Sensitive Heart

There are days
that I can feel the nerves in my spinal cord jingle
like car keys hitting together on a heavy carabineer.
Each piece of harsh, cold metal clangs against the next,
scratching, cold, unfeeling, loud,
like the key ring of the janitor, one key for every door,
every clink and clack sends nerves running down my back,
their feet pound my bones with steel-toed boots,
those nerves waste no time in hammering relayed messages from my body to my brain
from my body to my brain
from my body to my brain
those nerves
run potholes in the pathways they travel most
like deer paths turned 6 lane highways
like my mind
will turn not just molehills into mountains
but dust into desert,
raindrop into waterfall
my mind makes garlands of forget-me-nots
tied to old reminders:
I try to make them handsome;
even doctors
cannot see these freaks of nature inside my skin--
these are not metaphors
but ways of turning all that is
into something beautiful
my heart can understand.

Out of Order

You would think that, if I could post every day this week, I could certainly manage a post on Friday.  Not so.  There were a bagillion issues that came up at work today...and I'm just done.  My brain is done.  Out of order.  Closed for repairs.  We'll open for business again tomorrow.

The lovers, the dreamers and me

When I was around 11, the Unitarian Universalist fellowship my family was attending decided they were going to start a children's choir.  This was, of course, a fabulous idea with only one problem: there was nobody to play the piano and nobody who knew how to direct a choir, much less a choir of children, all under age 12, pumped full of crackers with fake cheese on Sunday morning.  (I don't know why, but that was always what they fed us.  You know those little packages of breadstick cracker things with the fake neon cheese on the other side?  That was the highlight of religious education every Sunday).  Some poor soul either got elected to direct us or volunteered out of the goodness of his heart, and the pianists varied from one lady who could SORT-OF read music, to another lady who played everything double speed.  I remember singing "The Rainbow Connection" probably 4 times for the congregation (both the super fast and the wrong-note riddled versions).  My guess is that we made everybody cry the first time we did it.  If you make people cry once, why not go for it again...and again...and again, right? 

I also remember singing "Sing When the Spirit Says Sing."  At 11, I was serious about...well...pretty much everything, so when Patrick, the choir director, told us to put one finger in the air and shake it back and forth and walk around in a little circle while singing "You've gotta dance when the spirit says dance," I wanted to drop out.  I was humiliated.  Neither Patrick nor the pianist had any sense of rhythm, nobody could turn the same direction, 6 year old Eric ran circles around the group of us while

screaming the song, and shaking my finger in the air was about the dumbest thing I could imagine doing.  I stuck it out for the sake of the cause, but I was not pleased.  The final straw came when Patrick asked my sister and I if we would be willing to do two of the songs in American Sign Language as we sang ("Enter, Rejoice and Come In" and "Come, Sing a Song With Me"...it's funny how you remember these things).  This was no problem in rehearsal, but come Sunday morning, we had the pianist who played everything double time, and my brain couldn't process singing and signing at that speed.  Humiliate me once, shame on you.  Humiliate me twice, I thought, shame on me.  I was done with choir.  When my sister and I dropped out, the whole thing dissolved and the congregation rejoiced that they never had to hear "Rainbow Connection" again, unless they chose to listen to Kermit the Frog.

I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, but I became extremely self-conscious about singing.  I played piano, and my sister would sing, or I played harp and my sister would sing, but I definitely never (ever) sang.  Even when prompted.  Even when asked.  Even when completely by myself.  I just wouldn't do it.  I can't imagine that Patrick's bad choice in dance moves made me feel that vehemently about never singing again, but I just wouldn't do it.

It's funny, because I can distinctly remember when I started singing again.  I had a car for the first time, and I was driving back and forth between my college and my internship about 30 minutes away, and I started singing -- just softly at first -- along to the radio or my CD of choice.  I realized that was pretty fun, and sang a little louder.  When I sang loud enough to actually hear myself, I realized I could actually kinda match my voice to the notes, I didn't have to do any embarrassing dance moves, and nobody could hear me.  From then on, I sang all the time: in the car, in my dorm room...anywhere nobody could hear me, I would sing, and it made me happy in a way that music has always made me happy.  Playing my harp has always brought me to a place of internal stillness.  I love the way there is nothing but myself and the music and I can lose myself in concentration on the sound and on my fingers.  I love the way, eventually, muscle memory takes over and it's just me sitting inside of the music my fingers are creating.  It still amazes me.

At any rate, in grad school I decided I didn't have enough on my plate and wanted to teach myself to play the guitar.  The cool thing about the guitar as opposed to the harp, I realized, is that you get to sing, too.  I like teaching myself new things, and teaching myself guitar, while getting to sing along, is pretty awesome.  I'm definitely not going on the road anytime soon, but it's enough that I can have fun with it when my sister is around or when I'm by myself and no one can hear.

All of this is just to say that no one is more surprised than me when I decided to join the choir.  It's something I thought about for a long time and always talked myself out of...because...just because.  Because it's hard to think about singing in front of people.  Because it's hard to think about doing something that I don't know for a hard solid fact that I'm good at.  Because there is something about singing that just feels really vulnerable.  Music opens my heart, and creating music with something as personal as my voice feels vaguely frightening.  Exciting frightening.  It makes me kind of nervcited. 

