Juxtapositioning

Pink

I have a new thing for pink.

No idea where this comes from. For years, pink was right up there as Most Hated Color in the Universe. Possibly because I was surrounded by it: my walls were an insipid shade of pastel pink, my ruffled bedspread was sort of a washed-out salmon color, and even my rug was pink. There’s a photo of me as a wee thing, lying on that pink rug, nose in a book, wearing something plaid. Oh yes, 1970 was a great year for interior design.

Pink clothes were out. I allowed my body to be clad in drab plaidish kneelength dresses with Peter Pan collars, my long blonde hair with bangs to the forehead partly tied back with what appeared to be a thick length of colored yarn tied in a rabbit-eared bow at the back of my head, but at pink I drew the line.

Pink was for girls.

I thought I was destined to be a boy.

At age 11, I started wearing my older brother’s outgrown clothes. I could mainly get away with this only at home, so on rainy November weekends I snuggled into his old brown corduroy coat. I wanted to wear his old striped tee shirts as well but was afraid to ask for them, so I contented myself with choosing mannish corduroy pants from the Sears catalog.

I still couldn’t be a boy.

I asked to mow the lawn. I loved the snick-snick-snick of the old-fashioned reel mower’s blades, but they were afraid I’d cut off a foot so mostly the answer was no.

I wanted to empty the trash in the house, taking a brown paper bag around once a week to the various wastebaskets dotting the house and then putting the whole thing into the metal can outside the garage in the side yard, but no.

My job was to set the table. Every day. Was that right? Was seven table-settings worth one trash-roundup? I hardly thought so. In addition to setting the table, I also cleared it afterward. Seven times a week, one for every nuclear-family dinner. 14 trips back and forth from the kitchen with plates and forks and knives and spoons while the men in the family sat back with their feet up, lit cigars and took swigs out of brandy bottles.

I also vacuumed (sometimes) and cleaned the bathroom (sometimes) and dusted (frequently). I liked the old metal Electrolux canister vacuum. I liked the smell of Pledge on the old dusting rag, and shaking the rag out afterward on the front porch. I liked moving the knickknacks, one at a time, carefully wiping invisible dust from under and around them, and replacing them again. I liked the smell of Ajax sprinkled into the bathroom sink and the swish of the toilet brush.

But I didn’t like being a girl. I didn’t like being excluded from being taken to the rifle range to shoot a .22 at paper targets. I didn’t like being left out of week-long backpacking expeditions to Mt. Whitney — I never even got to taste the freeze-dried food they took in packets to save weight. I didn’t like the assumption that I was smaller and weaker and somehow not as interesting, because I was a girl.

Pink was a girl color.

In my 20′s I discovered fuchsia. Fuchsia is not pink. Fuchsia is stronger than pink. Better than pink. I had a fuchsia dress. A fuchsia bag. Fuchsia shoes. I embraced fuchsia as the not-quite pink, as the more-than-pink, and as the essence of being more than just a girl.

And then fuchsia became passe and I moved into black and brown and stayed there. For a long time I stayed there. Black and brown are safe. Black and brown have nothing to say. Black and brown hide hurts. Black and brown have no requirements.

This year I moved on from black and brown. Oh sure, they will always be my friends, but I’m making new friends now.

Pink.

It started with a Pepto-Bismol pink sweater. I tempered it by covering it with another sweater in brown, but still the pink was there. Matthew liked it, and said so. I liked it. I liked the person I saw in the mirror who wore it. I liked how it felt.

When I moved last month, I bought furniture in robin’s-egg blue and butter yellow. The other, obvious color that the room needs is pink, so I have begun creating the art for the walls using shades of magenta and turquoise and orange, to bring balance to the walls. Balance to my life.

And this week, a pastel pink tank top found its way to me. It looks good on me, this girl’s color. It feels good. It feels right. Pink.

Crisis of identity

I’ve been blogging here for nearly a year, and elsewhere three years before that. In this past year I’ve used this space mainly as I pleased, which is of course the whole hyper self-aware point of blogging. The 365 project was a massive FAIL. I should know better than to attempt to do anything regularly other than excrete, and you would probably rather I not mention my excretions in any sort of detail. Fine, we have a deal on that.

