Schmuckety Schmuck

Those Puglies are waiting for dearest one, who's been gone since yesterday morning, to come home. When it was bed time last night I went looking for the Energizer Bunny (on the left) and she was laying on the arm of the loveseat looking out the window, waiting for him. I'll be gone when dearest one comes home tonight and I can only imagine the ruckus that will ensue when they see his car come in the yard. They put their front feet on the bay window and point their noses straight up in the air and howl. Then they race up and down the hallway, trying to figure out which door he'll come in. They are pure love in action.

Dearest one is in city far away. Wish I could give the details. He has accomplished something pretty huge and I am incredibly proud of him. Wish I was there with him but we couldn't make it work to be together as he celebrates several years of hard work completed. I will be away from home from this afternoon until Sunday night.

Those Puglies did sleep in bed with me last night. They jump up on the bed - the bed that is so high off the floor that we put a chair in the right spot so they can jump in - and then they just walk all over a person until they find the spot they want for the night. My skin hurts to be touched. If you would put your finger anywhere on my limbs and push I would be in pain. I forget that until there is a Pug standing on my arms or legs as they try to settle in for the night. Ouch. I have two little Pug paw shaped bruises on my leg to show for it.

As I'm fond of saying, of most anything,
"If that's my biggest problem in life, then I have no problems."
We live such a privileged life.
I've had several things happen this week to remind me of that.
Unbloggable, but definitely perspective shifting events.
Perspective is a gift.

And then there are times when I lose persepctive and my God reminds me what a schmuck I'm being. Like yesterday. I had to drop something off at the hospital, where parking is atrocious. As I turned onto the hospital grounds I started to pray for a parking space and then gave my head a shake. I know there is nothing too small to pray about but praying for a parking space is a pretty self serving kind of prayer in my books. So I stopped that and instead gave thanks for having the ability to walk wherever I need to and so if I had to park blocks away, big friggin deal.

And then I make a right turn, to the place up top where there are 5 parking spots right outside the hospital doors. There is one spot open and instead of being grateful, I start grumbling to myself that I will have to parallel park. See? I can be such a schmuck sometimes. I hate parallel parking. Then I get the proverbial smack up the side of the head, the reminder that jeesh there are some people who would complain if their ice cream was cold, or say, if they get a parking spot right outside the hospital doors and don't have to use those two perfectly fine legs to walk very far.

The Darkness Does Not Own Me

North of the 55th parallel the days are getting noticeably darker, earlier. I feel tired more than not. Or at least it seems that way. Up here we don't count days to Christmas, but rather days until the Winter Solstice, after which, hopes grows with every minute of increasing daylight. Yes, we count by minutes. Or at least I do.

Advent will soon be here. Nearly four years ago I went on an Advent Retreat and wrote the prayer below. The shame of sexual addiction was so huge for me that day. I didn't write about what was underlying that prayer until this post. The scariest, most vulnerable post I have ever written.

Recovery is about choosing, on a daily basis, to turn towards the Light. I am grateful for the grace to do that. I rarely write about my recovery from sexual addiction anymore. It no longer seems to be the ravenous wolf, trying to eat my very soul, that it once was. I know though, that it can be just as cunning, baffling and powerful, as alcoholism. I stay aware, I stay accountable. I depend on God's grace. Every day.

I thought I'd repost this prayer today.

"Oh God, you know the darkness within. As my compulsions become less and less satisfying and more and more frantic I sense you calling me to give them up to the Light. It is hard to trust that you are enough. My head knows it but my heart feels scared to receive the truth of it. My body wants to be kept in a cocoon, safe from what scares me. Yet you beckon to me with whispers of freedom, to learn what it truly means to live, yes, truly live, in my body, connected to both mind and heart.
A symphony of movement that carries no burdens, is hampered by no fears. "Be light," I hear you say.

I want to trust that this light will satisfy me on every level. But I am scared. And I am tired of being scared. Being scared feels heavy and rough and hard. And alone.

