The Bed Lesson: Remember Who You Are

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I have a new bed. Off to the bed store I went, driven by pain and blessed with an IRS check that had some flexibility within its digits. Going to Metro Mattress, New York State’s own bedding outlet, turned out to be an educational experience. (Most things in life are educational experiences of one kind or another, I find.)

I learned many things, one of which was that I could actually afford a memory foam mattress since a market glut has driven prices down from the heady heights. But the upbeat and overqualified store manager, who graduated from college with a double major in biochem and business 8 years ago and somehow wanted me to know it, taught me a thing or two about memory foam. As I lay on a floor model bed, rolling around to feel the embrace of the magic foam, he sagely informed me: “Memory foam is called that, not because it remembers your shape. Memory foam remembers its own shape, and goes back to it every time. Guaranteed for 20 years.”

Makes sense. You don’t want your bed to have a giant imprint of your body in it. But I guess a lot of people don’t get that at first, what with the name “memory foam” and all—they get confused.

Three nights so far in my new bed and I’m loving it. I woke up in the middle of the night last night (not from pain, but because of a cat settling on my chest and drooling on my chin), and realized something very cool. At two a.m. it even seemed profound.

I realized that memory foam is how I want to be. It always knows who it is. It remembers itself. It is true to its nature. Aligned with its core being.

As a human being, I also want to remember who you are. The figurative “you”—the people in my life. I want to notice, see, hear and remember you, of course. But what is harder for me is remembering me.

For one thing, I don’t remember my life. Huge swatches of life—seemingly erased from my memory banks. I’ll go to alumni weekends and hang out with elementary and high school classmates, and someone will say, “Vanessa, remember when Mrs. Southwell….” And I’ll listen and respond: “No.” They are often surprised that I don’t have such a shocking, fun, important, humorous event at my fingertips, in my mental filing cabinet. Entire years, gone. Details—huge, significant, life altering details—missing. My theory is that a few significant traumas trained my mind to delete things to avoid retraumatizing via memory. The problem is, my subconscious is very sloppy when in erase-mode and errs on the side of getting rid of too much. I guess it figures it won’t miss anything really awful that way. But the good stuff gets lost too.

But there’s more to this memory foam lesson than retaining the details of my life, though one of the resolutions I made this year was to retrain my brain to hold on to more.  There’s also that self-knowledge I think everyone would say is important to possess. But so many people don’t. It is not so easy. We all know someone about whom we might say, “She is so wise at understanding people, but gosh, why can’t she see how messed up she is?”

Remembering our true selves is easier sometimes than others. When I am feeling very threatened, uneasy, out of sync with myself or my life, I tend to ignore the signs. I forget to remember who I am.

All the good people in the world, me included, behave well. We behave in accordance with our principles and sure, that is part of remembering ourselves. But that hard look. That close look. The inward look that is akin to sitting in a room flooded with natural light and looking at your own face in a magnifying mirror. That kind of look. Where you see the sags and wrinkles, and the beauty too. (Why is it so hard to see the beauty through the flaws?)

Remembering who I am is about being able to admit that I am worthy, loving, independent, smart, talented, committed, brave, hardworking, loyal, honest, funny, insightful and capable of great joy. Easy to write down a list of adjectives, but harder to really live every day in possession of that glorious self.

Remembering who I am is also about seeing the darker truths, some of which exist in direct opposition to my strengths. That I am fragile, controlling, needy, insecure, shy, compulsive, obsessive, anxious, feel unworthy, mask my true feelings from others and am capable of going into the dark and not finding my way out. And the list goes on. None of these things is what I want to believe about myself.  I have spent much of my life in denial of them. On the other hand, I am very willing to censure myself when it is UNwarranted. The compulsive apologies. The faux self-blame: “I’m an idiot,” “I’m a jerk,” “It’s all my fault,” “I’ll take care of it.”

It’s okay to not be to blame. It doesn’t always have to be up to me. It’s also okay to be weak or scared – these are not faults. It is okay to be good, brave, and loveable – these are not faults either. And besides, it’s okay to have faults! When we are jerks, let’s say it! Accept responsibility and take action to better ourselves. But let’s not say we’re jerks when we are just being human.

