Daily Prompt – Quicken That was one of the first lines I learned in typing class. Why you ask? Because it contains every letter of the alphabet. After I left university, I wasn’t sure what to do. My mother had … Continue reading 
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So my youngest came in yesterday from school feeling bad, not wanting to go to dance. SO I took her to the doctor today and she had a sinus infection. So we are getting her some medicine and what not to try to feel better this week. No strep, so that was nice. I still feel yucky but will hold out until my appointment tomorrow. Hopefully that will go well.
But I sure do feel atrocious in the meantime. I started coughing last night and couldn’t not get a handle on it, even with prescription cough meds. I was up every four hours taking more of it untii I finally quit coughing.
I guess I’ll go eat lunch now. Hope everyone else is feeling good today!
Posted in Read Along
Events Conspire
Paths Converge
We may Choose to Ignore Them
But, What’s the Fun in That?
⇔
It all started with butt boils.
Take a part of the human body rich in adipose tissue, add pressure and heat (as in sitting for long periods of time), and that body part will revolt—or become revolting. Enough on that matter.
Next came a therapy session where we connected the dots between trauma and food as my drug of choice. Since my diagnosis of Binge Eating Disorder, I’d set down my shame and guilt about being a Woman of Substance. I’d become kinder, more accepting of my body. But there we were, dredging up all that business, and I found myself disappearing. My hands and feet went numb; a rushing sound filled my head; I seemed to leave my body and drift somewhere behind and above it.
Later, I learned what I’d always called this “shutting down” was technically dissociation—an altered state of consciousness that can include depersonalization, sensory and psychological numbing, disengagement, and amnesia. Most people experience mild forms of detachment, like daydreaming while driving and losing a bit of time. The more pathological end of the spectrum ends up Sybil-like with fragmentation of the personality. It’s a coping mechanism—a way to keep the psyche safe when under attack, whether that attack is real or imagined.
Clearly, I had more work to do with this. Or, as Megan reminded me, not. I always have choices, and she is not the variety of therapist who requires excavation of Hurtful Things.
Soon after, as I sorted my old blog posts into potential book categories, I marveled at how I once worked so very hard at controlling my eating, how I celebrated small victories and believed I made tiny changes in my behavior. And then I always gave up, as my endgame of losing weight could never be reached. I started to wonder if I could ever push gently against the binge eating, if I could find a way to work with it like I’d found ways to work with bipolar disorder—gently, with acceptance and kindness, while still holding the worst symptoms accountable. I had no idea how that might look, but I opened to the possibility instead of shutting myself away from it.
On my way to Orly Avineri’s workshop in Taos, I started reading Foolsgold by Susan Wooldridge. In her introduction she says:
I began writing these pages when I decided to make a small collage box each day for a year with what I found on my walks—often the most ordinary, seemingly worthless bits of nothing. That’s when fool’s gold became foolsgold for me, a field around us, or state of being, where everything can be transformed by our seeing and creativity. Merged into one word, “foolsgold” describes a paradox, the value in what may seem to be worthless. Foolsgold reminds us to look beyond appearances, even in ourselves. What seems to loom in us most darkly may finally be what brings the most light. Everything can be transmuted by attention, play, love.
I used to walk a lot, then stopped as it wasn’t getting me to the destination I wanted. If I had some different motivation to walk, like looking for art fodder along the way, I might be able to do it. I let that idea sit in my hindbrain as I got my self to Taos.
One afternoon, Orly showed us a small art journal her nephew made. An environmental crusader, all his art is made up of junk with space for sketches and ruminations. Orly’s nephew had no concern for style, or balance, or making things look pretty. His art was raw and powerful. And very simple.
I can do that, I thought. And as that realization settled in, my body demanded it.
It took a few weeks once I got home to jumpstart idea to action. But now I have my WalkAbout journal, and every few days I set out with my big zip lock bag and find my material for the day.
Change, even good change, can be stressful. My rapid cycling has been spinning like a hamster wheel. Some days the amount of trash among the trees and berms disgusts and weakens me. I tell myself I can’t go out among all that thoughtlessness again. But the hamster wheel keeps spinning, and I tie on my purple trainers. After a couple of weeks of this, I’m learning to wait for fodder to signal me—light on shiny foil, strange lumps, a flash of color in the dunny weeds. It gets easier and easier. As does the art that comes after.
My butt likes that I’m moving more. I make my WalkAbout pages in the evening when my binge eating is most bothersome.
I’m still on an Adventure.
Daily Prompt – Center My mother used to call people who had emotional problems “a little left of center”. She wasn’t trying to be mean, it was just her way of acknowledging they were different. I think the fact that … Continue reading 
It isn’t often that we hear from actual Syrians about their own perspective on the destabilization of the Arab world. Western news agencies and Western politicians are all too eager to feed us their simplistic opinions clothed as “fact,” ignoring the perceptions and lived experience of those who actually live there.
Mr. Soliman brings a fresh pair of eyes to the problems that not only the Western world faces, but indeed the actual people who live in the region.
