Shameless lines

I suppose it's fitting that this ferociously pink shameless lion is the symbol for an award given for my shameless lines. Thanks to Wendy for nominating me for my powerful words. The award is given by the Shameless Lions Writing Circle.

Now protocol demands I share three qualities of good writing. I think good writing is:

• Clear--in its focus, intent, and execution
• Memorable--the words or their effects linger long after you leave the page
• Evocative--vividly bringing to life universal experiences and emotions

And now in the spirit of  the Shameless Lions, here are a few of my favorite writers in the blogosphere:

Her Bad Mother

Bub and Pie

Jew Eat Yet?

German Diary

Half of the Sky

November 15, 2007

My day

I keep trying to talk myself out of writing this post, because no one really wants to hear about my day and my bad mood and the very cold temperatures and howling winds and blowing rain that hit on the day I had to take public transit into the city.

I pulled my big Goretex, Thinsulate, Polartec coat out of the closet for the first time this season. At the bus stop, just as the rain hit, I reached back to put up my hood and realized the hood had been detached last season and left in a box with hats and scarves in the attic.

No, I didn't have an umbrella because when the wind is gusting the way it is, it's pointless to try and use one.

The bus was late. Very late. Which meant my finely honed schedule involving Metro, bus connections, and a doctor's appointment was shot to hell. And I was cold.

I arrived at the Metro station just as the train I needed pulled away. Had to wait 10 minutes for the next train. Further and further behind....

And during the ride into the city, I suddenly developed a lump in my throat and felt like the loneliest girl. I tried to hide my tears from strangers and wished for the Free Hugs people to to magically show up so I could feel someone's arms around me.

Because the weather was so abyssmal, I tried to shorten my walk to the doctor's office by connecting to another Metro line and riding it one stop.  It took me a while to figure out how to get to the connection, and when I dashed down to the platform, the train I needed was pulling away.

Had to wait another 10 minutes.

Did I mention my iPod died in transit? No music to distract me from all these minutes wasted waiting for my day to move forward.

At the chiropractor's I had my back and knee worked on. My son, who fell onto concrete and hurt his wrist and his back last month, had his back adjusted and his arm worked on. My daughter wrenched her knee yesterday at soccer practice and so he worked on that. I'm grateful for the miracles he performed with our aches and pains, but it meant my carefully alotted stash of euros was severely depleted by the unexpected expense, making me wonder if I'd have enough money to last until E gets back from his two-week trip to Australia.

When we stepped out of the doctor's office, it was pouring. Just pouring. We had to walk about a mile in the rain to the Metro. My hair got so soaked it was sending rivulets of cold misery down my neck. My coat looked like I'd gone swimming in it. My mascara went Goth on me.

We  took the Metro to the mall so I could get the kids some lunch and do a bit of Christmas shopping. I have to mail out my Christmas packages to the States really early, before Thanksgiving.

We went to Belgium's only fast food chain, the ironically named "Quick." It was anything but. We waited 20 minutes in line behind ONE customer. I'm not sure who was more hopeless, the clerk or the customer. Neither of them could get their act together.  Just as the customer is finally getting his food, his buddy bounds into the restaurant and cuts in front of us to place his order.

I am beyond pissed. I have not had such a good day. I'm not in my happy place. I may be under the influence of evil PMS hormones. My hair is wet, my kids are hungry, I'm going to miss the bus I need to catch because it's taking so long to get "fast food" and I want to tell this guy to "mangez merde" and get behind me. But I don't.

I'm short on euros. I buy the kids large orders of frites and tell them we'll have the rest of our lunch at home.

I go to the L'Occitane store and charge 88 euros on gifts, well over a hundred dollars. I'm happy to say the store clerk was helpful, polite and warm. She was a bright spot in my day.

The kids and I went to the nature store where I see several things I'd love to have, but I don't buy anything. I show the kids what I want for Christmas, a polartec hood/scarf combo in deep red with white embroidery edging the hood. Perfect for wet, windy weather! 

