The trouble with blogging...

How much is too much to share?

I've not been writing lately. I've been in a pissy mood lately. I think the two are related. I was doing dishes the other night, an excellent vehicle for thinking. I was struck by a realization - I'm angry. Not enraged, just a slow-simmering frustration. The act of acknowledging this emotion was temporarily freeing. I wrote a short bit in my journal and felt better the rest of the evening. Relief was fleeting, though. This morning I was my short-tempered, frazzled self again.


I don't want to write (here) about the source of my frustration - and that's the problem I have with blogging. I read blogs in which people share so much personal information that I can't help but wonder how their family members, co-workers, and friends stand it. This blog was begun in an attempt to get myself unstuck and to get my pen moving across the page again. I can say it worked on both fronts - until now. I don't really know who all reads my blog, who gives a damn at all about what I say, but something just doesn't feel right about putting details of my life out there for public consumption.

Seems like more and more people want to put everything out there these days. I'm on Facebook, but I'm trying to wean myself off of it. I guess I'm getting paranoid in my old age, but I just can't help but wonder what all this over-sharing is doing to our society, to our kids. I thank GOD that we didn't have Facebook and smart phones when I was growing up! (It's bad enough that high school classmates of mine put old pictures of us on Facebook - why?!?) I know I sound like a curmudgeon, and sometimes I feel like one. But I'd rather be a curmudgeon than addicted to gadgets. That's just me.

So why am I blogging, you ask? Good question. If I can't write about what's bugging me, then maybe I shouldn't write publicly at all. Well, I'll have to contemplate that one. There is room out there for a mostly positive blog, right? They don't all have to be navel-gazing downers or avenues of expressing frustration. So maybe I'll stick to the light stuff in the future. I'm pondering.

In any case, this mood I've been in has to stop. My new motto is: SCREW IT. I'd say something more emphatic but I'm trying to keep it PG-13. Scared of flying to Oregon in a month? Screw it, you can't live your life in fear. Worried about cutbacks at the library? Can't do a damn thing about it, so screw it. Don't feel like going to the gym? Screw it, go anyway, you'll feel better! I think it's gonna work. Bad mood or no, life rolls on. I am so lucky compared to so many. I have my health, my husband has his health, I have wonderful friends, I have a good job, I am blessed to be married to my true love. Goodness abounds! All that stuff that weighs me down, makes me frustrated and tired and bleak - Screw. It.

Return

God, I haven't written anything in ages! How do I feel about that? Slightly guilty, a bit anxious, but otherwise... okay. I guess I've been following the dictates of my blog's title: I've been doing things. Maybe I haven't been carving out time for writing, but that doesn't mean I've been ignoring my spirit, or things that make my spirit soar. Since I wrote last I've had my "staycation," in which I spent 11 happy days gardening, reading, watching "Glee", organizing our office, going to the gym, enjoying time with my husband, and seeing friends. It was restful and good, and I felt like I made wise use of my time. I read something by Anne Lamott a couple of days ago about how we use our time. And I read something a while back by my beloved Sylvia Boorstein in which she quoted her mother, saying, "You won't get to do this day over." This idea rang in my head and still reverberates. Being awake to your life is the key to happiness, I'm convinced. Awake enough to make deliberate choices about how you want to spend your time. It's so fragile, this life, so fleeting and bittersweet. My daily endeavors are to remember to be present. Remember to celebrate goodness. Remember to be kind. Remember that I am a creative person, whether or not I'm writing. It is still there, this flow of words that runs through me cold and clear like a spring. It is good to take time to dip my hands in the water every now and then.

A Dirty Job

Why does it feel so good to clean? Last weekend I dripped with sweat, pink-faced from my vigorous battle with the kitchen floor tiles. But I felt fantastic. I was momentarily renewed, peaceful, and felt like I'd really accomplished something. It's exceedingly fleeting, this feeling, especially with two vomiting, shedding cats and a husband who insists on wearing shoes in the house. But that five minutes when the floors glow are worth the effort. I think.

Making order out of chaos is always thrilling for me - I'm not a neat freak, not by anyone's standards. But a clean(ish) house is one thing I can control in a world where I sometimes feel powerless (Gulf oil spill, animal hoarders, my insane family, etc. etc.) My A.D.D. doesn't allow for sharp attention to detail, but I do enjoy a good cleaning session - a mopped floor, a huge bag of clothes sent to the thrift store. It's best done on Sundays, and best done when I'm alone.

