What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Item! The extra-exclaim-ey edition!
A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.
Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.
Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.
So this Wednesday-arriving-unexpectedly thing is really starting to creep me out.
Ninja Wednesday is way too sneakified for me.
But here we are.
And there are Items! And things to read!
And exclamation points!
Item! Post No. 25 in the series that has captivated the hearts and minds of at least three different people out of the thousands who read this thing and so I just keep doing it even though that’s not really a reason at all.
Item! Who says you can’t be my friend?
This post from the lovely Gina is such a sweet, elegant, compact summing up of so much that I often finding myself wanting to say and not knowing how.
It’s about why online life and real life don’t have to be in conflict.
About why Twitter friends or Facebook friends may be different from the ones you get to physically sit next to, but that different doesn’t mean not powerful and it doesn’t mean not life-changing.
“Because for every person who blogs or tweets about their shit, there are a dozen people tearfully thanking them for letting them know they’re not alone, and then moving forward with courage to do the same. And from there it ripples out into the ‘real’ world.”
It’s called don’t be dissin the Twitter and it’s beautiful.
She’s @gloreebe88 on Twitter.
Item! No cocktail sauce!
Ever since Jason (@jivaka) introduced me to the Awkward Family Photos blog, I have become an embarrassingly obsessive lurker.
But this especially awkward Thanksgiving letter just zapped all the wires in my brain or something. I had to read it five times.
“Lisa, as a married woman you are now required to contribute at the adult level. You can bring an hors d’ouvres. A few helpful hints/suggestions. Keep it very light, and non-filling, NO COCKTAIL SAUCE, no beans of any kind. I think your best bet would be a platter of fresh veggies and dip. Not a huge platter mind you (i.e., not the plastic platter from the supermarket).”
Right? Right?
Item! This is how to do Etsy.
Remember when I had strong opinions about what makes people buy your art?
And I talked about the importance of telling a story and being human and letting people into your life a little?
So people have been asking me for more examples of doing it right.
Obviously, there are a variety of ways that someone might possibly do it right.
But this gorgeous, look-at-me Red Rover Red Rover Lampshade from Fabulously Fierce is a terrific example.
“I loved dressing myself as a child. Sometimes it wasn’t just a matter of putting it on by myself, but picking out what it was I was going to embarrass myself with that day …
… I remember having a favorite outfit that was red and black, and when I wore that, I shone like a crazy star. On those days, my teachers called on me when I raised my hand and never made me last in line.”
Also, some of her item descriptions are Mötley Crüe* lyrics. Rock. On.
She’s @FabooFierce on Twitter.
*I feel actual physical pain when I have to put an umlaut where no umlaut should be. Just saying.
Item! A drawing of my inner creative fairy!
So Amy Crook is basically the coolest person on earth.
Because she gave form to my Writer Me and made her a fairy and captured her likeness astonishingly well.
Take a look at her ass-kicking Artist Amy too.
Oh, this makes me so completely happy.
She’s @AmysNotDeadYet on Twitter.
Item! Fabeku is my favorite.
I heart Fabeku.
And everything about him. Come on, he sent me a crazy pirate duck package in the mail.
So you can’t imagine how thrilled I was when he finally put up a website. With a blog.
The world has been waiting for this guy.
His site is called Sankofa Song. And yeah, he’s a big tree-hugging healer who likes ninjas, chocolate and Cyndi Lauper. And is not afraid of contradictions.
I like that in a guy. In anyone, actually.
Anyway, celebrate with us and get to know Fabeku because he rocks. Hard. And that is not just an expression in this case.
He’s @Fabeku on Twitter.
Item! There is power in hearing voices.
This is a gorgeous, moving, inspiring post from my friend Sarah Vela.
It’s about losing your voice and finding it again.
It’s about having inner voices and being okay with that.
“At seven years old, I knew it was pretty weird for me to be narrating my own life in the third person, but I did it anyway, compulsively, and during some long, ordinary stretches of life. Not much of note happens when you’re walking home from school in a sleepy Boston suburb. But I can assure you I wrote it all down in my mind like I was freaking Tolstoy.”
