hope

For Laura

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

I know some incredible women.

It is one of those women’s birthday today.

Some people just blow you away. Laura inspires me daily. She is an artist, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend. A leader. A teacher. An activist. A community contributor. An active citizen.

She lost her 20 year old brother to suicide in 2000. Rather than fall into despair, she has used her grief to create, educate, help and heal.

Read about one of her creations, Arts & Dreams, and the incredible work they do here.

Enjoy her art work here.

Laura reminds me to live creatively, lovingly, with ample doses of self-forgiveness.

I am so lucky she was born and that I know her.

She Is
Scarlet lips
Piercing chocolate eyes
Portals who see your soul
Lives in brush strokes
Of love and thoughtful heart
Colors rich with knowing
Midwife of self-love
Earth angel saving
wretched alone-hearts
One mantra at a time

Eyes Wide Shut

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For the gathousandth time

I look in my own eyes

Searching for a glimpse of her

The girl I was

All I see is shadowy pain

Dimmed promise

Blighted hope

Battered belief

I search still

Who is left in there

Whose pain is being reflected

Whose fatigue

Whose caution and fear

If eyes are the window to the soul

It’s time to move

https://guestdailyposts.wordpress.com/guest-pingbacks/

I share my posts on Alan’s site

49/51

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 4 Comments

There is a life force within

It has seen me through

Black-pitched soul’s dark nights

Days so thick with despair

I could barely breathe or move

Sometimes it was so very close

If not for that push inside

To continue on this journey

The pull to end it could have won

But something in me wants to live

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: continue

A Critical Juncture

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 4 Comments

I am a recovering perfectionist.

In “A Skin Horse Awakening”, I wrote about my perfectionism, and what I believe the genesis of this “ism” to have been in my life. (Or perhaps I should say “who.”) I don’t believe I was born with the affliction of perfectionism.

Let me walk this back. Perfectionism is bandied about a great deal these days. People jokingly refer to themselves as a perfectionist, and we all think things like “Oh, they work really hard to get things right,” or maybe that they are a bit anal (as in detail-oriented,) maybe a little bit OCD.

According to Wikipedia, Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.[1][2] It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive and negative aspects.[3] In its maladaptive form, perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal while their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression.

When I say that I don’t believe that I was born a perfectionist or with a perfectionist gene, I am saying that I learned to be hyper-self-critical. I guess maybe perhaps you could argue that my being extremely sensitive is genetic, and therefore in a way that part of my perfectionism is genetic, as in I am extremely hard on myself and yet I am very sensitive to feeling like I am being criticized…maybe that being “so sensitive” is genetic?

If such a thing even exists. I can never know another’s internal experience, what life feels like for them through their nervous and other systems. I can only know my own.

So really, how can anyone, from my family (“You’re too sensitive!” “You are so sensitive.” “Don’t be so sensitive!”) to psychologists/people we label experts at such things be able to say that someone is “highly sensitive” or whatever? What do they mean? Are they really saying we are very emotional? More emotional? What does that even mean?

(I think perhaps it means that they are uncomfortable with our amount of feeling so they label us as “highly sensitive.” A label to explain away their discomfort.)

And if someone doesn’t “feel life”the way I or someone else labeled sensitive does, are they “insensitive” or unfeeling? Just because they do not seem to experience life the way I do, they are less sensitive? You see what I mean? (It is somewhat crazy-making for me, actually.)

Anyhoo. Perfectionism. Not genetic, in my humble opinion.

I learned to be hyper-critical of myself and to expect extremely high standards of performance from myself. I learned to care deeply and to depend greatly on what I thought others’ were thinking of me. To value other’s evaluation of me above all else, especially my own.

This relationship to myself and the world and myself in the world was learned. I learned it from a master, my father. I am not sure where he learned it. I am quite sure he suffered as much from it as I have. I am also sure that he had great regret later in life around the price of his untreated perfectionism on his relationships with himself, the world and the people he loved.

I am so grateful that I am in recovery around this. I do not have to suffer at my own hands anymore, or cause undue suffering in my loved ones out of my perfectionism.

