Monday, April 14, 2008
happy
It's true. Today I have been happy. I'm happy right now, in fact. Not just "not depressed." Happy. It's a beautiful thing. Wonderful. I am savouring it.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
the illusion of adulthood
I've noticed that a lot of people in my age group (the folk that have to check the 35-45 box on the surveys), experience angst related to the notion that by this age they should have everything-- or, at least more-- figured out. I have a better plan. It's all about making it up as you go along and cherishing the creativity in that.
My theory is that when you're a child, your need to feel safe/protected requires a belief that the adults in your world are capable people with all the answers. Adults are wont to disabuse children of this notion, never mind that they're not really feeling capable and full of answers themselves. They're willing to fake it-- because they grew up with the same notion, because they don't want to let down the kids, and sometimes because they like the power involved. So, we grow up with this seriously flawed expectation that adults know what they're doing-- a useful ruse, but highly inaccurate, and really unhelpful when you hit the age that you think is undeniably Adult. Better to let go of that, embrace the fact that life is about making educated guesses with authenticity and integrity and with a great deal of hope that it's all going to work out well, and believe that if you make mistakes and take wrong turns, God can work with it anyway.
It's about putting one foot in front of the other, taking risks, accepting failures, and remembering at all times that even if you screw up, God can make good use of any situation. Walking in the liberty of that is preferable by far to walking under the weight of Expectation.
Liberty. Creativity. Why choose angst with regard to unmet expectations over these lofty and beautiful notions?
My theory is that when you're a child, your need to feel safe/protected requires a belief that the adults in your world are capable people with all the answers. Adults are wont to disabuse children of this notion, never mind that they're not really feeling capable and full of answers themselves. They're willing to fake it-- because they grew up with the same notion, because they don't want to let down the kids, and sometimes because they like the power involved. So, we grow up with this seriously flawed expectation that adults know what they're doing-- a useful ruse, but highly inaccurate, and really unhelpful when you hit the age that you think is undeniably Adult. Better to let go of that, embrace the fact that life is about making educated guesses with authenticity and integrity and with a great deal of hope that it's all going to work out well, and believe that if you make mistakes and take wrong turns, God can work with it anyway.
It's about putting one foot in front of the other, taking risks, accepting failures, and remembering at all times that even if you screw up, God can make good use of any situation. Walking in the liberty of that is preferable by far to walking under the weight of Expectation.
Liberty. Creativity. Why choose angst with regard to unmet expectations over these lofty and beautiful notions?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
pretty girl discount (PDG)
"Pretty Girl Discount" is the phrase I use to refer to the times when good-looking people (generally women) get special treatment just because they're good-looking. Attractive people get better service, get little extras, get away with things that others don't. It's not fair. It is, however, the way of the world. It genuinely irritates justice-loving me, but I'm pragmatic enough to not get my knickers in a knot about it. It's not a behaviour I like, but it's a behaviour I understand. The real challenge for me, though, is that lately, from time to time, for the first time in my life, I seem to be on the receiving end of it. Egad!
How did this happen? I consider myself pretty ordinary looking. I've never been what you'd call a "looker", not model material. It took me years of therapy and personal mental and emotional work to get beyond the low self-esteem fostered by powerful forces in my childhood and youth, but I did manage to get beyond it, to get to a place of health and and an acceptance of my body, my looks, me. But Pretty Girl Discount was outside my experience.
Then....
I took up working out on the seawall pretty seriously (five or six hours a week, to maintain mental balance),
and changed my eating habits (depression and pneumonia knocked my appetite out for a month or so and then I adopted new habits-- eating less than my previous habitual consumption dictated),
and started going blonde (it's white or grey that's mixing in with my strawberry-blonde hair, but if everyone wants to see my hair as blonde, why not let them?),
and started wearing nothing but dresses and skirts with separates (I fell in love with Narcissist Design Company when I hit a fabulous a warehouse sale and it changed my wardrobe completely),
and took up tango (dancing 6 to 12 hours a week).
The culminating effect? In the words of my favourite tanguero, "You're tall and blonde and have a beautiful body, so of course you'll get a lot of attention on the dance floor." What!?!? The shocking thing is, I can't deny it. It's true. I'm tall. I'm blonde. I have a beautiful body. And I find myself regularly in a setting that is not shy about acknowledging this. There are men-- actual living, breathing men who think I'm "hot" (their word). Oh dear.
