In Between the Words

(Somehow this song feels like it fits today.  I don't have words to explain why.  It just does.  It's not the words.  It is what falls in between them.)


Words have limits.  They create little boxes into which we drop bits and pieces of our lives.   So much of our living takes place in between the words.  Inside our heads we play the endless commentary of our lives and yet never fully capture who we are.  So many things are left unsaid.  So many things fall outside the neat boxes that words create.

At home, snug in my well-worn recliner, I look at my husband in the chair beside me.  The things I want to say can't be captured in words.    We sit in mutual silence.  The TV drones on mindlessly.  So many words pour from the screen.   They say so little.  I'm not even remotely entertained.  Something is missing.  What's missing are all the words left unsaid.  They press down on the inside of my lips.  They ripple across my tongue.  I open my mouth to let them out.  They flutter away in silence. 

Feelings, raw and primitive course through my body like electric current.  They snap and crackle.  My nerves stand at attention, waiting.  They wait for words to capture them but the words can not.

This break down of language leaves me broken and mute.  I want to cry, to mourn the loss.  I'm in way over my head and I can't find a way to tell anyone.  And, then again, maybe I just did.

Wave

 

Image Credit

Hokusai (1760-1849)

Katsushika Hokusai, Japan's best known artist, is ironically Japan's least Japanese artist. Japan's best known woodblock print, The Great Wave, is very un-Japanese. Welcome to the artist often known as Hokusai.

Thinking Thursday

A doctor recently prescribed Aller-Chlor.  It's an antihistamine.   It was supposed to help with the congestion that has followed a sinus infection.  It did not.  It did light up my brain cells in a new and unusual way.  My brain never ceases to surprise me.

Normally, I think in words but with this new drug in my system, my neurons were tickled into thinking in pictures.  These pictures weren't based on words.  They were based on feelings.  

I was told that the medication would make me sleepy.  I looked forward to a nap.  Instead of rest, I got a mindful of art work.  As I lay there, aware of feelings that I could not capture with words, this image dominated my thoughts.  It hung on the wall inside my head.    There were many other images there but none as compelling as this "Wave".   I sat down in front of it.

It was me without words.

The mood has passed but the image remains.  Today, I went in search of the image.  I found it easily on the first try.  Today, I'm going to sit in front of it.  I think it may hold a secret, something that I really need to know.  It came to me as a gift.  I accept it with open arms.

Waiting Room

Image by Derrick Coetzee 

A late summer sun casts a warm autumn light.  Fingers of sunlight are shattered by the delicate branches of a graceful fir tree.  Below the tree, a quiet line waits for the Free Clinic door to open.  I am the last person in this line.  My quiet sigh rises into the light.  I let the filtered sunlight soothe me.    I take a deep breath and relax into the moment.

Right in front of me, a tall man fidgets.  His body crackles with restless energy.  His legs are covered with angry purple-red blotches.  They look like self-inflicted burns.

The door opens.  We quickly file pass the front desk.  A short pink form on a clipboard is thrust into anxious hands.  The electric man in front of me has sores on his knuckles as well.   He is talking to the woman behind the desk.  I tune in to the conversation after all the important things are said.

"I'm sorry, Jason but we can't help you here."

Jason thanks the woman politely and awkwardly lurches out the door.  The static generated by his presence lingers and then is covered by coughing and quiet sighs.

For most of us, it will be a long wait.  Some of us may not be seen.  The clinic can only serve so many.  Those not seen will carry the burden of our ills back into the world.

We live in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" but some days even the Free Clinic isn't free for all.  Yet, all of us must be brave.  It takes courage to crawl out of bed in the morning.  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness teases us from a great distance.

A young woman sips the last of her water from a paper cup.  She reaches up and wipes tears from her eyes.  She tries to hide her tears but she can not.  She sniffles quietly and shifts uncomfortably in her chair.  Her pain, her need, is an embarrassment.

I've seen her before, a different face, a different person but the same pain, the same need.  I have been her before wiping unwanted tears from my eyes.  Today, I float above the tears.  I am being brave.

We all wait quietly.  We all struggle inside with the burden of being here.  We struggle to find work.  We struggle to find the money to pay for food, housing, health care.  There is never enough.  We struggle to buy our children clothes and shoes that they will outgrow all too quickly.  We struggle to hold our families together against great odds.  We struggle to keep our dignity and we struggle to summon up the hope to begin another day, to wage another battle against never having enough.

No one understands poverty better than the poor.  Yet, our voice is only a faint whisper.  The powerful can not hear.  Exhausted, ashamed of our struggles, there is little energy left to advocate for ourselves.  We blame ourselves for where we are.  We wonder what happened to the dreams were were promised as children.

"Work hard, and you'll go far."

"Everyone can be a success."

"You can be anything you want to be!"

Some how we've failed the dreams and the dreams have failed us.  Bitterness often hides behind the exhaustion.  Apathy is an armor we wear when we can't take any more.