One of the most tremendous sources of help around this for me has been the work of Brene Brown. You may have heard of her TED Talk on Vulnerability. If you have never watched it, I highly recommend it. Seriously, stop reading this and go watch it! Then come back ; )

She has been on my mind the past few days as she posted on Facebook from Houston, where she was volunteering her clinical services, making a plea for donations of clean, new underwear for those recovering from the hurricane. First things first, please take a view.

Here are three ways to give NEW (still in package) underwear. Please keep in mind that we need a variety of sizes for men, women, boys, and girls, including XXL.

1. https://www.amazon.com/…/2O89ZX93O…/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_1

2. Collect new, packaged underwear and mail it to the address below. It’s our local Hillel and they are collecting for us. This is a really great neighborhood or school project. If you’re purchasing, we recommend Hanes or Fruit of the Loom. UFE doesn’t process or give out anything but underwear!

Undies for Everyone
1700 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX 77005

3. Give cash and Undies for Everyone will purchase wholesale: https://secure.lglforms.com/form_e…/s/uFpr61ITEItxPeN4Lo9zpA

Brene is an amazing woman. I could write blog after blog about her and how she inspires me. It has been through her work that I have had true shifts around my perfectionism.  I mean, I could understand before that I was one, but then what? What do I do to help myself out of it? Through it? She defines perfectionism a bit differently, and that difference has made all the difference in my being able to make shifts and heal. She defines it so:

Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: “If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

She writes further:

Perfectionism is defeating and self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception – we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable – there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.

Perfectionism is addictive because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough so rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look, and do everything just right.

Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we’ll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: ‘It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because I’m not good enough.’

To overcome perfectionism we need to be able to acknowledge our vulnerabilities to the universal experiences of shame, judgment, and blame; develop shame resilience; and practice self-compassion.

When we become more loving and compassionate with ourselves and we begin to practice shame resilience, we can embrace our imperfections. It is in the process of embracing our imperfections that we find our truest gifts and strengthen our most meaningful connections.” B. Brown (2009).

Wow. I mean, just yes. And yeah, this is a daily practice. It is a struggle one day, a breeze for the next three days, and then the shit hits my internal proverbial fan and it feels like I am at day -4. And then I feel free of it again. But Wow and Yes. And I’ll take that over interminable suffering in the depths of the hell of my own mind being run by unchecked and uninformed perfectionism.

If you know of what I speak, I recommend her work and any of her books.

It is a lifelong process, but it is truly gratifying to find true relief.

Oh, what a journey it is, this coming to life. This learning to relax into all of the things I used to hate so about myself. To even begin to embrace and yes, even find love for all my parts. Especially the ones most imperfect.

To pull my own self down off the self-built marble column I had constructed so long ago into the real world where I can be with others, be a fully-fleshed human being among human beings. To smash the statue-like full body persona I had so carefully made and let the flawed imperfectly beautiful person I am start to live and breathe and love.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: critical

To Do’s Today

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

Here is what I can do today.

I can create:

Joy. By Taking time to find it in my body and then give it to the world in the form of smiles and kind interactions with others.

Peace. By listening and respecting others, staying unattached to needing them to agree with me or see things my way. By refusing to war with my self or anyone else.

Art. By choosing to use my body, voice, mind, emotions, instincts, words, will, expertise and talent to create in whatever ways I can. I can do this regardless of whether I get an audition or booking, or am in a show or film or not. Especially in today’s world, I can create art and share it daily, for my self and others.

Positivity. I can choose to meditate, practice gratitude, use mantras and affirmations and select an intention to guide my day. As many times a day as I need to, I can tap into the ever-abundant source of this that is within me. Every moment contains the choice of love or fear.

Justice. I can stay active politically for the causes I support. I can use my voice, body and energy as needed to take action. I can speak up when I see injustice.

Equality. See above. 

Beauty. I can allow my spirit to shine freely from within. I can reflect back to others the beauty I see within them, encouraging theirs to flow freely.

Comedy. I can listen for the clown (my unsocialized 4 year old) within, and work with her impulses instead of tamping them down. I can laugh at myself and at funny things and share that with the world. 

Music. I can hum and sing and make up silly songs in the grocery line. I can sing at the top of my lungs for the sheer joy of it. Or I can create art from the music in me.

Excitement. I can go against the grain of the social conditioning that started in junior high school and begin to allow my enthusiasm for life to thrive and be seen. I can choose excitement over “cool” and feel my own aliveness flow into the world. Maybe I will spark enthusiasm in others.

