What some people do for a living

So here it is, almost the Ides of March again. I remember my first 'ides of march' post last year, was a trip down memory lane detailing mid-March catastrophes.

Now I see the pre-spring bursting-at-the-seams energy as a good thing. Me, I'm out of my mind as usual. But the good news is that I am enjoying the insanity rather than fighting it. So one crazy thing is that my job is really two jobs, Executive Director and Administrative Assistant. Since we tightened the old belt and cut out a position, there are only two of us. My Program Director is already doing two jobs, so I can't complain. But I began to notice that I am a mean boss. I flog that poor Admin. Asst. like a government mule.

Now that we are putting the fundraisers together, it is especially intense. If you want to check it out, don't say I didn't warn you! I sent a fundraising letter to all my friends and God Bless the darlings, they started sending $$.

My friends have the most varied occupations as I'm sure yours do too. Many of my friends are writers in addition to the following. I have 2 psychologists, 6 carpenter/contractors, 2 tile setters, 1 communication cable installer/engineer, 3 nurses, a computer geek, 3 store owners, 2 restranteers, 1 chef, a classical musician, several authors, one judge, a medical transcriptionist, a transitional housing job coach, a peer counselor, a business consultant, 2 graphic artists, 2 online business entrepreneurs, a photographer (and hermit), a former school custodian, a dentist, a doctor, and a dozen massage therapists (lucky me!). One of my high school sweethearts was a famous illustrator for Disney before he died a couple years ago. The thing is you could put all these people in the same room together and you would have a party. Simple as that...they are all stellar humans who happen to perform the current job description of their choice.

A man I once worked for was a carpenter before he decided to go to medical school. He had a rich Hawaiian auntie who paid his way and he became a surgeon. When we started the remodel on his medical office, he was so happy to throw his stethoscope on the desk and strap on the tool belt again. You have to love a guy like that. My friend Shaun, a petite lass, was a dump truck driver, became a nurse, then private detective/insurance adjuster and finally went back to school for her Masters in physical therapy. Wow. Her husband was a nurse anesthiologist, became a master tile setter, and now is back to his original profession.

We have so many opportunities to express who we are. I jumped from college to massage in a sleaze joint, to phone soliciting, to recycling center worker, to pre-med, to truck gardener/tree planter to house painter/carpenter to self-employed masseuse, to job coach at a sheltered workshop, to cabinetmaker to landscaper, to domestic violence shelter advocate, then shelter Director, to Big Brothers Big Sisters Director. What a surprise. It never occurred to me to go for a career.

I had a short little attention span that quite forbade that type of thinking. So here I am...having a ball, my confidence running just ahead of my incompetence most days. My learning curve is always steep. I must like it that way, because I can't seem to stay with what I know. Some days I am so exhausted, I wonder why I have created such a life, where getting through the day feels like a marathon.What I figured out is this: like many folks I have a hell of a time asking for help. Guess what? I am so freaked out most of the time-working these two jobs in one, shouldering more responsibility than I thought I could, crashing my computer with my manic energy, making hellatious accounting blunders and still managing to have it all turn out okay. Why? Because I have to ask for help a dozen times a day.

Like Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, with the sign around her neck, 'Confront me if I don't ask for help'. I was handed this weird combination of qualities: a tough little body, a galloping mindless energy, ferocious ambition, a dose of ADHD, and a clown's gift for klutzing. Most days my mind is like a catfight in a burlap sack. So asking for help hits the restart button and off I go again. Another thing that happens, is like I mentioned in an earlier post, self doubt comes blowing in with gale force to try to topple me. When it doesn't work, when I laugh at how nuts I seem to get, instead of cursing it, I get another opportunity to restart the day.