I can still fall into the trap of comparing myself to others in the homemaking department. Sometimes I think, a real adult has a cleaner, more organized house than mine. But lately I'm trying to maintain a more Zen attitude towards it. There will always be cat hair, mud, garlic clove skins, peppercorns, all manner of everyday detritus spilled and tracked in on shoes. Laundry keeps on getting worn, junk mail keeps arriving, recycle bins keep filling. We just do our best, right? Life keeps happening, the good and the bad, whether or not we're ready for it. We don't have to compare ourselves to anyone else in this world, not in terms of the cleanest house or the biggest bank account or the smallest dress size. We adapt, we manage. Managing is really pretty good when you stop to think about it.

Local Woman Attempts to Banish Food Guilt

The July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, is FAN. TAS. TIC. Not only is it the Summer Reading issue (yay!), it's got a great section on people's different relationships to food - why they eat what they eat. It's a collection of short essays emphasising what is great about food - the pleasure in tasting and the way it makes you feel.

There's a vegan chef, a woman who goes on crazy crash diets like Greek Salad and Tootsie Rolls, and my favorite: The Omnivore. I want to be her. She actually seems to enjoy her food. She eats everything, from pulled pork tacos to poached goat, caramelized Brussel sprouts to a deep-fried candy bar. She acknowledges her "ample butt, boobs, and stomach." But, she says, "I'd rather have curves than agonize over whether I deserve dessert."

BING! I think my brain sort of exploded. I am so sick of my push/pull, love/hate relationship with food. I am sick of feeling bad about my body and making food the enemy. I LIKE FOOD. I like to eat. Sometimes I like to eat junk food. Sometimes I crave a fresh, crunchy salad or a baked sweet potato or grilled corn on the cob - with butter. My life has been one long calorie calculation after another, one more sneaky spoonful when no one else was looking. Every couple of months I have a meltdown (usually after skipping some workouts,) crying, "I'm sick of having to work out so much! I'm sick of having to think about my weight all the time!" It's damn exhausting. It sucks all the joy out of eating and out of life. I want a healthy relationship to what I eat. I want a life of energy and activity and good health. I also want a life without self-flagellation if I eat a doughnut (or two.) There's got to be room for all of that.

Old Friends

Sarah, an old friend, is visiting this weekend. It's been such a good visit. We met in the fall of 1995, when fate placed us in the same dorm at our small Midwestern college. She lived on the first floor, an all-women's floor, called "The Nunnery" by the students. I lived on the third floor, with boys right across the hall. (No air conditioning! Carrying boxes of crap up three floors in the early September heat!) Sarah was one of those girls you just couldn't help but notice. Actually, she's still that girl. We pretty much instantly became friends. She used to work the front desk in our dorm's lobby and I'd go downstairs and bug her all the time. She introduced me to Shawn Colvin's music, for which I will always be grateful. We were DJs together on the campus radio station on Saturday mornings. We were sleepy, goofy, and played awesome women's music like Joni Mitchell and Ani Difranco. Sarah was (and is) hilarious, generous, fun.

The relationship with an old friend is comparable to a marriage. You know each other really, really well. You love one another, even though on occasion you get on each other's nerves. You learn that the other person doesn't need to think exactly like you do about everything, and it's still okay, the bond is still intact. Too much distance can fray a bond, but regular communication does wonders to strengthen one in spite of the miles. It's comforting beyond measure to know that even though people can't help but change and grow in different directions, the core of who you are remains enough to maintain that connection.

Fifteen years. That's a long time to know someone, longer than many marriages! Not having any siblings, I've always taken refuge in my friendships. They are my security blanket and my joy. Life gets in the way too often, and there are gaps I'm feeling right now with some of my friends. It's funny how I live in the same town with someone and don't talk to them for months, yet I can talk every week with a friend who lives three states away. My hope for this summer is to reconnect with dear friends far and near, and to be awake enough to appreciate all the wonderful people who bless me with their love.

Found

(Note: This post contains spoilers of the LOST finale. If you have intentions of ever watching the show and haven't yet, you might want to skip this one.)

Much has been written, and will be written, about the series finale of LOST. I've resisted writing about it since Monday, but I can't hold back any longer. I am a true fan, unapologetically and completely in love with the show from the beginning. I feel like a geeky fan-club kid attempting to write about my feelings with any kind of intelligence, but I've got to give it a shot. This show matters to me. And I know I'm not the only person who feels this strongly.

The finale wasn't perfect. I still have questions about certain characters. What happened to Walt and Michael - will they get to head towards the light? Why wasn't Sayid reunited with Nadia instead of Shannon? Why didn't we get more Desmond and Penny love - and where was their son? However, at heart I am satisfied with the finale. It gave me what I desperately needed after caring for these characters for six long seasons - a feeling of peace.


