I Am This Woman

Today is Father’s Day. With all the talk about dads in the media, esp. commercials and advertising trying to get one to BUY BUY BUY something ANYTHING for Dear Old Dad, I have been rattling around in my mind about my own dad who has indeed departed this mortal coil. The pangs of sadness don’t rise as often.It gives me joy to do crossword puzzles and paint - things he liked doing. I can still hear his voice when I cook something delicious.

It is without any doubt whatsoever that I can say how very important fathers are to daughters. From experience. It’s in the literature, of course, but having someone like my dad in my life taught me what a good man looks like. How they smell, how they act and react. To be in a loving relationship with this man sets the stage for the kind of woman I will be and the kind of relationships I will have in the future.

What is not often talked about in child development circles (at least the stuff I’ve run across) is how one does not lose that tenderness, that connection as one grows older. With mothers and daughters it is different, in that there is a subtle competition for the daughter to surpass her mom’s achievements, to separate from her and do it all differently. Sometimes this causes a break between father and daughter too.

But after the 20s and 30s, if one is lucky enough, things settle down and everyone can begin to relate to each other as adults. In my case, my father fell ill at the height of a really wonderful season of camraderie. So, things shifted from our focus on mutual interests to terrible concern for his continued health and survival. For 12 long years, he fought to regain what the stroke took from him, and having brought me through polio, he realized probably that I could relate to what he was going through. I most certainly could.

At the end, I dressed in blue, with a good sweater and a silk scarf, and his jacket since I didn’t have a proper coat. I wore his favorite scents and I turned on the charm. Upon seeing me there at his side, he brightened up and came back to life for a few weeks. Seeing all of his children, there in the ICU room, grown-up, accomplished, managing life and living what he had taught us — seeing his grandchildren, including the newly adopted granddaughter who responded much in the same way that I did to him — I think it showed him what he’d achieved. I think he was proud and humble. Content. A life well-lived. Job done.

And on this Father’s Day, I can only smile (through some normal tears) with gratitude. He is still with me and it is a good thing. There are so many people for whom this is NOT a good thing. Fathers who are distant, absent or lackadaisical. Fathers who were actively abusive — verbally, physically, emotionally. Fathers who stood by helpless to change what should have been changed. Fathers who so damaged their children that their adult lives are either a mess of repeating the pattern, or a struggle to break it. And I too have my share of parental damage. But this year, I feel nothing but lucky. He lived long enough that we could repair and develop our relationship, and I came to realize that I had the best dad in the world, after all! The negative stuff, those years of anger, the overprotection and arguing, the meanness and grouchy dad stuff… it’s really gone. The effects were fleeting. Over our life together, it balanced out.

I think that is my wish for everyone on this Father’s Day, that you can love your father enough, either from afar, in person or across to the other side, and that you live long enough in relationship to heal and find balance, that you make peace with the damage he may have caused. Change what you can and left the rest behind. This will honor your dad, and grandads.

Oh sure, and buy him a tie or a shirt or a shaving kit. If my dad were alive today, he would be getting chocolates, a Wendy’s hamburger and a milkshake while we watched The History Channel together. Dads like that stuff too.

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Today is SparkPeople Shout-Out Day, so like a good little lemming, I tout and brag and pronounce SparkPeople to the masses. Yay.

Seriously, though, it’s been helpful. There are pros and cons over Weight Whatchamacallit. Free v. non-free, fiber counteracts some of the calories, etc. But overall, I’m using a lot of WW ideas and tracking via Spark. I like the articles on Spark better because they are written without much care to promoting any particular products, and mention actual real things I encounter in the real world of grocery stores and fast food with or with a TM next to the name.

If it helps you attain your goal, then it is a useful tool. If it doesn’t, then it’s not. Pure and simple.

Which brings me to more: More is usually what I want of ANYTHING that tastes delicious. It is a rare thing which I say, “one more bite of that and I’ll hate it forever.” Some friends have a saying in their family: “That tastes like more.” Mmmmm. Yes it does! And this small turn of phrase has helped me recognize that I want to eat more, that it’s time to stop, and that if I stop now, I can have “more” later.

I love finding little tricks of language that trigger a positive change.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a marvelous book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. In it, he describes the ease and flow of our spirits when we have achieved an optimal level of competence in doing our lives and our jobs. With flow comes the success of doing a job well, but also the intense focus and satisfaction of doing it. Not accomplishing it as much as being it. There are lots of sports clichés for this feeling: in the zone, in the moment, etc.

How do you know you’ve hit your stride and are “flowing”? You lose track of time. You’re not wishing for 5:00, or lunchtime, or any particular time. You are engaged in something, you notice the time idly, and a little bit later, you look up and you’re amazed that two or three hours have passed.

Even though today began with sleep deprivation (I have a dog with a twitchy colon), we hit the ground with both feet and cheerfully met the day. I might question my presence here in this suburb, in Texas (much changed since the wild ways I used to know and love here), but the ease of this day is undeniable. Amid food decisions, laundry demands, meetings, phone calls, and other stuff, evening came as a surprise, and it was bedtime all too soon.