On the one hand, it's just delicious. I get asked to dance, asked out, flirted with. I turn heads. (What a bizarre sensation!) Shopping isn't the hell it once was. I wear a size 6 or 8 instead of a 12 or 14. All of this would have been a lot handier when I was 24, or even 32, but if I get a short run at it at 42, I'm not going to turn my back on it. I know it won't last.
On the other hand, it's uncomfortable. I get asked to dance, asked out, flirted with. The attention is not always welcome. I worry about being the object of jealousy, despised by the women who want desperately to dance but end up sitting on the sidelines waiting. I worry about being liked for what I look like rather than for who I am. I'd rather be judged for my generosity or intelligence than my figure. I don't like that when a particular gentleman gives me extra attention on the dance floor, my regular dance partners assume I'm "with" someone and no longer ask me to dance. I don't like it when a milonga turns into a competition (a.k.a. pissing contest) instead of a simple evening out with everyone looking to enjoy themselves. I don't like how behaviours change. How some get shy, some get bold, some get ridiculous.
It's all been a bit odd. Generally, I keep my head on my shoulders and just enjoy the fact that I'm at what is probably the highest fitness level of my life. I'm strong and healthy. I haven't had a cold all winter. Clothes fit me better and that makes it easier to face the world, somehow. I feel closer to the "je me sens bien dans ma peau" holy grail I've been seeking all my life. BUT relationships are just as complicated as ever, men are as confusing as ever, my spiritual life is as wracked with doubt as ever, my dreams feels as unattainable and as undeniable as ever, and I'm still not sure where I'm going or how I'm going to get there. Pretty Girl Discount doesn't make anything easier, it just changes the problems a bit; some are smaller, others are bigger, nothing much is clearer.
In sum, Pretty Girl Discount isn't all I thought it was.
How did this happen? I consider myself pretty ordinary looking. I've never been what you'd call a "looker", not model material. It took me years of therapy and personal mental and emotional work to get beyond the low self-esteem fostered by powerful forces in my childhood and youth, but I did manage to get beyond it, to get to a place of health and and an acceptance of my body, my looks, me. But Pretty Girl Discount was outside my experience.
Then....
I took up working out on the seawall pretty seriously (five or six hours a week, to maintain mental balance),
and changed my eating habits (depression and pneumonia knocked my appetite out for a month or so and then I adopted new habits-- eating less than my previous habitual consumption dictated),
and started going blonde (it's white or grey that's mixing in with my strawberry-blonde hair, but if everyone wants to see my hair as blonde, why not let them?),
and started wearing nothing but dresses and skirts with separates (I fell in love with Narcissist Design Company when I hit a fabulous a warehouse sale and it changed my wardrobe completely),
and took up tango (dancing 6 to 12 hours a week).
The culminating effect? In the words of my favourite tanguero, "You're tall and blonde and have a beautiful body, so of course you'll get a lot of attention on the dance floor." What!?!? The shocking thing is, I can't deny it. It's true. I'm tall. I'm blonde. I have a beautiful body. And I find myself regularly in a setting that is not shy about acknowledging this. There are men-- actual living, breathing men who think I'm "hot" (their word). Oh dear.
On the one hand, it's just delicious. I get asked to dance, asked out, flirted with. I turn heads. (What a bizarre sensation!) Shopping isn't the hell it once was. I wear a size 6 or 8 instead of a 12 or 14. All of this would have been a lot handier when I was 24, or even 32, but if I get a short run at it at 42, I'm not going to turn my back on it. I know it won't last.
On the other hand, it's uncomfortable. I get asked to dance, asked out, flirted with. The attention is not always welcome. I worry about being the object of jealousy, despised by the women who want desperately to dance but end up sitting on the sidelines waiting. I worry about being liked for what I look like rather than for who I am. I'd rather be judged for my generosity or intelligence than my figure. I don't like that when a particular gentleman gives me extra attention on the dance floor, my regular dance partners assume I'm "with" someone and no longer ask me to dance. I don't like it when a milonga turns into a competition (a.k.a. pissing contest) instead of a simple evening out with everyone looking to enjoy themselves. I don't like how behaviours change. How some get shy, some get bold, some get ridiculous.