A lot of my friends also design their lives to be maximally challenging. My cuz is the head of a huge women's homeless shelter. Because they believe in the women, empower them to make their own choices, and stand out of the way, some exciting (sometimes horrible) things happen, some huge disasters ensue. But these gamblers on human potential never stop expecting the best. I love that about my friends. If they aren't racing around the next bend to see what new thing they can learn, what new person they can meet, they are betting the ranch on someone coming through and not worrying if they don't.

This cobbled together life that found me, that nailed me, even though I was too distracted to settle in for a long time, came with great friends, a splendid man who really sees me and still sticks around, and my brothers and cousins who have loved me so well all my life. When I was a little tyke, the stupidest things would upset me, like having to share a bathtub with my brother and cousins. It never occurred to me that it might get a lot weirder than that.

I may even retire sometime from the exhausting day job. I wonder what will happen then?! The friends are for life, and who knows maybe even after that!

Getting back on the horse

I finally got back on the horse and headed for the slopes last weekend...and then again this weekend. Once you start, there is just no stopping. It turns out my old friend/new love, Alan, who had never skied Blacktail (and never let on that he was a skier), looked like a slalom racer blazing down the hill. The first time I saw him in action, all I could think was, "Yikes".

So, yesterday, I did buy myself the promised helmet. My ski outfit is almost complete with only the poles to go. I went without last year, just because, skiing without poles felt very free. My skiing went to hell but it was worth it with less equipment to wrap around the lift chair or catch under my ski. Noting this deterioration of my skiing ability, and having a ski buddy that looked like a pro, I rented poles and took a lesson last week. Voila! Was I ever doing it wrong.

When I headed down the first run yesterday, I worked on my 'homework' of practicing hands out front ("like you're holding a tray") and shifting my weight from the uphill to downhill ski before the turn and keeping my weight forward. It was feeling pretty good after awhile. I didn't biff all day which is a personal record I will probably never beat. Usually, you can recognize me by the amount of snow I'm wearing. Skiing with Robert and Maddie, Terry and Dave and their grandson, Shawn Michael, or waving to them going by on the lift, is just a great way to be with friends.

photo of Flathead Lake and the Mission Mountains by Janice Myers

A bus full of school kids arrived from Browning and they were having a blast chewing up the slopes on boards and skis, some of the younger ones getting lessons on the bunny hill. I thought about what a trip that was for them across the highline, up through the passes and down along the park. They must have left in the dark. That is the obsession for you...to go through anything to get to the ski hill. The bus driver looked as though he was getting a much needed rest to make the drive back, probably also in the dark.

That 14 inches of new powder up there drew us like flies to honey. And sunshine. Nothing beats a place like that in the sun. The valley was shrouded in damp, soupy overcast when we left Polson. Talk about mega depressing. Driving up Blacktail Road was like ascending into heaven, with the hush of whiteness, pine boughs bowed under the load, and a dazzling panorama of non-stop mountain ranges in the distance.

cell phone photo by Al 2/28/09
Up there in the clean, blue air it was hard to imagine a single problem in the world. Can't you tell by our happy little faces!

The Mother of All Vampires

When I started this blog a few years back, all I was interested in was schlupping around the margins of town, the alleys and byways that snake around largely unnoticed in our little berg. But then I noticed how that physical alley grazing was mostly an excuse to roam around my mind at the same time. So today is my day to mentally graze. Amazing what shows up!

So this morning, having recently embarked on a new and delightful relationship with a man I have known for some time, I ran into the hulking monster of SELF DOUBT. When I doubt myself and my choices, I also doubt every right and wonderful thing that is happening in my life. Self doubt is the ultimate robber baron, plucking the numinous and joyous, the splendid, the sublime, right out of your fingers, then throwing it down and stomping on it.

And it was right there, lying in wait for me when I woke up. Of course it took quite a while to recognize the beast for what she is. She dresses up in all kinds of disguises like 'my protector', 'intelligent inquiry', 'critical thinking', 'no one's pulling the wool over my eyes'...