The post is called Hearing Voices and you can read the rest here.
She’s @orchid8 on Twitter.
Item! Comments!
So it was really cool last week when I got to work on my practice of how I ask for stuff and you guys gave me the best reading recommendations ever!
So I’m going to try it again!
Here’s what I want:
- Things you’re thinking about.
- Blogs you’re enjoying that you think I might like.
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say, and I will interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
Even though asking for what I want still feels awkward for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.
That is all.
Happy reading.
And happy Blustery Windsday. See you tomorrow.
Explosions.
The thing I was planning to write today got erased from my brain.
Because of the explosions.
I honestly thought I was mostly over all the post-traumatic stress crap that accumulated in my mind/body from a decade living in the Middle East. Hahahahaha. No.
This is my brain on stress, fear and terror.
I mean, not this. I’m fine now.
It was the Fourth of July.
Of course I knew it was coming. I even practiced reminding myself that these are just fireworks. It’s just kids. It’s just noise.
During the day my brother and I walked through the city and watch teenage boys setting off little mini firecrackers. I didn’t jump. I didn’t cry. It was going to be okay.
At night we went to sit outside with our neighbors to watch the neighborhood display. It was a little chaotic, but I was fine.
Some of the smaller kids were crying, and I remember saying semi-jokingly that we needed a designated hugger.
It was fine. But then there was a shrieking whistle and an explosion right above me.
And I was running panicked to the house.
That wasn’t the scary part.
Sure, I was terrified. And crying. And bewildered.
But the scary part was what happened to my brain. Because it went straight into this-is-a-terrorist-attack mode so smoothly and seamlessly that it was as if no time had elapsed since the last one.
In the first moments I had no thoughts at all other than my feet on the pavement and getting into the house.
Once the door was closed behind me, trauma-mode brain went into “here’s what happens next” overdrive.
“Okay. First you need to let people know where you are and that you’re okay. Of course, the cellular network is going to crash, so see if we can get through on a landline …”
There was still a part of me trying to insert something of now back into my consciousness. Reminding me.
“It’s fireworks, sweetie. You’re okay. No one’s dead.”
But it took seeing my gentleman friend looking at me with the most concerned, loving, and compassionate expression to get me to fully switch gears.
And it got better.
I went to bed.
My gentleman friend used emergency calming techniques on me, because I was too much of a wreck to do it myself.
And I slept. With explosions still going on outside the window. With shrieking. Sirens. I slept for ten hours and when I woke up I wasn’t scared.
And I had learned at least three things that I thought I already knew. Or at least was able to get a little better at internalizing them.
So yeah. I’m going to talk about them here, because that’s what I do.
Realization #1: We’re not done working on our stuff.
The funny thing is that this one is so incredibly familiar.
Often when I’m working with a new client and something really stuckified comes up, there’s an element of surprise and annoyance in their reaction.
Like, noooooooooo how can it be that this thing STILL isn’t resolved after all those years working on it?????
So I’m used to the idea that there are layers and layers and layers to work through. And that each time we heal one part of something, it’s not an ending. It’s just the opportunity to start clearing out even more.
But this really hit home for me just how much “we’re not done yet” there is. And how much time and love it takes to keep remembering that.
Realization #2: Permission. Still a really big deal.
Permission to stop everything and give myself comfort.
Permission to take time and acknowledge just how much trauma I’m carrying. How much we are carrying. All of us.
Permission to remember. Permission to not have to remember.
Permission to be someone who still is processing a lot of hurt.
Permission to be a total freaking train wreck sometimes.
Permission to remember that we are all, to some extent, traumatized from something.
And to try and relate to other people’s triggered reactions with as much patience and compassion as I do my own.
Realization #3: It’s really complicated.
All this healing to be done isn’t just about the immediate trigger.
It’s not just the café exploding across the street while I’m at work at the bar. It’s not just the explosions that wake me up when I’m at home.
- It’s knowing that your boyfriend was just looking for parking on the same street where that café was before it stopped being a café.