It's all been a bit odd. Generally, I keep my head on my shoulders and just enjoy the fact that I'm at what is probably the highest fitness level of my life. I'm strong and healthy. I haven't had a cold all winter. Clothes fit me better and that makes it easier to face the world, somehow. I feel closer to the "je me sens bien dans ma peau" holy grail I've been seeking all my life. BUT relationships are just as complicated as ever, men are as confusing as ever, my spiritual life is as wracked with doubt as ever, my dreams feels as unattainable and as undeniable as ever, and I'm still not sure where I'm going or how I'm going to get there. Pretty Girl Discount doesn't make anything easier, it just changes the problems a bit; some are smaller, others are bigger, nothing much is clearer.
In sum, Pretty Girl Discount isn't all I thought it was.
Monday, March 17, 2008
time and tango
I've been living in a different time zone for a while. Technically speaking I'm still operating on Pacific Standard Time like everyone else in Vancouver, but there's been a shift in my experience of it. Even though there are twenty-four hours in the day and sixty minutes in every hour and sixty seconds in every minute (and why 60 and not something even and metric like 100?), time expands and contracts for me in ways that are entirely independent of the rotation of the planet around the sun.
I work. A lot. I had two days off in all of February. Two so far this month. I worked twelve to sixteen hours a day for a couple of weeks. I take the time to work out pretty much every day, and I remember to eat, but for the rest, the working hours fly by. When you're trying to be hyper-productive, the passage of time seems more intense. The tick-tock rhythm of an hour is replaced with a more pressing stacatto rhythm, an urgent pace, pressing, pressing, pressing. It's exhausting.
The thing that saved me in these past weeks was tango. In spite of the long work hours, I only missed two milongas in the last month or so. Tango creates a place, a space where time strangely expands for me. Fatigue falls away, and even though my body is moving to the lilting strains of the bandoneon, it's as if time stands still. (The irony there is, of course, that however luscious it is, tango music like any music is as markedly bound by time as the hands of a clock.) Maybe it's because tango music weaves together all that is tragic and all that is beautiful about love and life, so that the polar opposites balance each other and thus generate a poignant inertia. Maybe it's because I'm so utterly possessed by my body when I dance that my brain, accustomed as it is to being in charge, has to slip into neutral, like a manual transmission, just to avoid stripping the gears and the net result is a feeling of timelessness. Or maybe I'm just so desperate for a break that my mind plays tricks on me so that my few hours on the dance floor feel like a grand get-away to Buenos Aires. Honestly, I don't much care why tango twists my perception of time, I'm just glad it does. I don't understand phosphorescence either, but that doesn't bother me.
I know a couple of people who refuse to give me any sympathy for being tired because they know that I'm still going out to dance in spite of the long work hours. They don't get why I'd choose tango over sleep when I'm so tired. I know it doesn't make sense, but I also know that if my life were defined solely by working hours and time spent unconscious, I might just as well throw in the towel. I need truth and beauty in my life. I love my work, but there's got to be more. Thank God for tango.
A picture's worth a thousand words. See if time doesn't stand still for you when you watch this.
And, yes, while I don't look anywhere near that polished and my boléos are less dramatic and I don't have red shoes (yet) and the spotlight is never on me nor is the lighting ever that dramatic, I can do this. And, yes, it's that delicious. (Especially when I dance with Lucio or The Russian. Sigh.)
I work. A lot. I had two days off in all of February. Two so far this month. I worked twelve to sixteen hours a day for a couple of weeks. I take the time to work out pretty much every day, and I remember to eat, but for the rest, the working hours fly by. When you're trying to be hyper-productive, the passage of time seems more intense. The tick-tock rhythm of an hour is replaced with a more pressing stacatto rhythm, an urgent pace, pressing, pressing, pressing. It's exhausting.
