Friday, May 19, 2017

Thank God for Blue Carpet

Thank god for blue carpet.

Today was the hardest day in a long time. The Universe, it seems, is keen on teaching me many things.

That if I tell people that they can treat me a certain way, they do.

That I'm not a beautiful blonde woman, and never will be.

That men should not to be trusted.

That when the going gets rough, and I feel like this, it's better to channel my ferocity by tearing out carpet while blasting Magic Giant than it is to drink or act out in other destructive ways.

Thank god for blue carpet.

When I first moved in, I had thought it would be the first thing to go. That I would quickly replace all of it with some form of lovely wood flooring. Something eco-friendly. Something that would increase the resale value. But I'm glad that the economy tanked and the value plummeted, that we lived off of the money we thought we would invest in flooring, and that I don't currently have the financial flexibility to hire someone to deal with it.

Also, that I have some inner rage and ferocity that is on the warpath and looking for blood.

So it's me all day, old shoes and jeans, and a Barbie sized crowbar pulling carpet and tack rail or whatever the fuck Bob Villa calls it. Scrubbing and vacuuming, prying and crying (and bleeding occasionally). The karma yoga is the thing you do when you can't manage to meditate or salute, when your Sanskrit studies are worn out and you have to somehow live through this emotional weather pattern. It is second only to Bhakti yoga, which in my case, is where you sing along with Magic Giant (or perhaps, more classical chants) as you devote yourself to work.

I'm so tired of feeling less-than, and I'm most exhausted by the fact that I put myself in that godforsaken gauntlet anyway. I don't even need someone to manipulate or deprecate me any longer – I'll gaslight myself by convincing my own reflection that it is inferior to everyone else on the internet, the the TV, and even 36 year old carpet padding. Maybe you've never had this experience, whereby you compare yourself to imaginary or unknown others for the sincere practice of self-flagellation, but my guess is that maybe you have. It's so tiresome for me, particularly because I know I'm doing it to myself.

So the ripping is a metaphor as much as it is a tangible action. It's a way of slowly peeling back the layers of belief and misguided misunderstanding. Methodically rolling it up, and getting it OUT of the house.

The guest room is empty, now – bare to the bones – ready to reincarnate.

But I'm still raw and seething. Still working. And luckily for me, the are stairs and the ground level. The master suite.


Thank god for blue carpet.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The Magic Giant Voice of God

Are you ready for this one?

I considered not writing one this year – just letting the day slip by while I do my best ostrich impersonation, but I just couldn't help myself. I have a few things to say.

Somewhere in my teens, I cleverly decided to give up prayer for Lent, as a tangible offering of my release of the very concept of faith.

(God finds this idea hilarious).

I didn't go back. Once confirmed, I really almost never set foot into a church. And now I'm not sure I belong, because of the marriage and divorce and the staunch feminism that just cannot keep her mouth shut when people pray for all of the “unwed mothers.”

HA.

Last year, right around Mother's Day – the day before, in fact – I had added hope and joy to the graves straddling my dead and buried faith. Love was on the war-path, like a goddamned zombie who just REFUSED to die despite my best attempts at burying it. I was so mad. Knee deep in the pit of despair, the cement of self-pity swallowing my ankles. Former friends and lovers launching spitballs at the back of my neck, kicking me while I was down. The internet was rife with people bitching about being mothers to heathy children.

Because it is hard.

It is. It is the hardest.

Well, no.

It's probably harder to be the mother of a sick baby. Or a dead baby. Or an imaginary baby.
Right? If we think about it? I know we don't want to, because we smell grief and bolt off of the nearest cliff, but even if you get a whiff of it you acknowledge that your life is better than that, even if you have banana pudding in your hair. Even if you haven't had banana pudding since Tuesday.

So there I was, sinking. People still saying THINGS about me not being a mother. Like it was a personal failure. Like it was God's Plan. Like I had so many babies from other people, or so many bags in my arms already, how could I possibly take on one more? Like I had missed my chance, like The Fates had moved onward.

And faith and hope, joy and love, all dead and gone. Just love wandering around emaciated and bloodthirsty, hand in hand with jealousy, chasing after their dog resentment.