- It’s the agonizing waiting.
- It’s when your first thought is not about your boyfriend and it’s not about your customers and it’s not about the bodies on the street. Your first thought is “oh hell, there go my tips for the week.”
- It’s when you go out on your balcony and shout across to the neighbors to find out what happened … and they tell you it was a suicide bomber on a bus a few blocks away and you shrug and go back to bed.
- It’s being so jaded that you stop reacting.
- It’s everything.
A whole universe of reactions and associations and memories surround every painful experience … and they all need attention.
It’s not like you have to work on every single one since they’re all connected, but it’s useful to remember how much gunk can get stored in your body from these experiences.
And that it takes a lot of experiencing safety again to be able to demonstrate to yourself what it’s like to feel safe.
I hope you’re not hoping for a point or anything …
I guess what I’m really thinking is that we all have deep hurts. And old stuckified patterns. Screwed up memories.
And they’re going to come up. And they’re going to end up giving you something new to process each time.
You release something old, learn something new. Release something old, learn something new.
Learn something, heal something, move up to the next level of learning stuff and healing stuff.
We are healing.
But it takes a while.
Comments …
So I’ve been practicing asking for what I need and being more specific. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of my experiment .
Here’s what I want:
- Comfort.
- Thoughts or stories about how you (or many of us) react to traumatic stuff, and things you’re wondering about or thinking about in connection to that theme.
What I would rather not have:
- Judgment.
- Politics.
- “Have you tried ….?”
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say, and I will interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
Even though asking for what I want is still weirdly uncomfortable for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.
Thanks for doing this with me!
Very Personal Ads #1: Saudi Arabia, Houston and the internet.
Personal ads! They’re … personal! Very.
So my itty bitty personal ads this week made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.
Of course it all started when I posted my first personal ad and asked my perfect house to find me, which it did and now I live in Hoppy House.
And yes, I still sing “We have Hoppy House!” to the tune of Iron Man. And no, that’s not embarrassing. Okay, maybe a little.
Anyway, I’m thinking maybe this will become my Sunday ritual.
Because did you read some of the comments from last Monday? Oh. My. God. The most beautiful and amazing stories and requests ever. Plus Andrew even started a ning group for them.
So, to be fair, I don’t quite know what that means either, but yet again I am completely in awe of the stuff that happens here.
Shall we?
Thing 1: More time in my Angel Refueling Station.
Here’s what I want:
Well, I guess what I want is reminders to help me spend more time there.
My Angel Refueling Station is my wonderful little meditation closet, where most of the wackiness you read about here tends to happen.
It owes its name to the fabulous Fabeku who likes to remind me that “even angels need refueling sometimes”.
And I don’t refuel often enough.
Right now I spend about 45 minutes there each morning when I get up. And I go there if something sets me off. If I’m feeling upset or hurt. But that’s pretty much it.
So I want things that will remind me to go there before I need it. Or just for a quick break. Or just because I can.
Ways these reminders could come to me:.
- I could write little notes and hide them around the house.
- My brother and my gentleman friend and my assistant could gently shoo me there in a loving, non-guiltified way.
- Magic. Like … something could just remind me.
- Any other possibility. I’m willing to be surprised.
My commitment.
I will not pressure myself to spend more time there than I have capacity for.
I always treasure the time I spend there.
I use this space as a way to work on having healthy boundaries in my life.
I will keep it neat and tidy and well-stocked with incense, pillows and whatever other incredibly hippie accoutrements make me happy when I’m there.
Thing 2: Fabulous success with my scary thing tomorrow!
Here’s what I want:
So I’m doing something I’ve never done before and offering something in my business in a way I’ve never done before. Not here on the site. Somewhere else. It’s a weird feeling.
Anyway, I want it to be like this:
For the energy around this to be clear and powerful.
I want to be able to separate the amazing thing I am putting out to the world from my own residual stuckified stuff around invisibility and smallification.
The Right People for this thing I’m offering will get that zap of yes, this is it. And the people who are not the Right People yet (or at all) won’t have to interact with it.