The thing that saved me in these past weeks was tango. In spite of the long work hours, I only missed two milongas in the last month or so. Tango creates a place, a space where time strangely expands for me. Fatigue falls away, and even though my body is moving to the lilting strains of the bandoneon, it's as if time stands still. (The irony there is, of course, that however luscious it is, tango music like any music is as markedly bound by time as the hands of a clock.) Maybe it's because tango music weaves together all that is tragic and all that is beautiful about love and life, so that the polar opposites balance each other and thus generate a poignant inertia. Maybe it's because I'm so utterly possessed by my body when I dance that my brain, accustomed as it is to being in charge, has to slip into neutral, like a manual transmission, just to avoid stripping the gears and the net result is a feeling of timelessness. Or maybe I'm just so desperate for a break that my mind plays tricks on me so that my few hours on the dance floor feel like a grand get-away to Buenos Aires. Honestly, I don't much care why tango twists my perception of time, I'm just glad it does. I don't understand phosphorescence either, but that doesn't bother me.
I know a couple of people who refuse to give me any sympathy for being tired because they know that I'm still going out to dance in spite of the long work hours. They don't get why I'd choose tango over sleep when I'm so tired. I know it doesn't make sense, but I also know that if my life were defined solely by working hours and time spent unconscious, I might just as well throw in the towel. I need truth and beauty in my life. I love my work, but there's got to be more. Thank God for tango.
A picture's worth a thousand words. See if time doesn't stand still for you when you watch this.
And, yes, while I don't look anywhere near that polished and my boléos are less dramatic and I don't have red shoes (yet) and the spotlight is never on me nor is the lighting ever that dramatic, I can do this. And, yes, it's that delicious. (Especially when I dance with Lucio or The Russian. Sigh.)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
sharing
I have been vividly reminded these past weeks of how blessed I am with quality friendships. I am SO not alone. I find life hard often, but I have such loving and tender support. I regret that I do not always see it embracing me; lies of loneliness are awfully effective.
I identify with the ancient Hebrew symbolism of water-- vast and stormy oceans of water-- signifying chaos. I long for still waters, a calm blue bay, but my voyage often leaves me feeling adrift and storm-tossed. But I'm not alone in the boat. My friends journey with me, sometimes offering me care that I don't even know I need until it's offered.
I don't have time to explore this further this morning, but will come back to it, I think, to fortify my sense of companionship in this crazy thing called life. In the meantime, thank you my friends for the times you know me better than I know myself, for the times you force me to challenge my views, for the grace with which you love me.
I identify with the ancient Hebrew symbolism of water-- vast and stormy oceans of water-- signifying chaos. I long for still waters, a calm blue bay, but my voyage often leaves me feeling adrift and storm-tossed. But I'm not alone in the boat. My friends journey with me, sometimes offering me care that I don't even know I need until it's offered.
I don't have time to explore this further this morning, but will come back to it, I think, to fortify my sense of companionship in this crazy thing called life. In the meantime, thank you my friends for the times you know me better than I know myself, for the times you force me to challenge my views, for the grace with which you love me.
Monday, February 11, 2008
rapunzel
I just had a lovely conversation with one of my favourite three year-olds. She's got one of the most vivid and consistent imaginations of anyone I know. She can maintain presence as a cartoon character for days on end, never slipping up and referring to herself by her real name. These days she spends a lot of time as Super Why, a character on a PBS early learning show. In Super Why's world my name is not Moaike but Rapunzel, which I rather like, in spite of the drama and horror of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale. I, Rapunzel, just got a phone call from Super Why in which she explained, "Super Why's alter ego is Wyatt." "Alter ego," she said! Her vocabulary knocks my socks off. Her imagination knocks my socks off. Her joy in life knocks my socks off. I think, today, I'm going to try for a happy version of Rapunzel, I'll have neither witch nor prince climbing into my castle to complicate my day as I'll keep my hair tucked neatly in place for a bit of tower time. Just me and my art/work.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
forgiveness
Forgiveness as a concept is very, very simple. In practice it's ridiculously complex. I think it's no accident that the prayer for forgiveness comes right after the prayer for bread in the Lord's Prayer. I think if I had an ample supply of bread and forgiveness, I'd be set for the journey. Thinking of the Lord's Prayer, I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that it's not just a prayer request to be forgiven for our myriad shortcomings, it's also a plea for ample stores of forgiveness to dish out to those who hurt us.