And instead of starting to drink heavily, like a normal writer, like a well-adjusted person, I just started to sink into an empty, early grave, my own thoughts poisonous enough. I had the kind of angry, yelling-into-the-canyon conversation with God that ended in tears and back turning. I speak for both of us now (and spoke for both of us then, I suppose, as the canyon never yelled back) - and made sweeping statements about how difficult it had been to endure God's silent treatment – the lack of foretelling and magical symbolism. The true lack of magic, in fact, as life simply got more and more unreasonable, and I remained less and less pregnant.

There is a profound loneliness in infertility, as there is in partnership with an addict, as there is in your life, too, I imagine. Loneliness is strikingly common – frighteningly universal. God is literally laughing at every single one of us who peers at our toes and feels aloner than anyone else in the world, and yet is as alone as anyone could ever be.

We are supposed to give up on the fact that another person will make us feel less alone. That a partner or a baby, or a great job or tight ass will somehow elevate us from the condition of feeling alone. But in fact, everyone I know feels alone at some point, even the prolific and polyamorous entrepreneurs with butt implants and wickedly popular instagram accounts.

Sometimes they are the alonest.

But I did. I felt abandoned in the worst way, even though everyone who has a sense of faith tells you that God is always with you (unless you're a dinosaur). Rumi said something about god always singing your name, but Rumi often pisses me off because he is so right about things, and also because he was a man. And also because his god sang to him, and Rumi heard and wrote some amazing things – the sorts of things that echo for so long you imagine there must be a cosmic looper somewhere, instead of a big canyon in your mind.

It had been twenty years since my last confession, and a good 32 or more since I had last heard the voice of God with my actual awake and sober ears. Yoyo Ma had this cello, and through it, God had a channel straight into my heart, like a tractor beam of love with sparkles and unicorns. There was only one concert, but it was all I needed to remember part of what brought me here into this body this time. Since then, God and I had played this dance whereby she was always on the way out as I was on the way in. I could see her coat tails around the corner, or her shadow as the sun set, but she was always going away, and I couldn't ever quite make out what she was saying.

And then the silent treatment.

So last Mother's Day (the day before) I sat in the bath writing a scathing blog post about how hard it is for basically everyone on Mother's Day. It was me giving up on motherhood and life, with a voice of resignation, not surrender. It is different, to resign oneself and give over the hopes and dreams.

To drown love in the bathtub.

And I went through the motions of life, making no more plans. Wrapping up. Fulfilling commitments.
Waiting for the booming voice of God to give me some direction. Or lightning.

And one month later, she did.

(both)

Sometimes I work at yoga festivals, coordinating things like outdoor tents with music (and lightning)? After my partner left me alone for the millionth time, to head to spend the evening celebrating his birthday with other friends, I did the things – the motions of getting ready for an evening concert with the Big Band.

I kept calling the band Big Magic, because of the Elizabeth Gilbert book, and also because I had run out of spoons and fucks and was just trying to fulfill my commitment so that lighting could strike me dead PLEASE GOD. But they were called Magic Giant, and they were three guys with a whole lotta equipment and smiles and bouncing.

The violin caught my eye.

Sound checks are usually one instrument, one voice at a time. People plucking and clucking and saying “check” and counting incessantly. And that happened. And then they wanted to check balance, so they started into a piece of music.

And everything changed.

The violin had caught my eye earlier, but now it caught my ear. I stopped.

Everything stopped.

The first time it happened, I was nearly three years old, and my deranged parents took me to a YoYo Ma concert. It was 1983, the first time God sang to me.

And here she was again, on the violin, in the wind.

The vocals: I'm not leaving you alone.

It was the song of my soul.

Have you heard the song of your soul, my darling? Have you heard it from outside, from the mouth of another? Fully accompanied by the electronic magic that blends and loops in a way that man alone cannot? They were so happy. Singing my song. I'm not leaving you alone. As if God had placed them down in front of me and said:

“Try me now, bitch.”

God, on a looper.

Faith, hope, and joy, like the three wise men, singing a song of love.

(The lyrics are maybe a touch stalker-ish, but that's ok. God loves the stalker in you, too).