The entire thing will be a sensational success that will knock me over with how great it is and I will wonder why I ever doubted that it was anything other than a genius thing to do.
Here’s how I want it to happen:
Everyone who is ready for the braintastic magic that is Shiva Nata will feel the sweet buzzing this-is-me this-is-me and will be drawn to the things that it can give them.
It will find them. And they will find it. By email forwarding. By an eye focusing on the right part of a page. By a pull. By a tug. By passion. By love. By coincidence. By right timing.
Ways this could work:
I’m pretty much open to anything.
My commitment.
I will acknowledge that yeah, this is me doing something that is new and potentially hard, and treat myself in a really caring, considerate way because this is a big deal for me.
I will give myself credit for taking the time to work on my stuff around this and shift some of the stuck.
I will say thank you for each good thing that comes out of this experience, and I will take anything that is hard straight to the Angel Refueling Station.
Thing 3: Help for Chris.
Here’s the situation:
Actually, I don’t know exactly what the situation is.
But Chris is supposed to be on his way to Saudi Arabia because his plane flies home from there, but there were complications with visas and passports and misunderstandings and bureaucratic ridiculousness.
So what I’m requesting for Chris is some kind of happy resolution.
I don’t know what it is, but I want stuff to work out for him in some way.
Ways this could happen:
- Something could turn up.
- He could get a reasonable flight from somewhere else to where he needs to go.
- Kind, understanding, accommodating people could show up in his life, at the airports, at the Embassies.
- Something else that I can’t think of that ends up being the perfect — or at least a feasible — solution to his conundrum.
- I’m also wishing for some kind of neat silver lining thing to come out of this experience.
My commitment.
I am going to wish really good things for Chris.
And I am going to ask you guys to wish really good things for Chris.
And hope that he has a safe, healthy, happy rest-of-trip and comes back to Portland with some great stories.
Thing 4: The Snake Charmers should totally win Best Blues Band in Houston!
Here’s what I want:
The Snake Charmers is a super rocking blues band. Their album is one of my favorites (I give it to everybody and listen to it almost every day).
I got to meet Marie (the singer) in Austin and she’s just as amazing in person as she is on Twitter.
And I happen to know that, despite being a totally sexy rock star, she is way too shy to ask for stuff.
Also, she has a thing about thinking that asking for what you want is like “shameless self-promotion”, which as we all know is a thing whose existence I have issues with.
Here’s what I want to happen:
I want every single person who reads this blog to go to Snakecharmers.net where there is a very thorough explanation of how to vote.
And I want Marie to really get what a terrific thing this is. Already in the top five possibilities in a city (Houston) that is full of great blues bands?
Because they’re that good. And I would love it if she realized that yeah, she’s a star and her music brings joy and meaning to our lives.
So there.
You can vote for The Snake Charmers (they’re #23) for the Houston Press Music Awards until July 26. You don’t have to live in Houston. Click the “no thanks” boxes and you won’t get mail from anyone.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads and what’s going on with them.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I still don’t have my hangers. But for some reason I’m not worried about it. They’ll come.
And I know where I’m taking my bag of clothing! It just came to me.
There’s a “take what you want”-style free-box at the local anarchist collective.
Which is exactly the kind of place where I used to take stuff (and get stuff) when I lived in Berlin. In fact, just thinking of it makes me picture Angie and her Italian girlfriend wearing my Harley shirts.
I have to walk by there next week anyway. So that’s where it’s going.
Thanks for all your beautiful ideas and suggestions. Really, really appreciated!
Comments. Since I’m already asking …
I am adding to my practice of asking for stuff by being more specific about I would like to receive in the comments. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of this experiment too. 🙂
Here’s what I want:
- Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for.
- Thoughts or ideas about ways any of the personal ads listed here could come true.
What I would rather not have:
- Reality theories.
- Shoulds. As in, “You should be doing it like this” or “That’s not the right way to ask for things — instead it should be like x, y and z”
- To be judged or psychoanalyzed.
