A Snail’s House

Posted on October 29, 2012 by kyra333

Many of us grew up in houses that were filled with dreams, dysfunction and dictators. We were told who we were, what we liked and disliked, what to do, say, think and feel… sometimes in loving ways, sometimes not. There were expectations around our role in the family, what our lives would look like, and of course our worth. There were acceptable choices and then there was wearing fringe. Parenting, I think, is the most difficult task someone can undertake. Allowing your child to be who they are and embracing them while teaching them the rules of the road is a tightrope act in a fat man’s suit, at best. Many parents are thoughtful in their approach, and I like to think they all try their hardest. That being said, some of our houses were not always the nicest or safest places to be. Our families of origin were bat-bite crazy so we packed our baggage and headed down the road.

For me, being raised by wolves did not and does not give me license to inflict my crazy on others, since the age of 25. That is the age when I figured out who I was and what I had been told about myself did not quite match. When I see adults blame their rough childhood for their current bad behavior I think, “huh, you’re really choosing to let the legacy that you were handed, the one that doesn’t fit, be your life’s work?  Yikes… All that is needed to start the undoing of the doing of a childhood can be achieved with honest self-reflection, a journal, therapy, one smart friend, workshops, a trip to the library, or a book purchase to find your way.  When someone tells me they have a friend that had a “normal” childhood it makes me think that this is a person they do not know very well. Normal is fiction, TV & movies; it’s scripted, flat and very beige. Normal is about as interesting as “perfect”, neither is an achievable state, much less someone you want to sit next to at a wedding.

We might have gotten lovely stories and rituals in our homes as well as the bad ones. If those rituals and stories feed us, ring true and help us to grow, we can choose to embrace them.  Nothing and nobody is all bad, not even the Kardashians. The challenge is to grow past where you started, try new things on, believe new things that might be true about who you are and what you are good at. They might fly in the face of what you were led to believe as a child. That is okay, someone was flinging some serious stuff back then and some of it got on your face… wipe it off and move on.

Our homes are the Start in the game of life, we grow, learn and change based on stimulus as we move forward. Growing up, I was taught to believe that if I were to ask for what I needed I was difficult, inconvenient or needy.  When I was no longer being told that my anger, disappointment or bad mood made me unlovable, I did not let those negative emotions surface for decades.  Even though I was out of that house and an adult, I continued living the lies I was told about who I was, whittling away my worth by not questioning the old stories born out of ignorance.  Everyone at some point was loved by a dictator and then we became adults and chose them for our friends, lovers, and bosses and continued with those old stories of who we were because it was what we believed to be true. The saddest part is I was the biggest dictator of all, renewing my subscription to “You Unlovable, Needy Bitch” daily.  We put on the beliefs of our childhood, like an old coat that no longer fits, but we cannot part with. When we do this we are like snails dragging around our old home because it shows people who we are.  Those childhood stories are like the snail’s shell.  That “home” doesn’t define us, much less fit, so wearing it perched on our head like a bad party hat we’ve continued to wear long after the event is just celebrating being stuck.

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Blood and Wine

Posted on September 10, 2012 by kyra333

They say blood is thicker than water. I don’t know from water but I do know from wine, and blood is definitely thicker. I know it is a metaphor but it is also a science experiment waiting to happen, or a Sunday afternoon at my house. Which leads me to ritual, I love ritual; I find that developing rituals that will comfort and nurture me are key to self-soothing and tapping off some of my crazy.

One ritual I developed years ago is taking Sunday for me. I rarely will work, see friends or do anything social on a Sunday unless there is a Monday holiday. Then Sunday becomes a second Saturday and all hell breaks loose. Sundays I kayak, walk the beach, frequently I don’t even bother leaving my house. I do some yoga stretches, write, draw, putz, do laundry and just be. I don’t have a plan and move where I move, doing exactly what feels best. Sometimes that is a marathon of Breaking Bad or Nurse Jackie other times reading from 2 to 3 different library books, journaling and napping. It is a very busy day.

Moving from one thing to another with no plan, no expectations, no schedule is the antidote to my week, a week where I work three jobs and am scheduled to the minute, so I run flat out. I try to build walks, stretching and breathing on those days, but it is hap-hazard at best if anything gets checked off the to do list. I try to make time for a walk to get my lunch or a moment to step outside durning the day to breathe, but hell sometimes I don’t get to pee for hours and have toyed with the idea of Depends when I have 8 interviews and two meetings in a 9-hour-day.

I am in crunch time now so it is even worse than usual, but I am conscious of what rushing non-stop does to the trifecta of wellness: my mind, body and spirit. Rushing jams everything all up and makes me smaller and my needs seem inconvenient. “Oh you have wrenched your back? Take 15 Advil’s and try to keep up.” That is what the bitch in my head says, along with, “Don’t be such a baby walk it off!” My mind is never my friend here; it will always rationalize anything that moves me forward. My body is screaming, “Slow down, take a breath, pause just a fricken minute will ya?” All those things that make for better judgment, health and more peace.

The trick is to center myself so I am at the eye of the storm, not whirling around in the mess of pigs, pitchforks and feces. I can do it, and sometimes effortlessly. Those times I am not thinking of adding Depends to my shopping list because I have over-booked myself for whatever good reason my head has bossed me into. I have taken walks after work to decompress; I have started the day with 5 minutes of stretching on my yoga mat. I have mediated for 10 minutes. I have read something that makes me think, laugh or let go during my day. I have prepared for a good day instead of muscled through a bad one.

