Dry Bones Dance

For the three people who might still check my blog

So – it’s been a while.  I’m afraid to make any promises about whether or not I’m going to return to regular blogging, but I have missed my little spot on the interwebs, so I’ll just see how it goes. 

I’ve had some major internal shifts in the past six months, and I think I haven’t been writing because I needed some time to adjust to my new normal. It’s finally sunk in that I don’t need to brace myself for my upcoming emotional meltdown, the PTSD is 90% gone for good, and holes I did not think could be filled just aren’t there anymore. I’ve stopped interpreting every negative emotion as a sign of deep-rooted damage & insanity, and for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like a fundamentally defective human being.  

Every so often this still astonishes me. Even on my best days, I just assumed that I would battle a certain amount of self-loathing for the rest of my life. I didn’t know that feeling equal to everyone else in the room was even a possibility.

A few weeks ago, my therapist said to me, “You do realize that you have achieved all the goals you set for yourself, and that we’re basically just hanging out during your sessions, and that the only reason for us to keep doing this is to augment my income?  I don’t think that’s a very good reason to stay in therapy, so I think we should talk about terminating. ”

 I sat with that for a week or two, and realized, “Huh.  I think she’s right.  How’d that happen?” 

I mean, I know how it happened.  I was, after all, there for all of the excruciating work and the yoga and the meditation and the painful decisions - and I have the debt wrought by $12,000 of therapy to prove it.  Still, even after years on this journey, there’s a big part of this healing that feels supremely mysterious.  I plod along and do this little bit of work, then that little bit, and it is a slow, steep hike through sharp and prickly things. Then at unpredictable intervals, I hit critical mass, and something clicks. All of a sudden, I’m in a new spot, and the view is completely different. Every time, it feels surprising, so I will credit the Mysterious Divine and be grateful.

So, my life is good right now, even though from the outside looking in, it is supremely unspectacular.    For me, though, there are worse things than a little boredom here and there.  Just sitting on my couch and being okay or waking up feeling pretty good still feels pretty miraculous, so while I want to expand my life in the next few months, I’m trying to soak up the wonder of being ordinary. 

So, three cheers for the mundane, and I’ll try to be back soon.

Shameless dog blogging

I’ve been surprised at how much I love having a dog, and how quickly I’ve bonded with Lulu. She really is a very cute, very sweet dog, and she seems to like me.  I love the Lulu dance of joy.  Every single time I come home – even if I was only gone for 20 minutes - Lulu jumps around in excitement and wags her tail, “You’re back! You’re back! Yay!”  It’s like having a very small parade staged in my honor every time I walk in the door.  I know she’s just a dog, and she does the same for anyone who gives her attention or a treat.  Still, having another living creature that excited about my existence is healing in ways I didn’t expect. 

Having Lulu around helps significantly with my night time anxiety.  While she probably wouldn’t do much to an intruder besides lick him and ask for a belly rub, she would bark semi-hysterically.  That seems to help me turn off my hyper-vigilance tendencies. She also helps me get to bed at a reasonable hour, since I know that I HAVE to get up to take her for a walk in the morning.  Also, she starts whining the second the alarm goes off because she knows I’m getting up, so trying to sleep in becomes an exercise in futility.

Plus, two walks a day means getting out in my neighborhood a lot, and I’m seeing little nooks and crannies of it that I haven’t seen before. Lulu is also quite the good will ambassador.  Since she’s a small dog that’s cuter than average, she attracts small children and dog lovers and conversation.  She does have an unfortunate tendency to chew on any and everything she finds on the ground, so I’m constantly pulling her away and saying, “Lulu, don’t try to eat that piece of trash/leftover Cheetoh/carne asada taco that someone dropped on the sidewalk two days ago – and do you have to stop and sniff every single piece of poop we pass?”  (There are a lot of dogs in the neighborhood – and a lot of poop for her to investigate.)

I actually like the responsibility.  I’ve been living alone for over six years now, and being responsible for another living creature keeps me more grounded and mindful - even if I do worry about her happiness more than is strictly necessary.  At the moment, she’s sprawled next to me on the couch, and most likely not asking herself if she’s fulfilled or analyzing our relationship.  She pulls me down into the moment, and I need as much of that as I can get. 

So – to summarize – being a dog owner is going quite well for the both of us – even if Lulu does keep trying to walk across the keyboard.

All the martyrdom I can stand

I learned how to break a man’s arm this week. I’m taking a rather intense self-defense class right now. Here is the blurb about the class:

Our Vision is for women to have the skills and capability to be destructive to anyone attempting to violate them. SHIELD is a close-range fighting system created specifically to empower women against sexual assault.... It emphasizes on close-range fighting to be efficient to fight in tight quarters using lower body strength to generate power. This is a safe space for women to learn practical and effective full-contact self defense.

You can’t say it clearer than that: This is a class designed to teach me how to use violence to injure another person.  It’s a public statement of my willingness to do some serious, and possibly permanent, damage to another human being, of saying that yes, my life and my body is more important than some ideal of peace and non-violence, that if it comes down to him or me – I choose me. 

Yay for CSA

I recently started getting a weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with a couple of my neighbors.  We use Abundant Harvest Organics.  It's fabulous, so I thought I would take this opportunity to plug CSA, in case you're not familiar with it.  Here's how it works:  We signed up online for a small box and pick up our box once a week at our designated pick-up spot, and divide it up three ways. The produce above is my share of the box for this week. Here are some of the advantages to CSA:

1. Fresh, organic produce - I can actually taste the difference between this stuff and what's in the store.  The tomatoes particularly are a whole new level of tomato.

