it’s a rocky path. That path, the enemy path, is harder to navigate than the one of love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness. I make that path and cultivate thorns on it. I place vipers where footsteps fall. I nurture tangles of poison ivy. I keep it just navigable, however, so that even though difficult to traverse, I can continue my sordid quest.

It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. The verse I read this morning in Luke 6:27, “Love your enemies,” doesn’t say anything about it being easy to love my enemies. Buddhism, Judaism, and other world religions advise against holding a grudge and keeping the fires of hatred burning. The very word “holding” implies the weight of any grudge we carry. To keep a fire burning, it must be fed. To continue to hate my enemy, I have to gather the wood to feed that fire, the wood made of anger, hurt, pity, resentment, and minutes, hours, and days of my life devoted to that bitter harvest.

But, I don’t want to love my enemy. Hating, criticizing, trashing, gossiping, and carrying grudges generate a huge adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is addicting. However, do I want my inability to love my enemies to suck up my life force? Do I want or need anger and lack of love to produce negative energy?

“Can’t I continue to not love my enemies?” I ask myself. “No, you can’t!” echoes the voice inside my head. Maybe it’s God, maybe it’s a good friend, maybe it’s someone who loves me in spite of everything I’ve done to become their enemy. (The voice also sounds a bit like Jillian Michaels in the 30-Day Shred DVD.) In any event, it’s clear. No, I can’t continue to not love my enemies.

Conversely, agape, selfless love of one person for another, produces a feeling of calm contentment. It’s light, airy, free floating. It’s a tall order to focus on agape, to let go of anger, hurt, and resentment--to banish adrenaline-inducing enemy emotions to another arena in which I no longer am a combatant.

Love my enemies, really love my enemies? Just thinking about it produces a thud in my gut. Can I do this? Is it possible? Great examples exist of loving our enemies: Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus. Nameless, non-famous people also move about our lives with a cheery smile, a warm greeting, a hand held out to help, a happy disposition, a free heart because they have learned to love their enemies.

It’s unrealistic for me to say, “Okay, I’m better now. I have changed. I will love everyone.” That probably will not happen quite so quickly. Aspiring to any change, a positive change, is the beginning of making such a change. Perhaps the next time I enter enemy territory, I won’t wield my spear, but instead take a silent step forward, my heart open, my hand extended in peace and my white flag lightly lifted by a cool breeze. It’s not exactly love, but it is a step on a path that in my heart I know I want to take.

Enthusiasm Versus the Blank Page

Enthusiasm is not a solo emotion. Enthusiasm experienced alone can and does go flat. Enthusiasm speaks to me of sharing words, thoughts, energy, action. Enthusiasm can cast its aura on everything I do, but when I am in a solitary state, that enthusiasm can be lonely, and can lose its spark. I am enthusiastic about my work, when I can silence the voices telling me it’s not my work. However, when my work is done, if I have no one with whom to share it, the venture becomes stale. I see my enthusiasm wilt; it deflates like a week-old helium balloon. The Internet and blogging certainly help stimulate and maintain enthusiasm. Stories and books and poetry are no longer banished to closed spiral notebooks stacked on a closet shelf (although some probably should be). I can write, edit, and publish, and bring my words to others. I can say “Ha! I did it!” as soon as I push the publish button.

To be more excited—yes, enthusiastic—about my work, I long to share it with a colleague. Three summers ago, I worked on a series of preschool through middle school-level tests with a friend/writer/editor. Our best days were spent parsing a phrase, turning a word, basting a paragraph to perfection. I miss that, but writing is a solo venture. Writing groups help, editors help, but when it comes right down to it, writers face a blank page, a blank document, and a blinking cursor.  else but enthusiasm, even if it is a keen, quiet, determined, and focused enthusiasm, can fill that page, fill that document, and move that cursor along the line.

Today, June 21, 2011, with this blog post, I am participating in the #Trust30 30-day writing challenge from ralphwaldoemerson.me. The prompt for June 21, 2011 can be found here: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/mars-dorian.