March 23-One Year, One Day at a Time – Damn Morning Pages

FYI morning pages require constant writing for three pages- no lifting fingers off the keyboard, ignoring punctuation, no cap, no editing.  I will go back and correct misspellings but not fragments,  I have noticed that since I got my cancer diagnosis i have not taken the time at right to write about and review my day. Like yesterday.  It was over all a good day, but there were moment of high anxiety.  When I feel that coming on, anxiety that is, i got right to the computer and let words flow through my mind.  There is always one that grabs me and then I sit with it and write a haiku around it.   Haiku has been working.  Seems to keep me more in the moment.  I also realize that I do not want to dwell on the negative thoughts I have throughput the day because I do not want to give them more energy.   I read a blog this morning that had Henry David Thoreau  poem.  Can’t find it now, but it was about keeping thoughts moving. Similar to the line to which I have clung ever since I read it on Joan Halifax’s Facebook page. Maybe it was a post she shared a few months ago.  ”Let the mind flow freely.  Do not dwell on anything.”  Tall order, but it works if you work it.

Confession.  Took my fingers off the keyboard.  Went looking for that damn Thoreau poem and I cannot find it.   Knew I should have copied it the minute I saw it.  Oh well do not dwell on anything.  So yesterday, Amelia spent the night.  That would have been on Friday night.  We had the kids over for dinner.  So much fun.  beautiful outside.  Ate while watching the Memphis Tigers kill George Washington.  So they are still in the tournament.   Or at least I think that is who they played.  I between cooking and playing with the kids outside and visiting we had a great night. Then Amelia spent the night.  Good night’s sleep.  Next morning, that would have been Saturday, we got up around 6:30 am.  Amelia and I watched the Grinch from start to finish.  It is held in the iCloud in my Amazon library.

Amelia love, love, loves this movie and so do I.  Cindy Lou is so cute.

Jim Carey is outrageous and the message is priceless. Who cares how stinky and mean you are?  You are still lovable.  Yesterday was the first time I actually sat and watched it from beginning to end.  Then outside to play, walk the dog, run around the neighborhood, visit with our two-doors down neighbor, Mark and his dog Hank, whom Amelia adores.  She always asks for see him.

When Mark came out into his yard he looked into my eyes and said, “How are you doing?” with that tone of voice that conveys concern and love.  “Great,” I told him and most of the time I am.  I have considered what this journey would be like if I have not made my cancer diagnosis public.  Then I could hide pretending every day that nothing has changed.  But that is so not true.  This morning I awoke feeling like a pitted date wrapped in bacon with a toothpick through the middle.  You figure that one out.

I dreamed all night about being in college or at least going back to college and not being able to find the books I had stored in an empty classroom somewhere at the university.  My ex-professors were  being as helpful as they could be trying to help me find my stuff,  no luck. But then, as it happens in dreams, the room I was in changed from a classroom into a store where lots of young girls were trying on dresses and jewelry.  I  could  not find anything that suited me.  The story of my life.  Always feeling I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, square peg, round hole thing.  But not now.  I am right where I want to be.  I love my life.  I credit my satisfaction and gratitude to writing.  I am writing every day.  Gives me so much appreciation for myself, my life and the people in it.

Funny since I got the diagnosis about my right great, the scar on my left breast has been aching.  There is a dull ache there right now.

So here we are Sunday morning.  Oh forgot to mention the turning point yesterday, the way I went from having my mind wrapped in cancer, that is what Jimmy said..  I told him, “I am anxious.  But I have been anxious before.  I had days of anxiety before I learned I had cancer.  This is just another day.”  We were riding on bicycles, side by side on the Greenline, a rails to trails conversion, that runs behind our house.  It goes all the way out to Germantown.  Anyway,  he replied, “Is your mind wrapped in cancer?”  Maybe that is where the image, the analogy of the bacon wrapped date comes from.  Mind wrapped in cancer.  Uck.  So we road for 2 hours, not at a fast clip, just enjoying the beautiful weather, and before I knew It, I had moved from “this is hard,” to “life is good.”