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say, and I will interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
Even though asking for what I want out loud (or in pixels) is challenging for me, I’m committing to this just-trying-it thing and I’m meeting myself where I am.
That’s it! Thanks for doing this with me. You guys rock.
p.s. I promised Claire I’d write about how I went about asking for doctors, and I promised someone else I’d write about some of the elements of a powerful ask, so I’ll do that too. Soon.
Friday Check-in #48: Spontaneous Fruit Party edition
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Zip!
This week kind of went by in a blur.
But here we are.
Yup. It’s definitely Friday. No getting around that.
Hi.
The hard stuff
Wrong side of bed.
A couple of days this week just didn’t work. As days.
I don’t know. Kept losing my clarity. Or couldn’t find it to begin with.
Just lost in the foggy and the fuzzy. And it took me TWO HOURS to do Wednesday’s post (which was half-completed when I started).
Agggggggggh.
Wednesday.
Speaking of Wednesday, it was brutal.
Not grounded. Depressed. Summer. Way too hot. Groggy. In bed. Miserable.
Also in pain. Arms hurt. Head hurt. Stitches hurt.
It was just generally not fun to be me on Wednesday.
It is also not fun to be me in the summer.
I tend to forget this every single year, but I really don’t do well with summer.
Pretty much everything horrible that has every happened to me has happened in the summer.
And the associations tend to catch up with me. Once I remember that oh, right, this is just my annual bout of summer misery, I can start to move through it.
But it takes me a while to get there.
Putting down baskets.
On Monday we had Jen Hofmann do a genius guest class for my Kitchen Table people and I begged her to do her awesome “how many baskets am I holding?” exercise with us.
Man, recognizing how many symbolic freaking baskets I’m carrying at any given moment is depressing. And carrying them is exhausting.
And putting them down is scary and hard. But I did it. Or worked on it, at any rate … which leads me to the good.
The good stuff
Putting down baskets.
I finally got around to canceling the VIP options on all of my products.*
*If you’ve already ordered one before yesterday, you can still totally do your session with me. So no worries.
Also finished planning the curriculum for two programs so that those baskets can go to the closet until I’m ready for them.
I looked at my baskets. And even though I love the stuff in them …
Down. They. Go.
Extreme self-care.
EXTREME!
Seriously, I’ve been treating it like an extreme sport that I’ve just gotten completely addicted to.
This is also hard, but I’m really, truly making this a practice.
Naptime. Trips to the Angel Refueling Station (aka my meditation closet). Bed. Kindness. Permission.
All the stuff that’s hard for me but really, really good for me.
So that’s a win.
Rose City Roller Derby Finals!
Okay, so admittedly my beloved Guns ‘N Rollers came in fourth, cough, last.
But the Breakneck Betties beat the High Rollers in a brutal fast-paced super-exciting bout and that was very cool.
And Danielle was there. And Dana the Spicy Princess. And our bartender. And a billion other people. And I love Portland.
Actually knowing people to run into.
So yeah, that’s a sign that hey, we live here now.
Because in San Francisco, I never ran into anyone. And in Sacramento, I didn’t even meet anyone.
But somehow in Portland the whole “knowing people” thing is working for us. This is new. And fantastic. So hooray!
We (my gentleman friend and I) even ran into our acupuncturist at the Neko Case concert. And if that doesn’t prove we live in Portland, I don’t know what does.
My gentleman friend made homemade ravioli.
With porcini mushrooms from the farmer’s market.
Oh, and he also made his own sourdough starter this week.
Because, you know, it’s not enough that he’s smart and funny and completely gets me and is the world’s biggest goofball and I love him. RAVIOLI!
And … STUISM of the week.
Stu is my paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software who delights in torturing me misunderstanding me. I can’t stand him.
Ooh! This one might actually be my favorite Stuism ever …
I was talking to Stu and my gentleman friend was yelling “What?“, because this often happens when you talk to yourself converse with software.
Especially when you’re shouting things like “Work already, you stupid piece of crap!”
Anyway, I yelled “I’m not talking to you–I’m talking to STU!”