My thought tonight as I remembered this is the last day of Holidailies, and that even after folding laundry, changing the sheets on my bed, taking a bath, dealing with the dogs one last time… I still need to write something. And the thought that immediately came to mind was “there is always time to write.”

And so there is. What Holidailies (and NaNoWriMo in November) have taught me is that I always can put a few thoughts into words, and make it so that someone somewhere will want to read it, even if it’s just me. (That model will have to be hundreds and thousands of people wanting to read it, if I ever want to be published, but not to worry about that tonight.)

With my creative spirit fueled by a new regime of whole foods (less fat and more protein), with new yoga classes to discover, a new workout and renewed promises of regular walks with Miss Queen Bean aka Lucy of the twitchy colon, I can always find time to write. It’s the touchstone for my flow. Not exactly an epiphany, but maybe an epiph. I’ll take it.

I used to have this saying on my fridge, credited to someone I now forget who — which reads: I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live. How very very true.

Thanks for reading the Holidailies, and I hope you’ll stick around and add me to your reader as I continue to explore my own creativity, and prepare materials for a class/tutorial/webinar (ha ha! like that one, Betty?).

I had the good fortune to spend time in the bosom of a friend and her family last week. And so many things transpired, at a subterranean level, deep inside my cold black heart, which meant so much to me. Without embarrassing her over much, I’ll just say that the hum of family life was good to hear again. It was somewhat like my own family of origin, though this bunch were much happier than mine. There were mishaps and problems, there were meals appearing out of the fridge, from the holy tupperware of plenty and off the manly grill. There were offspring closeted in bedrooms doing their own thing. There were somewhat bored teens pacing around looking for something to do. There was laughter, fun, games and knitting. There was smooching in the kitchen, there was laundry tension (briefly), and there was sawing and sanding, television, music. There was whistling tunelessly and tunefully. And there was booze, coffee, burgers and pizza.

It was utterly charming, utterly normal and imperfect. It was life. Her marriage continues, her family thrives, and her outlook on life, career and family grows. What a gift it was to be in her home, with a running conversation from morning to night for days on end. There is no way I could have known how much my batteries would recharge, or how badly and deeply low I had run them. There were empty places that even Wahoo’s Fish Tacos could not touch, but being with family did.

Now I know. I’ve managed to climb up and have seen up over the edge of this pit I’ve been living in for two+ years. It looks pretty good out there. Once I get my strength, I’m heaving myself up out of this hole of grief, and rejoining the living.

Twas the night before going back to school and all through the house
Creatures were stirring sleeplessly… including the mouse (gerbil).

We have dusted off the notebooks, found all the important pencils and pens required for school, collected fresh clothes, checked the lunchroom account balance…. and tomorrow it’s back to school. I also unearthed a couple of “important” papers that may prove to be evidence at the upcoming parent-teacher conference I decided I need to schedule upon finding those pieces of paper. Say no more.

We had such a wonderful time this break, that I am all wistful and Edwardian about returning to routine, despite those pieces of paper. My floaty feeling of timelessness crashed down around my ears this morning when I realized that the far far off convention starts WEDNESDAY, and I must be in full professional drag for that. ACK! Plus I have several meetings and errands to do on Monday and Tuesday, so I’m back to work myself.

And darn it, there were no magical transformations this holiday season — no birds singing and little mousies making me wonderful new ball gowns, no shedding of 16 lbs, no 12 carat diamond rings. It’s just me against the clock and a Monday morning. Tomorrow.

That sound? That’s the clock ticking and the teenager pouting restlessly. They sound very similar. That sound tomorrow around 7:10? That will be me, alternately threatening and cajoling to get the lad out of bed. And by 10am, the sound you hear will either be OMMMMMMMM or “you have the right to remain silent” … because I will probably kill someone if I don’t get to my yoga class.

Part of traveling is finding the unexpected, the serendipity, the extraordinary. Though we plan and plan for everything to “go without a hitch,” sometimes hitches make the journey very interesting. And sometimes, they just make it longer.

We got back to the airport to discover our car battery dead as a great box of dead battery. After a couple of calls to airport security, a courtesy car came with super long jumper cables and we were off. End of story. No charming interaction with the driver, no miraculous angelic interventions. Just two phone calls and 20 minutes of waiting.

This trip, returning to my home and routine was an unexpected pleasure. Yes, the house was dusty and dirty, and the dogs missed us terribly. Listening to my collie snore here almost directly under the laptop is an unexpected pleasure of great depth.

Finding myself looking forward to a Monday, to sorting out my painting class and finding the farmer’s market here in town — also unexpected and pleasant.

Best unexpected pleasure of them all (so far today): tree sculpture. Is this not the coolest thing ever? A tree chair!