Slowly, I become aware of the television droning overhead.  In the waiting room, a documentary about the current state of health care plays.  It focuses on the flaws in the current system and about the need for more patient-centered care.   These words are depressing.  We know what is wrong with the system through thousands of personal experiences.   We all tune it out.  It becomes another background noise, like the coughing, the crying, the cooing of a baby.  The facts are already crushing us.  We need words of hope.

People flow in and out almost seamlessly.  All that remains is a little room in which to wait.  Maybe tomorrow will be better than today.    We wait.

Please note:   I am extremely grateful that the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington exists and that I have received excellent care from the people who volunteer their time to help the low-income and uninsured in Clark County.  They are providing an incredibly valuable service to a growing number of its citizens.  They treat the people they see with dignity and compassion.  

Run No More

Every once in a while, a day of reckoning comes.  The things you've worked so hard to deny, to overcome, to ignore, bring you to your knees.  You stare reality in the face.  It overwhelms you. 

"Deal with me!" it demands.

I am the deer in the headlights.  Please pray for me.

 Image Credit

Vision's High Noon

Recently, I was given a homework assignment by an art coach.  I was to write to my higher self and ask her help with "Vision".  I've tried to complete this assignment but all I have to show for it is a pile of crumpled paper. 

Most of the time, I have to work at harnessing a flood of words.  Not today.

"Vision" was the word that jumped out from a list of nine.  Don't ask me why.  Apparently my higher self is supposed to know but she's not talking.    I think she's afraid.  I know I am.  I'm afraid of almost everything.  It's one of my secrets.  I guess the "cat's out of the bag" now.

Fear and I are very old companions.  Fear often gets in my way.  Over the years, I've learned to ignore this fear, at least some of the time.  Fear has me making excuses, aiming low, apologizing for imposing.  Fear kills "Vision" faster than any thing I know.

The higher self whispers, "Vision is afraid of being slain by Fear.  It has to hide, especially from you."

Great!  More inscrutable, mysterious talk.

As much as I'd like to forget this whole topic, the truth is Vision is afraid.  I'm afraid of Vision, of Fear but most of all, I'm afraid of envisioning something, working toward it, wanting it only to have it taken from me.

How rational is that?

I'm confusing "Vision" with a destination.  Vision is really the guide for the journey.  I'm using fear and uncertainty as an excuse.  I'm grieving imagined losses before anything is lost.

So, like Gary Cooper in High Noon. . . (a movie I love by the way!) http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2041381145/

I face Vision alone on a dusty street in an old western town.  The sun burns overhead.  Fear walks beside me with its hand on my pistol.  The music builds.  It reaches a crescendo and I draw my gun.  Instead of bullets, my gun shoots Vision into the unknown, into the darkness and the light.  No enemy awaits me.  The greatest enemy has always been the one that lies within, the one that tries to deny Vision or to stifle it.

Vision longs for expression.  It longs for peace, for stage coach rides, for Sunday picnics, and for late night stargazing.  Vision is what breathes life into a tired body and mind.  It infuses the air I breathe, if only I'll let it.  Vision isn't a burden.  It isn't something grand that must be lived up to or else.  Vision is a guide, a raison d'etre.  It tells me I've been missing out.

So, I walk this dusty street again at high noon.  Instead of Vision, I take aim at Fear.  It's time to put Fear in the grave.  Once deep in the ground, I'll dance over the soft mound of earth covering the resting place of Fear.  Arm and arm, Vision and I will walk into the sunset.

Looking Good

Thinking Thursday

Thinking without action means nothing.  Lately, I've been teetering on the edge of a new life.  I can envision the person I want to be but somehow I'm not making any progress.  My internal "tipping point" seems captured in a tomorrow I'm never quite able to reach.  Needless to say, I'm not a bit happy with myself.  I'm hoping to harness this discontent and use it to fuel some action.

At first, I wanted to share a list of goals and specific action plans.  Sharing them didn't feel quite right.  It seems to circle back into the "all-talk-little-or-no-action" problem.

Lately, I've had to really sit down with the part of me that fails to take action and find out what is going on.  I haven't liked what I discovered.  Despite all the talk and bravada part of me is still convinced it's "not worthy" of good things.

Rational me knows exactly why I feel this way.  It has done a good job of trying to convince me that I left these feelings of unworthiness behind but they haven't been easily banished.  They've remained just below my awareness.  They've been hurting me.

To make it worse, lately, I've seen how these feelings are setting a poor example for my children who are of an extremely aware and observant age.  They watch both parents very closely, looking for signs of weakness.  It is age appropriate.  It is to be expected.  The problem is I'm not ready to settle for feeling unworthy.  I don't like how it influences my daily life or how it limits my opportunities.  I don't want to model these feelings and the self-sabotaging behaviors that result from these feelings.