With any luck, by the time I remember how to remember who I am all the time, it will be guaranteed for more than 20 years.

The Voice Inside My Head

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I got an email from myself yesterday. It was written from my iPhone in the middle of the night when apparently I woke up with an idea I did not want to forget. Here’s what I wrote (typos corrected): “Inner knowing. Big decisions. Hearing the voice. And trusting it. When you go too long ignoring it, when you finally hear it, maybe it’s off balance.”

I think if I’d woken up fully, then and there, I might have been able to channel what the heck it was I wanted to get across. But I’m going to tackle this one anyway, two days later and in the early morning light, surrounded by unpacked boxes.

My inner-knowing radar may need calibration. I am having a hard time trusting myself these days. Why? Because a year and a half ago, in the middle of my seemingly normal life, I salted my own fields, retreated, repatriated elsewhere, retreated again, and am still picking up the pieces of my heart, mind, life….

At first, my choices—all the dramatic and insistent maneuvers of the last year and a half—were made with the certain knowledge that I was doing the right thing. That feeling faded to the point that now, no matter which direction I take, it seems fraught with confusion and doubt.

In an effort to protect the innocent, I will skip over a lot of the gory details. I will focus, instead, on something that, both literally and metaphorically, defines much of my life over the last year.

Moving.

Some history. As a younger woman, living in Charlottesville, VA, I moved a lot. I could handle it. I had enough stuff to fit into an efficiency apartment, small cottage or two pick-up trucks (usually one, making two trips). Each new place was a new nest I’d feather, efficiently and cozily, knowing I could unfeather it quickly if the need arose.

Then I divested, moved back to New York to attend grad school. I lived in a room at the top of a friend’s brownstone. Monastic and luxurious at the same time. I knew what I was doing.

When I got married, suddenly the moveable feast that was my life became something more settled. With that came security, steadiness and 25 years in one house. A lovely house more than 100 years old, filled with the joyful objects of family: framed photos, a favorite omelet pan, walls of books, a collection of tablecloths and napkins. That kind of thing.  Nothing about the choice to buy a home 40 minutes from work, at the crest of a housing boom, in a rural town (I’m a city girl remember) seemed uncertain. It was right and I knew it. My life was right and I knew it.

Fast forward. When did all that certainty turn into such a pretense of certainty? But the thing about pretense is that the pretender does not know she’s pretending…. I became my role. I was the method actor of all time. Talk to my friends. They were convinced by my performance. (Well, most of them. Okay, well maybe not, but lots of people were.)

Sometimes the universe (or my inner voice) tries so hard to get my attention and I just power through life, ignoring the signs. So one day I found myself moving out of the house of 25 years. Moving out of the marriage. Moving. Like the Tin Man, once my rusty joints were oiled, I careened wildly, leaving quite a wake.

After my daughter was firmly ensconced back at college, I looked around the home I’d made so lovingly for so long, and was ready (wasn’t I?) to leave it. I started to pack. Box after box. When I left, my estranged husband was to move back in and take possession. Did I let the grief of it all penetrate my plan-addled mind? Did I allow for one minute my inner knowing to communicate with my inner idiot long enough to wake me up so that I could, at the very least, process what was happening?

I packed. I loaded. I moved far far away for my sabbatical year. (Yes, it seemed a good idea to take a break from my job of 25 years at the same time I left my marriage of 26 years. Not to mention my home. Where was my inner knowing? I just don’t know.)

Well, things did not work out. I did not make it a year. By Christmas I was packing again. (There is a lot of story I’m leaving out here; can you tell?) But the point is, I had been so sure. The trauma of changing gears so soon again after the first move was great. Many insistent dreams were showing their true colors as fantasy, idealism, delusion. But, with every box I packed on Christmas Eve, my inner voice was clear.

Or was it?

At this point, the sight of a box taped shut with my handwriting on it— “Kitchen/serving platters,” “framed photos,” “books,” “sweaters and lampshade”—creates a visceral reaction in me. Sorrow, panic, comfort, doubt, curiosity and a glimmer of hope all swirl around and make me nauseated.