My life did not magically transform because of the song of Magic Giant, but the insidious mantra in my mind had been re-set as their words and melody took root in my mind and reminded me that I was not alone.

I would like to tell you that after that day, I never felt sadness again, that from that day forward, everything unfolded perfectly, but the reality is that life continued onward, in her steady chaotic way with car accidents and hurricanes, early unfathomable loss and plenty of tears and harsh words. Motherhood continued to evade me, love ran rampant and directionless. But the mantra remained, and miracles unfolded, too.

I have a lot of grief, and I'm all set on shame, too. Grief and I have a lot of work to do, because we are partners in this absurd three-legged race of life, and while it's easier to give up and lie down, we can also work together.

I've learned to mother my grief – let it nap when it's tired, tantrum when it doesn't get it's way. Sing to it, the way I encourage new mothers to sing to their babies. Charm it, like a snake who is mostly just heavy and occasionally deadly. And sometimes I leave it with a babysitter and fly across the country to hear the song of my soul.

To re-set my mindset, because life goes a whole lot better when the voice in my head tells me I'm not alone. To seek out joy, hope, and faith.

The voice of God, in three voices and a violin.

Sat Nam

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Participation

A few weeks ago I was at an ashram in the Bahamas – the same ashram – the famed ashram, where I had once felt like a prisoner. This time it was different, because work, because age, because I knew more about myself and what I was getting into. A Karma Yogi – a young American woman – was filming a presentation I was attending, and when the opportunity presented itself to participate, she hung back. She sat, slumped in her chair, watching.

I could relate.

I've spent a lot of time slumped. Slumping. Protecting my heart from the risk of opening it up and letting anything in.

Or out.

Last November in Costa Rica, the sha(wo)man broke me open in, after Hurricane Otto and the travesty of the election, the abandonment and the scorpions had had their chances. She took me the rest of the way, and Shonda Rhymes told me that I could maybe say yes sometimes. That was the series of events that shook me down.

A few days later, I found myself slumping. Day two of a retreat. I wasn't behind a camera, but I was sitting out, not fully in. Holding space.

Avoiding.

I love sitting on the fence. I should have been a cat, or a squirrel. Observing one side, the other. Never quite putting a foot down, because the grass. The grass is emerald green on one side, and jade on the other. Sometimes I think I'll die perched on top of this fence in my life – never making a decision one way or the other.

Gentle confrontation from a trusted teacher pushed me off of the fence. She didn't actually tell me to participate, she just suggested I choose. Like my friend AVT used to say: Shit or get off the fan.

Shit, or get off the fence.

(Or really, just get off the fence).

So I jumped in. Participated. Decided to speak, even if clumsy, even if inexperienced. To ask the questions I had, even if they were stupid, to share my opinion even if it was lousy. To say the words on my heart rather than hold them in, waiting for the moment when they were arranged perfectly. Because most of the time I can't arrange them quite right, especially when feelings or time are involved. I prefer to practice. Script.

Write.

So I cried and laughed, made friends and mistakes. But I participated when I wanted to hold back.

And I have since, too. Mostly. I've gotten on planes and trains and boats, tried the Korean spa instead of staying in and watching out the window. I talked with a woman in a loud, gay karaoke bar about grief. And again, I opened my mouth when the Korean grandma touched my naked belly in jealously and told her I would happily trade my flat tummy for a baby in a heartbeat.

So in the Bahamas, I did the unsolicited advise thing. To the slumping Karma Yogi I said - I don't like it when people give me unsolicited advice, but I'm giving you some now.

When life gives you the opportunity - participate.

If you need a nap, rest. Fuck fomo. Forget it. You can't miss out on your life if you participate fully where you are. Sometimes the face of God that looks like you needs a time out. Napping fully is a sincere form of prayer, just ask the Dalai Lama.

But you can't nap on the fence, you have to be vigilant. And that's no good at all. Vigilance and unnecessary guarding isn't participation. I have done this - grown weary weighing the options.

And I haven't always made the right choice. But god won't let you make the wrong choice more than 50% of the time, even if all you do is flip a coin.

The thing about the fence? Most of the time, the other side doesn't cease to exist because you chose one.

Most of the time, life gives you more chances.

So flip a coin. Participate.