Mostly, though, joining the choir means joining people in community, and this is hard.  My soul wants and needs this community, but I'm just not good at it.  How do you know you can trust them? my heart asks.  But how do you know?  You've been wrong before, she says.  She can be a bit of a heartless bitch, my heart.  She's working on it, but it's not easy.  But what if you're wrong?  What if they hurt you?  They could hurt you, you know.  You've been wrong before.  You could be wrong, she says.  After listening to these thoughts for a long time, you can come to believe that maybe community just isn't your thing.  That, maybe, you just aren't made to be part of a larger whole.  Maybe you're just not made to be loved and included.  Maybe your love for others just isn't needed or valued. 

And the thing is, she's right.  I could be wrong.  I could get hurt.  You never truly know if you can trust anyone, but what I have determined is that you have to try.  I have to try.  And singing with a bunch of people who can make some beautiful, joyful sound seems like an okay place to start. 

The only way to put it is that singing makes my heart happy.  It's incredible to be in the middle of so many beautiful voices, and to know that I am, in some small way, contributing to the creation of this amazing thing that's unfolding around me.  (Or...once I figure out what notes I have to sing I will be...).  It's like moving from a place where your body feels uninhabitable to a place where your skin suddenly fits and there is a radiance all around you that makes your skin glow as it reflects that light.  You can't help it.  Just like the moon can't help but glow from the light of the sun, when standing in that group one can't help but glow from the light of everything surrounding you.   My mind stops.  All that there is is what is happening then, there, in that room, in the alto section, in my heart and lungs and vocal chords as they join the hearts, lungs, and vocal chords of everyone around me.  It's a group of people gathering, essentially, to create and recreate something beautiful and temporary, purely for the sake of creating.  It is, perhaps, the rainbow connection that brings me into community with the other lovers and dreamers.  I can think of few things more holy. 

I'm not crazy. I promise.

I don't know what this poem is about.  I swear that sometimes my writing is guided by some sort of muse or something, because I just don't get where some of this crap comes from.

Regardless, here's what came onto the paper tonight.  I got to the end, had no idea what I meant by it, waited a good 20 minutes for the next line (although I clearly felt like it was the end)...and eventually gave up.  Here is this poem as it wanted to be written.  Don't ask for meaning.  Take it for what it is.  Whatever that is.

Untitled (for right now)

Most days, my body feels more out than in.

My heart has always grown wrong-way-out

beats my skin like a war drum announcing

my presence as a battle

my presence is a battle I need to stand up for,

so I sweat from the outside in.

Let it pool in the cells between my ribcage

make saltwater baths where emotions float on the surface

effortlessly

as everything floats in the Dead Sea

but everything in me is opposite:

like the Dead Sea is really alive,

like the empty places are overflowing,

like my heart makes breaking fall together,

like a battle drum says

ba-dum...ba-dum...ba dum...,

my heart beat chants my skin

be-from... be-from ...be-from

whirs my blood to a heavy down-beat

beau-ty love beau-ty love

be-from

beau-ty love beau-ty love

be-from

beau-ty

be-from

love

be-from be-from

beau-ty beau-ty beau-ty...

like pieces of a machine,

I work together at full capacity with a

low battery beep--

a synonym for contradiction--

my soul is a rainforest not yet discovered:

its natives are fierce, with scathing eyes

holding the cure we fear with bloodstained hands

laughing as I fumble

toward our ever elusive goal.

Defining Gratitude (my way)

On the surface, I think the idea of having a "gratitude practice" is kind of corny.  I mean, really...the idea of trying every day to find something your grateful for and then...what?  Saying your grateful for it?  Seriously.  What kind of good is that going to do anybody?

When you Google quotes about gratitude, I find that the quotes are generally too simplistic and make broad sweeping generalizations (e.g. “Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness").  I mean seriously.  It's just not that easy y'all.  They also place unnecessary lofty expectations that make it seem like, once you sprinkle a little gratitude into the day to day, things will actually be pretty swell -- you'll forgive and be forgiven, the sun will shine, you'll achieve greatness, your life will be beautiful and lovely.

If someone were to quote me on gratitude, this is what I would want it to say,

On the days that you can, be grateful.  Let gratitude fill your lungs and your heart and let it spill out of your pores onto the pavement.  Be messy with your gratitude.  Let it trickle down your chin and stain your shirt.  Refuse to wipe it away.  Be grateful for your breath, and for colorful sunsets, and for your favorite song on the radio.  Be grateful for the toad in your driveway, for dog kisses, for children holding your hand.  On the days that you can, be grateful for your favorite tea, or for drive-through windows, or for the way that Cheetos turn your fingers orange.  Hold it in and let it saturate you; then breathe it out.  Feel the way it sits in your body.  That is power. 