The kids browse in a toy store, even though they're really too big for toy stores now. Then I tell them we have to go or we'll miss our bus and it only runs every hour.

We head downstairs and I have to buy a new Metro pass. Much to my surprise, they have a new type of ticket machine, and it only takes coins or Proton cards. You can't use bills with it. Damn! I had spent 8 euros worth of change upstairs in the mall and have hardly any change left. I'm scrambling, seeing if I can find more coins.

Even with English prompts, it's not clear how the machine works. It's different from the old one. My transactions keep getting cancelled by accident. Then it won't take my coins. I don't have enough for a Metro pass, I'm going to have to buy three separate tickets in three separate transactions and I'm counting my pennies to see if I can pay for it. The machine won't take pennies. I finally get enough change together and get our tickets bought, but not before we miss our train.

Forced to wait another 10 minutes.

Arrive at the other station in time to see that we missed our bus too.

There are no seats available to sit in while we wait...It will be an hour until a bus can take us home.

After a bit, I find another bus that will take us within two miles of home. We take it and walk that last mile and three quarters in the cold blowing wind, carrying our packages. At least it wasn't raining, but my hands are so cold, my joints ache.

And while my day was hardly a disaster, it was just enough to send me over the edge. This isn't a nice post.  It doesn't have a point. It doesn't contain any wisdom, it's not well written, it's not  inspiring.

But it is my day, my life, my blog, and I'm claiming it for what it is, not for what I wish it would be.

Today the grey skies are right on top of my head and I just want to rest in someone's arms.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better.

And at least I have the cat to sleep with.

November 9, 2008

Therapy, self-help, and all that jazz

Neil recently ventured into therapy in an attempt to understand himself and save his marriage. He's been blogging about the experience with honesty and humor and occasional wise-cracks from his sassy wife Sophia.  Today I read his post on how he spent a few hours in Border's reading self-help books, trying to find the one that would define his problem with a neat label and offer a solution or strategy for dealing with his neuroses.

In all of my years of introspection, soul gardening, and wrestling with depression, I've never, ever read a self-help book. I've always felt that they were marketing ploys preying on the vulnerability of insecure people in distress. I tend to view the authors not as experts but vultures, their motivations being based not on improving people's lives but lining their own pockets. I find them distasteful because I think they're exploiting the weak. Hmmm, so what does that attitude say about me?

Dr. Laura. Dr. Phil. Dr. Ruth. All the Dr. First Names make me want to throw up. They're so entranced with their own celebrity and blinded by their sound-bite biases.  They're more entertainers than professional therapists.

I've always felt that if I were attracted to a self-help book, it would be because it was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. Which begs the question: why would I need to read it in the first place? Why pay money to have my own belief system reinforced by a toothy-grinned pseudo psychologist?

All my life, I've used journaling as a tool to unravel tangled thoughts and help me let go of painful experiences. I don't read or study the Bible anymore, but I've always attended church and like a sermon that engages my brain on a lot of levels. I don't meditate formally, but I embrace silence. A walk in the woods is a sure way to clear my head. I often find wisdom and good advice in blogs and the comments readers leave behind, and I have a circle of friends whose words and intentions I deeply trust. If I felt it would help me, yeah, I'd get counseling or see a therapist. I respect that process.

How about you? Where do you look for answers? Who do you trust? Do you consider yourself introspective? How do you clear your mind, make sense of your life, release negative thoughts?