When I regained my breath, after sobbing as the dog Vincent lay down beside a dying Jack, I felt deeply moved and inspired. My husband said, half-jokingly, the next day, "You felt the touch of God." And I did. Never before have I watched a more spiritual scripted television show. It made me want to be a better person. It reminded me to appreciate my life for all it is worth, while it's here. It didn't espouse a certain religious path - although there were echoes of Christianity and Buddhism that were obvious to me - but it left me certain that the show's producers were men and women of faith. They led these characters on a winding, arduous journey towards redemption and possibly rebirth.


Everything that happened on the island - and a lot of it was bad - mattered. Some of it was horrible - watching Jin's and Sun's deaths come to mind - but bad things just happen. They happen to everyone whether or not you've crashed on a mystical island that no one can find! But the horrible things these characters went through changed them - made them stronger, more compassionate, braver, self-aware. I'm not saying that they couldn't have grown without Jacob plucking them from their pre-island lives. I'm not saying it was fair that he did that to them. But my father's most famous words to me as a child were, "Whoever said life was fair?" And the older I get, the more I see his point.


Sawyer, Desmond, Jack, Hurley, Locke - they were GREAT characters. They were vibrant, complicated, intelligent, courageous. I cared about them as if I knew them. I'll miss them as if I knew them. A woman I see regularly at the library talked about the show with me and said it felt like a death, that she was grieving the show. It's hyperbolic, but I see what she means.


I wanted to know that these people had some measure of peace. Whether it was in this life, or in the next, they did. Even Jack experienced peace as he watched his friends fly away from the island as he died. I don't know how I'd feel about the show if I didn't believe in God or an afterlife. All along the show dealt with faith versus reason, and as the show progressed you could feel which way it was going. I'm not sure what my afterlife looks like yet, and I'm still wrestling with my picture of God. But I feel God, if I don't intimately or intellectually know God. And I'm operating on feeling here, with my assessment of the finale. My intellect isn't completely sated, but my heart is, and that's enough. To borrow a tweet from one of the producers, I will remember, and as much as I don't want to, I will (eventually) let go.

Choices

I haven't written in quite a while. I try and I keep getting interrupted, or I don't even try at all. But I'm not discouraged! Far from it, actually. Writing this blog has helped me bust out of the fog I was in last year. I am able to see more clearly now the kind of life I want to live. Being with my mother and grandmother over the weekend - yes, I did end up going after all - crystallized for me the kind of life i don't want for myself. Their poor choices are a cautionary tale for me - for anyone. I sound unkind, and I feel a bit unkind as I write this. I, without reservation, love my mother, and despite the distance, emotional and physical, I do love my grandmother. But they live lives filled with fear and uncertainty, regrets and instability. Life is uncertain for us all - we do not know what is up on the road ahead - but there are choices in life and ways of thinking about the world that lend themselves to more positive outcomes.

I feel so blessed to have married my best friend, to have dug myself out of debt, to have the physical good health to have run a 5K. Choices I made - and continue to make - propelled me to those good things. Never have I been so keenly aware of consequences as this past weekend, trying to remain sane amongst family squabbles and the destruction of my grandmother's house in the Nashville area floods.

I have some choices ahead of me soon. The whole baby thing figures most prominently on the list. I decided, as I talked to myself on the elliptical trainer last night ("You can do this, Laila!") that I want to embark upon the Healthy Mama/Healthy Baby Project. That's what I'm calling it. A two month "program" in anticipation of trying to conceive. Exercise, healthy food, water, rest, meditation, writing. The essentials in life! I rebel against "experts" telling me what I need to do with my body and soul, so I'm just operating on instincts here. Right now what I most crave is a sense of peace. I need quiet time. I feel like the world is pressing on me too much - I think it presses on all of us too much, whether or not we're conscious of it. Too much noise, chatter, gossip, news, opinions, vulgarity, flash, marketing, spiritual disconnect. We're indoors too much, plugged in too much, staring at screens too much.

To that end, Eric and I agreed to try two new experiences. First, we're going to have a "quiet weekend" sometime this summer. No TV all weekend, try not to answer the phone. He's going to work on his music, I'll do some writing and pondering and reading, and we'll see if we can take it for two whole days! Who knows, it might drive us crazy. But it might be invigorating.

Second, we're going to make "summer reading lists" for ourselves and read classics! I don't think I have it in me to read only classics all summer long, but I'm going to read as many as I can. I want to have to focus on a book, savor it, and hope that the pace of a different time seeps into my consciousness. I know I romanticize earlier times - I gloss over polio and smallpox and women not being able to vote or wear pants, stuff like that. But part of me wants to have a Caddie Woodlawn-like experience of living on the prairie, hearing only the wind and the birds, depending on the seasons and daylight and darkness for my body's natural rhythms and the food I ate. There's got to be a way to blend the saving graces of modernity with a way of being closer to nature and solitude. A simpler life. I think we can find it. It may be a lifetime's work, but it beckons appealingly.