An Unfortunately, Unfortunate Personality Trait.

A riptide containing the past brings what could be expected, an unpredictable current that is ordained by an unmanaged ocean—if one gives a passing thought to red caution flags. 

At fourteen I learned the truth of this standing chest-deep in the water waiting for the perfect wave to body surf to shore, watching as a lifeguard hung warning banners from the tower. I imagined the riptide would grace me with minutes before forcefully ensnaring my ankles. I remember the almost imperceptible sway as the power of what could not be controlled enveloped me into an unbreakable caress, bringing the realization that there was very little between me and an endless walk on the bottom of the ocean.

Several weeks ago I had a dream where I was in a deep sea station, and for no good reason decided to leave through a hatch without diving equipment. In the dream, I came to realize what walking on a seabed with an ocean of water above me meant. There was a crushing weight keeping me pinned, and the awareness that I should be drowning. My lungs were not gasping for air, but the idea made me gasp for air.

Similarly, with healing, I unknowingly knew that as long as I didn’t see the enterprise big-picture-third-person, I’d fair better with hope and intention. Underneath everything, I understood that once I really and truly saw the full-read, there would be a spasm of “oh no” that I could not control.

Oh no, what does this mean?

Oh no, will I always be somewhat or mainly broken?

Oh no, how is this impacting my life and the people in it?

Oh no, there’s pain and suffering.

Oh no, will it last ‘til I die?

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…

The full-read of an injury or illness is shocking, “oh no” is an appropriate response—unfortunately.

An “oh no” is powerful, it is awareness, it is a complete investment in whatever accident, trauma, environmental or DNA-infused, emotional thrashing a person is experiencing. And a full-read is unfortunately unfortunate.

Who wants to know everything?

I’m one of those who reads the end of the book to see if it's worth reading. I guess how a movie will play out to the consternation of people who watch with me. This is an, unfortunately, unfortunate personality trait. I have tried to hide from myself the big picture view of my own healing for decades.

It takes serious skill to play hide and seek in your own mind.

Which is why I dedicate this and most newsletters to healing. I get it. I get not diving in for the full read. No one wants to think healing will take longer than a couple of hours, a week tops. No one wants to walk on the bottom of the ocean without a diving apparatus for a single second let alone decades. But and this but is huge…healing is not just about a single person. It is never about a single person in the big-picture-full-read. It is about the tribe, the human population of this planet. If an aspect or aspects of the homo sapien organism is ill, traumatized, broken, depressed, stressed, or emotionally/psychologically not participating, then we are all at risk. Our children, our neighbor’s children, the children who are decades from being born are at risk of having lives that are less than what is possible.

I’m passionately invested in healing because it has been a life-long investment for me in time, money, and experience. Many of my days are spent pondering whether healing is a worthy use of a life…my life. And there are many of those hours that I believe it unfortunately unfortunate that I seem to need to tackle this beast of a question and walk beneath a mountain of water. As the one who reads the end of the book first, I am without a cumulative answer. Only the knowing that for some unfathomable reason I woke up on the bottom of the ocean and now I have to do something about it.

May healing be a guiding force for all people, and may this bring the endless possibility imagined by those who see the full-read-third-person-big-picture.

Sunday, October 1st @ 7AM I will be interviewed on WBOM Radio by InPrint Writer's of Rockford. The topics will range through healing, meditation, and the creative process. The link may be found here.

I've found music lyrics are a worthy way to discover a path on the bottom of the ocean. White Daisy Passing by Rocky Votololato is one of those. The link is here.

Pancake Girl Wins.

I had a long conversation with my twenty-something self today. She woke up after a decades-long boring coma and wondered why we weren’t eating pancakes. After listening to her rant for over an hour I gave up trying to explain that pancakes are a bad idea for someone prone to a wider backside than was on hand back in the 1980s.

Twenty-something girl was right. Pancakes make life a bit easier to deal with.

She’s also right that waking up dormant selves could be an unpredictable and wonderful way to spend the next fifty-six years.

A therapist once told me that every person has multiple people inside them…the worker, the parent, the lover, the kid, the friend, the pissed-off teen, and we bring them out depending on the circumstances we’re in. It would be interesting to test the theory and notice when an awakened aspect giggles in the background, allowing a more spontaneous existence. The creamer aisle at the grocery store would certainly be more captivating.

This practice might allow the inner kindergartner to seek new friends and want to know how stuff works, the teen to vociferously advocate for those less fortunate, the lover to choose passion rather than Netflix, the worker to stay confined to a thirty or forty hour week so the parent can remember their kid likes to play catch at sunset. It could bring forth the twenty-something imaginative and witty flamethrower, who wants to explore the world and believes that life is worth more than sleep-walking.

Today I had lunch with Freedom Girl and damn she’s a hell of a lot of fun. I was informed between bites that along with pancakes, there will be long driving trips, dancing with my dog Pi until we're both nearly sick, hilarious chats with creative types minus a choke-hold filter, deep and lengthy musings on song lyrics, and great big guttural laughs that won’t stop until everyone pees their pants.

May all the kids within us awaken their feisty wisdom, humor, and whimsy to inspire a life with endless possibility.

The Eyeball.

          Healing comes with instigation and instigation comes from awareness.

An ophthalmologist decreed that I needed drain holes lasered into my eyeballs…if I chose not to do this I would likely go blind between now and the dark ages. The idea of losing my sight forced me into a chair and held me in place for every nerve-cringing zap of pain. It was as bad as I had imagined and as worth it as I hoped. Working eyes are an ignition of perception; taste and touch another two.

Eyes see the world outside, a conduit to what is happening on the other side of our inner shenanigans.

An eye does not use fillers, it does not promote a camouflage of what is true. Eyes send pictures to the central nervous system, where the brain grinds non-corrupted information with stale crackers—producing a life prism.

It is difficult to recognize what is in our mish-mash, an at times beautiful mosaic unless a person has remembered when or if a filler was added. Since life happens at a rapid and at times confusing pace, crackers become commonplace, as though they were always in the original product…even though they weren’t.

Our perception is not born with fillers.

Our perception is the quizzical look on a babies face when pureed plums are initially tasted. The flavor is cataloged into tart or sweet, good or bad and the taste buds remember until as an adult the information can be managed. “I should like plums…let’s learn to like plums.”

Removing fillers from a mosaic is not an easy task.

I know this because I’ve been doing it for over fifteen years. This has been an undertaking that is not enjoyable, nor has it always appeared to have an end-game. The last of the crackers have lain obstinately hidden, their essence having been ground into what I termed the dust of  “who I am…who I would always be.”

A few months ago the crackers began revealing themselves quite stealthily so as not to inspire more subterfuge. They hid themselves in plain sight, as metaphors in my writing, crumbs for me to follow until I could see the entire mosaic created from the harm that was done to me as a child. The view was and is startling, discovering who I am beneath all that was.

Without the layers of subterfuge, it is a new world…one I’m not even sure I like. It is the taste of plums for the first time.

Instead of telling myself what is good or bad, tart or sweet, I am waiting. Waiting until the waiting is over and I am ready to see everything for what it is—shells, sea glass, and pinkened-umber tulle…the spirit that exists regardless of the life.