Now, I’m moving again. Unpacking. Again. I have made a decision based on the advice given to me by my heart, my head, my hopes and what remains, essentially, an optimistic outlook. But I cry a lot. I don’t trust myself any more.

After so many years of dishonoring the inner voice, I decided to do whatever the inner voice said, without question. Neither approach worked that well. Is there more than one inner voice? Is one my friend and one a saboteur? How to tell them apart?

All that being said, I know that I have a deep well of wisdom within me. We all do. I am the only potential saboteur here. I am the only one who can block the voice from reaching me.

A friend of mine recently said, “You may not trust yourself, but I trust you. I trust that whatever you do it is for your highest good.” I needed to hear that.

This year, my highest good has been served, apparently, by uprooting myself, repeatedly. By humbling myself as I learned at last how insecure I really am; how much my pretense of certainty was a tool of survival but not a path for growth. Okay, inner knowing– I’m ready to listen.

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Define Family

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Below is a piece from my archives. Something I wrote several years ago about a summer several years before that. 

Summer 2000.  We’re on vacation in Chincoteague, VA.  Me, my husband, Dan, our two children, and Grandma (Dan’s mom and the best mother-in-law in the world).  Grandma is a given. We never vacate without her.

One day, we get a call from Dan’s dad, Frank.  He and his girlfriend of 20 years, Patty, are heading down for a couple days to visit with us.  This is great! Grandpa and Grandma have been divorced for a quarter century but, in that inimitable way that 1/84th of divorced couples are able to, they have remained friends.  The quarter century they were married was enough to ensure a lasting bond between two people who share three children, political and religious ideals and a lot of memories.

Then we get another call, from Pam.  Okay, now Pam is my stepmother, only she is not married to my dad. Not any more. She and he were married to one another throughout my childhood.  Fifteen of my formative years, she was there every summer and holiday break when I left New York and made my way to the wilderness of northwest PA to be with that part of my family.  She is the mother of my two sisters. She is the one who taught me how to play Scrabble, how to make a meatball and that it is important to spend summers having fun instead of brushing up on my math skills, as my other (biological) maternal unit hoped I would be doing.

So Pam calls. Pam has been married to Paul for years now, and he’s cool too.  They are in Virginia and want to stop by Chincoteague for a couple days.  This is great! It’ll be a party.

And it is. My children, Win and Maggie, ages 10 and 7 at this point, don’t bat an eye when they come out to the screened in deck that afternoon to see this conglomeration of … well, family members… all sitting around drinking cold beer and discussing the upcoming election (Gore vs. Bush).

Paul (my ex-stepmother’s husband, also defined as my half-sisters’ step-father) is as interested in history and philosophy as my husband is, and both my in-laws have advanced degrees in history. They could talk all night.  Patty, my father-in-law’s girlfriend (you could think of her as my husband’s nearly-step-mother) is a people person with a lifetime of stories to tell of her years as a manager of a group home, ski bum and attendant on a transcontinental train). She and Pam (you remember who she is?) get along great and converse enthusiastically.  Pam has a PhD in psycho-educational processes.  The group dynamics are surely not lost on her. Nor on me. I sit back and watch.

Later we go to dinner and sit at a huge round table overlooking the inlet.  The kids mingle among these loved people, taking turns visiting around the table, sitting on a variety of laps or challenging yet another willing victim to a quick game of hangman.

Later still, back on the deck, we light candles and split into teams for a rousing game of Cranium, the ultimate party game.  The teams are an excellent mishmash.  First team: Win, his grandma and Paul.  (Paul: Win’s mom’s dad’s ex-wife’s husband, right? Win knows him as “Paul.” Paul is cool.)  Paul sculpts a strand of DNA out of play-doh and Win guesses correctly. Cheers all around. Another team: Dan, my husband, Pam, my ex-step-mom and Patty, Dan’s dad’s … remember?  Whatever.  It’s all silly and wonderful. Maggie, Grandpa and I make up the third team. The teams work.  It all works, somehow.