We had a great night watching the last episode of Scandal.  Well first Jordan come back over.  He had been here earlier in the day working on an audition piece.  He is coming back today to hopefully wrap that up.  So he came for dinner,  omelette and sautéed spinach.  Stayed to use my new Mac air computer to get a ticket for LA.  He still has a little more time off before he starts rehearsals for Gypsy, which he is directing at Playhouse on t he Square. Anyway, he ate, we watched Scandal, which I must say is getting pretty weird.  Killing off James.  Jake has now turned into the bad guy.  His role reversal brings up the question who is giving the orders?  The invisible OZ?  Cyrus is devastated, but working to work through it.  Shit.  Is life really this messy or is this show now, like so many others, turned into a nighttime soap opera?

Dinner?  Really did not cook or eat dinner.  Grazed on left overs.  Not in the mood to mess with food.  No worries tonight I am making lasagna with rice noodles.  That was another part of my dream lat night, explaining to people why I do not eat gluten.  I am jumping around but that’s the way morning pages go.  Kind of like James Joyce, flow of consciousness. Thither and yon.  Watched the end of the Grizzlies’ game. (last night) They won by a pretty good margin.  Played well.  Then off to bed.

Today is Sunday.  I think I my have already said this.  I am here at the computer and Jimmy is making granola.  Cooler, cloudy, rainy, but nice. I am not wrapped in the blanket of cancer.  Have a private client this morning at 9:00 am and then wide open space until 4:00 when Jordan comes back to  finish audition piece.  I am on my way to meditate now. Love to all.

Impossible?

In the Artist Way, Julia Cameron suggests each participant sit down to write three uninterrupted pages of whatever spills out every morning.  These are my morning pages for January 18.  No editing to begin with.  I many go back and add a few periods and correct some  misspelling but the real purpose of these pages is open the unconscious or whatever and give it a place to light on the paper for this time.  Today feel better slept thru the night.  Slight head ache. Red wine often does that to me. I did pass over my two glass limit by one.  Still had a wonderful time at the Warren’s tree party.  Once a year they take all the furniture out of their living room and throw a big dance party.  It is a celebration of life.  During hurricane Elvis a tree crushed the back of their house, fell on their bedroom.  They could have been killed  i think they were out of the country.  i might be wrong.  Point is, they are alive and we danced.  Great dj.  Fun.  lots of people.  I mean lots, maybe 300.

Today is Saturday.  Another day to live life fully.  So grateful l to feel better.  just a hint of a sore throat intuition is to take it easy. Our dog, Kali, has been vomiting all over the house since yesterday.  I am just noticing that it smells like vomit in here.  Not good   Will have to revisit places on the carpet where she got sick and re-clean them.  Poor baby. I don’t know what she ate.

Book is going well.  I think  I am so grateful to Dani Shaprio.  Seems every time I get stuck, have doubt, i read something from her book Still Writing, that inspires me to go on.  Yesterday she wrote about courage.  The courage to spend it all every day.  Not to hold back.  To go for the win, dig deep, don’t hold anything back. Do you know how hard that is to do.?  John O’Donohue says there is a voice inside of each one of us, inside me that even I have not heard.  I want to hear it every day. to listen to find the connection to my soul.  No I want more than that. I want to write the great American novel.  Me.  I want to be a true novelist. I want to create real characters, the ones that move you to laughter and tears. that tear at your heart-strings, that compel you to live more nobly with more compassion, with a greater zest for life.  I want to inspire, to intrigue, to upset and to disturb, to heal, to undo, to invoke, to enlighten, to do what.  I do not know.  I know I am called to do this.  It is sometimes so lonely and can feel so futile.  Not like working retail and at the end of the day running the tape to see how much you sold.  Not like cleaning the house and seeing the difference.  Not like teaching a yoga class that has a beginning and an end.  Not like going to school to get a degree and then have important looking letters to put after your name.  There are no guarantees.  Only dreams, hours spent pouring out my heart and soul.  This is a choiceless choice.  Now that I have started, I cannot go back.  funny how that works.  No turning back.  Sometimes I think how great it would be to get a job at Starbucks or even at the glitzy new Whole Foods Store they just built here.  But when would I write.  I am so lucky to be a yoga teacher and to have students who want what I have to offer.

