Cake

Last night I had an "episode." Not like the West Wing landed on my couch, but more like I had a convulsive writhing, thing somewhere between my head and my heart.

I spend so much time overwhelmed. There is a lot to do. I have bills to pay and mysterious water leaks to resolve, people to pray for and a Squash Situation in my refrigerator. My 1,000 brilliant ideas for inventions and books will eventually need to escape from my brain, and oh - there's Christmas shopping to be done.

You know that I am writing a book right now. It's actually a pretty awful and gruesome process - not entirely unlike giving birth. Sure it's pretty in the end, if you take a few well-placed, well-timed black and white stills, but in the youtube video you can hear some disquieting animal sounds.

I have written a lot. Some of the better pieces have strong titles, like Million Dollar Baby, while others are in documents cleverly titled "Untitled2" or "writing bits" or "disorganized ideas." In my file "unpublished" I have 50 of these beauties, while the file titled "Name of my Book" has one big ol' file in it that meanders from story to story.

This is overwhelming. As is my intense desire to eat anything covered in cream cheese icing, including my computer.

(this is why people make microwave cakes in mugs)

Women do amazing things when someone is in labor. They boil water. They light candles. They deflect inlaws and wrangle wayward cats. They prepare food.

They hold space.

I put out a plea on the FB, because I believe whole-heartedly that Facebook is really a forum for modern prayer, and lots of my women friends answered: how can I help? What can I do?

These are wise women.

I spoke about holding space yesterday - an idea that is mostly lost on us as we lop memes at one another. Quotes which may (or may not) have been spoken or written by the proposed author superimposed on peaceful scenes of running water or sunsets or someone calmly appearing to meditate near running water or sunsets.

This is not holding space. This is memeing, which, for the purposes of this post, is here-to-for a word. Memeing is the cousin of should-ing and the step-sister of shaming. It requires assumptions. And I'm so grateful that the women who are my friends do not thoughtlessly attempt to solve my myriad problems with a 400x400 pixel prayer-bit re-hashed and re-written and (wrongfully) attributed to Buddha or Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Acknowledge. Ask a question. Let me come to my own answer.

(or bring me cake).