Late on Sundays I turn on some music, open some wine and start to cook. Sometimes there is dancing involved but I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of rhythm, grace or gravity.  I cut up veggies and fruit for later in the week for snacks and meals. There is a whole lot of knife play, but the meditative quality I find in washing dishes and chopping things up is soothing and I can let my mind wander. I wind up enjoying a wonderful dinner and have food to freeze, which feeds me for the week.

As I said, I have been in crunch time for the last few weeks and my Sundays have helped immensely, but I needed more. I didn’t realize it at the time but I have been rushing about even in my home. I was walking into side tables and cutting my toes and slicing my fingers with everything from foil on bottles to kitchen knives. Small cuts were appearing on every digit. I was leaving little pieces of myself all-round the place. Talk about making myself smaller, this was not good!

The topper came on a Sunday night when I was in my routine of cooking dinner and slammed my finger in a drawer so hard I saw stars and got dizzy. It was very hot and I had a glass of white wine with a little ice in it on the counter, so I removed my finger from my mouth, where it went first after slamming, checked it for damage or cuts, and then plunged it into my chilled wine/ice mix. On a side note here: I generally do not put ice in wine but it was 106 degrees in my kitchen and watered down cheap white seemed like a more balanced way to go, hard to tell in hindsight though. My finger hurt like a son-of-a-bitch in the cold liquid so I pulled it out and ran it under cold water, but it was so hot out there was only tepid to be had out of the tap. I put it back into the wine/ice concoction again, and it throbbed. I looked at my poor damaged digit and saw that it had started to bleed along the nail. I got dizzier and looked down at the wine glass to find a small pool of thick red liquid at the bottom of the glass.  I want the defense to show I only thought of drinking it for a nano-second before I sat down on the floor to breathe and let go wave of the nausea and dizzy. After that I was able to settle and find a good sized Hello Kitty band aid. I chucked my now blood twilight cocktail, refilled my glass with only wine, turned off the burners and sat down and stopped everything for the rest of the day. I was done.

I was still moving too fast and in my rushing hurt myself. I needed to settle. My life-long friend Charles tells me this constantly and is his mantra to me. “Settle”, started when I was learning Stand Up Paddleboard and then he moved it across my whole life. He had to… I rush, get excited, feel things deeply, over book, overdo, over think and rarely pause to breathe, sit and be. I was truncating myself, again. It sneaks up on me, I think I’m being productive, but mostly I am just rushing. I need to remember that I am not living fully if the scenery is a blur. The body, and the blood, settles to the bottom, it is heavier and more grounded than water, wine or work. I highly recommend not trying this at home kids. Please just take the short cut and take the wine directly to sofa, or a more languid pace in the kitchen, and skipping the twilight cocktail experiment. Ok folks let’s be careful out there!

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Mouse Trap

Posted on August 19, 2012 by kyra333

An old friend used to tease me that I got paid to color, sword fight, play CandyLand and Mouse Trap. Yea I know what you are thinking, who doesn’t? The truth is I bet most of us are playing some of these games, especially Mouse Trap, on a regular basis. Let me explain for those of you who haven’t played Mouse Trap. First off, it takes twice as long to set up as play. It is this jumble of pieces that fit together and into the board to stand vertical and interconnect. It is unstable, uneven and illogical in its structure. I hope you are seeing some parallels here to other circumstances, back to Mouse Trap. There is a diving board, a metal ball, a set of rickety stairs, a stop sign paddle all these things are interconnected and when one of them is triggered they all get tripped in sequence causing a basket to capture a mouse with the cheese. It is in essence a riotous form of domino’s where you stand them up and tap the first one over to see them all go down only far more precarious.

The nature of life is precarious and it sometimes leaves me lying in bed at 2am micro-managing and scripting what needs to be done, said, written not only for me but all those I am interacting with. I go over the script of what I will say, then what they might say. After 30 minutes of working out every possible scenario I move to the next item and dissect, analyze and prepare for that.  Each task is on my “to do” list which is in color coded and alphabetized. I am not unlike General Patton preparing for battle.  I can spin myself up into frothy mess by 4am honestly believing I am in control. Ah well…. crazy is as crazy does.

A few weeks back my beloved sister Chris was visiting. One morning I found her sitting at the end of the sofa clutching her coffee with a haunted look on her face. There were worry lines, dark circles and the start of a tic below her left eye. That is the lazy one anyway and in times of stress it goes rogue. I had seen that troubled look in my own mirror many times, minus the tell-tale tic. I tend to retain fluids in my state of hyper-control and stretch out my skin starting to take on the characteristics of the Michelin Tire Man. It is as if peeing or sweating would breach a level of control that would trigger hell breaking loose or at the very least a very long bathroom break at an inconvenient time.

Chris was overwhelmed and trying to orchestrate all the pieces of her life. What I have learned about this is when I am overwhelmed in this way I am trying to control things I have no control over. What I do have control over is how I react to what happens around me. That’s it. That’s all I got. I sometimes have influence over others but that is rare and usually there are copious amounts of adult beverages involved. What I explained to Chris that morning is what she had was a game of Mouse Trap. We get the ball rolling and that is the extent of our action, what happens after that is out of our hands. Things come crashing down, trip switches, causing the skinny guy to jump in a tub and play out however gravity, fate and whimsy choose.

There are times we just have to let go and let some unseen forces take the wheel and have faith that whatever happens we can work with. The truth is whether we let go or not the result is the much the same in the game. We can choose to white knuckle and worry as things go flying or relax and watch the arch of the boot as it kicks the stop sign, marveling at how it all flows. We are not trapped at the end but rather free to take another turn and see what new options are offered up. Bottom line: it really is worth the long set up just to watch the pieces click together and witness that skinny guy go flying.