I’m not too worried about OMG-what-should-I-do-with-this-blog? because, after all, there are only three of you reading it. That’s fine. It’s for me, anyway. Mine, all mine, except in this oddly public way. Whatever. But it strikes me that this is a good time to make some changes.

First off, there’s posting frequency. I’m making no promises here, but it seems that I could drop a line or two more often than twice a month (or less) or so. And so it shall be. (See the awesome power you have? I bow down before you.) After all, I regularly write dozens of words, even as many as 7000, in a single day beginning with my Artists’ Way Morning Pages (yes, I do them). So slinging a few choice ones here once in awhile might be fun.

Next, I thought about moving away from the unabashedly personal nature of what I write here. But … nah. I’ll stay with that. I like it. It’s, well, me.

And, third, expect more experiments. That’s all I can say about that for now (no sense making promises at this point in light of the 365 fail), but I do other things besides write cathartic prose with a cadence. Like, uh, paint. And stuff. And I might show you some.

~~~~~

THIS.  I read this piece at Open Mic night at the local fabulous community bookstore, to moderate approval that included laughter in mostly the right places and applause. Reading one’s written work aloud is a stirring experience, one I plan to repeat.

AND THIS.  The painting is going well. Here’s how I did it:

1. Bought some paint and brushes and some canvases.
2. Decided it was all just an experiment. No pressure.
3. Forgot about painful childhood art experiences when nothing looked like it did inside my head.
4. Painted.
5. Found it is all much easier than it looks.

It’s your turn now. What act of creation did you put away when your were a child? It’s still within you; open yourself up and see.

AND THIS.  Sad truth. When we think we have uncovered painful, difficult, old stuff and worked through it, dealt with it, or otherwise processed it and then think we are “done,” we are not. You will continue to test yourself on it for awhile. The trick is not to become buried by it when it comes up again. If anyone knows a way to get around this, please call me. Preferably in the next hour or so.

AND THIS.  I have decided that I am probably incapable of drowning myself, at least not near where I live in northern Washington state. The reason? The water is too cold here. I could never stay in it long enough. What this says about my ability to make a commitment and stick to it, well, I’ll leave that for you to ponder.

The Great Raw Experiment: Day Something Something

Let’s just say we’ve been on and off the Raw Wagon, shall we? And by “we” I mean me, and by “off the wagon” I mean WAY off, like Oreos, a tasty but absurd conglomeration of the associated evils of trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup if I’ve ever heard of one, Oreos that haven’t crossed my threshold nor passed my lips for probably nigh unto five years, but that somehow needed to be eaten rather than all those sugar snap peas, radishes, and Rainier cherries I somehow passed by.

Oh, and here’s another tidbit of absurdity: despite feeling rather awesome eating only raw foods, I managed these past couple of weeks to regularly talk myself out of it and consume for instance the Thai lunch special from around the corner as well as the aptly-named Wonder Burrito from an El Salvadoran taco truck. Yes, I ordered food through a tiny window in the side of a truck, waited for my food while a fellow customer drew the curving outlines of my car on a sketch pad he later stashed in his backpack as he pedaled off on his bike, trying to hold upright his own Wonder Burrito safely stashed in its non-biodegradable styrofoam coffin pod, and then drove my food home to eat it in front of the flickering light of an episode of last season’s Mad Men.

I rock.

I also have no idea what is in a Wonder Burrito despite having consumed approximately 76% of one, but I may want another.