The ethnocentric blindness of Americans assumes that everyone, everywhere must needs adopt democracy and democratic values. As Mr Soliman so succinctly puts it, democracy is a product of culture, a way of life. What he doesn’t say is that many cultures are not even compatible with democracy. We have seen some horrible disasters (think Afghanistan) when the “Democratic World” has attempted to impose democracy on a culture that is living in the 7th Century. It doesn’t work.
Certainly it must be possible for the Arab regimes to abandon such atrocities as torture, honor killings, and extreme “punishments” such as stoning and amputations, without insisting that everyone in the world adopt democracy.
Posted in Read Along
We got my middle child well only for me to start getting sick on Saturday. Sore throat and ears to start with, then Sunday the stuffy nose and sinus headache started to hit. So I’m not feeling just wonderful, but I’m not nearly as sick as my middle child was so I think I don’t have what she did. It’s a rainy day and I’m not sure I want to get out in it in the state that I am, so I think I will just stay home as much as possible.
The youngest one went on to her dance competition and her troupe garnered some big awards and two invitations to go to New York and dance. They probably won’t do that since they’re so young. But it was a big honor to be invited.
I get workshopped this week in my class again. This time I get feedback not only online but in a conference later this week as well. So that will be interesting experience. I hope to rewrite this piece and send it to Creative Nonfiction for publication and maybe since it will have been worked over so hard it will get selected this time. It’s not due until June, so I have a long time still to work on it.
I went shopping this weekend and bought lots of blue for my trip to Atlanta and for the residency this summer. Only three outfits for me and one dress for my daughter, but we got discounts so made out pretty well. I tried on some Kasper suits but the largest size didn’t fit and they didn’t have the same ones on the plus size side.
Well, I hope everyone ahs a good beginning of the week. We will all try to get well on this end. Happy Monday!
Posted in Read Along
“Hello from the other side”
Some February fiction for you …
With Extra Points for Neatness
by Sheila North
Margaret Pennyworth was nothing if not direct.
“I’ve decided to deactivate you. I am sorry.”
Her parents had been big on superficial politeness, so the phrase, “I am sorry” was only to be expected. They both knew she didn’t mean it.
“Will you please stop looking at me like that? It’s extremely off putting.”
Margaret shuffled through the paperwork, which she had shoved into the bread bin, the day it arrived. There was no bread in the bin, hadn’t been since Colin died in their marital bed: his beautiful eyes gradually becoming as cold as the rest of his body. Bread was fattening, or so the beings who ran Planet Diet said. On those rare occasions when Margaret reflected on things, she wondered how an alien life form which existed entirely on the waste products of others could know so much about carbs, or, indeed, food.
A small pile of paperwork was rapidly accumulating on the otherwise spotless kitchen floor. Inwardly, Margaret Pennyworth sighed. It really was an excellent housekeeper – and bookkeeper, and cook, and bottle washer. But even the best products have their flaws, and Margaret had had enough.
Item 99462M was everything The Houseboy Company (TM) had claimed: well, almost everything. It was the expression: that fixed smile; even worse, those marble blue eyes. They’d been so different those first 38 years of their 40 year relationship. What had she been thinking of – besides a tidy home – paying for her late husband’s neat-freak mind to be lodged in that metal body, and behind those eyes, oh, those eyes!
“Shall I dust and vac the master bedroom, first?” the flat voice asked, its eyes as cold, and unblinking, as ever.
What do you do with some drunken Cybermen?
Tagged: fiction, flash fiction, sci fi, writing 
Posted in Read Along
You know when you feel sure that other people are talking about you? You notice them whispering, or looking at you, or studiously not looking at you, and you think, what are they saying about me?
Psychologists call those feelings “ideas of reference.” (If you alter your behavior because of the supposed scrutiny, they’re known as “delusions of reference.”) Ideas of reference are often associated with paranoia. However, if you ask clinically depressed or bipolar people, you will find that many of them have them as well.
I know I have. It’s hard not to. You already feel that you’re not really normal (whatever that means) and you’re afraid that it shows. If people can see that you’re not like everyone else, they’re bound to be talking about it. Never mind that your difference is a mental one; you’re sure that everyone can tell just by looking at you that you’re crazy.
In actual fact, the people you think are talking about you usually aren’t – until you go over to them and defensively berate them or accuse them of doing so. Then you can be sure they will be talking about you after you leave.
Except perhaps in junior high school, most people in everyday life do not spend their time discussing how odd the people around them are. (Except for those people who take pictures of others at Walmart and then post them on the internet.) But the average person is too involved in his or her own daily life to give more than a passing glance to a stranger. The people you see whispering behind their hands are most likely developing their own secrets or gossiping about someone you don’t even know.
Even if the people are talking about you, ask yourself – so what? Do their opinions really matter? I know that you want to say yes, they do. But in the larger scheme of things, they don’t. Your life will not change in the slightest if they are saying they don’t like your haircut or that they heard you bite your nails. Malicious gossip and social bullying are separate matters. But again, you don’t really know that these people are saying anything that’s actually harmful.