November 4, 2007

Good things

After a week in the doldrums, Friday is taking a good turn--

• I hauled a stack of kids magazines, two bags of videos, and a bag of kids' software and some music CDs to the American library and donated them.
• I got the latest issue of Rolling Stone with Bruce Springsteen on the cover. The only thing better than Bruce's music is the intriguing contents of his mind. Getting inside his head and his creative process was singularly satisfying. Great interview. And as a bit of trivia, I discovered he's Italian on his mother's side and Irish on his father's--just like me.
• Sometimes when one feels as gray as the sky, the only way to get some color in your life is to unleash some grrrl power. That explains why I, the woman who normally wears boring Hanes for Her cotton underwear, spent an inordinate amount of time choosing three pairs of very sexy panties off a rack yesterday.  Finally, I've graduated from the underwear that is sold in plastic packages next to the socks to the good stuff that's hung on hangers in the lingerie department. Oooh la la. I'm feeling very French.
• I bought an issue of Allure magazine and vowed to be more beautiful...
• And today I zipped on my wicked little black boots with the pointy toes and sharp little heels to run errands with the kids. I left my boring square-toed middle-aged soccer mom loafers at home--and that felt mighty fine. 
• There was a new barber in the barber shop, the place where my son has gotten many a crappy haircut. This guy took A's extraordinarily thick, hard-to-cut hair and gave him a haircut that was absolutely perfect. And he did it all with scissors and various cutting techniques and not the evil military hairclippers of doom. It was nothing short of amazing. Of course, I had sensed the barber had awesome talent when I noticed his kickass black cowboy boots with the silver buckles. I told him in French how much I loved them...
• After the perfect haircut, we went to a consignment shop where E-Grrrl of the hard-to-fit feet found an almost new pair of Clark's Artisan clogs in her size for only $3. They're beyond cute, with lots of hippie chic decorative stitching, and being Clarks, they're well padded and comfortable. Lucky her. Lucky me. Buying her shoes normally means I spend at least $60 because inexpensive shoes never fit her right--and then she outgrows the expensive ones in a matter of months.  Finding these clogs made my day. It also means she won't be borrowing my Ugg clogs anymore.

So what made your day? What's looking good for the weekend? Do tell. Let's share the good stuff, y'all.

November 2, 2007

In the twilight

OK, I'll admit it. I’m feeling depressed, down, emotionally and physically flattened, uninspired. No, not a full blown “dark night of the soul,” more of a dusky twilight in my brain.

I have a lot on my mind—issues related to my home life, my future, and my past. There’s so much I’m trying to make sense of on a lot of levels. Soul gardening isn’t easy. It’s often exhausting. I have to remind myself to be patient, to wait for clarity, to be in the moment and tend the life I have now.

Sunday, I didn’t want to go to church. Every fiber of my being was longing to stay in my bathrobe and curl up on the couch—but I went to church anyway, yawning all the way and praying the meds I took wouldn’t send me into a complete stupor and make me fall asleep mid-service.

Father Mark made getting off the sofa worth the effort. A new priest at our Episcopal church, I’ve only heard him preach a few times but he always impresses me. His sermons don’t circle a topic endlessly but go right to the heart of it. He dissects the truth with finesse and lays out his points elegantly.

On Sunday he was preaching on the righteous Pharisee and the sinful tax collector. He deconstructed two theological approaches to conversion and grace, one put forth by John Calvin and the other by Thomas Aquinas. He described how the Calvinist position made it easy to fall into and justify a dangerous sense of self-righteousness that could undermine the Gospel's inclusive message. St. Thomas's teaching that we are "converted" gradually as God's grace works to perfect, not replace, our given nature emphasizes the process of growing into faith and holiness over time. Seeing as I consider myself very much a work in process, Mark's words and St. Thomas' wisdom struck a chord in my weary heart, and I carried them out of church with me, feeling encouraged, feeling that the sermon was meant just for me.

Often when I feel emotionally unsettled (as I do now), I have the urge to declutter the house, as if by shedding my material load I can lighten the mental burdens I’m carrying. Over the past few weeks I’ve been sorting through boxes, cupboards, drawers, and storage areas, amassing stacks of things in the basement to get rid of.

E dropped off an entire trunk load of clothes at a church last month. We donated boxes and boxes of books to a fundraising sale. Di’s granddaughter, Sahara, received some toys and books on tape, but still the piles in the basement continued to grow, making me feel smothered.