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Santa in a Slip

Posted on July 29, 2012 by kyra333

“Given a choice between a folly and a sacrament, one should always choose the folly – because we know the sacrament will not bring us closer to God and there’s always a chance folly will.”

-Erasmus

My grandmother wore 927 medals, scapulars and pieces of Christian bling around her neck and pinned to her thin whitish cotton slip. It was a cornucopia of Jesus. Not that his posse was well represented, they were in halo’s. To say she was a devout Christian is an understatement, to say she was a hoot and a holler is a bold face lie. She had a sense of humor, true, she was smart, literate and even sarcastic but she was not known for being fun and full of mirth. Her predisposition for being rotund did not give credence to the belief that jolly goes with a Santa-esque physique. That was not the type of action we saw at 23 Seneca Drive, only chin hairs so long you could braid, but I digress. Looking at Erasmus’s quote we see my grandmother is a strident example of someone searching for meaning in life through the God squad and failing. Or at least on the outside it seemed so. She was not content much less very happy and few of her children were either I think. If she had read any of Erasmus’s work or for that fact Tom Robbins she would have had a better road map. I can say from experience that laughter is of the divine and the only way to transport any day from shit to something more palatable.

I am not saying that being earnest in your beliefs is bad, I am saying that they call them heavenly bodies because they are lighter. Our emulation of what is true and good might be based on lightness not a hairshirt, fixation and condemnation. It might be flexible rather than rigid. Of course this applies to anything across the board as most good golden rules do. When I hyper focus on a goal, like getting in shape, studying hard, not drinking an entire bottle of wine for dinner, etc. I tend to get a little OCD. In the way you could call Hitler a little annoyed with the Jews. When I buckle down and get serious and focused on such goals I invariably wind up after a few weeks fatter, stupider and drunker, but perhaps that is just me?

I find when I approach a goal or desire with lightness, fun and most of all curiosity I happily meander past my initial goal and keep going without even breaking a sweat. Yes it is counter intuitive you might say but if I look at the things I love, I am generally very good at them. I like doing them so I get better because I participate in them. When I am learning something new, I suck at it. It can be uncomfortable, frustrating and maddening but if I stop practicing I never get better. Last summer I started Stand Up Paddle or SUP. I stunk but after each session I was better and therefore I liked it more. During each practice on the board I stopped focusing on how jittery I felt and focused on how good the sun felt on my skin or how beautiful the water felt to ride it. I found lightness and fun in the midst of being uncomfortable and scared. I allowed myself to be where I was and be okay with it. I didn’t berate myself or slide in to an “old story” about me being a spaz with no athletic ability. I just found things I enjoyed in the moment. And in the next moment when I went ass over tea kettle into the water in front of a whole school of kiddies who rocked their boards I laughed my ass off. There was nothing better to do at the time but laugh, cool off and climb back on and try it again.

I have talked about my view of failure a number of times in the past years and it fits here so if you have heard it before please indulge me. There are only two ways to fail, one is by not starting something, and the second is by giving up. Everything between those two things is called learning.

So is it possible to learn, grow and become closer to our Best Self, God, the Big Kahuna, the Universe or the Ultimate Space Monkey through laughter and lightness? Think of your best day, yea no kidding take a breath this is the interactive part now and think. What were the elements of your best day? I am betting there was love, lightness and laughter among all the particulars of what makes you you. So if our best day is a representation of goodness and it is filled with those things why wouldn’t the path to more of that or to the divine be just more of the same? When I relax and am aware of all that is being presented to me I can move through life and enjoy the ride around and with my goals, wants, needs and desires. They are not end points, they are part of the whole, the scenery but there is a much more out there to see and do. When I hyper focus on one thing, or one area I make myself smaller. In doing so I get visions, I can start to see myself in a thin whitish slip with my myopic bling as far as the eye can see. Let me tell you that is one ugly point of view. So when given the choice of something you have to grit your teeth to do for whatever reason or fun, lightness and folly you might pause and really consider your options next time. Trust me, nobody wants to be Santa in a slip wearing bad jewelry come the end game.

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Standing on Jell-O

Posted on July 23, 2012 by kyra333

Statistics for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender) teens that commit or attempt suicide are anywhere between 2- 6 times higher than heterosexual teens depending on what publication you are reading. Adolescences are fraught with uncertainty stemming from not knowing who they are and how they fit into this world. If the world around them gives them messages that who they are is “wrong”, “damaged” or “sinful” well we have seen that scenario play out in the news over and over in tragedy. Thankfully we are seeing many grassroots organizations building support networks for teens that are in need of love and support as well as services and community. I am sure by this time you are really confused as to how Jell-O fits into this mold? Well you can ask the women who expertly ran and executed the 3rd Annual Throw Down For a Cause, Women’s Jell-O Wrestling at Bourbon Street Bar and Grill. It was a charity event benefiting youth services at The Center and Project Love Out Loud in San Diego and it was flawless.

I am not a fan of crowds, large events, loud music and general mayhem. I would rather stick needles in my eyes than go to a party, even if I know the people. I am socially phobic and a nut. I have been found after more than one club outing behind a potted palm muttering like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. Really no good can come of it. I am sensitive and people’s ju-ju can get all over me no matter how well I ground myself or how many vodka tonics I inhale. So I am careful as to what I sign up for and always have an excellent escape plan not unlike the guys who made it off Alcatraz or begged off The Bachelorette at the last minute. It has no bearing on how good or wonderful an event, party or Disney themed Christian Rebirth Reunion might be. I start to get a tic when a group of more than 6 people starts to gather. So you have got to know my crazy was up in arms at the prospect of going to a charity event with tons of people on a school night. Ack.