Intimacy. I can choose to be vulnerable with myself and with others, and perhaps help them to become vulnerable as well. Vulnerability may well be key to saving the world.

That’s what I can do today.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word: create

Hope Springs

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Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: crisp

Crisp twenties so new that you have to separate them from themselves

Freshly cleaned laundry, folded neatly

Dry cleaned sweaters in plastic protective wrap

Kittens or puppies sleeping on or near each other

Baby animals, period

The release of the receptacle handle after returning library books in on time

A blazing sunset that stops you in your tracks and out of the fray of the day

A child’s unrestricted peal of laughter

The rise and fall of a sleeping baby’s belly

The moments just after re-organizing my purse

How gum tastes in the earliest moments it is in your mouth

A blank spiral-bound notebook or college-ruled yellow pad of paper

Walking out of Starbucks with that little green stick plugging up the hole, keeping the heat in

Discovering urban art in unexpected places

Budding flowers

A plant’s leaves reaching towards the light

Sharing eye contact and/or an experience with a stranger on the train, in passing on the street or in a line anywhere

Seeing someone drop trash, thinking they don’t care, and then seeing them pick it up and put it in a receptacle

Feeling heard after a grueling session with any company’s customer service on the phone or on-line, coming to a solution that actually feels fair and human

Those little plants fighting to sprout in-between cracks in the sidewalk

Spreading tree branches that snake between fences, around posts, and survive

Same-sex toddlers holding hands un-selfconsciously, line partners as they pass with their class on the streets of NYC

 

#itsthelittlethings #findinghopewhereyoucan

 

Girl with a Pearl Necklace

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My niece just graduated from high school and turned 18 on the very same day.

She is very special to me, as is her brother, who is a few years younger. They are my remaining older brother’s children, and our little family of my husband and I and my brother and his family have become more and more important to me with each passing year.

More so I think since the deaths of my mother, father and other brother several years ago. Losses sharpen and intensify the remaining connections. It is one of the sweet gifts such losses contain.

I decided to continue a family tradition and take my niece on a trip in honor of her graduation. My Grandma FitzGerald (who I was named after) began the tradition when my oldest brother (the one who remains) and our cousin (my mom’s twin sister’s eldest daughter who was my eldest brother’s age) graduated from high school. She took them on a two week trip to Europe. She did the same when my middle brother and our only other cousin (my mom’s twin sister’s other child who was John’s age) graduated from high school.

When my high school graduation came, Grandma and I went alone as there was no cousin there to join me. (That trip is a whole other blog post. Being a namesake can be complicated. I was also a bit wild. Gran was a bit of a force to be reckoned with. We were an interesting combo on a trip to Ireland, England and Scotland at the height of “the Struggles” in Ireland and when, politically, Europe was not too keen on Americans. Gran eschewed social norms and loved to talk politics and religion upon meeting strangers. At seventeen, I found this incredibly embarrassing, and a lot of eye-rolling and running off with the only other young person on the tour to sneak beers in pubs to meet boys ensued.)

Back to my niece and our trip.

I had come up with the idea to carry on this tradition: I knew that if my mom were alive, she would have done for my niece what her own mother had done for her children. So now I will do this for her, for all of us who remain. I cannot wait for our trip this summer, to have that time together and to perhaps tell stories about my memories of my mother and her mother and her mother’s mother.

But I wanted my niece to have something to open on her birthday, and after racking my brain and scouring the internet for all the usual grad gift ideas, I still felt at a loss. Then an idea occurred to me. I have a beautiful, sweet pearl necklace that my mother gave me when I graduated from high school. What if I passed it on to my niece?

When she gave it to me, my Mom had told me that her grandmother had given it to her when she graduated from high school. I think I remember feeling special when she gave it to me. I know I loved wearing it.

I had the great luck to have actually known my Great Grandma Burns. She had been a world traveller, and incredibly sophisticated. She had beautiful taste, and a style that was quite European-seeming that she had passed along to my Grandma. Originally from Kansas City, the daughter of a fairly well-to-do flour miller, Great Grandma Burns had been all over the world and had an elegance that she had imparted to Gran Fitz that was way bigger than Texas, where our family had eventually relocated as a result of my Grandma’s marriage to a traveling salesman.