On Sunday, the sun was shining and there was a soccer game at the community center down the street generating lots of traffic in the neighborhood. I decided to put things out on the sidewalk in a massive give away pile and see if we’d get any takers. I didn’t want to hassle with a garage sale or hauling things to consignment shops;I just wanted to be free of the weight of this stuff.

Christmas wreaths, Easter baskets, folding chairs, tons of Tupperware, Pampered Chef kitchen gadgets, mixing bowls, vegetable steamers, sippy cups, travel mugs, glasses, pitchers, tote bags, leather purses, serving platters, decorative art, tapered candles, cast iron cookware, a bicycle, dolls and stuffed animals—I toted them all out the garage door and set them up on display on the stone wall in front of my house.

The items had been out for all of five minutes when two Gypsies showed up in a van and started loading it all up—the same two who had come by last winter. The timing was almost mystical. I was astonished. I hadn't seen them since last December.

In no time, everything but three Easter baskets had been loaded into their van and driven off, probably to be sold this week at a flea market somewhere. The “transaction,” such as it was, was oddly satisfying.

Once again I had a vision of life as a wheel, of people cycling in and out of my path in some sort of cosmic rhythm, a sense of being in the right place at the right time, of God quietly providing what I need and helping me let go of what I don’t.  Often the best way to find grace is to step aside and let it find you.

October 29, 2007

Celebrating the Divine Miss Di

It all started with a post featuring a poem by Erica Jong that spoke of the plight of women who "loved houses better than themselves." It was January  2006, and a new commenter named Di stopped by my blog to let me know she loved that poem too and was also an expat in Belgium. 

I didn't know it at the time, but to "meet" Di in a post that included poetry and laments about housework was cosmic. As our friendship slowly unfolded, our love of art and our frustration with the baggage of domestic life would be a theme we'd revisit again and again and again.

Her blog included thought provoking quotes, photography, political commentary, links, and bits and snippets of her life. When she very shyly asked if my family would mind posing for her developing photography portfolio, I jumped on the opportunity to have her point her camera our way. It was just a wee bit more than a year ago that I finally met Di in person during the shoot, which occurred on her birthday. I offered to use my PR and marketing skills to help her launch a photography business and we began corresponding regularly.

Out of that correspondence came the soul of our friendship. We both struggled with finding our creative voices and making a new life in Belgium, having confidence in our respective talents, and believing in our choices. I loved the way Di boldly plunged into Antwerp's diverse community, volunteering to act as a photographer with the Antwerp Integration Office and throwing herself into getting to know the faces and lives of the more than 165 nationalities and ethnic groups in her home city. She has a true passion for people and loves to capture the essence of their stories in her images.  Her experiences as a "woman wandering" have given her a strong sense of justice and a tender heart for refugees, immigrants, and outsiders, something I really admire. 

Last night she and Gert hosted another of their soirees, bringing together people from all over.  I used the party as an excuse to celebrate Di's birthday (which was Tuesday) and the anniversary of our first meeting last year. I baked her an orange cake glazed with Grand Marnier and presented her with a special gift, a bracelet designed for her by my friend Lisa.

I told Lisa I wanted something "warm and earthy" for Di, and that I wanted it to include a silver charm that says "Believe," to remind Di to believe in herself, her art, and our friendship.

Lisa visited Di's Web site, checked out her photography, and then came up with a design that she and I discussed via e-mail. The main beads of the bracelet are unakite, which is the official stone of my home state, Virginia. Unakite is brought down from the Blue Ridge Mountains by river into the state's verdant valleys. I grew up in the shadow of the Blue Ridge and spent many an afternoon on the Maury River, so unakite was a perfect selection. The center bead is glass, and its pattern suggested mountains to Lisa. It seemed a fitting symbol for Di, a native of New Zealand. Last night I arrived at the party early so I could give her the bracelet and was thrilled to see how well it "matched" her inside and out.