What helped talk my fragile psyche off the ledge was that Tracey was one of the people orchestrating the event and climbing into the ring. Here is a woman I admire, support and has me thinking of adding the word Rad to my vocabulary. She is smart, compassionate and walks her talk, which is a rare and wonderful quality. I wanted to be there to support her and her friends. The causes the event benefitted are youth based support organizations—as a life coach, school counselor and my sense of fun is mentally frozen 13-year old this was a slam-dunk. There was a free bar for the first two hours sponsored by a generous vodka producer that would help me self-medicate, check. I love to experience anything new; I had never seen anyone Jell-O wrestle so that was a big yes. I steeled myself for talking to drunk revelers wearing feather boa’s, platform shoes, gold lame and biker jackets with trucker hats, then after having talked to my friends and family about where I was headed that night they wandered off to go bowling or something like that. I took off for Bourbon Street and Throw Down For a Cause to hang out with some great folks, even though there were a lot of them.

I was 25 years older than 90% of the patrons and a foot taller. I know I was checked to see if I had an adams apple more than 4 times. Look I am a lovely, geeky, ginger-haired straight chick who could hunt geese with a rake. I get a lot of looks sometimes, ok lots of times. I arrived a good deal early to say hello to Tracey and meet some of her brave and awesome friends who were stepping into the ring. I also needed to get a few cocktails under my belt to relax and go with the flow. Three blueberry vodka (something they were showcasing) and soda’s did the trick. It was surprisingly refreshing for the 30 seconds the barkeep handed it to me and it evaporated, go figure. I bought a bunch of raffle tickets and gave them away to someone who would be there for the last round of the night—hours away. The money was going for a good cause and I was happy to help in any way I could.

Supporting the evening’s causes also brought another first for me, Jell-O shots. I am somewhat embarrassed to say that at 50 years of age I had never done one. When I minored in alcohol abuse in college I drank my booze, never ate it. I am somewhat of an old fashioned girl you could say. The patient young woman who was selling them froze when I told her I had never done one. She deftly reached into her bra drew out a dollar and stuffed it into the cash cup and said, “You can’t do your first shot alone!” She then instructed me on the tongue, slurp art of ungluing the quivering goodness and sucking it down. I had to use the remedial skill of an index finger when not all my shot made it in one attempt but I am sure with a little time I can master the technique. One and done and a check off my bucket list, or at least the tin cup list.

I was getting ready for the main event, having given away most of the cash in my wallet, drank all that I needed to do, and attempted to bribe the staff photographer from taking my picture for the umpteenth time. His response was first “how much?” and secondly “what do you expect you’re a ginger.” I want to believe he was talking in Gilligan’s Island speak but I know it had more to do with my talented hairdresser Kristen. So there I was under the palms at dusk in a pretty little courtyard at Bourbon Street a little drunk listening to 80’s music and the announcer introducing the wrestlers. I stood watching a community of wonderful people having fun; spreading support, love and laughter to hold up those of us that are most fragile. It has been said we are only as strong as our weakest link. It was incredible to be able to be part of an event that reached back, reached down to offer up support and in doing so said; I see you, I hear you, you matter.

Amen and pass the Jell-O shots!

Posted in Health and Wellness, Play, Uncategorized, Vulnerability | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Working in Circles

Posted on June 24, 2012 by kyra333

I haven’t written for a long, long time. Not like this, my writing of late has been academically focused due to two new jobs. But that is not the reason for not writing. That is the excuse. There are people and events that cycle through my life on a regular basis some good, some bad, some confuzzeling.  I didn’t want to come to the page, and still don’t, because of the nature of this kind of writing. Writing in a journal is different; it is less and more in different ways. Journaling is looser, which serves a therapeutic purpose. In being less specific it lacks focus and sometimes truth. Truth comes from distillation and careless regard for feelings.  This kind of writing I do here is about being less present and more open. You step out of the thinking brain and into the void and it all comes tumbling out in spit, fury and grace with ET fingers flying.

What I wanted during this time away from writing was for things, my gunk, to be lifted away on the wind, to have it be transformed into light. That is what I always hope for my stupid, hurt and damaged bits.  I thought three jobs, and lots of hard work, would do it. I thought having fun and passion at work would take me down the road to where I wouldn’t be, there. But everybody knows that when you get down that road it’s still you that arrives and that is the baggage that never gets lost on the journey.

The nature of gunk is that it settles. And it did, it settled in my knees, my back, in x-rays, MRI’s, in ortho’s and medical bills. The uncooperative bits gunked up my internal support junctions, the places that hold me up and keep me steady. It took yoga and much of my walking off the map during the winter and well into the spring. The first doctor blamed age and misspent youth… well that is true for all our maladies now isn’t it? The truth lies closer to my steadfast unwillingness or inability to let go, allow and just be. Yea, yea, yea, same old shit, different day.

The best of what settled found its way into my new jobs, learning and growing in different ways. Things like teaching at two universities, working with federal grants, all the time moving intellectually while the physical broke down. Nothing turned to light, nothing blew away.  It faded some but not near enough.  Transformation is basically destruction with great PR. Transformation comes in ways we don’t expect, that is why it is transformation, just ask any caterpillar. They will tell you it is called the end.

One of the problems with the end is it rarely looks like a gift. I have this friend Shiva, yes that Shiva the Hindu deity, he brings me gifts every holiday season. I in return, get him nothing, what can you get the god destroyer anyway? An iPod? A scarf or a box of chocolates seems so little in return for kicking my ass and removing obstacles whether I want him to or not. As a rule, I don’t get too attached to my obstacles, but there has been an obstacle or two I love. And I just love to run around and around them in circles. The dizzying effect is intoxicating. Over time however I am still running in circles and frequently feel the need to throw up.