You hear a lot of talk about modern families (two moms or two dads), merged families (the Brady Bunch), his ‘n’ her families (divorced with step-siblings dangling all over the family tree) and the nicely vague term, non-traditional families. Traditional is a word like normal. It can be so easily misunderstood or misinterpreted.  Traditional family is as varied as family tradition. If the tradition in your family is to eat cheesecake at two a.m. on the first Tuesday of the month, that may be as sacrosanct as any time worn, culturally approved ritual.

The only thing that is, perhaps, universally traditional about the concept of “family” is the connection forged by love, loyalty and responsibility.  Looking around that screened-in porch, seeing those familiar faces in the candlelight, I saw my family.  “These are people I love,” I may have thought then (being prone to mushy, well-phrased thoughts). The porch and the evening itself were as full as my heart at that moment. Full of this hodgepodge of exceptional people glued together into a family.

This has nothing to do with the events in the blog but is a big extended family gathering....

This has nothing to do with the events in the blog but is a big extended family gathering….

The Broken Pause Button

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Negative space, I remember from high school art class, is the space between the stuff of this world. In a painting, the shapes between objects are created by negative space. I figure the world of sound has its own negative space—the quiet between the noise. The pause.

Of course, there is rarely utter quiet. Unless you are hermetically sealed in an isolation chamber, you will hear the traffic below, the bird or cricket speaking, the low frequency buzzing of the lights, the fridge, the neighbor’s TV, the thump of the bass line from a radio zipping by on a midnight joyride.

Right now, I sit alone in a kitchen. The dryer hums rhythmically in the next room. I hear a high pitched buzz from somewhere in the room and can’t pin it down. My stomach just rumbled, almost drowning out the rest.  But in my world, this is the equivalent of silence.

I worked most of my career in a school, where silence is rare. A lively classroom is about dialogue and sharing, singing, asking questions, excited “Eureka” outbursts, and the muted conversation of collaborating learners. As a teacher, I had to learn to pause, though. Even when asked a direct question, if I paused, a lightbulb often went on for the student. If I’d spoken immediately, I might have derailed that moment, and prevented a neural connection from forming. When I asked a question, I would force myself to pause long enough, and teach others to resist filling the silence, so that thinking could happen.

But it’s not just thinking that takes place in the pause. It’s breathing. Expanding. Sometimes the pause lets us practice the oh-so-difficult non-thought.

My mind is virtually always full of buzz, like this “quiet” house. But in that blissful moment of waking, when my mind is momentarily unaware of much at all except the sensation of lightening from unconsciousness to consciousness, I sometimes don’t know where I am. I forget the ache in my heart. I don’t miss anything, or long for anything. I don’t feel burdened by tasks. I am anxiety free.

I wonder how long it is in actual time before the thoughts pop in. For me, it is such a minute fraction of a second that it is incredible that I even notice the empty pause at the beginning of my waking day. It is infinitesimally brief. I guess this is what meditation is supposed to gain for us. An extension of that moment. The ability to push the pause button on the soundtrack inside our heads.

Thoughts and utterances need to sit in the back seat and let mommy drive. The unbidden thought, “How can I make my deadline?” (Negative programming.) “Am I doing the right thing?” (Fear.) “Did that deposit clear yet?” (Anxiety.) “How will I get that stain out of my sweater?” (Busywork.)

The unbidden words, “I’m sorry.” (But I didn’t do anything.) “I’ll do it!” (Control freak volunteer.) “Do you really want to wear those shoes with that skirt?” (Judge and jury.)

Where’s the pause button?

Mine broke.

Daughter into Mother

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When my first child was born in early May of 1990, about a week before Mother’s Day, I had not thought a lot about that designated day-for-honoring-mothers for some years, due to the agonizing relationship I had with my schizophrenic mom. Since long before I’d married, my mother had often been absent entirely from my life, living in her car, and, when she lost that, in homeless shelters and the occasional mental hospital. If I was lucky, I knew where she was. Or—if I was unlucky, depending on how you look at it. When she was out of my world, I worried incessantly. When she was in it, she was a gorgon, haunting every cranny of my mind and heart with the brilliant venom of her love.

Needless to say, on Mother’s Day, I tried not to dwell on the sadness of having no one to send a sappy card to, or take out to dinner.