Later Peter and I shared conversation and birthday cake and compared waistlines.  Di and I agree his so called belly fat is a pathetic excuse for middle-aged spread, and if he complains about the size of his jeans, we'll be forced to act unladylike and remind him his jeans are smaller than ours. Ahem. And for the record, the conversation may or may not have included the "O" word. We're not telling. No we're not. We're nice Grrrls and Peter is, as he says, "shy and reserved" and even dressed "like an accountant." We're already planning another get together, a Grrrl's weekend in Antwerp. Peter says he'll come in drag. ; )  If he fattens up a bit, I'll loan him something to wear. ; )

October 28, 2007

Processing

You know the flashing hourglass that appears on your monitor when a program isn’t ready to respond?

That’s my life symbol right now.

I feel stuck in a moment, with all the pieces of my life glued into place. Watch me go through the motions of a typical day, and it looks like nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Everything is the same on the surface. Everything is stable.

But in the black box of my Self, everything has changed and is changing, moment to moment.

While the hourglass flashes, a lifetime of files are being scanned, opened, closed. My heart is fragmenting and defragmenting at the same time. I wonder over the value of my temporary files. What should be saved? What should be deleted? What am I meant to keep?

My soul hums and groans as it lifts and shifts the data of my life: words, pictures, plans, messages, and memory. So much is at stake. I don’t want to crash. I don’t want to succumb to program errors.

The flashing hourglass asks for patience while the unchanging screen puts a calm façade over the frenzy of electric energy beneath the surface.

“ We’re not ready. Wait. Wait. Wait.”

And so I stop, breathe, wait, and wonder.

I indulge in Big Questions: What do I really want? What am I afraid of?

I pause. I process. I resist the urge to try and click ahead.

October 25, 2007

Letter to my son

Eddie Bauer Stine Jacket

Dear Son,

You are flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. I carried you for nine months, gave birth to you under duress, nourished you at my breast, and have loved and tended to you for 12 years.

I have let you wear my socks, hijack my slippers, wrap yourself up in my bathrobe, steal my sweatshirts, pad around in my Tevas, sleep in my t-shirts, use my towel, sip my drinks, share my bed, and even borrow my jeans. However,  I have my limits: never again sneak out of the house wearing my leather Eddie Bauer jacket.

I’d give you a kidney but my EB jacket has my soul tucked into its flannel-lined pockets. I bought it ten years ago to reclaim a bit of myself after giving so much away in the process of being a mother. It is not just another item of clothing. It’s a piece of me I can’t live without. It does not belong on a middle school campus or crammed in the bottom of your locker.

I hope now you understand. Borrow Dad’s leather EB jacket—the one I gave him that Christmas in Virginia. He never wears it. He doesn't need it. He's not a leather jacket guy like you. His heart belongs to his Columbia parka.

Love,

Mama

Will the circle be unbroken?

Marriage problems are making the rounds in my circle, and as we share our confusion and disappointments and try to unravel all the complexities of long term relationships, it’s hard not to get cynical. There are days when I wonder how anyone stays married. Recently a German political candidate suggested all marriage licenses should expire after seven years. There was an outcry of vocal protest in the Catholic community in Europe, but I bet there were a whole lot of people secretly thinking, “She’s right!”

When I was 26 and living in Oklahoma, I enrolled in a degree program at a university that was 66 miles from the home I shared with E. Yeah, that’s a long way to drive for classes. I hooked up with several women from my town, all my age or older, all married, two with kids. We organized a carpool for that first semester. On the long drives to school, we chatted about everything. One woman was a devout Mormon, two were Baptists—all were active in their churches, all had been married eight years or more, all were getting teaching degrees.

One day as we were driving, we started talking about marriage. One woman posed the question, “If you had to do it all over again, would you get married or marry the same man?”

I had been married six years and I was the only one in the car who answered “yes.” Everyone else either said no or hedged, mentioning that if they hadn’t married, they wouldn’t have kids, and so yeah, marriage was OK, sort of, because hey, look at these great kids!