The benefit of these lovely diversions is immediate gratification; I am engaged in doing something that feels good, at least some of the time. I am learning about myself in relation to said diversion or obstacle but there is no long term I am still running in circles. Looking back on my time in amusement parks I did well on the roller coaster but the spinning tea cup had me bent over a rusted wire mesh trash barrel praying my corn dog would stay. And as Gertrude Stein says, “there is no there there.” That is about the time Shiva shows up with my “gift.”

So here it is folks, I am trying to pay attention to the pleasant scenarios where I am running in circles. How am I growing? What does my stillness feel like? Am I avoiding it, because I am avoiding looking at my life in a truthful way? Everyone loves a good diversion but that is not a foundation for anything real or meaningful.  Do I hate saying that, yes. For anything to be truthful or meaningful you need awareness, connection and vulnerability. The buy in for that is a wall that not everyone can climb or wants to. Especially me, I liked my well-worn tracks, my broken bits that were comfortably worn at the corners so they fit me and sometimes I miss my obstacles and running in comfortable circles.

What I found down the road is that not letting go made me sicker; trying to understand circumstances gave me no insight to pain. To paraphrase Tolle, Instead of blaming the darkness bring in the light. We have no control of what others do or say, we can only choose how we react. We may feel misunderstood, portrayed in mendacious ways but the reality is people either really see us and know us or they don’t. None of that has anything to do with us and everything to do with them. We can’t wait for transformation. The capriciousness of insight is built on what falls away rather than what is. That is where the lessons are in the absence, in the spaces, a pause, and sometimes in what we choose not to do.

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Truth in Fiction

Posted on June 24, 2012 by kyra333

There’s a world of difference between truth and fact. Facts can obscure the truth.  – Maya Angelou

The difference between the truth and facts is demonstrated in many ways in writing, life and reality TV. Baring the last on that list there of course there are good reasons for it. A novelist I knew used to say, “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” I was writing my first book, a memoir, at the time so begged off that advice. It didn’t feel authentic and I thought the story was true and strong as it was. As I grew as a writer and wrote more I understood that what is true is not always factual. Even fiction is based on real life, people we know, conversations we have had. As writers we steal bits of our lives and those around us and manipulate them into a narrative which displays the landscape around us both internal and external. This is at least what we hope to do on our best days. Our job as we sit staring at the blank page is to tell the but best tale we can. One that is inclusive, rings true to the reader and connects the writer and reader on a shared adventure. To do this you must be honest; a false note in writing can pop off the page faster than I can eat a bag of Twizzelers. Anything that pops the reader out of the experience is bad, so if you are lying be good at it and make it based in truth not fact. I know that sounds counter intuitive but follow me here. Facts are what you saw on Dragnet, dry bits of data. Truth is something that is a connector people relate to, it resonates. Sometimes when the truth is ugly they are repulsed. That emotional reaction is based on a cord being struck. If it weren’t true they would not react. It can also be beautiful and resonate in a way that brings someone to tears, to new levels of understanding and relating to others. Our jobs as writers is to work in truth and not fact. Facts are fine and helpful, as long as there is a foundation of truth you are safe.

In writing my a memoir, my sister Chris was reading it and giving me invaluable feedback. She is an avid reader, smart and can hear a lie a mile away. Yes, she is a mother and has worked with grammar school age children for near 30 years so that skill has been honed to a point so sharp it will put your eye out. In reading an early chapter she called me out in a scene I had written about telling a close friend that I had asked to be laid off and was moving away. I had written that section in the nicest way possible—glossing over how I felt and how it had gone horribly wrong. I left out my ugly little emotions and Chris told me that the passage rang false and was fluff. She was correct of course and I had to come to terms with telling my truth. I had to put the ugly on the page because in only putting the facts there I was missing the truth. I did a rewrite and she sent it back telling me I was still holding back and to just tell the truth. The second rewrite I put my crazy on the page and it worked in a literary way as well as on a gut level. When we display ours and others humanity it is messy, illogical and understandably vulnerable. That is where the connection lays my friends: in our vulnerability. You have to be willing to put yourself on the page, not just tell us, show us, help us to take a step into your shoes which are so much like our own.

The functions of creating and editing live in two separate parts of the brain. It’s best to do one at a time. So get it all down in an unorganized mess the first time around, you can edit later. Include what you saw, felt and tasted, with details that mean something to you or your character. If your characters are not real to you they won’t be to us. Trust me when I am working on fiction I have trouble separating who I was talking to about what, and some of those folks are characters. Granted I am a huge nut-ball but I can write characters you want to hang out with and know. If you are writing a café review, let us smell, taste and experience everything that you did. What did the food do on your tongue? How was the atmosphere? I am not interested in a list of items on the menu, hell I can read the menu on line, tell me details of your experience, they are essential to transport me the reader. This is true for blogs and editorials as well; I want to know what you think and so much more. Put the data, the facts in context so there is truth there, so the reader connects and shares the experience, is educated and moved. That is our job folks,  let’s be careful out there!

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The Joke

Posted on June 24, 2012 by kyra333

There are times when I choose my words carefully but this was not one of those times. I was in a car heading south on the NY Thruway with my sister Chris to rendezvous with my crazy mother and two cousins in Queens.  I was tagged as the tracker while Chris drove, which meant I had to monitor the low-jack we had hitched to my mom, the old one. Mom was with my cousins so it couldn’t be all that hard to locate them as at least my cousins were normal people. I called the number I had for my cousin’s cell phone with no answer. I then called information for the number of the restaurant my cousin said where they would be; in the hood we were to rondevue.  I dialed the restaurant’s number as we were close and I was greeted with a gravely morning voice and Irish music chaser in the background.