The thing is, my body now wants only raw food, and seems to be vociferously rejecting everything else. Which is, well, awkward at times, causing me to rapidly and unexpectedly excuse myself at inopportune times. You understand.

Next up: Becoming a Breatharian!

Letting the voices take over

It’s not often that we get to know, right at the moment it is happening, that the moment has come after which life will never be the same again.

I live a dramatic on-the-surface life (juxtaposed with the under-the-surface what’s-she-going-to-do-next aspect, but we’ll leave that one under the surface for now, because this is my blog and I can show you what I want to, and hell, do you actually know what percentage of this (if any) is completely made up?) so I have those moments often.  The first one that I recall with absolute certainty happened in the back-room semi-office where I did my work and spied on my coworkers for our respective bosses (that was such a comfortable situation *cough*). A coworker walked into the room from outside and it was as if he came in from the apocalypse, breathing heavily and leaning against the door, having managed to shut it against the firestorm outside, when in reality he sauntered in, said something unremarkable, and I knew that in that moment life as I knew it had changed forever.

(Of course, I wasn’t sure how it changed, which rendered that tidbit of psychic phenomena slightly less useful.)

Today I went for a hike.  It’s remarkably cold in the damp green moss-covered primeval forests around here the day after a hard rain.  It’s also remarkable about the flies. After about 10 minutes a fly joined me, circling incessantly round and round my head as I walked.  I kept thinking I would outwalk the fly, but no.  He was clearly following me.  Then I tried dissuading the fly, believing in my powers of dissuasion and throwing energetic blocks at the fly to make it go away.  After several minutes of this it occurred to me that I was taking the wrong approach.  I should send love to the fly.  I pictured the fly wrapped in a cocoon of love, everything it needed in that small sweet space, not needing anything from me.  I knew the fly would just drift off happily and leave me alone, sweetly engorging on pure love.

Yeah.

Now there were two flies, buzzing round and round my head in annoying dissonance.  Could they not even buzz the same note?

I tried ignoring them.

Fucking flies.

I gave up.

I am somewhat convinced that it was this giving up that led to the conversation with my inner voices.  You have those, right?  Or, maybe not.  Anyway, I do.  Anytime my mind is not actively engaged in something else, there’s an inner chorus telling me things.  It used to be things like, “You’re fat!” or “You’re a failure!” but I stopped listening to those voices a while ago.

Today I started telling the voices what I wanted.

Turns out, I want quite a lot.  And that’s okay.  We all want stuff.  So we had quite a talk, the voices and me, and this time it was different.  We made plans.  I got advice.  I have homework.

I’d tell you more, but I’m kind of busy.  Homework.  Writing.  Stuff like that.

Next time you hear voices (especially if there had been flies involved), listen.  You’re wiser than you suspect.

P.S. It’s all good.

Wandering, times three

At 24, on weekends (when I had them off) for a while, I took to walking through the too-large, too-empty colorless high-ceilinged rooms of my new house, walking slowly past the new furniture, wondering where my soul had gone. Time stretched into frightening nothingness and it seemed that by walking — slowly, endlessly walking — I could somehow fill that void.

It’s easy to find ways to fill up the void.  Having a job that you take home nights and weekends, every night and every weekend.  Having children.  Then having more.  Letting life revolve around you, propelling you round and round, always in a different direction, any direction.

There are too many blank spaces again these days.  Life has conspired to leave room for thought, for direction, and the idea of becoming one’s own rudder again, when the rudder itself stretches into gaping darkness, seems like an endless bad dream.  The walking has begun again, only there’s nowhere to walk to.