When I was little, Mother’s Day was mostly about me walking the one block up West 86th Street to Broadway to buy a huge bouquet of daisies with my own money, and delivering them to her. I occasionally wondered if daisies were really her favorite or if she had just said that so I could afford to buy her flowers. At her memorial service, I had the biggest bouquet of the sunny things on display as virtually the only “decoration.” The following summer, when I scattered my mother’s ashes in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, I found out from her best childhood friend that daisies truly were her best loved “friendly” flower, and had been all her life. A woman bent on grandeur and elegance never shook off her attachment to the simplest, truest of everyday flowers.

We sprinkled black-eyed Susans into the lake with her remains, as those were the only daisy-ish blooms we could find that day. I think of that now, on Mother’s Day, with flowers and blossoms filling the air with thick, enchanting smells. The simplicity of daisies and the eternity that is the tie between a mother and child, for good or ill. Suppress it all I want, Mother’s Day, daisies, and all the moments when a woman in middle years might call her elderly mom to share lives—they bring back the empty place where my mother resided most of my life, before and after her death.

Fast forward to yesterday. Mother’s Day 2013. 23 years and one week from my first Mother’s Day with roles changed. Where I became the mother, and began to undo the tangled persona of being my mother’s daughter. The untangling continued, through the years, as motherhood defined me in a way that daughterhood never could. Being the mother of my son, and then my daughter, fit my soul. Can’t think of another way to say it at the moment.

Now my children are grown. They are the whole people they have always been, through this lifetime and all the ones that came before. They fill their own spaces in this universe, with the exactness with which water fills the ocean. They flow, they breathe, they love, they expand, they laugh and cry and create. They are people. I take no credit. I feel only gratitude.

My mother knew very little gratitude for anything, and she could only see me as something she made, a reflection of her, the jewel on her crown. Thus, I could only let her down, being only human.

My children have never let me down. I don’t see how they could. As long as they are themselves, I can enjoy their becoming and their being. Something I do every day with wonder and, yup, gratitude.

My mother with my father and me back when everything seemed possible.

My mother with my father and me back when everything seemed possible.

Me with my children. Anything is possible.

Me with my children. Anything is possible.

In Honor of the Crone

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Have you read about the grandmothers in India? The ones who were taught to build, install and repair solar lighting systems, and put together solar lanterns, water heaters and cookers? When a college got the idea to teach undergrads how to do the work in order to bring light to villages in India, the youngsters (men) absconded to the big cities to make money. So someone brilliant had the idea to empower elder women from local communities, knowing they would do the right thing. And they have. So far they have brought light to almost 10,000 households in India. Subsequently, the Indian grandmothers taught elder women from other countries. These solar engineers—elder women all—have brought solar power to 45,000 households in 64 developing countries. If you want to read more about it, check out Tara Sophia Mohr’s blog Link to Mohr’s blog. It was Tara who inspired me to follow this thread today.

Women in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s are in a powerful stage of life. In ancient traditions, goddess centered or otherwise non-Christian, this elder woman was called the crone, and was deeply revered as the holder of truth, wisdom and love. Linked to the new moon, the dark phase, she holds secret knowledge and can teach the spiritual mysteries.

If you think about your favorite elder woman, grandmother or not—wise and loving, with the endless patience to share with you all she has to teach—that is the crone. The word has been co-opted by a western, patriarchal mythology that turned the crone into a feared destroyer. Picture Hansel and Gretel’s witch. She epitomizes what is actually a quite modern view of the “terrible crone.” In fact, the crone has lived a life full of loving, birthing, tending, creating, giving, thinking, solving, planning, worshiping, guiding, and supporting. As the people of India realize—she is a resource to be tapped, not a feared monster nor a disposable commodity to be tossed away.

The women I know are reclaiming the word, honoring their passage from mother to crone with ceremony, reverence, appreciation and awe. And we are talking about some very sexy, savvy crones. The dark moon goddess is still sexual, seductive, enticing in her wisdom and authority. What has she to fear? She understands the world better than she ever has. She understands herself and is stepping into her power.

