shame

THE ART OF RESTING IN THE NOTHING

Sunday morning I heard and saw my spruce trees whispered to me as I stood by the window.  A feeling of calm and knowing came over me. Everything is going to be alright. The message became clearer later when I was watching Oprah on Super Soul Sunday. She was interviewing Shauna Niequist on her new book, Present Over Perfect. While I got over being impressed by Shauna in a hurry, her one sentence stayed with me. ‘Listen to your life.’

I have not been listening. I felt the danger of listening and hearing. I would then have to act on what it is that I’m hearing from me. There’s always this urge to run and run fast, stick my head under the pillow, put my fingers in my ears and go lalalalala! Catch me when you can. I think I’ve been caught. I don’t feel trapped. I’ve finally stop running. That is all. I’m out of breath, exhausted by my efforts. It doesn’t work anyways. Underneath the ignored knowing is all that unease fighting to get out.

I’ve been feeling all the fatigue, the aches and pains of futile efforts in this part of the year. Maybe it is January. Maybe it’s my SAD. Today I’ve given up and in to the struggle. I don’t have to keep a stiff upper lip. I am not British after all. I am allowing all my feelings their freedom. They have a right to be heard. All the emotions – sad, glad, mad, every shade, are part of the human equation. I suppose we all feel a sense of shame and failure when we can’t live up to our own expectations. I know I do.

Today I’m takings off my Wonder Woman costume. I’m tired of leaping over tall buildings and holding up the world. My shoulders are sore. My tiara and boots need polishing. My lasso needs repairing. I’m not young anymore either. There’s grey in my hair and crow’s feet around my eyes. I need to hang up my rescue gear alongside the nurse’s duty shoes. I need to rest in the retirement of my careers. Drop all that busyness of distraction. Listen to the spruce trees talk. Hear what my life is telling me. Rest in the nothing of the day. There is nothing that I have to do and nowhere that I have to go. I can hear the sound of my one hand clapping. It is my life calling.

                          Love After Love

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

I, ME, MYSELF – BEING BEST FRIENDS

My cold and cough are still with me. They do not make for good company in summer – or any other time of year. Like all bad company, they’re hanging on. My coughing fits woke me a few times in the night. In the end I had to get up and sleep on the couch as before. But at least I did sleep.

Life is very difficult with a nasty summer cold and no sleep. But it still has to go on somehow. I still have to get up, dress up and show up. It’s not an easy task even on an ‘ordinary’ day. Being susceptible to the ‘blues’, I’m being watchful, taking care not to let this take me down the path of depression. I’m alerted to the dangers of the brain not working properly. Anybody can be victims as we’ve seen in recent days with the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. Being a celebrity chef and a fashion designer are not free tickets to life happily ever after.

There’s no shame in depression. There’s no shame in failing to thrive at all times. I just feel bad and annoyed at myself sometimes for the depression. Because really, it is very inconvenient. There’s things I have/want to do. It gets in the way. I’m learning to accept my ‘down’ times. I think my body and brain are telling me they need a rest. I think I better listen. They know me best. If I, me and myself don’t take care of each other, no one will. We are our best friends.

 

 

A BEGINNING

Photo on 2010-11-09 at 20.11So many evenings when I am brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I see so many things that I needed wanted to do and hadn’t. I would vow to myself that I would do them tomorrow.  Of course tomorrow never comes.  I realize NOW is my tomorrow and it is time to do all those things.

It is not easy of course.  Somehow, something ALWAYS come up and you want to say, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.  But after awhile you hear this echo.  You have to stop and listen and ask yourself, How many times have I said that?

IMG_1647You hang your head in shame. Life is difficult.  Life is messy. You are between a rock and a hard place.  None of your options are palatable.  You tremble in the unfairness of life.  You wonder why God is testing you in this way.

I know for sure there is a reason why HE put me in this place. Because I have trust and faith in the unknown, I am able to breathe into the Universe and draw back strength to take a step forward.  I am beginning a new journey.

HOW DOES MY WRITING GROW

IMG_0253Saturday is my favourite day of the week, even if it is raining.  There is just something about a Saturday that can make me misty eyed on a day like this.  And if is sunny, I want to jump for joy.

IMG_0920What better way to spend today than at a memoir writing workshop.  I learned so much from Yvette Nolan on writing and why we write.  Contrary to my belief that I would not be able to write a single word amidst a bunch of people, I found that it was easier.  Maybe it was the camaraderie of our group and the skill of our facilitator.

I wrote like the dickens.  I was secretly pumped.  Feelings and secrets rose from their deep dark corners into my consciousness.  I felt shame washing through me as I wrote.  I did not want people to know my shame and secrets.  I did not even want to know my own secret.  It is SUCH a secret.

It is this washing out- the revealing of truths,  that is so healing in memoir writing.  I will have to be a little braver each day, develop my voice and allow it to speak its truth.  I have to allow myself to be healed.