~~~~~

I read something today that seemed incredible to me, a laundry list of things one might feel when beginning a spiritual awakening process.  Every single item on the list was also a sign we associate with depression.  Deep inner sadness. Check.  Sleep issues.  Check.  Physical disorientation.  Check.  Every one.  And I have felt ALL of them, at one time or another or all at once, since about the age of 9.  Which means that:

1. The awakening signs list is a load of crap, or
2. I’ve been depressed since I was 9 (or before), and
3. Everyone else I know is depressed as well, OR
4. There’s totally something to this awakening stuff and it completely absolves me of guilt over feeling so crappy for so long, BUT
5. Since I was 9? Am I not yet awake, then? WTF?
6. Because dude. That awake stuff is, like, my business.  I help OTHER people.

I don’t know whether to feel heartened by this or to feel like running screaming in the other direction (maybe that’s an overreaction … checking list for “overreacting”).  Does knowing this, if true, mean I can release not only any expectation of this ever to go away but also and sense of responsibility about it?

It’s like a relief and yet not.

~~~~~

Speaking of reincarnation, I’m going through a sort of one.  That’s, of course, in addition to any painful deep inner stuff I may have already mentioned.  A job thing, squeezed now into a smaller space, and soon my belongings, rapidly and unwelcomely having grown out of the everything-fits-in-my-car stage of only a few months ago, to be also squeezed into a smaller physical space: I’m moving in a few weeks.  Again.  But this time I get to take along new things like a bed and a chair and a desk and a coffee table and dishes and a TV (why?) and a Wii (why??) and a motorcycle.

The alternative seems to be along the lines of chucking everything into storage and leaving the country for someplace exotic for many many months, but that was going to take planning, and since the farthest I got on that road was to buy a guidebook and I am still lacking small details like immunizations and visas and plane tickets and, well, PLANS, moving seemed easier.

Where I’ve been lately

Yeah, I’ve sort of missed blogging, but I’ve been busy.  It’s this alternate-reality thing.  No, really.  A few weeks ago I discovered I can slip into this other from of reality.  It’s way cool and yet sort of frightening at once, so of course I like it, I’m fascinated by it, and I can’t wait to do it again slash never want to do it again.

So this is what happened:

Matthew put on some music, and I became immobile.  Went somewhere else.  Spent an hour looking up at the skylight and the trees and whatever other little slice of outside I could see, the rain dripping on the glass a little.  For an hour.  I couldn’t move anything but my eyes.  I sort of thought I could and that somehow I was faking this, but when it came down to it … I couldn’t.

The music?  Mercan Dede.  Went through an entire album, whatever was there on his iPod, and there I was, immobile and thinking that here I was in this world and there Matthew was in his, and somehow the worlds  just didn’t quite intersect.

After an hour he started getting a little concerned.  An hour is a long time in that place, but he could unlock the spell by touching my hands (though I had no idea what to do with the cup of tea he gave me).  Some voice in my head whispered commands to me but I couldn’t make my body do them.  Walking was new (how did I get so high up from the ground?), and who was that person in the mirror?  Driving was interesting, all those distractions from the “furry trees” (trees with moss on them) and the excitement of passing the “ocean,” (a lake) and having to read every sign out loud and realizing I was the one driving, I mean how funny is that?  Trusting the crazy child-woman behind the wheel.

I’m still not convinced I’m not totally making this up, but I did stand motionless on a chair, paint brush raised in hand, for several minutes after Matthew put Madonna’s “Ray of Light” on and I found I couldn’t move.

New Age and hypnotic music does this, but I think that’s just an entry point and that there are other ways to get there.

So this was all happening at about the time I was finishing “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and musing about one’s possible descent into other worlds and what that might be like and what a total relief that would be.  Coincidence, I scoff at thee!

(Books, incidentally, have always been a sort of beacon for me, illustrating in a surface way the things that are happening inside me as well, and I take my reading choices very seriously, allowing an intuitive guidance to occur and always enjoying the juxtaposition of the inner world with the outer.)

So … that’s where I’ve been.

Also I’ve been delving into fear a little.  From skydiving I went to getting my motorcycle license and riding around on one.

But, as always, the things I fear most are the ones I hide best.  The ones deep within.  Unlocking that monster-in-a-closet is next on the list, I swear.

Acid