Lately, this "granola girl" has decided to become a Mary Kay consultant.  I know it may sound rather like a strange choice.  You may think of Texas, big hair and pink cadillacs.  It's really much more.  I've discovered that despite how I usually appear I actually like looking feminine and dressing up.  I'm actually interested in how to apply eye shadow not because it's expected but how much better I feel about myself, if I take a little time to pay attention to my appearance.  Sadly, I've also discovered that for years, I have felt very unattractive.  I do not like how I look or how much I weigh and I don't think I ever have.  Even years ago, at a young 98 lbs, I hated how I looked.    It's not about the makeup, it's about how I feel when I start to care about how I look.

This has been a difficult admission.  The hardest part was admitting it to myself.  I've used weight, feeling unattractive, feeling different, feeling special and feeling unworthy as a barrier between myself and others, between myself and the person I could become.

Banishing feelings of unworthiness or shame in one's appearance isn't easy, especially when one has carried them around so long.  I have grown very tired of them especially now that I can see them for what they are.  Excuses.  I have been so determined to believe in my lack of worth, intellect, power, and attractiveness that I've framed most of my experiences in life to prove that I was right.  I've allowed myself to become an overweight, plain, underachiever who secretly longs for so much more from life but is afraid to reach for it.  Enough.  I'm reaching. . . I'm reaching because I really am worth it.

Ten Interesting Blogs

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Well, Wordy Wednesday whipped by. . .Thinking Thursday has arrived.  My thoughts are either unprintable or not yet fully formed.  So, for your reading pleasure I offer a link to an interesting blog that mentions 10 other interesting blogs.  Go blog yourself silly!

Just click on the link below:

Becoming Minimalist

Think and Walk

Thinking Thursday

(This is Beacon Rock.  It's only about an hour east of us.  There is a trail up to the top. I think I'm happier on safer ground.)

I think I have arthritis in my feet.  They hurt when I walk.  I'm going to walk any way.
I think that it's great that a 70-year old man can pass me on the trail and disappear in the distance ahead of me.
I think that wearing a garbage-bag tunic over your shirt and then jogging may be a bad idea but if you're wearing a garbage-bag tunic and smile at the woman who is just passing you that she may forget about the sweat dripping inside the bag for just a second or two.
I think that some weeds are actually quite lovely.
I think that I would hate the "smell of napalm in the morning" but the smell of compost and wood chips is almost pleasant.

I think that I've always known I was a writer but that I was afraid I wasn't good enough.
I think this was an excuse.
Flaws are more interesting than perfection.
I think being good enough doesn't really matter any more.
I think that being me, being genuine, being honest and being imperfectly perfect does.

I think that I have arthritis in my feet.  They hurt when I walk.  I'm going to walk any way.

Trying Not to Think

Always do what you are afraid to do. --- Emerson

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I spent all day trying to run from myself.  It was Thinking Thursday and I was afraid of my own thoughts.  Wordy Wednesday evening found me verbally assaulting a loved one.  Words are not always good tools.   Obviously something was bothering me and I was doing my best to dump the problem on someone else.

As I spent the day avoiding the soul searching I was sure I needed, the truth came to me anyway.  I saw that I had projected my own fears and I knew why.  I was afraid of change.  I was afraid of action.  I was afraid of trying something new.  I wanted to follow my dreams.  I was now in uncharted territory and I was terrified.

How I got to this place, this age in life, without really following them is a bit of a wonder to me.  I've done a really good job ignoring them for years.  When I was younger, I tried to adopt the dreams of the significant others in my life.   I didn't feel good enough to have dreams of my own much less go after them.

Now, at mid-life, time ticks like a bomb.   Over half my life is over.  I can not afford to waste any moment that is left and this reality weighs heavily.  Sometimes, it's so heavy I feel panic. As I grapple with this fear, with this panic, with unfulfilled dreams and desires, a few simple words of Emerson fall into my day.  "Always do what you're afraid to do." 
"Yes, Mr. Emerson!" I reply as I contemplate the leap.  Terror grips me.  I've never felt more alive.

Walking Together

Thinking Thursday

Today, I did not walk alone.  My daughter accompanied me.  After a warm-up, she wanted to try running.  She ran ahead of me, her thick ponytail swinging rhythmically as she disappeared around a bend. This is how it should be.  We raise our children so they may go off on their own.  It's not yet time for my "little bird" to fly and I am very glad.  She brings an extra dose of sunshine to my life and always will.

Later, when she got tired, she rejoined me.  We walked together.  I shared the names of some of the flowers and plants, passing on a knowledge that was passed on to me.  Then, we talked of happiness and parenting.  We talked about how easy it is repeat the things you hated to hear as a child when you become a parent.  We talked about separating ourselves from the unhappiness of others particularly a parent.  We talked about self-blame and redemption.  We talked about the philosophy of reincarnation and what we'd want to come back as.  We talked of schools and friends and little dead mice. 

It was a very good Thinking Thursday.  My daughter and I spent Just 10 time while getting much needed exercise.  In between the words, we did lots of thinking and feeling.   It was time very well spent.

Thursday Thoughts

It's Thursday and I'm convinced that thinking is overrated.  My feelings are interfering with thought transmissions.  Maybe something will break loose on Free Friday and the mental static will simmer down enough so that I can generate some coherent or relatively coherent thoughts.