I am scared that the voice of perfection will drown out your voice of love. So I do not try. I long to but turn my body away from you, scared to expose my naked soul to the light of your love. I am turned more towards the dark than the light yet there is a glowing red ember of your love within me. You are waiting to breathe your life into it. The darkness does not own me. It is not stuck to me but I to it. It is I who must move away.

As I enter into the Advent season I choose to turn towards the light, naked of soul before you. My cupped hands offer you the darkness within. It does not want to have the breath of light upon it but I cannot carry the burden of it with me on the journey. You want me to kow what it is to fly free.

My head knows you are the great comforter but these dark places have been my comfort for so long. They have become dry in their nourishment. I must suckle at them no more.

Bread of life feed me. Be my nourishment for the journey. Be the light for my path.

Amen."

Unerring Instinct

"...couples choose each other with unerring instinct for finding the very person who will exactly match their own level of unconscious anxieties and mirror their own dysfunctions, and who will trigger for them all their unresolved emotional pain."
~ Gabor Mate

Within Me

"It sure is nice out today."

That's dearest one's code language for
let's talk about something else.
Being in a vehicle with dearest one
is one of my favourite places to be.
We have the best conversations while driving.

This particular morning we were getting honest about someone who rubbed us both the wrong way. As we talked I started to wonder why I was shoving all kinds of feelings off onto this person. One of those times when I slowly realized that it wasn't about the other person being who they are, but about how my reaction to them was about me. All me. It was while processing this out loud, and getting dangerously close to the truth, that dearest one asked me to shut up already. Well, he said it nicer than that, but that was the gist of it.

I'd read not too long ago how we circumvent breakthroughs because we try and run the other way when the feelings get too uncomfortable. I decided not to run but to stay with the dawning realization that was forming in my mind. As we navigated the exit loop off the highway, I asked myself a question out loud. Told dearest one that's the question I needed to sit with.

And then it was too late.
The truth was staring us both in the face
like a flashlight that hurts the eyes.

There is something about voicing things out loud
that can be far more startling
than just thinking them to myself.
I can dismiss something far easier if I never say it outloud.
If I only think it,
I can put it in a box
that I never plan on finding again.

I may not like the particular person we were talking about
any more than I did before dearest one and I had this conversation.
But at least I know, in that there's no going back kind of way,
that the problem lies within me.

"Every time you find yourself irritated or angry with someone, the one to look at is not that person but yourself. The question to ask is not, "What's wrong with this person?" but "What does this irritation tell me about myself?"
~ Anthony DeMello

A Form Of Prayer

I light these candles often. I call them my prayer candles. The pretty blue one on the far left is lit for Pam and her family. As I light the candles I say out loud the name of the person I am praying for. Today is a day of praying mostly for people who have had loved ones die. Some I know personally, some are in the news. As I lit the last one I teared up and cried. Being teary is my least favourite vulnerable feeling. Even when I am all alone like I am this morning. Years ago a nun told me that tears are a form of prayer. You can't see it in this picture but the little bowl has the words "let it be" inscribed in it. I have a rock with the word Hope in it, too. I like to think of leaving my cares in that bowl.

Anyway I went looking for something on youtube to cheer myself up. I found this:


It made me tear up too.
Happy tears.
My mom played this soundtrack when I was little.
When I left home I took that piece of vinyl with me.
As part of an ongoing amend I no longer play it at 7 in the morning, full blast, just to piss someone off as part of a payback scheme for pissing me off. Not one of my more brilliant moments. It's been 30 years and I'm betting that long ago neighbour doesn't wince and think of me when he hears this song. Actually I played the Goatherd song full blast that morning. Hurts my ears just thinking about it. I'm grateful I've learned to give voice to my feelings instead of resorting to passive aggressive moves to get my point across.

Merciful God

"God, I've got a bad attitude."

I'm talking to God in my head
as I go about getting the altar ready for Mass.
I'm feeling tired and cranky.
Teary, too.
I don't want to be of service today.
I want to be on the receiving end only.

I had dragged my sorry butt to Mass at the last minute,
hoping someone else had readied the altar,
had seen to all the little details
of preparation.
No such luck.
So I grumbled to God and went about His business.

The Mass had barely begun when tears pricked my eyes.
Damn.
I still wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.
With only a scant handful of people present
it would be hard to pull that off
without making a spectacle of myself.