I am about 3 weeks late on a deadline. I am never late with deadlines (except for a notable exception because I can’t seem to operate Google Calendar). But this one requires going deeply into something, something I just don’t want to touch.

But I have to.

It calls to me, whispers to me at night just as I’m drifting into sleep and makes my eyes snap open as if on springs and my heart suddenly pound.  I push it away with safe thoughts, good thoughts, and push my leaping heart back into my chest.  It wriggles, fishlike, for a moment, then lays still, obediently pushing blood into my arteries again.  I can breathe.  The moment is gone.

The other day I was meditating and felt guided to have a hot bath.  Bath preparations were narrated by my inner voice: insistent, encouraging.  The water in the bath, I understood, was me. The essence of me.  I was to immerse myself in … me.

I undressed and got in the water.  Hot.  Stillness.  Yes, this was me.

Inner screams.  Panic.  ME??  I am immersed in MYSELF??!  It felt like bathing in acid; I could feel the inner awfulness burning, burning, searing my skin, destroying me.

I wanted nothing more than to get out of that bath.  Immediately.  But I couldn’t move.

The inner voice still spoke to me.  I listened.  I breathed in my fear, breathed it in and felt it, loved it.  I felt my panic subside.  I could love this water, this me. I could love it.

My body relaxed.  The voice continued.

The project that has this deadline is like the water in the bath.  It requires me to look deeply at things I’d rather not see. Things that are painful to think about, let alone become immersed enough in to write about.   But who am I, anyway?  I am my story.  I am the stories I tell.  And if I don’t look deeply, if I don’t touch the burning acid inside, then my stories lie deeply hidden, burning a hole deep within me.  Touching the burning acid, then, is the only way to set it free.  It’s the only way not to burn up inside, becoming an empty hole surrounding a pool of fire.

Skydiving

Yeah, so I jumped out of an airplane the other day.

It’s well known than New Zealand is famous for bungy-jumping. When we got here there were countless airport brochures covered with alluring photos of smiling people about to hurl themselves to their doom. I thought about skydiving and it seemed sane by comparison—only a little daring like a walk on the foot-high barrier next to the path instead of on the path itself, rather than bungy-jumping daring of hurling yourself right off the cliff next to the path. I could do that.

“Karen’s going to go skydiving,” Matthew remarked to his mom right after we got here. (He had done it himself once before and felt no need to this time.)

She looked at me. “That’s expensive,” she said dismissively. So I ruled it out. Expensive. Not gonna do it.

We got off on our own finally last week, rented a car and headed northward to Taupo. Had little idea what was there besides a big lake and volcanic stuff underground. It was away and that was enough.  We stayed at a “backpacker’s,” like a hostel with a communal kitchen and gathering area. I chatted up some of the people there, from everywhere, it seemed, except New Zealand: the U.K. Nova Scotia, some Scandinavian country, etc.

“What’s the best thing you did here?” was my question.

“Skydiving!!”

The world tilted a little on its axis, and priorities changed. Plus, I am (apparently) immensely suggestible. Go on, tell me what I will like and I will believe you.

Skydiving.

So we went whitewater river rafting, addressing another of my fears (Fear A = Heights. Fear B = Drowning in Water), and it was fab. A high. Easier than I thought. Plus I did not fall out of the raft, a huge plus in my opinion.

That morning I made the reservation for skydiving later that day, for after the rafting, after consulting everyone else in the hostel. Unanimous. “Were you scared?” I asked them. “Of course! Best thing I ever did!”

Okay then.

This, by the way, was a Skydiving Upselling Moneymaking Machine Industry. In case I missed the point or any of the 12000 opportunities to buy merchandise/photos/videos/memorabilia. They wasted not a moment and had the whole thing choreographed. The process of Sell + Wait Around + Get Nervous Waiting + Can’t Change Your Mind Now + Get Ready + Jump + After Jump + More Selling of Things You Hadn’t Known Were for Sale + Pay for Everything You Agreed to Buy While Under Duress took several hours.

It still involved falling out of a plane though.

The ride up took 20 minutes, they said. It may have been five minutes or it may have been an hour, crammed butt to stomach into a small airplane with about 10 other people. I couldn’t count. I couldn’t think. Every few minutes the guy behind me, to whom I was attached by a system of clips and harnesses that I couldn’t see and only nominally trusted that even existed, would show me his gigantic-dialled wrist altimeter, indicating we were at 1000 feet, then 5000 feet, and on upward to 15000 feet (which didn’t even actually show on his altimeter that ended inconveniently at 10000).

Thousands of feet? Meant nothing. I was in the Zone, the Zone of Not Freaking Out.

Pretty soon—hours? days?—the guy behind me pushed me toward the open door of the airplane. This was not happening. Everyone else had disappeared (where did they go? I never saw them leave, actually). There was nothing else to do but surrender and let him push me out too.