To say the least, I was shocked to hear this from these traditional, religious, conservative Midwest women. I loved my husband, and I believed in marriage.

My second semester, I gave up on the whole carpooling thing and just moved into a dorm room on campus. E and I had a commuter marriage—I was at school 4-5 days a week and at home on weekends. This was in the days before cell phones and before e-mail. There were only three phones in the dorm, one on each floor, and there was a 10 minute time limit on using them.

I never used the dorm phones. I used to walk down to the football stadium and use one of the outdoor pay phones there. If I was lucky, I talked to E once a week while I was at school. He’s never been a guy to sit around the house, and catching him at home within hearing of the phone was tough (a lot of time he was outside). I still remember nights when I’d be down at the stadium in the dark, trying to reach E, hearing the phone ringing endlessly, willing him to answer it, hoping that he’d walk through the door any minute and pick it up.

Over time I reached the point where I seldom called. I just couldn’t stand the whole sad cycle of anticipating getting to talk to him and then being disappointed, standing in the parking lot of an empty stadium feeling like Lonely Girl. I tried to get E to come up to school sometimes, and I sometimes had parties at our house on weekends and invited my school friends, but it just didn’t work. I accepted that I had a life at school and a life at home and they seldom intersected.

When we finally began living together again after nearly two years of me spending most of my time at school, it was far harder than I thought it would be. E seemed so conservative to me compared to the artsy, creative types I’d hung out with at school. I’m sure I seemed different to him as well. We moved to Virginia, and it took a few months to learn to be a couple again, but then we became closer than ever. E’s career was taking off, and I was finally starting mine. We were living where we wanted to live and enjoying a life that had so many more opportunities for us than we’d had in Oklahoma. Still, I remembered the women in the carpool and the chasm that opened up during our commuter marriage years. I was in my late 20s, and I knew my marriage wasn’t invincible. Up until then, I had never believed marriage problems or divorce could happen to me.

Now in my mid-40s, I’m surrounded by people ending or renegotiating their marriages and am working on renegotiating my own. As my friends and I struggle to understand what’s going on with our lives and our spouses, we’re often surprised. How did we reach the point where we’re even thinking about splitting? When did we start to separate? Why is it so hard to talk to each other now? How did we come to occupy different realities in the same house?  Did I change? Did he/she? Has he/she always been like this and I just didn’t notice or care? What does he/she expect from me? Can I meet those expectations? Do I want to try? If we can’t go back to the way we used to be, can we find a way to move forward without falling apart?

Some in my circle have loud fights and volatile relationships. Others of us just have a sense of things disintegrating behind the mostly calm façade of our lives. Sometimes we envy those whose marriages explode in affairs, not because we minimize the profound sense of loss, pain, and betrayal that results from that but because most of the time an affair provides a clear cut ending to a relationship—fewer discussions, less debate on what’s wrong, no cycles of hopes rising and falling, no guilt that you gave up on the relationship without good reason.

People change and sometimes grow apart instead of growing together. You can't go back, and you can't always go forward together. Sometimes a rough patch is a catalyst to getting to a better place in your marriage, but sometimes it simply highlights everything that’s been falling apart over the years and can’t be repaired. Midlife is full of remodeling projects, inside and out. Sometimes you can renovate, knock down walls, add rooms, throw on a fresh coat of paint and make a new home together. And sometimes you just have to sell the house and move on.

October 19, 2007

Namur, Belgium

We've visited Namur several times since we've lived here.  This charming city in the French-speaking part of Belgium is distinguished by an enormous citadel built into a tall hill that towers over the city and affords spectacular views. It's also the place where my favorite perfume is made, Passion by Guy Delforge. I bought an extra bottle of this spicy fragrance to take back with me to America, though the gentlemen at the parfumerie assure me they can ship it to me if I run out. A Grrrl with a passion for Passion can't take any chances.

The morning fog was still lingering....

Like Di, I love Belgian street lamps.

E-Grrrl had to photograph the Webkinz she received for her birthday at an overlook.

October 18, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.