Today, my heart compelled me to extend forgiveness to someone who'd hurt me quite profoundly. I knew it was the right thing to do, to lay out the offense for consideration, to call a spade a spade, to accept an apology, forgive and move on. The problem is, the act of forgiving, speaking the words, is no magic bullet. I'm still feeling the pain of the wound. Quite frankly, it's pissing me off that the remorse I saw when discussing the injury, the remorse that prompted my forgiveness, is no longer in evidence. It's bugging me that the forgiven party is moving on as if the offense had never taken place. Never mind that I'm still bruised and bleeding. I want him to feel bad, to experience a profound and debilitating chagrin for at least as long as my own feelings are hurt. All this, of course, has nothing to do with true forgiveness.
My mom once told me a story of how, when I was about five years old, I'd been naughty, caught, and chastised for my bad behaviour. It was explained to me that I needed to say I was sorry to be forgiven. I had a perfect-- a perfectly juvenile, but perfect all the same-- understanding of forgiveness. You say, "I'm sorry," and then you're forgiven, the slate is wiped clean, you get to start over. This is what my church taught me about forgiveness, certainly about the Godly sort of forgiveness. So, I said I was sorry and I meant it! Who wouldn't want to start over? My mom's tale continues with the incredulity she felt when after supper that same night I suggested we all go to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. This was a very, very rare treat in our home and my mom was appalled that after being naughty I should dare suggest such a thing. I think that was the day I learned that forgiveness wasn't what I thought it was.
Today's experience brought that story to mind and I realized I've lost my juvenile innocence with regard to forgiveness. I told the one who offended against me that he was forgiven. It was the right thing to do. I meant it. But where's the balm in that for me? If I still desire that he feel bad about hurting me, have I really forgiven him? It upsets me that I want him to feel pain, too. That's hardly part of the generosity of spirit that I long to live in.
If anyone out there has some wisdom for me on this point, I'd be glad to hear it. I know I'm forgetting something key to forgiveness that used to make sense... Though I think it's quite possible that forgiveness, in fact, doesn't really make sense in any human understanding of the notion. And I feel light years away from the capacity for anything resembling divine forgiveness. Lord have mercy.
Today, my heart compelled me to extend forgiveness to someone who'd hurt me quite profoundly. I knew it was the right thing to do, to lay out the offense for consideration, to call a spade a spade, to accept an apology, forgive and move on. The problem is, the act of forgiving, speaking the words, is no magic bullet. I'm still feeling the pain of the wound. Quite frankly, it's pissing me off that the remorse I saw when discussing the injury, the remorse that prompted my forgiveness, is no longer in evidence. It's bugging me that the forgiven party is moving on as if the offense had never taken place. Never mind that I'm still bruised and bleeding. I want him to feel bad, to experience a profound and debilitating chagrin for at least as long as my own feelings are hurt. All this, of course, has nothing to do with true forgiveness.
My mom once told me a story of how, when I was about five years old, I'd been naughty, caught, and chastised for my bad behaviour. It was explained to me that I needed to say I was sorry to be forgiven. I had a perfect-- a perfectly juvenile, but perfect all the same-- understanding of forgiveness. You say, "I'm sorry," and then you're forgiven, the slate is wiped clean, you get to start over. This is what my church taught me about forgiveness, certainly about the Godly sort of forgiveness. So, I said I was sorry and I meant it! Who wouldn't want to start over? My mom's tale continues with the incredulity she felt when after supper that same night I suggested we all go to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. This was a very, very rare treat in our home and my mom was appalled that after being naughty I should dare suggest such a thing. I think that was the day I learned that forgiveness wasn't what I thought it was.
Today's experience brought that story to mind and I realized I've lost my juvenile innocence with regard to forgiveness. I told the one who offended against me that he was forgiven. It was the right thing to do. I meant it. But where's the balm in that for me? If I still desire that he feel bad about hurting me, have I really forgiven him? It upsets me that I want him to feel pain, too. That's hardly part of the generosity of spirit that I long to live in.
If anyone out there has some wisdom for me on this point, I'd be glad to hear it. I know I'm forgetting something key to forgiveness that used to make sense... Though I think it's quite possible that forgiveness, in fact, doesn't really make sense in any human understanding of the notion. And I feel light years away from the capacity for anything resembling divine forgiveness. Lord have mercy.
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