If there is one thing that I could tell you not to be austere with, it’s time. I am so obsessed with time – how fast it’s passing, how old I’m getting, how much I’m wasting, how long till the weekend, how long till I retire… it’s endless. I am so warped with my relationship with time, I can’t fully be in the moment wherever I am.
Growing up, I was also obsessed with time. How long till I could move out of the house, how long since I’d talked to my parents, when is that guy going to phone me, how long till my favorite TV show is on? I garnered really bad habits that are still with me to this day. Generally, I sit a lot during the day. I’m busy on the computer doing work for work, or other things. But the gist is, I’m sedentary most of the day. At my new job, I am trying to change that. I have free use of a small gym with stairmaster, elliptical, treadmill, and weights that I could use anytime. Have I? Not this year. I did a few times last year and noticed a great improvement in mood, stamina, breathing, the whole shebang. Why not continue? It takes too much time. I don’t like to sweat. My hair gets icky. Pathetic, huh? That is my main excuse for not exercising. I hate washing my hair. My hair is dry and I hate how it feels when I wash it every day. On the whole, I’m pretty French about my hygiene. I dry out pretty easily in the California sun and showering only adds to that.
The point is, even if the whole “it takes too much time” thing was valid for exercising, I would feel justified in taking that stance if I did something else with the time I saved. I don’t. Often, I’m so grateful to arrive back home unscathed from a road rage incident, or the trip to the crazy grocery store with the overly friendly and severely underefficient checkers, that all I want to do is flop on the couch and just decompress. My husband gets home before I do, and I miss that 15 or 20 minutes to myself. Of course there’s the dog who wants to eat, and go outside, and the cats who are jumping all over looking for treats and basically just saying “hello! We missed you!” And, do I ask for that 15 or 20 minutes? NO! I just try to work around it, because I think I should be grateful that my hubby and my pets are glad to see me (which I really am grateful for, BELIEVE ME!).
This journey has been all about doing what’s best for ME. I am really learning that I am no good whatsoever to other people if I am not happy and doing things that are good for me. I can’t be effective in anything I do – job, wife, friend, worker – if I am not taking care of the spiritual side of myself and the inside of me.
I’m well in to my 40’s now… you’d think I wouldn’t give a crap about what people think about me. But I really do, sometimes. This is the Chinese year of the Dragon. I think it’s time to be dragon-like, in a lot that I do. I finally have stopped sabotaging myself with my artistic nature. I joined the chorus that was just started at work; I made contact with the amazing pianist I knew in college, who invited me to sing at the piano bar he works at; I have opened myself up to singing for the women’s conferences I am part of; I am writing on a regular basis – to open up that channel and get myself happy again. Because, I am happy when I’m singing. If you don’t like it, too bad.
I remember as a kid, like a really young kid, 5 or 6, sitting on the hump seat of my parent’s lime green Plymouth Duster with the 8-track playing Engelbert Humperdinck or Johnny Horton. They loved both of these. I would throw my head back and croon “Pleeeeeeeeease Releeeeease Meeeeee, Let Me Gooooooooo” with all the poise of being onstage at Carnegie. I was a performer even then, and my sisters would just be horrified and embarrassed, and elbow me in the gut, and look right in my eyes and say, “SHUT. UP.”
I’ve always been moved by music. Before the internet, we actually had to take our LPs and listen to our song over and over and over and OVER to learn the lyrics. We couldn’t just put in the first few words to Google and presto. I was in love with lyrics. Thank God I received earphones for a gift or my parents would have probably murdered me during the “Cool Change” phase by Little River Band. At least 100 times, I’m guessing, over and over. And, I do think it was a little suspect for a young girl like me to be so fascinated with Joni Mitchell. It definitely changed my persona, but probably for the better. I remember the first time I heard “Cactus Tree” – although it was written only a year after I was born, I didn’t really hear it till I had moved to Boston in my early 20s to go to school. I heard Joni’s song –
She has brought them to her senses
They have laughed inside her laughter
Now she rallies her defenses
For she fears that one will ask her
For eternity
And she's so busy being free
They have laughed inside her laughter
Now she rallies her defenses
For she fears that one will ask her
For eternity
And she's so busy being free
She will love them when she sees them
They will lose her if they follow
And she only means to please them
And her heart is full and hollow
Like a cactus tree
While she's so busy being free
and recognized someone – myself. You can touch me… but you can’t touch me. I have never felt a “part of” wherever I have been. A lot of that is definitely me, but I really did feel like I was looking down on the situation and seeing myself react. Strangely enough, in a lot of memories I still have that vantage point – I can see myself, and the other people in my memory, but from the outside, not from my eyes.