It's not like this is a new realization about self doubt and the power it has over me. No, I come by here every few months, but each time it seems brand new. Maybe because I take the scenic route through new depths of despair, through the annihilation of what I know to be true, to finally recognize the she-bitch, once again.

Since one of my best friends has been working on a book about metaphorical vampires, The Practical Vampire Slayer, we have been having a lot of fun using the tools she proposes. Anything that sucks your vitality, hijacks your concentration, and/or compromises your great personality might be a candidate for vampire of the hour, day, or month. For me, that is mostly my crappy thinking. Any downturn into bitterness, criticism or despair needs a second look for what is driving that. So now it's almost like coming across a familiar face in a crowd. Oh, you again.

According to the practical vampire slayer and all vampire literature, the vampire needs an invitation to come in. So I think about how did I invite this in? Why in the world would I want to take an uzi to my dreams and hopes, my fondest assumptions about my future (even if only momentarily)? That is masochism to the nth power.

For me it always comes back to the Marianne Williamson quote that Nelson Mandela delivered to the world in his 1994 inaugural speech,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..."

My terror of that power within, could that be my invitation?
"Ah, excuse me, Miss, could you take the edge off that power I'm so freaking terrorized by? Oh, yeah, thanks, now I don't feel powerful at all, or even connected to anything powerful. Thanks, now I feel like a whimpering cur. That's much better." Or something like that. The invitation, I didn't hear myself make, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

From what I understand, Spirit responds to all our requests (which must be quite a trick, considering the completely contradictory nature of desire and the non-stop attempts to fulfill it), so the invitation could have been issued in the intake of a breath, in an instant of fear or doubt. So having looked it over, I revoke that invitation to SELF DOUBT and reclaim my God-given power to have a great day and a fabulous life.

For me, as I imagine it is for you, at times each day, there seem to be vigorous wrestling matches between opposing thoughts. Today, I just happened to listen in, and boy, was I surprised. Other days, maybe I just experience the malaise and wonder what's going on. Am I getting the flu? Or I attack someone, maybe only in my thoughts, because this churning is making me so uncomfortable. Taking time to graze inside, especially when it gets nasty in there, is always a revelation.

Ultimately, when I expose the false assumptions, the self doubt, or the desire to attack, for what they truly are, I find nothing much. A bunch of smoke and mirrors that clouds the truth and throws me off track. Self doubt tells me that 'this isn't going to work out'. But it says it about everything I really do care about. It is a one-size-fits-all, shop-worn slogan that just doesn't fly anymore for me. I can't tell you how many perfectly good jobs, relationships, and situations I have left over the years.

No doubt these escapes were prompted by this exact thought, "this will never work". Now the familiar whiff of negativity in my thinking is a dead giveaway. But still, I get led around by the nose for a couple minutes, maybe an hour or a day. Throwing the laser light of clarity and positive beliefs onto this 'boogey man' does the trick.

Another way of looking at Self Doubt is the concept of the predator in Clarissa Pinkola Estes classic, Women Who Run With the Wolves. The predator is like a wolf that prowls around the edges of your thoughts and gobbles up all your half baked plans, the dreams you ignore, those great intentions.

So in terms of "I am woman hear me roar", If I don't put some mojo behind that belief, it will just get chewed up and swallowed by the 'predator' along with all those new years resolutions, plans to travel the world, to-do lists, and other calves too weak to keep up with the herd. If you think about it, its kind of ecological to have something sweeping up all the beliefs and half-baked schemes that would otherwise be cluttering up my mind like debris along the highway.

So whether I see my self doubt as 'the mother of all vampires', the human condition, or a community minded wolf, the fact is that I have incredible choices:

1. I'm not my thoughts
2. I can discover what is making me unhappy (hint: it is always a thought)
3. I can throw light on whatever it is, because I have that power
4. Or I can wallow for as long as I like!

