Nelson
For a great many years, I have played a mean game of musical chairs at work. We have acquired big companies resulting in duplication and layoffs. We have spun off parts of the business resulting in workforce reduction. We have restructured and eliminated entire divisions to stay agile and profitable or to, quite frankly, move the work to more affordable offshore options. For at least 18 out of the 20 years I have needed to both (1) look over my shoulder and (2) navigate what might be ahead.
This past year my employer told me that I would need to relocate to Georgia, Idaho, California or Oregon or lose my job. The only consideration was my zip code. I was able to locate another job in the company that includes travel and customer interaction so I was able to stay on the payroll and in Fairport, NY. This time. Barely. And just after I became situated there was an announcement that another 30,000 employees (10% of the employee base) will lose their jobs in the not so distant future. Perhaps me this time.
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The Beauty of Ashland
I do not know how to describe this place to honor it properly. Or how to ever repay it for the kindness and healing it has shown me. But, I will do my best with my simple words so that, even for one second, you can ‘feel’ it, too.
Peace flags faded from sunlight hang askew from porch dormers. And the uneven steps prop bright colored pots full of chive, dianthus and chamomile which people pluck directly to season their meals; even the restaurants. Every porch is inviting with a swing and creations by local artisans crafted from metal and retimbered wood; punctuated with mosaic bird baths and resident blue jays who live out loud.
Pollen gardens invite me to lie in the grass in the shade of the nearby Redwoods and the bees are more interested in the flowers than in me so I just listen to the buzz of their wings; to the buzz of real living happening all around me.
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The Sitters
There is something unique about the bonds we have with people from our childhood. They are the ones who watched us take a header over the handlebars, gracelessly break someone’s heart in 7th grade or accidentally squish a toad to death by loving it too hard. They were there. From the beginning. And therefore know all of ‘us’.
Our particular neighborhood was filled with Hirsch homes and Dutch Colonials. It was also filled with children between the ages of 9 and 0. Oodles of us running around in packs who would descend upon someone’s yard together for a game of Wiffle Ball or Kick the Can. I later came to learn that the stay-at- home mom’s had a secret pact that the woman who lived where they landed would be responsible for the entire bunch until they moved on. This is when the other women sat for a minute with Reader’s Digest or took a bubble bath.
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Not a Word
They were lovely. The letters, that is. Actually, more so the words themselves. Or perhaps what lived inside of those words which was truth.
Those words and their precious cargo arrived at first with trepidation in short staccato sentences. Clumsy. Nervous. If they had palms they would have been sweaty.
But, over time they blossomed. Rotund in fact. Plump and full of candor; with a heartbeat and a pulse. Completely naked and sweaty everywhere as we would soon be ourselves.
Our words danced.
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Opinions
“Other people’s opinions are driven by their needs and emotions – not by magical insights about my worth.”
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Understanding Contentment
This ‘balance thing’ is difficult.
• Live with intention – but let things flow.
• Focus – and breathe.
• Change – and accept.
• Feel whatever you feel – and then feel gratitude for it (including those things that hurt).
• Understand your wholeness – outside of your story.
For me, these things are more challenging than learning to write with my non-dominant hand. Or mastering a yoga balance pose on shifting sand. Or apologizing (particularly when I know I am the one who is wrong). Or listening patiently when I have something to say. Or being open to examining myself ~ truly examining myself ~ and then being willing to change.
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Balance
“I can’t make those two realities – what I’ve lost and what I’ve found – fit together in some tidy pattern of divine causality. I just have to hold them on the one hand and on the other, just like that”
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Cornfields and Character
It is unprecedented to have a fast pitch softball team remain intact for six years. Unprecedented. But, for every summer weekend for these last six years we have met in remote places like Hamburg, Saugerties, Cheektowaga, Cicero and Horseheads which are tired, sleepy towns outside of ‘bigger’ cities like Buffalo, Syracuse or Albany. Sometimes we travel further. Cedar Point, OH. Ocean City, MD. But, for the most part, we are beckoned to a complex of softball fields past the local John Deere Tractor Supply or the Feed & Seed. If we’re lucky, adjacent to a nearby soft serve ice cream stand complete with a large but faded hand-painted cone on the exterior of the tiny building. But, there isn’t much else. Just cornfields. And yet, we all look forward to it because we know that we are privately witnessing something exceptional.
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De Facto
De facto – adverb, adjective. actually existing, especially when without lawful authority
I am this; the de facto expert that I never wanted to be.
Last week, three women sought my help. I’m not really sure why. I don’t know if they just recognize it in me. Or if the news of my writing and eventual documentary have begun to circulate. But, I do know that each and every one of them has that wide-eyed look that I have too often seen in the mirror. It is as if they have just witnessed the death of a loved one when what has actually died is their sense of safety in this world and their belief that ‘it’ would never happen to them.
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Pursuit
I have been watching a disrespectful debate largely in silence for long enough.
Scratch that. It’s not accurate to call it a debate. It’s more like shots fired over the bow in social media postings, passing comments, and blogs with the intention to diminish others who make a different but equally difficult choice.
The subject? The privilege of calling oneself an artist.
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The Last Train Out
I spent the weekend revisiting the City that I tried to make my 2nd Home. This time I visited it alone.
Yes, my flip flops were in the corner of his apartment on Dorchester in Brooklyn, and my satin robe with the pink trim was on the back of his door. There were tampons in the bathroom, nail polish on the dresser and art that I created adorned every room along with pictures of us together. And his key was on my keychain so that I was always welcome.
I visited often. But it never became the nest we both intended it would for me.
Moving about in this giant City was difficult for an empath. Too many people’s everything screamed like screeching brakes. It went right through me as if I were opaque and leaving metal shards. For five and one half years I tried hard to love it as much as he did; because he did.
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Guerrilla Healing
Two weeks ago something terrible happened in my life. Two things in fact. On the same day. That’s all you really need to know.
What I want to write about is why those things happened and what I have since done about it.
For my entire life I have stashed my emotions into containers unfit to hold them for long periods of time and placed them in chambers on makeshift shelves with the lids askew. I did this, in part, because I thought they were bigger than me and would consume me if I gave them space. And, in part, because my unyielding life did not afford me the time and emotional energy to deal with them as they arrived. But in doing so I allowed them to ferment untended taking on shapes and meaning and power that they never should have had. Blue tinctures; wild, fiery tonics resembling Jack Daniels but with a bigger bite; black sludge in gallon containers set upon narrow oak planks too meager for their girth; clear liquid in vessels with hand etched notes reading “Flammable. Do Not Drink.” Some that smoldered. Poison.
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