Put your head back and curl your feet back. Banana.

My head is back and I am falling.  There is a reassuring weight behind me, reassuring only in the lightest sense. I am falling.

Falling.

Tap on the shoulder. Let go of the harness that is keeping you from (falling?) dying and put your arms out like you are (falling?) flying.

Can’t make sense of what I am seeing. My ears hurt, cold. My fingertips, cold. I begin to worry about my ears and their reaction to the slightest wind. This is way more than the slightest wind.

Falling.

Clouds? That’s clouds there, the clouds we flew through earlier. There they are.

Now through the clouds and there’s more reassurance. Greenbrownblue, colors swirling, moving so fast.

A tap on the shoulder. Something about a parachute. Suddenly vertical, swinging. Still can’t make sense of what I am seeing. I may have said “fuck.”

Not dead.

Swinging, angling around in stomach-churning circles, over the lake (OVERTHELAKEWATERDROWNING), swinging.

Flying.

“Relax,” the wielder of parachutes behind me says.

Falling.

This part should last longer, but there are parachutes far below, colorblips beneath my dangling feet (were they cold too? I can’t remember now), and there is a race, must catch up.

Hold your legs up, let me see you practice, noooo I just want to fly here forever, slowly, just gliding, enjoy the moment.

No, down.

Then, on the ground (that’s the ground? It feels so … solid), no longer tilting. There is Matthew, two cameras, now I am supposed to smile and look happy to not be dead.

Elation, of a sort.

What just happened?

Ten minutes later my whole body began to shake, and it took two days to hear properly again.  Every night since I have dreamed about the open door of that airplane.  I still don’t know what it looked like to fall out of it (eyesclosedeyesclosed) so I see it now in my dreams.

Still a blur in my mind, I don’t know what’s real. I have a line item to look at on my credit card statement. I have photos of me, so tiny, still swinging from brightyellow parachute in a red jumpsuit.

I have dreams.

Falling.

Fear, and moving through the fear.

Part of me suspects I made this up.

Why, yes. There it is.

omfg it has been busy, with little sign of let up. Twelve hour days have melted in sixteen hour days, and this parttime gig is now paying me about a buck an hour. And, oh, I should be announcing it with fanfare (we launched! last week! and the site—Super Eco—totally rocks! go see!) but sadly all I can think about is the fact that the letters double themselves on the screen and make it nearly impossible to see.

Last week it was cold, and I was in Pennsylvania. It snowed there. My heart froze. I hadn’t seen three cherubic faces in seven months, hadn’t held them in seven months, hadn’t been a part of their daily oatmeal-to-teeth-brushing for seven months, and all I could think about was when could I leave so I could get more WORK done. I miss them. I am ashamed. We didn’t have the week we all envisioned, and I am sloughing off thick layers of guilt over that.

Today, like the past three days before this, I am in Vancouver. I am hoping my own house hasn’t slid down a muddy slope or burned to a cinder along with my beautiful bed or frozen into a solid block of ice.  I sort of miss it, although it is so very empty still.  I have not imbued it with my essence, a thing which I still keep close inside me.  Once day I will let it out, and that will be a joyous day indeed. Am getting closer all the time to that moment.

Next week we may fly to New Zealand. It boggles my mind that we STILL haven’t decided, STILL haven’t made plans, and STILL don’t know, and that I’m mostly okay with all that. Details to follow when they arise.

And I am still very tired, and still trying to find my balance in this world.  It *is* there, isn’t it? And I am not deceiving myself?  I ask this in earnestness, because I am not sure.  I have to wonder if balance is ever a thing really achieved, or if the trick instead is to simply fly just a little, lightly, over the surface.

Still here

So yes, I moved.  I packed up my car with all my stuff, reported in with Canada (bye! don’t let the door hit you on the way out!) and moved in.

So did the snow.

Then I was snowed in. Because of the snow. And the steep steep hill.  And an appalling dearth of snowplows. It was sort of peaceful until the propane tank ran dry. And then it got cold.

But there was this weird sense of denial that I had, of enjoyment of the fact that I had little and was making due with A Chair and A Bed and a package of rice cakes and some butter. It was a new experience, much like my transient homelessness last summer.

It was quiet, too. There’s a lot to hear in quietness.  So I listened.  Am still listening.

Two more days until the new year. Another beginning, and and ending. More change is ahead. We’re all thinking about the symbolism of change now as we move from one year to the next. I have no idea where I’ll be, not in any sense of the word, a year from now. Most years I can see ahead down the path somewhat. This one? Not at all.