This is the beauty of grazing for me....
I look around in the weeds
and broken bottles,
the rusting auto parts,
that greasy shadow where
motor oil slumped into the weeds
and there , off to the side,
almost hidden by a plastic grocery bag, the
wild viola shines, with snow on the leaves.
or maybe,
a poppy in a traffic clogged corner of Seattle's University district

Drama Dweeb

So after I created the drama around losing my wallet (last blog), I opened the passenger door of my little red car and there it was peeking out of the door side pocket. Little buggah! Little pink wallet with the Trader Joe's sticker on it. Oh yeah, I laughed so hard. Like finding an old friend playing hide and seek standing on her head in your closet hours after the game ended. The things it takes to get me to post.

Snow is coming down like its heading to a half off sale. Snow is one of those things I can't imagine having too much of, though I've never lived in the Yukon. Here along the lake, we sometimes get snow deprivation because of the banana belt effect. However, we did get a bumper crop in December. Wasn't that impressive!

So back to the wallet. By the time I cut up all the credit cards I had to cancel and replace, I had a pile of colorful plastic confetti that looked like the aftermath of a hamster chewing its way out of a lego set.

Sort of a warm fuzzy to see your former ID mangled. Sort of liberating. Now I start fresh. Howboutchu?

Little Gal with No Name

Losing a wallet is not something that I have done often in the last couple decades. Before that, however, it was a frequent event, at least a couple times a year.

So this time, I canceled my credit & debit cards, knowing the bright pink wallet will show up under a pile of clothes or in the pocket of a winter coat that fell behind the couch. I went to put my hands on the passport, which I recall being in a drawer with the birth certificate. Ah, wouldn't that have made it easy. But it was not to be found. My house eats identification!

The dilemma started to dawn on me. No credit card to order a new birth certificate, no birth certificate to get a social security card, and no ID of any kind to get a new driver's license. Whoops! I became the gal with no name.

The good news is that I found some tracking slips for three packages of my Mom's possessions, one of which never showed up. I couldn't find the slips so I couldn't track down the missing box with irreplaceable treasures. Instead of a passport, I found these after 6 months. A good trade.

Losing and finding is a major theme of my life. It all started when I was about seven, right after I came out of a several week hospital stint with spinal meningitis. Yowza. Don't get that one, folks. At that age, I wasn't sure if they were trying to cure me or kill me, but it all scared me into being a very good little girl.

The following year, I would go to school with all the stuff-books, sweater, lunchbox. I would arrive home with nothing.
It was disheartening for both my Mom and me. Mom even asked my doctor if it could be residual brain damage from the meningitis.

We laughed about it years later, but at the time it wasn't that funny. As I recall, arriving home from school with empty hands involved lots of yelling. It didn't seem to matter how hard I tried to remember. I would get past the key moment, i.e. boarding the school bus, and it was all over for another day. So really, just losing a wallet now and then is a huge upgrade for me.

Another major lost item was my senior college thesis. My procrastination writing it had cost me three years on my diploma. When I finally went to deliver it, I hitched 3,000 miles to my college and lost it en route, when the suitcase was set on the ground during some reorganizing of the trunk. So a wallet is really small potatoes compared to that.

Because I've been reading about the structures that contain our lives but have nothing to do with who we really are, I 'm wondering if this 'wallet losing caper' might be a lesson plan with my name on it. Every scrap of my ID vanishes in one week- the paperwork that proves I live in this body, have a right to operate a motor vehicle, have a credit history, collect paychecks, get library books, work toward a free latte. Being without it does free me up somehow. I found myself dancing today for no reason. Slipping on the icy parking lot became a little soft shuffle boogie. Walking up the stairs got a dance rythym going. Just because my purse was lighter? Or was it something more?

Yeah, I'm getting used to the idea that all that paperwork really is not me. At least not the me I seem to be becoming. I mean, the absurdity of stuffing an infinity sized spirit into this little human body...
and then pretending that the body is who I is, you is, we are.