“McEwen’s Pub”

“Good morning” I said. I wasn’t raised by wolves, loons yes, wolves no.

And continued, “I am looking for an old woman, a young woman and a guy.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone during which all I can hear is breathing and the soft Irish music lilting away. Then the voice says, “Is there a punch line to this?”

“Uh no, I am looking for my mom, the old woman and my two cousins the young woman and the guy” I explain.  “I understand they might be there.”

“Oh jeez I thought it was a joke.” What he doesn’t know, it is in a way due to my murky gene pool but I will get to that later…

He continues, “Yea, they are the three Bloody Mary’s in the corner hang on.” ‘Of course they are’ I think. It’s 10:30 in the morning and they are sitting in an Irish Pub across from the cemetery with a trunk full of ‘no-good-will-come-of-this-crazy.’

I hear my cousin Anna’s voice come on “Hello?”

“Hi Anna, it’s Kyra, we tried your cell with no luck and we are close.”

“Oh I guess I didn’t hear it with the music. Wow, good job finding us.” Really knowing my mom the way I do this was dead easy. Anna continues, “We’ll finish up and meet you at the front gate of the cemetery.”

“Ok” I say and think with resignation I would have rather taken a pit-stop for a cocktail myself to get ready for the morning ahead but there is no time to offer it up as she is gone. I give Chris the bad news that we are going straight to the cemetery rather than the pub.  She nods lips tight. “Of course we are, there isn’t going to be any fun to be had on this leg of the journey.”

We are on a mission of mercy for my mother today. It is crazy, indulgent and I believe illegal. I say “I believe” it is because by checking it out that would be premeditated illegal rather than ignorance. And ignorance is, well not bliss here but tolerant. My dad died over twenty-five years ago, my uncle died a short time after that. My mother has been the keeper of her brother and husbands ashes and today is a service or sorts. For my cousins this is their dad, he left my aunt and them when they were all quite small. They really had little to no knowledge of him especially the youngest my cousin Anna.

Earlier in the week my mom had flown from Florida, where all New Yorkers live out their sunset years, to Long Island to meet my cousins.  The plan was for her to meet up with family, for a nice little visit before this expedition. The next phase of said plan was for my mom to come back with us so she could visit with the rest of the family that lived upstate. It was a hand-off of the old one you could say. Seeing my cousins at first glance they appeared what you could say flushed and bright eyed. An untrained observer might believe that was due to the Bloody Marys’ but my knowing eye could tell it was the prospect of unloading the bundle of babbling babushka that is my mom.

We exchanged hugs all around and pleasantries and then began to address the business at hand. My mom had managed to find the plot number and location of my grandmother who is buried in the cemetery. On a side note Queens is populated with as many or more tombstones than mailboxes. Part of the history is that 19th century burials in Manhattan were banned so they moved them to the burbs. Or, prior to “bridge and tunnel” aspersions it was “buggy and bumpkin.” But I digress; we managed with my mother’s keen detective skills to park near my grandmother’s plot so there was a minimum of schlepping of accoutrement for the service.

My mother had a large shopping bag with what appeared to be lunch and a pokey plant. She was also sporting an enormous pocketbook. For those of you not familiar with east coast 1950’s language, “she carried a purse.” I reached into the shopping bag at my mother’s feet and pulled out one of the two Tupperware’s inside it. Looking closer it appeared to be a Tupperware inside of a Tupperware, hmmm curious.

“Be careful with your father.” My mother snapped as she was digging around her pocketbook.

I look at my sister first, then back at the Tupperware like, ‘I didn’t just hear that did I?’

But I say it only in my head. She answers in my head, ‘yep you heard it, dead guy in the wear.’

“You put daddy in Tupperware?”

“Yes I was going to fly over the water; I wanted him dry if we went down.” My mother will not fly in sandals for the same reason. Closed toed shoes are better to walk or swim out of the crash.

The day was cool and crisp but I was starting to get warm with just this small entry into conversation with my mom. I could almost feel a tic coming on, and wished for that Bloody Mary all over again.

“And there is a Tupperware inside of the Tupperware because you didn’t trust the seal of the first one?” I ventured flicking my eyes between the twinkle in my sisters and my mom’s furrowed sharpee style brow as she continued to dig in her bag mumbling.

“Exactly” she said flatly.  “Your uncle is in the other Tupperware in that bag so don’t fool around with him.”

I would like the record to show that I have never fooled around with, trifled with, or was in any way careless with the ashes of anyone, much less my fraternal lineage.

With my mother’s last statement both my cousins’ eyebrows shot up. I think they thought this was going to be a ceremony or ritual with more symbolism and less dead people. Especially since the dead people in questions were our fathers. Silly rabbits, they don’t know my mom’s peccadillos to put it nicely.

Finally with an exclamation of glee my mom pulled a well-worn spade out of her bag. “I got it, let’s go!”

“Where the hell did you get a spade?” Chris asked as we crunched across the slightly frozen sod.

“I packed in my big bag. I knew it wouldn’t make it in the carry on and then prayed to Saint Jude.  It’s a good spade and we need it for the pineapple plant.”

Now it was my turn at surprise. “Pineapple plant?”

“Yes, the plant in the bag you are carrying is a pineapple plant that we are going to plant in my mother’s plot.”

“But pineapple plants are tropical and this is uh Queens?” I said incredulously letting my free hand wave about a bit.

