Where I cover the good and the hard in my week, visiting the non-preachy side of ritual and self-reflection.

And you get to join in if you feel like it.

So I’m playing with adding to the format this week. Because it feels important to me, and because ritual is form and play.

(You might recognize the new bits from the spangly Revue, which is one of my favorite ways to EXIT things.)

Note! You do not need to add any of the new bits to your own Chicken. Unless you want to. This is just me, playing, as always.

What worked?

Intentionally interrupting a pattern.

Here’s the pattern. Whenever I perceive that someone in my life is pulling away and becoming distant, I do one of two things.

I either match distance with distance. Then the gap widens and widens until it’s a fissure, nearly impassible. I can’t remember how to come back.

Or? Or I meet distance with closeness. It feels uncomfortable, needy, painful, vulnerable. When I inevitably turtle-up again, I am all shell.

Occasionally I also go for option c): asking what’s going on. They then say nothing is going on, and I return to options a) and/or b), but with extra resentment!

But this time I remembered (thanks to shiva nata) that you can always mix up and reconfigure the elements of any pattern to find new openings.

I found the new opening and it was the superpower of Describing What I Am Perceiving Without Having To Be Right.

Describing what I perceive. Without adding to it.

Like this, exactly:

Hey, my perception, and it could be a false perception, is that you have been distant and withdrawn this week. Is this a fair perception?

Not only was this the perfect way to not go into my default patterns, it also resolved the entire situation. I got the information I desired. I didn’t make things about me.

And without whooshing down any of the familiar neural pathways of doom.

Later on, I used this on some other situations too. Magic. Added to the category of Things I know That I Also Sometimes Forget.

The funny part is I’m pretty sure that I actually described this technique in a class I taught a few years ago on curious playful communication.

Fake Beach Day.

So in the winter I take Beach Day to a cafe, but it’s still a day of writing and looking into the distance.

The last three Mondays I didn’t get to play because of teaching but this week I did. Fake Beach Day was amazing.

Proxies.

I used a proxy to help me write the first of the hard letters. And to write to future me. Genius.

Next time I might…

More recovery time please.

This week was still about recovery mode from running Crossing the Line, my crazy-intense eight day retreat.

I thought past-me was smart (and she was) to cancel everything last week, but if I had do-overs I would have blocked out this week too and scheduled nothing but bed.

Progress is not always linear, my love.

It took me a while to remember this.

I think I need this written in very large letters somewhere.

Again, allowing time to feel the thing after doing the thing.

I would like to remember that the harder something is, the more time I need to integrate, assimilate, consolidate and regroup when it’s over.

I spent two days this week writing an incredibly hard letter trying to resolve a complicated and unbearably painful situation that is still ongoing.

And once it was sent, I assumed I’d feel better: release and relief.

But that wasn’t what happened.

It felt like the moment of the coffin closing. Massive breakdown. Grief. Realizing I’d never imagined my life without this relationship in it, and not knowing how to be anymore. I thought the difficult writing part was the falling-apart. Hadn’t occurred to me how much I’d need to really fall apart once that was done.

The hard.

Being in my patterns.

Reinforcing these patterns were Monsters of Doom (saying doom!).

They are obsessive historians, endlessly quoting and reciting chapter and verse from the annals of Havi-history. I started referring to them as the Herodotus and Thucydides of Doom. This actually helped.

Anyway, they had so much evidence. So many true or seemingly true stories about how someone I care about being distant is the first step before the part where the passive-aggressive endings happen. And the heartbreak.

A thousand stories about the Beginning of The End.

I had to play a lot of what’s true and what’s also true to remember that Now Is Not Then. It took me a while to get there, and I felt sad and blank and empty, and sometimes all of those at the same time.

Saturday.

Saturday was a day of being in the hard.

Not wanting to go back to work but really needing to get back to work.

That basically sums it up.

Other people’s anxiety.

Between the hurricane and the elections, there are astonishing levels of free-floating anxiety in the air.

Sometimes it takes me a while to remember to separate out from the larger freak-outs that do not have to do with me and are not mine.

Also Toozday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Two days writing the hard letter, followed by the collapse.

Hmm.

Sometimes I just want to smile at the people I like to smile at, and for them to feel it from far away. Warmth. But I don’t always feel ready to explain things in words.

There are some people in my life who get upset if there aren’t words. This was also part of this week.

The good.

Now is really and truly not then!

Thank god for that.

Flowers do make everything better.

This was the hypothesis I was testing, and YES, all evidence points to this being true.

Also my space was clean and beautiful, and this never happens, and it felt (for me!) good and important.

A misunderstanding beautifully resolved. Also: quickly and easily.

One down, two more to go….

But you know what? Forward movement felt like a really big deal.

Sweetness at the right time.

My playmate and I play-dated all through Sunday and Monday, and it was sweet and creative and beautiful.

Loved it.

I am not even sure how this week would have gone without having a playmate. Love, trust, playfulness and adoration in times of pain. So fortunate.

Smiling.

More of this, please.

Processing.

I used the tools, and they helped. I went to the Floop, and it helped. I did the things we practiced at Crossing the Line, and it helped.

Reminder about this from last-year me: “Sweetie, you are stronger now. You’re like, Buffy crossed with Spiderman, so it is just going to take a while to let all that land. It is normal that you feel shaky while this is happening. Process the process and take care of yourself.”

Hiding.

Hiding made everything better. And conducting, which is a secret form of hiding. Also there was much hiding and conducting (and lunch) with Marisa. And this was good.

Change.

After I fell apart, I went and tore apart the Playground and moved everything around.

This felt urgent and necessary.

Hey guess what?

No matter how rough this week was, it could have been a million times harder and I don’t even want to think about that, so that warrants a gigantic sigh of relief and many heart-felt whispers of appreciation and gratitude.

My president is still the president. A variety of big and small wins for women, for civil rights, for talking about civil rights.

So let’s have a HELL YEAH for the new yeah-this-is-how-things-are-now in Maine, Maryland and Washington. And way to go, Minnesota: moving in the right direction.

Oh, also this month marks one hundred years that women can vote in Oregon. It’s actually kind of appalling that it’s only been that long, but it was a full eight years before it became a constitutional amendment.

Superpowers!

A superpower I had this week…

The superpower of Remembering That Progress Is Not Always Linear.

I want to keep this one!

And a superpower I want next week.

I want the superpower of Replenishing All The Time.

Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!

Background. Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once invented hanging out at the Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.

This week’s band comes via the First Mate. I know absolutely nothing about this band but I’m imagining that they’re loud and raucous and somehow there are lots of accordions involved?

Gold Toothed Menace.

Though, of course, as it turns out, it’s really just one guy. Yes.

Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.

Picture me wearing that crazy hat…

I have an announcement that I am excited about and I thought I’d be able to sneak it into this week’s Chicken but it isn’t quite ready.

So. In the meantime I am going to whisper-announce that the design for the (somehow even more gorgeous and amazing) 2013 calendar has been finalized. We’ll be taking pre-orders really, really, really soon!

That’s it for me …

Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!

We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).

Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.

Shabbat shalom.

p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.