And it must be said… no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

It’s after Christmas and the damage on the wallet is still rolling in, but soon the financial bleeding will stop (before the tax bleed begins). The house is still a wreck, and dusting the darn nutcracker is fiddly. One entire box of lights hasn’t been put up in two years, and didn’t get up again this year. Thus, it is going in the charity box.

There are gift books that require reading, puzzles undone, a few January birthday folks to deal with, and lots and lots of turkey in the fridge — all signs that Christmas was just here.

This is the good part. For me, I enjoy the soft shuffle of days after the holiday, the year so new that it’s hard to remember exactly what day it is. Routines are still suspended, TV schedules interrupted by football and reruns, special pots and pans wait to be put back on the high shelves. We’re back to the regular dishes and the usual laundry. The trash pick-up carted away a bunch of paper and boxes that sat under the tree. The neighbor’s balsam Christmas tree is lying in state at the curb.

All around are signs that the world is getting on with January and winter, yet the lights are still up on more than half of the houses, people still have that special greeting “Happy New Year!” along with a slight twinkle that something really wonderful could happen. No need to be disillusioned yet, the year is so pretty and still in its wrapper.

We have just enough of what we need to be ok, and we are rich in what matters: friends, books, each other, laughs, opportunity. Yes, this is the good part.

I really should have a much more interesting post for today, but right now, all I can think of is Turkey Soup. Mmmmm. I have all the ingredients. Leftover turkey (very important — has to be leftover, picked off the carcass personally), turkey broth (made from aforementioned carcass), some kind of vegetables (carrots and celery are nice, maybe corn, peas), some kind of starch (haven’t decided on pasta or rice) and some spice magic (garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, cajun seasonings).

It’s a performance: no measuring, no logic… just throw these things together, season to taste, put in a bowl when throroughly heated, and eat. Preferably with fresh bread and butter, but since I’m “sparking” at the moment, looking to shed these last 20 lbs, I will be dunking one serving of Reduced Fat Wheat Thins in my soup (that’s 16 crackers).

Maybe when I get this itch scratched, I will be capable of coherent thoughts. But mmmmmm TURKEY.

Some of us, I guess, require a lot more than a simple list or a decision to make a committment to change. We feed off of the collective energy put into New Year’s Eve. It is an impressive display, isn’t it, creating a lot of momentum for whatever project is at hand.

But what if today was no different from the rest? What if the stroke of midnight meant it became Thursday as it has always been after a Wednesday? What then?

I posed a similar thought about this last year, somewhat skeptical that the ticking around a clock dial is going to change anything. My grief was still fresh, and I was looking at the throat of that first anniversary of my father and brother’s deaths. I couldn’t bear the thought of moving forward, away from those events. If anything, I wanted time to run backwards long enough to reverse, to repair, to restart. Not so much to change the outcome, but to stop the relentless march of days — the days filled with sifting through ashes, learning to live with the new awfulness of loss — stopping all that was my goal.

But this year, I do not dread the days as they slip by. Instead, as they do, I feel something sloughing off. An old skin, a heavy weight, some dangling chads. It still feels like loss, but there’s new skin underneath and new purpose. There is also the responsibility of work ahead, and the energy to do it — the holidays have turned to a bustle of returning to routines, cleaning up and getting on with things. With life. Reluctantly and rather quietly, but life reasserts and the calendar no longer pains me.

In the Persian calendar, the New Year begins on the first day of spring. The custom is to light fires and one large bonfire. One writes things down and burns them, then jumps over the fire: “My black onto you,” you say to the fire, “your yellow onto me.” It’s a bit early for Noruz fires, but in the calendar we use, most choose Jan. 1 and the few days after for this mental ritual of burning the old and starting anew. (My mother was fond of repeating, “ring in the new year!” though I always thought she meant, “wring in the new year!” New Year’s Day was often spent cleaning my room and putting on fresh sheets.)

Creatively, we do need thresholds, deadlines, passages and units of time to mark events. Moon phases, cuts on a stick, elaborate symbols on a clay tablet can also serve this purpose. If we didn’t have a calendar, we would make one. As a species, we like counting, measuring and recording things. Why not count the days?

At the same time I can say it is “only” one day, in a succession of days, it is also the turning of something into something else — a transformation brought about only by the clock, and if only it means that one writes a new number on checks, on date books, it is still new and different. And to count one more day means that we are here, drawing breath, and capable of doing something amazing in this day.

Do something amazing with your new day. What will it be? Read a book, write a poem, devise a plan, solve a problem, learn to knit, greet a friend, cheer along with your television friends, make art, make peace, make a baby, play music, laundry your best sheets and take a nap, make some brownies, taste life. Whatever you do with this particular brand new day will be in part amazing because that’s the kind of creatures we are. It is in our natures to be amazing, creative, wonderful and shiny. All of us.

If you do only one thing today, ask yourself this question: who benefits from you being anything less than the most beautiful version of yourself?

The answer will amaze and transform you, and the rest of us as well.