Instead I went and was the altar server.
Keenly aware of being so close
to the consecration.
Sacred space.

Yesterday I'd shared a part of my story
that is still in the process of healing,
with a large group of women.
Normally I look forward to giving these talks.
I usually feel confident and find them life giving.
Not so yesterday.
It was one of those times when I shared what I did
out of a sense of obedience.
In a not my will, but Yours be done kind of way.
Resistant all the way.

Many of these women I have known for
10 years. They just didn't know this part of my story.
Afterwards one came to me and confided
that she is in the midst of experiencing
my not too long ago nightmare.
I can only hope that my vulnerability
was a ray of hope for her.
I came home and told dearest one I wanted to
curl up on his lap and lay with my head on his shoulder.
That would work fine if I was the size of a child
but not so well as an adult.

So instead we went and lay down together.
I curled up in his arms and laid my head
on his shoulder.
We slept the sleep of the dead.
After not too many hours awake
we went back to sleep.
I slept 10 hours straight.
The Pugs must have sensed my insecurities
because they both wanted to lay
as close to me as they could.

Today I am still feeling vulnerable and exposed.
Insecure, too.
My joints hurt and my muscles feel weary.
I went through the motions at Mass.
All the while having a running dialogue in my head with God.
Not that I actually heard anything back.
I do have faith though, that God not only understood
me but accepts me as is, in my irritability, and vulnerability.

My need for affirmation today is strong.
I hate feeling like that.
I tend to judge myself as weak
for needing it.
It is what it is.
This too shall pass.

Remembering Obsidian

This morning I opened a kitchen cupboard
and tucked the bag clips
into their holder on the inside of the door.
I paused and smiled to myself.
Open cupboard,
put things away,
close cupobard.
The motions become
like a well worn groove
a path of where we've been.
Little things like opening that cupboard
- the one we call the tall cupboard -
and putting away the oven mitts, the bag clips,
getting out the broom.
The way one has to give the door that extra shove
to make it click shut.

When my parents and sister were here the summer before last,
they stayed in our home while we were away.
Afterwards my sister told me about a family she knew
who, when visiting far off relatives,
would go into their kitchen looking for something,
asking themselves,
"Now where would (someone with our last name) put that?"
And invariably they'd be drawn to the right cupboard door.
"Because any fool (with our last name) would put it there."
My sister laughed as she told me this
because she had gone into my kitchen,
wondering where I kept the tea,
and opened the right cupboard on her first try.

Sometimes I think about the drawer
just to the right of the sink,
in my childhood home.
Cradled with bits of string and bread clips
and guarded by worn out household scissors,
lay my mom's rock collection.
Big rocks.

One day she held a heavy black rock in her hands
and told me it was called "Obsidian".
I'd never heard that word before.
Haven't heard it since.
I liked how it sounded.
Sometimes still, I roll words around in my mouth
like I'm savouring a sip of wine,
just because the way they sound pleases me.
I smile when I catch myself doing that
because words
are the only thing I've ever sipped in my life.

Reminds me of my favourite quote about words by Eudora Welty:

"There comes the moment, and I saw it then, when the moon goes from flat to round. For the first time it met my eyes as a globe. The word "moon" came into my mouth as though fed to me out of a silver spoon. Held in my mouth the moon became a word. It had the roundness of a Concord grape Grandpa took off his vine and gave to me to suck out of its skin and swallow whole, in Ohio."

I opened that drawer in my mother's house
the last time I was home.
No bits of string.
No scissors.
No Obsidian.

This past summer I visited with a woman
who lost a lifetime of
strings and bread clips and scissors,
in a house fire a few years ago.
Recently people had been coming to visit her
in her brand new house, and commenting
how much she must like it.

She mentioned several of our mutual friends,
who share her decorating style,
and how she visits them and sees something
in their house
that she used to have
and how she misses it.
Then she said that she even missed the contents
of the junk drawer in her kitchen.
Wistfully she said that everyone needed a junk drawer.
Her eyes then got a far away look,
as if she was opening that drawer again
and remembering.