I am little, too, only 60 inches even if you stretched me on the rack. So why do we do that? When the evidence points toward large spirits capable of remarkable powers, we try to convince ourselves otherwise. We treat babies and children as though they are inferior little people who intentionally interfere with our plans, instead of the spiritual giants they are.

So perhaps Marianne Williamson hit the nail on the head when she said (and Nelson Mandela so eloquently quoted),

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. "

So I have shed my outer identities (or maybe the elves stole them) and am reveling in the essence that I find outside of all that. There is something liberating about not having a wallet. I go into the gas station to write a check, and actually talk to the salesgal, instead of letting the machine just munch my card number. I stuff bills all over the place instead of having them tightly corralled in that little slot inside my wallet. It feels really disorganized, but it's just different. Maybe it's a good thing to get booted out of the comfort zone, no matter how trivial; just for a while to have to wing it without all the little cards that tell me who I am and how much credit I have.

T.S. sure had a handle on this...

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
is that which was the beginning;
As the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding" in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, ed. Richard Ellman & Robert O'Clair, 1973

Fellow Travelers through the Seasons

My friend Jan took this photo of her log home outside Polson, Montana a couple days ago. Over New Years, we had several inches of new snow falling like it was getting paid for it. This is more snow than I've seen any winter in 14 years. Yee Haw. My friends are enjoying the slopes and lifts but I haven't pulled out the skis just yet.

In an older body, I find myself weighing the pros and cons of exposure to speed and ice, enjoying my current euphoria of mobile joints and the absence of concussions, wrenched muscles, or torn ligaments. I'll give it one more week. You might recall last winter's post about the final run down the mountain at Blacktail, complete with a 30 foot cartwheel, whiplash, and a mild concussion. Skiing back to the lodge that day after my 'yardsale', I promised myself a helmet before next season.

Yes! Snow dresses up a little town like nobody's business. Gazing up at the mountains today, it looks like this could be Switzerland or Germany. The roadways are paved with vanilla frosting and the trees, buried under a limb bending load, look like splendid decorations. When the setting sun sparks the snow draped mountains with a peachy glow, it is all you can do to keep from shouting for joy. Here is another Jan Myers work of art taken from her house, I bet. Montana is the quick change artist of the world, going from summer to winter, and back again, in the blink of an eye. Or as my friend, Sailor Bill, puts it so wryly, "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and you still won't like it."

Attempting to tackle my 'big guy' yesterday on a snowy slope at the dog park (in a moment of pure winter driven madness) I ended up face down in the snow, while he was still standing. But it was worth it, because somersaulting, frolicking, and making snow angels was the inevitable next thing to do down there.

For Christmas, my friend Mary gave me a photo from five years ago of the two of us hugging a snowman. We had built it the day before when the world was white. By the next day, everything had melted except our giant snowman with the crazy hat. He was listing to about 45 degrees and we couldn't get him upright, no matter how hard we grunted, but it made for a great photo and yet another memory to share.

This past year, my maternal cousins-Martha, Matt, Cody, Mary & Lucia- have become beloved friends as we recently supported each other through the deaths of our two mothers, only months apart. Martha and I (the oldest) were already like sisters from decades of shared experiences. In the tub, she and I are the two on the right, with my brother Bill and her brother, Bo.

So strange how these little kids (Mary, Matt & Lucia) grew up to be the absolute coolest friends, not just to me and my brothers, but to their older sister Martha and to each other, as well. Wouldn't our recently deceased mom-sisters, Tony & Barb, be happy about that.

On the left is Barb & Jim (Mom's brother) on their wedding day.

Tony and Barb had ridden the school bus together when they were twelve and thirteen years old. They were there when each of them met their future husbands. They didn't know at that dewy age what agony their lives would hold and what it would take to survive it. Nevertheless, they each moved through over 80 years with a lot of grace and a devastating sense of humor-right up to the end. On the left, Marth & Matt are imitating our dog, Sam, instigated by Mom, (though she looks a lot like their mom in that photo).