Great Grandma Burns had bright, sparkly eyes and though she was intimidating, she was warm and funny, and I loved her. My mom, my Grandma FitzGerald and Grandma Burns and I would go to have luncheons in department store tea rooms together, four generations of women. She and my Gran Fitz would dress to the nines, as did women in those days, replete with a hat, pumps, a skirt suit and matching bag and gloves. I, being the youngest, would run to open doors for them. “Age before beauty,” they would say, if I ever made a face at this task.

I remember liking the necklace, but at 18 I doubt I really thought all that much about it then, being much more concerned with parties and boys and my friends.

As I grew older, the meaning of the necklace deepened and changed. We lived through both my Great Grandma Burns and my Gran FitzGerald’s decent into dementia, and eventual death. Life began to shape and change me, as She does to us all.

Later, when my own mother moved through her two cancers, and after her death, that pearl necklace remained, a symbol of her love of me, and of the love of the women who came before me. Whose hearts and dreams brought me into creation. I am the living embodiment of their imaginations and wishes and hopes and desires.

It has brought me such joy throughout my life. I truly treasure it. As I treasure my niece.

I was so excited when the idea of giving it to her came to me. It felt like divine inspiration.

So it surprises me that now that I am actually giving to her, I feel sadness around it for some reason. A strange mix of emotions have taken me completely by surprise. Sadness, fear, anxiety…I do not want to give it from this space. So I have to unravel what is going on.

Is this sadness because I do not have a daughter to give it to? Hmmm, I don’t think that’s it. I’m ok with that, at least for today. (More on being child-free another time. That too is at least a whole other blog post.)

Is it that I am letting it go? Ahhhh, yes, that’s it…I am sad to let it go…as if it somehow holds the actual love my mother had for me and by giving it away I will lose touch with it or something. That is the odd fear-panic I am feeling. Attachment is deep y’all. Damn.

And what if she doesn’t treasure it as I have? What if she hocks it for beer money someday (ok, this is probably projection and totally revelatory of my own wild youth — I did do that once but it was a bracelet an ex-boyfriend had given me, not a family heirloom, and she is very level-headed and not at all like me at her age, so that’s definitely a reach.) If I give it, I have to really let it go, and that means giving it without expectation or any strings attached to the receiver. She is free to feel about it and do what she wishes with it. I have to be willing to actually let it go to her.

I have loved that necklace so much. Cherished it. But I don’t actually wear it much. Isn’t it better is it is given to possibly be worn by someone my mother and I both adore?

I wonder if my mom felt pangs of sadness when she gave it to me? Don’t get me wrong, the overriding feeling I have is one of joy and love in thinking of giving it to my niece. I am just examining the other complicated things that it has brought up.

There’s something in here too, I think, about the passage of time…maybe the necklace, without me realizing it, has been a symbol of my own youth? A rite of passage, anointing the next young woman of my family…and giving it to her hits home that I am no longer that girl at the cusp of the start of her adult life. I am deep in the middle of mine, heading towards the transition to the later years. Yep, that definitely rings some bells.

Realizing these layers inside, I can be more clear and clean around this. And so I give it to her without expectation, but with some hope. I hope she appreciates it and loves it as I have, but that is all literally out of my hands.

As for it being a symbol of my mom’s love, I have beautiful memories that do not require a physical object to live.

No matter where the necklace ends up, may it resonate love and dreams and family and new life. May it bring whomever wears it in its remaining lifetime great joy in the wearing.

 

 

All About Joan, Pt 3

Rhubarb
Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 2 Comments

9 years ago at almost exactly this time of year, I was in the next to last week of performances of my first out of town theatre gig. It had been an incredible experience, those three and a half months in Illinois. In-between the 1-1/2 day visits to Texas each week to spend time with my dying mother, the artist in me was thriving.

I love being in a show. Revolving my life around a production is my happiest, most organic way to function. I could write a whole other blog about that. But at this time of year, I am remembering the other part of that period of time in my life. The time I spent with my Mom at the end of her life.

That time with my Mom was many things. It was a time of healing for our relationship, first and foremost. We had some time to make up for. There had been some difficult years where I was scarcely home or in contact; years when it was tough between us. We both knew that this was our chance to right what we could. And we were both game.

It turned out to also be a time that would bring great healing to my soul. And a time of growing up.