2.It's actually CHEAPER than buying produce at the store - everything in the bowl above costsme about $7.00.

3. It's very eco-friendly - Everything is locally grown, nothing farther away from Madera, and there's no discarded packaging.  The farmers use re-usable boxes, and so do we.  We bring the same box to get filled up with produce every week.

4. I eat a greater variety of vegetables than do when I'm going to the store and choosing what to get.  I tend to get in food ruts, and this forces me to find something to do with eggplant. 

5. I support family farmers, which are increasingly short supply.

So - that's my plug for the week. If you are interested in checking out CSA in your neighborhood, go here.

Say hello to Lulu

Calling all dog whisperers

I am about 98% decided that I'm going to get a dog in the next week or two, so I'm opening this up for any and all dog-related advice.  Since I live in a 650 square foot back house without a fenced-in yard, and a substantial apartment building 12 feet from my living room, and my landlord has said that I can't get a yappy dog that barks incessantly,  what breeds of dogs would be a good fit?  It's all contingent on what they have at the humane society, of course, but I would love to get input on what breeds to look for.

The only pet I've had since childhood was a fish named Otto, and as you can imagine, he wasn't terribly taxing to take care of.  If you are a dog lover, what should I, as a new dog owner, know?  Is there any dog paraphenalia ( beyond the obvious bowl, leash, etc.) that I should not be without? 

I'm mulling over names, but feel I need to meet the dog before making a final decision, but feel free to throw out your suggestions  - Rufus?  Sebastian?  Lulabelle?  Bonus question: What is the weirdest pet name you have come across?

Ego and shadows and other good stuff

So, I’ve been mulling over this pacifist thing some more, and I think my shifting relationship to nonviolence as an ideology is part of a larger process in my life of unwrapping myself from various identities to find out what’s underneath. Jung would talk about our shadows, Thomas Keating our true self and false selves, and Buddhists would talk about ego and detachment, but whatever you call it, we all have an image of who we think we are – and who we aren’t.  Some labels we choose, and some we are given.  There nothing wrong with that, since we all need to have some idea of what we’re about.

But something does go wrong when we get wrapped up so tightly in these identities and labels that there is no room left for anything else. We start rejecting anything within ourselves that contradicts who we think we are or that supports anything that might connect us to who we DON’T want to be.  “I can’t possibly be doing emotional violence to someone else because I am a pacifist activist! Therefore, you cannot call me out on my emotional manipulation and general ass-holery.”   “I’m not like those moron fundamentalists over there, so I cannot possibly be demanding utter, unquestioning obedience to my personal ideology and labeling everyone who disagrees with me as immoral and/or stupid. I’m a progressive, dammit!” 

Peace, Love & Ass-kicking

So, much for wanting to blog regularly again.  Maybe eventually I’ll figure out how to live my life and blog too.  For now, I will re-visit the month-old topic of whether or not I still believe in non-violence.

I’ll start with an example. I was recently in the know about a situation that involved a woman getting choked and beaten by her fiancé.  With some assistance from friends and family, she moved out of their apartment, broke off their engagement, pressed charges, and got a restraining order.  I am strongly in favor of her doing all of those things, but that means that I support sending police officers to his house with weapons to handcuff him, put him in the back of a police car, and throw him in a holding cell until he can make bail.  Whatever happens to him next will be decided by a coercive system that runs on punishment – particularly for those without the cash for a good lawyer. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise.

While I am categorically opposed to the death penalty and support notions of restorative justice, I do believe that people who commit violent offenses should go to jail – even though I am fully aware that our prisons are dangerous and violent places and I am supporting an incarceration that will most likely involve beatings, rape, and various other forms of torture, dominance, and control. Even if all those things didn’t happen, locking someone up in a cage surrounded by guards with guns is most certainly a violent act.  I know all this, and I still think violent criminals should go to jail. I don’t think I can trumpet my commitment to non-violence just because I am not personally walking uniformed and armed through the halls of Pelican Bay.

Do Quakers need soldiers?

My appreciation for Philip Larkin notwithstanding, I’m actually feeling rather hopeful at the moment. My “achieve financial solvency” plan is actually working, which I’m rather proud of (and also grateful to have a steady income in this crappy economy when so many people don’t.) I’ve started cooking again, which I haven’t done in at least four years. I’ve discovered a previously undiscovered knack for sculpting with clay, and I’m attempting – rather unsuccessfully this far – to grow my own herbs. I think I can – finally – see the light at the end of the therapy tunnel. This is cause for amen and hallelujah, because while some people seem to enjoy therapy, for me it usually feels like going to the dentist.

 Blogging is a good spiritual discipline for me, and right now, I’m contemplating forgiveness and whether or not I really believe in non-violence. This is an interesting question for me, given the fact that I've been in the pacifist camp since 1994. I’m still organizing my thoughts, so in the meantime, discuss amongst yourselves: Is a life of non-violence even possible? Should we even try for that? In a violent world, is pacifism just a way of outsourcing coercion? Do Quakers need soldiers?

Snakes, doves, and Philip Larkin

This Be The Verse
Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I secretly love this poem.  It speaks to my inner misanthrope.  Whether we’re aware of it or not, all of us have some overarching lens by we make sense of the world.   Whether it’s “he who dies with the most toys wins” or “Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”, our culture, society, families, and life experiences work together to create these glasses that affect how we see and what we see - and what we don’t. The lens through which I see the world is that I’m on my own in a dangerous universe, that if I don’t protect myself, no one will – not family, not friends, and certainly not Big Daddy in the Sky.   On my worst days, I can make French existentialists look like Kathie Lee Gifford.