Perhaps you feel it’s more significant if the people you think are talking about you are family members, coworkers, or friends. They may really be talking about you. The point is, even if they are, you have no idea what they’re saying. Most of the time they speak in low tones so as not to upset you, never realizing that that upsets you more. Tell yourself they could be planning a surprise party or talking about Aunt Edna’s affair with a younger man. Not everything is about you.
Ideas of reference may be a factor in imposter syndrome – the feeling that you are not really successful, competent, or talented, but are just faking it, and that everyone around you can tell. Or perhaps your ideas of reference are like intrusive thoughts – sudden, distressing notions that pop into your head, seemingly without cause or warning. These can be anything at all, from “I wonder if my passport has expired” to “Who would miss me if I died?” to “Those people are talking about me.”
What can you do if you have ideas of reference? Resist the urge to ask if the people are really talking about you. That will only make things awkward and worse. Ignore them if you can. (This is not the same as the bad old non-advice about ignoring bullies. You know when a bully targets you. With ideas of reference, you never really know if your fears are true.) Since you didn’t actually hear what the people said, you can realistically assume they were talking about someone or something else entirely. Imagine that one is telling the other that her slip is showing. (Do people still wear slips? I know they don’t wear pantyhose anymore.)
If you feel you must react, use a minimal response such as the good ol’ side-eye, which is sufficiently ambiguous that the person (who may also have ideas of reference) can assume it’s directed at someone else.
Another suggestion I’ve heard is to work with your therapist on issues of self-esteem and self-concept, or to try cognitive behavioral therapy. Some medications may help too. Still, if you feel you can manage it, I think the best idea is to tell yourself “So what?” and move on.
Dear Teenage Sam,
I want to tell you where I was this morning.
I woke up with the California sunshine peaking through the blinds, falling on my face, colliding with my eyes. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful it is, waking up like that. It’s my favorite way to wake up, and we get to wake up this way every day now.
While I was drinking my coffee, I was curled up on the couch crying. You and I don’t do much crying these days, because you fell in love, moved across the country, and found an antidepressant that helped you to understand what happiness actually feels like.
(We used to cry a lot. You never understood why – but I promise, you will one day.)
I have a brilliant friend who says that recovering from depression is kind of similar to wearing high heels for a long time – that moment when your feet touch the ground, and you remember what walking is supposed to feel like.
When you wiggle your toes, stretch your feet, and remember what solid ground is like underneath you.
This morning I was crying because I finally understood what that really meant.
Put another way:
Yesterday, I lit a lighter by myself for the first time.
We were always afraid of fire, you know, afraid of something catching fire or getting burned. 25 years old, and I’d never made a fire until last night.
(And I think this can account for, at least in part, why you’ve never taken up smoking cigarettes.)
When I held it in my hand, I knew at last what it was like to hold fire. What it was like to glow brightly without getting burned.
And I learned that it wasn’t fire that we were so afraid of – it was the belief that we could never be trusted with something like that. That, given the chance, we would always destroy something good. That we could come so close, and draw so near, but we could never control the fire.
(And I think this can account for, at least in part, why bonfires and fireplaces always frightened you a little.)
But last night, I held the light between my fingers. I watched the flame flickering and dancing in the dark, and I finally understood that I could trust myself again.
Sam, do you understand what I mean?
I mean that, one morning, you will wake up and know what it’s like to move through the world without aching feet, the ground reliable and solid and soft underneath you. And you’ll know joy not just as the absence of pain, but the PRESENCE of something.
Something ecstatic and whole and hopeful that you didn’t know you could feel.
I mean that, one night, you will know what it feels like to be bright and unstoppable and in motion, without fearing what might happen if you get carried away – if you love too hard, if you feel too much, if you trust yourself too deeply. You will love, you will feel, and you will trust with beautiful abandon.
You will know what it’s like to be in awe of yourself, startled but not afraid.
I promise, there will come a morning – tears sliding down like beautiful gems scattered across your cheeks – and you will say underneath your breath, “This is the way I was supposed to feel.”
This moment will be made possible only because you survived.
I can’t stop you from trying. I know that. I know this because I spent many years looking for you behind closed doors, flashbacks deceiving me, trying to spare you before you stopped breathing.
I know this because I remember how desperate you were to end your pain. There wasn’t a single force in the universe that could’ve intervened.
(When you’re older, you’ll become acquainted with emergency rooms, and meet the doctors that will ultimately diagnose and save you.)
I forgave you a long time ago – for this, and all the trauma to follow – from the moment you woke up, as the room spun and closed in all around you and I knew you needed someone to care for you.
You need to be brave. And you were brave, Sam, you have always been brave.
This is a remarkable thing you’ll learn about yourself soon – that you might always struggle with the impulse to hurt yourself, but you will never lose the instinct to care for yourself, stitching up your own wounds.
Surviving is what you do. You will survive this, too.
I know this now, having courageously and stubbornly picked myself up so many times, a lesson I learned from watching you.
***
If you or someone you know are thinking about suicide, you can always call:
Originally posted on Waldina:
Today is the 104th birthday of Jim Backus, everyone’s favorite millionaire shipwreck survivor. Was I the only one that had the take away thought from “Gilligan’s Island” that money can’t buy everything? Here he was, stranded on an…
Posted in Read Along
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