But I forgot to silence Stu and he wrote it down. Except that he didn’t write what I actually said.
Instead he wrote:
“I’m not talking a deal to Congress on August 2!”
Fabulous.
The rest of this week’s Stuisms:
- it encloses UN instead of “it closes you in”
- beer is healthy instead of “fear is healthy”
- When we strapped on instead of “when we eavesdropped”
- Prince of pal instead of “principle”
- Or hmmm instead of “okay”
- we cannot tax a sum of missed communication instead of “we can unpack some of this miscommunication”
- him is like pure myth instead of “seem less like a pyramid”
- and a DVD for personal ads instead of “an itty bitty personal ad”
- a gray base for teaching workshop’s instead of “a great space for teaching workshops”
- the endless psych of Moore crappy beans created instead of “the endless cycle of more crap being created”
And … new at the meme beach house!
Yes, that’s a Stuism too.
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
So this week, I bring you:
Spontaneous Fruit Party
Me: “Did you catch Spontaneous Fruit Party at the Wonder Ballroom? They were opening for the Pneumatic Mushrooms.”
Ez: “Dude. I heard it’s just one guy.”
Yes!
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Scissors. Part two.
Or: A number of surprising realizations and a typewriter.
Okay. Kind of left you trailing last time … let me catch you up.
If you will recall, I’m getting my stitches taken out (part one) by someone fabulously incompetent.
Or hilariously incompetent …
At least, that appears to be the opinion of my various symbolic allies and helper mice* that I have called on to help me stay grounded and centered.
*Not actually mice.
Because my allies and helper mice are falling apart. Hysterical laughter. Convulsions. Everyone is on the floor.
Even my most hard-core spiritual teacher who never laughs ever is totally snickering behind his hand. And his eyes are crinkling and he’s so completely about to lose it.
I ask what’s so funny, and that just makes them laugh even harder.
Apparently, I’m the funny part.
[What I have to explain here is that I don’t have the clearest reading on who my helper mice and allies are. My teacher is always there. Hiro is there a lot. My grandmother, sometimes.
There are ones that I recognize and ones that I don’t. And sometimes it’s just a big fog. So I’m just going to give them numbers so you know when someone new is speaking.]
Me: No, seriously. I get that this situation is completely absurd — I do, really — but why is it so funny for you guys?
Helper mouse #1: Giggling. You come up with the funniest things to happen to you! Every time! Every time the funny!
Me: No, I don’t. And don’t put this crap on me.
Helper mouse #2: Oh, honey! I’m sorry. She didn’t mean it like that. We’re not laughing at you.
Me: You’re not?
Helper mouse #1: No, of course not. It’s just … the drama. You love the drama. And you love it to be funny. And then you get these total characters around you.
Me: No, I don’t.
Helper mouse #3: Wiping tears away. It’s not you, exactly. It’s your writer self. The part of you who is a writer. You like to share the stuff that happens to you.
I think about this.
Writer Me.
Me: I’m confused, I guess. Are you saying that I exaggerate what happens to me?
Helper mouse #4: Oh, not at all. That’s kind of why it’s so funny!
Paroxysms of laughter from the helper mice. Question marks from me.
Helper mouse #2: What he means is that the funny part is that you don’t need to exaggerate. Your life is just filled with funny.
Helper mouse #3: And then you have this phenomenal auditory memory and you can record conversations verbatim … and Writer You just loves it.
All the helper mice nod in agreement. More question marks from me.
Helper mouse #3: I mean, look at her.
Everyone looks up. And then they laugh and laugh and laugh.
I look up too.
And there, a few feet above me, is Writer Me.
She’s tiny.
Like, Tinkerbell tiny.
Her hair is up in a messy bun held together by a pencil. And she’s typing furiously away at an old-fashioned typewriter and laughing her head off.
And that’s when the realizations started …
Some of them were really obvious. Some were really subtle.
Some were painful and some were sweet.
But they were coming fast and furious.**
**Which, admittedly, is my own fault because I’d been messing around with Shiva Nata the day before and that’s just kind of what happens.