I left on a student visa in 1988, and when I graduated in 1990, I decided to stay. I had no job, no money to speak of, no Green Card. But I didn’t want to go home. I knew if I went back to Canada, I would get swallowed up by my family. My self-esteem was already non-existent, going back would have crushed me. Not that growing up in Canada was bad – I would not have wanted to grow up anywhere else, seriously. I had wonderful teachers and long summers full of midnight sun and wicked storms, winters that froze my skin and showed me the lights of heaven dancing above, nature and animals right in my backyard. I am a country girl at heart, happy to be digging in the dirt and smelling that smell of hot, wet pavement right after a summer storm, or the earthy darkness of black healthy topsoil ready to be planted.
Boston cradled me, with its easy access to Walden, Thoreau, Emerson, Mt. Auburn cemetery, the open spaces I loved, farms, and respect for nature. One of my favorite poets has always been Edna St. Vincent Millay. This poem broke my heart in college.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
I know that all of this… all of this, can be taken away in a gnat’s wingflap. Gone. And even on the worst days, life is pretty amazing. The sun in the sky, the smells in the air, the love in your husband’s eyes as he sees you for the first time in a week and holds you in his arms… that’s God. Those tiny, moment to moment blips that get in the way of everything else going on in your life, like a dog nudging your hand with his wet nose, propelling you forward when you don’t want to go, or witnessing small acts of kindness and smiles between strangers. That’s God. That’s love. It’s so easy to choose it. There’s too much hate in the world already. I don’t need to add to it. It’s too easy to retort and hate and spit venom like a viper disturbed.
Unfortunately, in the three “types” that is me. The first is the Turtle, who retreats his head and limbs into his impenetrable shell and refuses to deal with the world. The second is the Skunk, who instead of dealing with the world, shoots pheromones out of his ass that choke and offend you and make it impossible for you to stick around. The third is the snake, and, in my case, the Viper. I know I’m a Viper because I’ve seen other snakes and there is something different about the Viper. Snakes strike at you to warn you, and for their self-defense. Vipers strike quickly and with the intent to cause as much damage as possible. But I’m trying to be different.
It’s really, really, REALLY difficult to stand in your shoes and have people verbally attack you and not do anything except let them spit. I have had my own sister call me a “Fucking Cunt” and not reacted. (In the subsequent dream sequence, I True-Blooded myself across the room and beat her like a red-headed stepchild, but then, like all Al-Anons, the dream sequence continued on to her calling the cops, pressing an assault charge, me landing in jail, and having my Green Card revoked and being stuck in Edmonton while my husband, the love of my life, was destroyed over it.) So, I stuck with setting my jaw, breathing, and letting her spew. And spew she did. Something odd happened about minute 9 of the tirade. I saw her. The shell fell away, and I really saw her. The bottom teeth worn down to nubs, from clenching and swallowing the anger. The skin pale and dull. The eyes, which were once deep cerulean blue and made you fall into them, now also dull and lifeless. I had compassion for her. I have known her anger and it is ugly. But it is without teeth. I knew it couldn’t hurt me unless I let it. And she needed it to hurt me. So when it didn’t, she floated away like a leaf on the Autumn wind.
Fear and stress hormones do the weirdest things to your body, though. I stunk afterwards. The smell of it was all over me, my hair, my breath, my pee. I had to shower for half an hour to rid myself of it, and drink a ton of water to flush the toxins out. But I came through. I put up with 15 minutes of Viper Venom to get an hour of my parents’ time. It seemed like 24. I can count on one hand the times I remember my mom saying she loved me, or embracing me. She did both after our talk. And so did my dad. They were the most honest I can ever remember them being.
I was not looking forward to saying what I had to say, or walking through this part of adulthood. Time had stopped for me and to see what it had done to my parents was harsh. But I had to see it. And they had to see me. They still saw me as the little naïve girl who left 25 years ago, who didn’t stick to her word, just wanted people to like her, was waiting for someone to stand up for her. I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a grown woman, with faults, disappointments, bad habits, regrets, the whole nine yards. But I’m more real now than I ever have been. I’ve stopped waiting for someone to stand up for me and started doing it myself, respectfully. I’m no longer the girl from the Cactus Tree song, who fears that someone will ask me for eternity, who doesn’t know her value and her place in the world. I’m no longer busy being free. I’m busy being exactly who God always wanted me to be, and that’s just me, with all my quirks and faults. I have found friends who have stood in the gap for me and raised me up, cared for me enough to help me change.
Life happens to all of us. It’s always messy, even when it’s good, and the bottom line is we don’t get out alive. None of us. So why starve? Step up to life’s buffet and dig in. There’s no need to deny yourself its experiences. There’s plenty of love, laughter, fun, tears, God, sunsets, dog kisses, and emotion for all of us. It’s going to happen regardless, you can’t bank it and come back another time. Make the most of it.