My cousins were cleverly quiet; I am sure trying to assess the percentage of their genes that were truly from our side of the family. A crap shoot by any other name…

“Pineapple plants mean ‘welcome.’” My mom said in a huff, coming to a stop at what appeared to be our family plot.

“But it’s a tropical plant going in the ground in Queens which is not a tropical place so it’s gonna die.”

“What does that matter? Don’t be so literal. It symbolizes welcome, I told you.”

I plopped the bag down with the ‘Welcome’ pineapple plant and the ashes looking at my mother in disbelief. “What are you welcoming them to? Being dead? It’s been over 15 years since that ship sailed.”

I heard my sister’s stifled laugh and car noises but nothing from my mom. She was frowning at me, and then kicked at the hard sod turning her glance down.

My cousin Michael cleared his throat. “Would you like me to start to dig a hole for the plant Aunt Teresa?”

She nodded and gave direction to depth, location for the best of care scenario of the soon to be tortured pineapple plant. I shrugged my shoulders to shake off the aggravation of years of these types of events and conversations with no luck. The only thing crazier than my mother is trying to find logic in her thought process. My sister just laughed harder and mumbled under her breath “crazy is as crazy does” as she peeked into the bag and its contents.

After directing my cousin my mom reached into the bag and pulled my uncle out along with a Ziploc bag.  “Anna I want you to have some of your dad for a keepsake.”

Emily Post does not have a response for something like this. Let’s face it even the love child of Tim Burton and Mortica Adams would be stumped here.

Anna stepped back as if she were slapped, maintaining facial composure as my mom was in her face.

“No, no it’s okay Aunt Teresa,” she stuttered as my mother went on to take the top off the first and then the second Tupperware, revealing a clear bag with ashes.

“Don’t worry there’s plenty here,” my mother assured her as she proceeded to shake some of my uncle out into the Ziploc bag. In the process of the transfer I could see some of him being scattered on her gnarled hands and dark coat sleeves.  She flicked the ashes away when she finished. Not unlike what she did with bees at family picnics, in a way that made everyone comfortable.

“I will put the rest of him under the pineapple plant with Bill, so they are together with my mom and dad.” She said to herself as much to any of us standing there.

Michael still had his head down digging furiously with the small smuggled shovel to stay out of the fray. Anna, now the color of parchment, clutched a baggie of her father who she never knew, nodding at my mother glass eyed. This was fodder for many a therapy session or a Cohen brother’s movie, probably both.

Chris redirected my mother’s attention away from giving my cousin ideas where she might keep her father, to the planting of the pineapple and the contraband of ashes. Four out of five of us knew this was bizarre and on some level a no-no. The other of us, double sealed ancient ashes in Tupperware, packed a favorite spade and was making comments on whose bag of ashes was heavier and chunkier. Another memory to discuss at a holiday dinner was born.

When my mom was ready to do the deed my sister and I worked the perimeter of the fence and the road to make sure we were safe. Getting busted for this would be bad.  If I had to do anytime in a cell with my mom I would kill her and be up for even more time in the big house for sure. We scanned while the proceedings went on, each of us plotting our getaway and our first cocktail of the evening once safe at home.

My mom sprinkled the ashes in the bottom of the hole for the pineapple plant and we all said a silent prayer. I am sure my cousin’s were of the ‘get me the hell out of here’ and ‘I want a DNA test’ variety. For Chris and I it was in the flavor of ‘please don’t let me kill her before her trips end.’  For my mom I have no clue, nor would I venture a look if I could, too scary in that fun house of a head.

Finally she took the welcome plant and lowered it down into the hole.  We all took a hand full of dirt and threw it in around the pokey and very tropical plant. I couldn’t help myself from blurting, “really a pineapple plant? Why not an evergreen for crying out loud?”

With that the others rolled their eyes so high and hard in their heads I wasn’t sure they weren’t seizing. We finished the planting of uh everything, and trudged back to the cars to the tune of my mother and I bickering about the message of welcome, dead shrubs, what tropical means and how to say good-bye.

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Creating Change

Posted on June 24, 2012 by kyra333

My friend John asked to help with a Releasing Ceremony, which is a ritual that focuses on letting go of something that no longer serves us. I give classes on things like life balance, behavior change, setting goals, finding your core values, all that stuff we should have learned in school about managing our crazy but didn’t. So in working on a simple homework assignment it occurred to me I can make it more complicated by making it into a piece and putting it out there for general consumption as we come to the close of another fine year and are looking for ways to improve the quality of our lives.

So to go back to the Releasing Ceremony: the type of things we would be looking at is what we want to remove or let go of in our lives that no longer serves us. That can be a behavior, a limiting belief about our-selves or someone else, a relationship, circumstance we have placed ourselves in, almost anything.  In order to release something we need to be able to identify what is limiting us in our forward motion or desired outcome. There are many ways to achieve this but it all starts with looking at our lives and what behaviors or events bring us satisfaction, happiness, engagement and what elements frustrate, cause anxiety, avoidance tactics, bring on procrastination, etc. We use our internal guidance system for play, curiosity and engagement to lead us to what resonates. In a nutshell, to what feels good.

�A simple way to start is to make a list of three things that work well in your life this could be things like great friendships, satisfying work, enjoyable hobbies, be a specific as you can. Start to pay attention to patterns of things that make you happy, pull you in and excite you. Then make a list of three things you want to change in some way, either get better at or bring in, examples here could be introduction of a significant relationship, more stability financially, better fitness, balance between work and play. Notice I am placing the emphasis on what I want to bring in not what I want to let go of. So instead of the focus being letting go of being alone or a bad relationship, releasing the remote and getting off the sofa or even my broke ass self, I am choosing to focus on what the new behavior or my desired out-come is.