Realization #1: I know that typewriter.
I know that typewriter.
That’s the typewriter that my friend who is dead gave me for my twenty-fifth birthday to remind me that I am a writer.
I have no idea where it is or what happened to it.
Realization #2: Tiny Writer Me is familiar too.
Of course.
She looks different than I’d imagined her, with her retro cat eye glasses and slim skirt.
But yeah, she’s me. And she’s the writer self that I pretend doesn’t exist.
Not that I haven’t thought about her. About what might have happened if I hadn’t moved to Israel at seventeen.
I spent years imagining this parallel life. While I was getting in screaming fights with drunks at various dive bars where I worked in south Tel Aviv. While I was teaching yoga in Berlin.
I’d imagine the me who stayed. Who committed to her writing. Who ended up in New York or Chicago. Who wrote pieces for the New Yorker and did odd little indie projects and collaborations.
And then I gave her up.
Realization #3: I’m completely wrong about Realization #2.
Uh uh.
I realize that this imaginary writer person I am always half-mourning does not exist … and that Writer Me is actually always wherever I am.
It’s like, I had always thought that Writer Me was my unfulfilled self.
The me-that-would-have-been. The grand, tragic story.
But it turns out that Writer Me is with me all the time — about two feet above my head, as it turns out — inventing hilarious things to write about.
And slapping her knee and guffawing, if you can imagine someone doing that in this totally dainty way.
Realization #4: My allies and helper mice deeply appreciate something about me that I am not even aware of.
I realize that they’re laughing with joy and merriment.
And now I know why they’re laughing.
It’s because to them it’s obvious that I want things to be funny.
In fact, they think that I intentionally (or subconsciously?) gravitate towards ridiculous situations because Writer Me enjoys them.
They’re amused and entertained by my marvelous, tumultuous, goofy-ass life. And they are here, in part, to help me enjoy it more. To appreciate it more.
Of course, if I ask them for more calm and grounding and quiet, they can do that too. But if I’m not asking? They’re pretty much just going to sit back and enjoy the show.
Because it’s basically the best situation comedy in the world.
Realization #5: Writer Me pushes me into bizarre situations so that I will be forced to write about them.
She knows that I avoid her. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to put up with me not writing.
In fact, I suddenly understand with perfect clarity that if I spend more time with Writer Me, she won’t have to invent such crazy scenarios to make me write about them.
It’s as though she’s almost forcing me to write.
And then she said that. To me!
“You know what your problem is? You don’t want to own me. You won’t even admit that I’m this huge part of you. You don’t even call yourself a writer.
You call it “blogging” and pretend it’s just this thing you do for your business. You hide from the world.
Well, guess what. I make sure your life is so interesting that you can’t not tell people about it. In words. That you write. That people read. So there.”
And then she stuck her tongue out at me.
And went back to typing furiously and snickering.
Oh.
Realization #6: I don’t have to make everything so complicated all the time.
Because yeah …
Maybe things can be funny and sweet without always having to be so hard and so bitter.
Maybe I can let things happen with more ease.
Maybe Writer Me and I can work together on some projects.
Maybe she can help me keep writing and keep seeing the funny … but without it all having to be so ridiculously chaotic all the time.
And maybe there are more realizations that are going to clear stuff up around this and I don’t have to figure it all out right this second.
So I’ve been practicing asking for what I want to receive in the comments — if you feel like leaving one, you totally don’t have to, of course!
Here’s what I want:
- Reactions. Reassurance. Things from your own life that this reminds you of. Realizations of your own if anything is coming up.
- If you have a Writer You or a Dancer You or a Scientist You or whatever who shows up on occasion, I would love to know what they look like! Or sound like …
Here’s what I would rather not have:
- Judgment/observations about how crazy I am. Or about how obvious and predictable this all is. Or, you know, casual backseat psychoanalysis.
- Shoulds.
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to absorbing everything that people say, and I will interact with their ideas and with my own stuff as compassionately and honestly as is possible for me.
Thanks for doing this with me! I am totally hesitating over the publish button on this one, but what the hell.