On the days that you can't -- and there will be days that you can't -- be grateful for the fact that you recognize your lack of gratitude.  Express gratitude for the bad days by living through them and naming them what they are.  On the days that you can't, repeat the phrase: 'I'm grateful for the opportunity to start again tomorrow.'"  On the days you can't, repeat, "I will start again tomorrow."  On the days you can't, just say "tomorrow."  Hold that word in and let it saturate you; then breathe it out.  Feel the way it sits in your body.  If you are still breathing at the end of that breath, that is power.   Where there is breath and there is power, there is a starting place for gratitude.  Just the act of breathing is an expression of gratitude for life.

Alright, fine, maybe that's more like a sermon than a quote one would find on Goodreads.  I have more to say about this topic later, but for now, here's my Goodreads style quote:

"On the days you can, live your thanks.  On the days you can't, just continue breathing.  When done with intention, even breathing can serve as a whispered prayer of gratitude."  - Me, 2013

Look for me on Goodreads, you guys.  One of these days, I'm going to be famous.

Listening (or not listening) to your body's messages

It could just be prodromal migraine stuff.  I could be getting whatever ick kids are starting to spread around at school and then bringing into my office.  It could be allergies starting to kick my butt, because even though fall is my very favorite season, it is also the very worst for allergies.  I don't know.  Regardless, I feel some sort of nondescript awful.  

I'm so bad at knowing when to say "enough's enough" and deciding to give up.  I didn't feel great when I went to work, and it just got worse as the day went along.  I should have just come home.  Lord knows I have sick days...but I didn't.  Even though the voice in my head was telling me to come home, come home, come home...I didn't.  I stayed, all the way through my very last client left the building at 7:08pm.

What is that?

I love going to work.  I'm not usually the person dragging my butt into work, even on Mondays.  I'm the person who is up and ready to go and hits the ground running.  When my body is begging me to go home, it's usually for good reason.  It doesn't typically try to fake me out.  It's not a body that fakes sick or pretends something is wrong to try to get out of something.  We've got a pretty solid relationship, my body and I, and I can usually call her on her crap.  So why is it so hard to listen?  When and where do we learn to ignore what our body is saying, and to keep moving forward, no matter what?  Is that just programmed in us?  Or can we unlearn it, and learn instead to have that more gentle relationship with ourselves -- a relationship where we listen and respect what our body is saying?

I, of course, value hard work.  I value dedication.  I value commitment and perseverance and determination.  But I think, in myself, I confuse that with obstinance, and with stubbornness, and --sometimes -- with stupidity.  What a privilege it is to have "sick days" and flexible scheduling and the ability to take a day off without punishment!  What a privilege it is to be able to know that, if I need to, I can take the day off and go lay in bed with my dog.  Not everyone has that privilege.

What would we do differently if we were to raise our children such that they know how to listen to and respect their bodies messages?  How would we make that happen?  How would we all live differently if we lived by this model?  What would be different for you?

Procrastination is my middle name

...or my first name.  Maybe it's my first name.

At any rate, I wanted to write something good tonight, but I also realize that it is now 11:00, and I REALLY need to try to get sleep tonight.  If I don't, I'll be off for the whole week, and that won't be good, will it?  No.

In all fairness, I wasn't really procrastinating tonight.  I was busy.  Doing things.  Lots of things.  ...like lots of important stuff and things, okay!?!?  Don't question me.

One of those things was making food for the week.  You know when you get into a food rut and you keep making the same things over and over?  It's annoying.  I wanted to try something new and different, but I was busy, you know, doing doing other stuff and other things, and who wants to look at a cookbook/look recipes up online anyway?  Not me.

I also don't have a dishwasher, and dishes are my nemesis.  I like cooking.  I hate doing dishes.  Consequently, when I cook, I try REALLY REALLY HARD to use as few dishes as possible.  I've gotten good at this.  For example, take tonight's creation:

A couple small red potatoes, cut into chunks
A green pepper, cut into chunks
A couple carrots, cut anywhichway you can slice them without chopping your finger off
Some onion, sliced
Some tomato
Some string beans (COOKED...otherwise they'll be too crunchy)

(These are the veggies I had, but add whatever you've got.  Seriously.  Just add it).

Put all the veggies in a baking dish.  I added a little bit of olive oil and some curry and just a little bit of salt.  It doesn't need a lot of anything.  The veggies are plenty flavorful.

I baked it at 350 for 30ish minutes, but you'll just have to judge, depending on how much you put in your dish, which veggies you use...and...you know....your altitude or something.

While that I was baking, I cooked some tempeh I had in the fridge.

Then I threw it all together.

It was super delicious.  And easy.  And healthy.  And fast.  And vegetarian.  AND IT DIDN'T USE MANY DISHES!!!!!

Maybe this is just new and exciting for me since I've never baked vegetables before.  I just ate it by itself, but I guess technically you should eat it with something...I'd probably make couscous or rice or something to go with it if I was serving somebody else, because I don't really know about such things but like to feed people.  But it is just me...and I was happy with vegetables and tempeh.   Lots of vegetables and tempeh.  Need more vegetables.  Need more tempeh.

People have told me that I eat strangely.  I don't think I do...I just eat lots of vegetables and beans and tempeh and tofu and grains and lentils and stuff.  If this recipe is strange, I apologize.  Don't try it if you think it's weird. That way, there will be more for me.