(But I wouldn’t know that until much, much later.)

It was a deeply intimate time. My father was my mother’s primary caregiver. I was practically estranged from him at the time we were told that her cancer had come back as lung cancer, so it was uncomfortable being all together at first. We had been learning how to be around each other again through necessity, and on her behalf, since the diagnosis.

I cannot imagine any other circumstance that would have had me home again, under his roof, other than my mom’s illness. It is amazing how Life orchestrates Her lessons.

Both of my parents’ lives had narrowed down to one end: to sustain and prolong her life for as long as possible. My father was amazing in his capacity to be there and care for her. Watching how he loved her those months through the way he cared for her, and the heartbreak that he went through as he let go of the woman he had loved for 54 years, slowly began to change my long-ago-hardened perceptions of him.

Some people think love looks like what we see in romantic movies: someone bringing roses to your doorstep, a beautiful wedding, two people gazing into each others eyes saying the words “I love you.” While it can look like that, I learned what love really looks like: it was in the black three-ring binder my Dad kept on the center of the island in their kitchen, the room that had became our Ground Zero. It was a journal of my mom’s illness, filled with intricate, handwritten notes about her medications…times, dates, dosages. Hospital visits. Hospice caregiver notes. Bowel movements. Daily status updates written out by hand in great detail.

He had been a very successful businessman with a fierce will and iron determination, which he now turned to the most important job of his life, the job of Keeping Alive my mother.

(Some time after she died, as we were clearing away the things from her illness, I had a hard time letting go of That Binder. Page after page was a love letter to my Mom.)

On the days I was home, my father gave me a wide berth, allowing she and I time alone together. I am only now realizing how generous he was to give me that time with her. That’s love too.

Through the tension that lived between he and I, we found a way to work together those days I was visiting. It was a strange unspoken dance. We were an Odd Couple, but we were united on one thing: we both loved my mother desperately and were willing to do anything to help make her time better.

We’d try to come up with foods to go pick up or make that she might have some appetite for. Smoothies. Crackers with Pimiento Cheese Spread (a Southern thing that she had loved in her youth.) Did she have enough Sudoko books? (My mother’s greatest fear was that she’d get Alzheimer’s, as had her mother, and her mother’s mother. She did Sudoko’s like mad to try to stave off that Rapacious Host. Cancer beat Alzheimer’s to the punch. Maybe there was a blessing in there some where? Maybe.)

Somehow, I found out she’d never tried rhubarb. I am not sure why, but I became obsessed with the idea that she should not die without having tasted rhubarb. I didn’t say it out loud or anything. I just got it in me that I had to find some for her to taste.

While in Illinois, I found some locally made strawberry rhubarb jam (farm country!) and got a jar to bring to her. But when I got to Airport Security, they would not let me bring it through (Thanks 9-11.) I was devastated until I remembered that on the way from the Houston airport to my parents’ house, I would pass a House of Pies. As I made my way there, I I prayed that they’d have a rhubarb pie. They did.

I burst through the door, triumphant, bearing my prize for My Queen. But the pie would quickly be forgotten, shoved into the fridge with the many other containers of leftovers of food brought by many well-intended friends and neighbors. I would later throw it out, untouched.

Things had changed since the week before. My mom’s appetite had shifted again, and was not there for that weekend, nor for much of the time after that. Attention this particular weekend went to more important things, the main concern at hand – how to help her body to have a bowel movement again so that she could be out of the discomfort she was in.

I was devastated. Not that the pie was forgotten. But that somehow, I had missed the window. How could I be so stupid? There is a window — a window of time for a cancer patient when food is still a possible source of joy or appeal. I hadn’t realized that it would one day shut forever, sometimes quite suddenly. How could I not know that? I should have known. I had missed the portal into the alternate universe. The one where my Mom beat the odds and survived cancer. Getting her that rhubarb would have changed the trajectory of it all. Like in the movie Sliding Doors.

The mention of rhubarb to this day brings a burning flush of shame to my face and a failure pit in my gut.

The mind is an amazing thing. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is so spot on.

In my thinking, it was as if somehow, if only I had gotten the rhubarb to her before That Window had closed, it would have made some crucial difference.  It would have made cancer slow down, or something. Anything.

As if rhubarb could have saved my mother.

Part 4 to come.