The sexy white-haired man—CEO, senator, diplomat, author. You know him, right? Well, his counterpart is not a little old lady sitting in a rocking chair or pulling cookies out of the oven. No. His equal, his match is the sexy crone—CEO, senator, diplomat, author. Artist, dancer, healer, teacher. Whatever she is, she is the holder of the moon energy, the silver light that flows into us all.

So here’s to our crones. Think of that woman—the one you will never forget. The one whose presence can inspire, calm, empower, teach and move you. If you are lucky enough to have a powerful crone in your life, sit at her feet every chance you get. Dance with her, drum with her, drink with her, pray with her, listen to her, touch her. And if she is not with you any more, she is probably somewhere nearby, guiding you in one way or another. Perhaps simply through the inspiration she provides by having lived. Or maybe there is more to it than that. Only you can know.

Jane Fonda is 75

Jane Fonda is 75

Betty White is 91

Betty White is 91

Hillary Clinton is 65

Hillary Clinton is 65

Ruth Bador Ginsberg is 80

Ruth Bador Ginsberg is 80

Maya Angelou is 85

Maya Angelou is 85

In Honor of a Pen — Welcome to my Blog

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I like to think of myself as a spiritual person. With a long road ahead. In fact, one of the reasons I want to write a blog is to ponder the ineffable. Access my gifts. Frolic with the angels.

But I find myself writing this very first blog about a stolen pen. Okay that may be a bit harsh. But, in fact, it’s my favorite pen and its acquisition haunts me in a little, niggling way. I’m coming clean. So here goes. The pen was in the post office, and so was I. It wasn’t one of those pens attached to a chain. Nor one of the pens with giant fake flowers taped to it, the way they do nowadays at the post offices around here, to ensure no one pilfers.

This pen is not government issue. It was lying casually on the counter one day when I had to fill out an address label and my usually pen-full purse was penless. So this pen was lying there, unappreciated, unused, unclaimed.

It seems to be a give-away pen from a somewhat local business—a tack shop one town away. But what a give-away! I mean this pen is nice. It glides across the page effortlessly and creates no finger-exhaustion. If the pen had not been so very pleasant to write with, so enticingly smooth and luscious, it would not have occurred to me to slip it into the pocket of my purse, which at the time was a wasteland containing little more than a wallet, a make-up bag, a few pairs of glasses, lip balm, a thousand business cards from random people, and lots of other things with which one cannot write.

This happened months ago, but I admit I feel pretty guilty and that feeling is messing with my enjoyment of the pen. It’s a conundrum. I thought about going back to the post office and leaving another pen there, on the counter. Or maybe this pen, and just saying goodbye to it. Even though I know someone else will snatch up the beauteous thing.

What is the lesson here? I want to manifest what is good and fulfilling in my life and I take pens out of post offices? My heart struggles with its own darkness on a daily basis and this pen sits in the shadows. I am asked for wisdom by friends, my children, about things both ponderous and not, and I am a pen pilferer.

Ethical relativity is a funny thing. I mean, comparing my crime to the crimes of others is pointless. Obviously I am not a serial killer or an embezzler. On the other hand, I could maybe justify the act of pilfering (relatively speaking) if it were a loaf of bread and my family of 6 had no hope of dinner. But a pen?

How would you feel if this pen had inspired many journal writing episodes? Writing that was of great value to the process of healing after emotional trauma, deep grief, heartbreak or loss? Would that make a difference? No. There are other implements in the pencil box, you’d say. And you’d be right.

It’s entirely possible that someone entered the post office that day unable to mail a package because of the lack of available writing implements.

The pen sits beside me now virtually begging me to close my computer, pick it up, and see where it might take me. I think this pen was meant to find its way to me. I believe that the universe has a plan for me. For me and the pen. And that things happen for a reason.

I actually do think that, at least most of the time, and I also believe that guilt is only useful when it actually prevents harm to self or others. I have concluded—intellectually—that since this pen was created and purchased to be given away, to advertise the local tack shop, and since it does me a world of good, and since by possessing this pen I harm no one, the karmic balance is intact. But I might just be kidding myself.

I dedicate this, my first blog, to the delightful pen, so easy to hold, so comfortable to write with. Though I will not be blogging with the pen, it holds a place in my mind. A place called “writing.” I honor it here.