You need to come up with three things that you want to adjust or replace with something that is more in-line with what feels good and where you want your life to go. Again these things can be a behavior, relationship, and/or belief. This is about manifesting something good not only releasing something that does not serve.

By removing something that is not working we create a void, in order to move forward we need to fill that void with something we want, not just what slides in the space we have created. This is about purposeful creating, manifesting and actively building the life you want. If you call a restaurant to get food delivered you will be more satisfied by being specific about what you want to eat. Telling them to send something good over will not guarantee you will get what want you want or need. The same is true here.

So as you identify what you want to release also look at what you are replacing it with. What are you inviting in, what are you focusing on. We want to focus our energies on where we are going not what we are letting go of to move in a more active and positive direction.  Just as your car goes where your eyes go as you drive, your mind, body, spirit go where your thoughts and actions are directed.  This is an active and dynamic process.

So to recap create a list of three things, areas that are working well, paying close attention to how they make you feel. In doing this these areas might provide clues as to how to implement improvement in other areas you are not as satisfied with.  Then list three things that you what to release, change or improve on and take a look at how they differ from the first list. How do they make you feel, how can you shift, change or let go of elements or the whole of what no longer serves?  For each of the three things you are considering changing/releasing what would you replace it with? What will you allow, focus on and bring in to your life instead? Prioritize the list of three so the one that has the most impact to your daily quality of life is the first to focus on. Change is created by small, consistent, and constant steps away from what is….

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Turkey Trot

Posted on June 24, 2012 by kyra333

A long time ago on one of my first trips to Cambria, long before dear friends lived there and it became a favorite haunt of mine, I was there with my mom.  We were driving around the country roads on the outskirts of town when a turkey ran out from the bushes into the middle of the road. I had seen turkeys at the zoo as a kid, and certainly I had seen many a turkey at the supermarket but never wild, loose and 5 feet from the bumper of my car. This sucker was tall, feathery, big and very agitated, or at least he appeared to be—who knows with turkeys they could be drama queens by nature.

He darted out and started running. I slowed to a crawl so he could get off the road. The problem began when he ran straight down the road. Not to the left or right, just down the middle directly in front of my car. There was nowhere for me to go but stay behind him and go very slowly. He ran a long time it seemed, with me on his tail. I am sure his little turkey heart was about to explode.  It was comical to watch and it seemed to go on and on. He ran like that a good 3-4 minutes before finally darting off into the bushes again. The whole time he was in front of us we were laughing and marveling on his choice to stay just a few feet from trouble, running hard but staying on course. If he had chosen left or right he would have had relief sooner but he didn’t.

These days I find his behavior less amusing as I have noticed that I too have made that same damn choice. Humility comes with the realization that I have and sometimes still do display the behavior of a beloved thanksgiving treat. No, I am not talking about a tart here, but that would also be true. I am talking about the turkey trot. I make a choice, albeit not that bright and try to run it out. There are times where the right decision is to veer off, make a different choice anything but what I am doing to find relief but I stay fast holding tight to my blinders.  Sometimes I am in a groove and think, “ah this is a slump I need to walk it off and keep pushing.” You know, “walk it off–don’t be a cry baby” type of thing. Other times I am moving so fast I don’t even notice that what I am doing is creating more fear and uncertainty. Those are the times where I am unconnected, with a ‘to do’ list in my hand and making check marks like crazy.

Those are also the times I am so incredibly disconnected from my body that I could be Underdog in the Marcy’s day parade. I am so intent on moving forward with an idea that I have stopped looking for feedback about my choices to see if they are working for me. If you disconnect the feedback mechanism in your life you have no point of reality, reference or context which bottom line makes for major nut-dom. That feedback could be quiet time to reflect and just see how you feel.  Ah yes the “F” word, “danger, danger Will Robinson.” But your body and your feelings are the core to your life’s navigation system.  It could simply mean standing still and taking a breath. It could look like a talk with a trusted friend, writing in your journal, taking a walk or a yoga class to slide back into your skin.

Getting more done is just that, getting stuff done. That does not say it is important, meaningful or valuable to us. I have to say sometimes it is, but more often it isn’t. More often it is what others need done, what we think we ‘should’ do, or we are doing things to fill the void inside instead of diving down into that abyss  and looking at how we feel, who we are and what we need. Running down the road just might get you further along a path you don’t even want to be on.  I have done this more than I care to admit in my life. It can reside in any arena too; I am flexible in my bad choices. I have stayed in bad jobs, bad relationships, bad family situations, even volunteering my time. The litmus test is not that I landed in a place that does not serve me. Like the turkey everyone runs into an unhealthy situation here and there, it is part of being alive. My job in trying to hold tight to my sometimes sketchy mental health is to recognize that I am in a bad spot and that I need to move in a new direction.

That is not to say I need to bolt at any sign of being uncomfortable, that is a different kind of crazy that I am not talking about here. There is a fine line of working hard at something true, good and healthy which can be frustrating or challenging and something that brings out our damage.  A bad place is somewhere that does not serve us and where our most unhealthy behaviors blossom like the need to please, to control,  or to be a victim, to name a few. Those are some of my red flags—the indicators that I need to stop, pause and feel what the hell is going on in my body, which I am sure at some earlier point in the unfolding of said situation I had told to shut up and move over, “I am in the driver seat”. As many of you know I am not the best driver, I strive for average and in this instance it is not any different. Faster isn’t always better, mostly it’s just faster and done unconsciously, which does not bode well for me or those around me.  The best I can do when I feel the need to kick up the speed is to get just a few more steps away from that dented, rusty bumper inches from my ass as I exit stage right to take a breath from doing the turkey trot.

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