Let's face it, the friends & family we treasure are what make any season memorable. Aging has taught me one thing. The things I thought mattered over the years are Nothing compared to the value to me, of each of my friends, siblings, cousins, and many of my acquaintances.

My youngest cousin, Lucia, had a dream the other day that Mom and Barb were bicycling together in that yonder place, like when they were kids. That thought put a giant grin on my face for the rest of the day!

So Remember...
Tell them how important they are
how beautiful they are
And keep them laughing!

Jumping Back In

I dedicate this post to Jo Ann, who just by the simple act of commenting on my blog, asking about growing Simpson Lettuce, got me jump started again. (She left her comment on the previous post. Jo Ann, check this link.)

Amazing how little it takes. Of course my friend Francis has been sending me his special brand of healing energy too, which is called The Reconnection. So thanks, once again to friends I know and ones I don't know yet.. I thought my alley grazing and blogging were history. Turned out I was wrong

There is no way to calculate the way my Mom's death gut punched me into paralysis. I kept going to work but I didn't really care what happened. When a key person ceases to be in the familiar house, by the familiar phone where you can see her, call her... trade stories, annoy and amuse each other, it is like somebody moved the furniture around in my brain. I keep bumping into things. So now that my Mom is not in her house doing her thing, she seems to zoom around, showing up here, not where I can see her, just bringing the joy and deeply familiar feeling of connection. My friend Barb thinks she is living vicariously through me, getting to do things she would never do.

I even started alley grazing again. Some yellow chrysanthemums for a bouquet, ground picked plums from the alley behind my house. Some great apples along the bike path behind Super 1. Yum. Do you realize this town is covered with walnut trees, two different kinds? I never notice until fall, when the fruit looks like a deviant avocado. Not quite ready yet.

Of course this time of year is also a feast for the eyes with show stopping colors. And rainbows. I hope you all caught the rainbows last week during the peek a boo rain and sun.

Speaking of the leaf colors, my friends and I went to Hot Springs to soak at Rose's outdoor pool on two consecutive weekends. There is a mid size ornamental cherry tree (possibly a purple leaf sand cherry) that guards the pool. I have the exact tree in my front yard though mine looks like a dwarf next to Rose's. The leaves were vibrant, several shades from crimson to mauve in a dense canopy. Enough were sailing into the pool that I could scoop them out in handfuls.

A week later, that dense foliage had thinned to half. The remaining leaves like a transparent shirt, were revealing the tree's winter silouette of branches and twigs. In six days, the Purple Leaf Sand Plum's juicy leaves were transformed into paper shreds the color of leather, hanging on for dear life.

Two mornings ago, in Riverside Park, the wind had whipped up the waves on the river so that they appeared to be dashing along the concrete wall like writhing snakes, or a whiplash that exploded into the shore wall.

My dog Sam went totally bananas (technical term) when he saw that. He raced the uncoiling wave as it barreled along the lip of the wall. When the wave unloaded, like crack the whip, froth roiled up over the wall, and he got a faceful, which just made him redouble his efforts. I wish you could have seen it; in the predawn stillness, a blasting north wind, standing waves, and my dog zinging along the river edge, barking his head off.

I doubt if he has ever had the opportunity to chase sheep or cattle as his breeding dictates, but he can put the fear of God in seagulls, cats, cabbage moths, yellow jackets, elk, deer, squirrels, and the occasional cargo van or tractor trailer. There is also a terrible story about his previous owner, before I got him, adopting him out to a ranch. The ranch wife was doing dishes, looking out the kitchen window when she saw their horse galloping along with Sam at the end of his tail like a flag. Needless to say, he was returned to his former owner that day. Lucky for me. He was kind of a maniac until Karen Duty's doggie manners class tuned him up, or I should say, tuned up the dog owner.

But this 'wave runner' frenzy might have been his most inspired, Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler moment, barreling along the shoreline at Riverside Park, herding waves.