…..Divine mother please use me as a vehicle for your creative energy.  Help me to listen so deeply that I hear you move through me so that I can put on paper more than words.  Spill it, use it, give it all every time you write.  Do not hold back.  Spend it all.  Every day.  When do you hear that?   We are always told to save.  Save for a rainy day.  Save for the unexpected.  Sock it away.  Be careful.  Be a saver.  Do not be extravagant.  That sounds good.  I want to be an extravagant writer.  Not wordy.  I do not want to ramble on and on about nothing but I want to splurge when I write.  I do not want to worry about whether I will have anything left.  I believe that creativity is limitless. I want to go the limit every day.  Every time I sit down to write.  Spend it all.  Go for broke.  Empty my wallet.  Put all my bills on the table, every idea,  I want to vomit them all up.  Spill them out and not clean up afterwards.  Let the words, the sentences, the phrases find their way, their order, their reason for being on the page.  No control.  No idea of the shape, the beginning or the end.  Just do it.  Whew.  Sounds a little extreme,  but what have i got to lose?  Nothing and everything to win.  Work as if this is the most important thing I have ever done and let go of the results.  Surrender the fruits of my labor.  Words of wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita. 

In the Rodgers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella, the one with Brandy and Whitney Houston, Whitney sings the song Impossible

(Godmother)
Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage.
Impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in
Marriage,
And four white mice will never be four white horses!
Such fol-der-ol and fid-dle-dy dee of course, is— Impossible!
But the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don’t believe in sensible rules
And won’t believe what sensible people say.
And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible
Hopes,
Impossible things are happening every day.

My grand daughter Amelia loves this movie.  We watch every Monday when she comes to stay with us.  The words of the song dance at the edges of my mind through out the week.  Impossible things are happening every day. Jordan is alive and well.  He died and returned to us fully intact.  I am no longer a victim of my childhood abuse.  I do not suffer from depression. I am writing every day.   I have a good marriage, a loving, supportive partner whom I still find sexy after 14 years together.  Love that.  After two failed marriages who would have thought I could do it well.  I started and operated a successful business, one that I was able to sell.  Wow. I have friends whom I love and who love and care about me.  My life is an adventure today more than ever.  Who knows where I will be this time next year.  Krishnamacharia as quoted by his son Desikachar, in Yoga and the Living Tradition of Krishnamacharya, says “something that is impossible at this moment becomes possible through yoga.” We reach a point we have never reached before.  “Today I sit on the floor and can barely stretch my legs in front of me.  After several weeks of practice, I may be able not only to sit erect, but to stretch and bend forward easily, with knees straight, reaching toward my toes.  In stages the impossible becomes possible.”

So I practice writing every day.  I have no idea where it will lead me, but I go willingly.  Divine Mother, I trust in your love and guidance as you create through me for the greatest good of all.  May I follow you blindly and without question.  They will be done.

This Day, I Offer My Soul

“May this be the morning of innocent beginning, when the gift within you slips clear

Of the sticky web of the personal

with its hurts and haunts

and fixed fortress corners,

A morning when you become a pure vessel

for what wants to ascend from the silence

May your imagination know

the grace of perfect danger….”  John O’Donohue

“The grace of perfect danger,” a willingness to risk all to be authentic, to begin this day with a sense of innocence and wonder.  “We seldom notice how each day is a holy place where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, transforming our broken fragments into an eternal continuity that keeps us.” John O’Donohue’s words vibrate the wings of my soul.

I lie in bed, half awake and realize, as the day begins, I drank one delicious glass of wine last night, no more.  I offer myself to the Divine Mother, “Please guide my thoughts and actions today.”  I climb into my stained old robe and make my way into our kitchen. On the way, I make a detour to the bathroom, tongue scrapping and tooth brushing completed, I turn my mind to the morning “Joe.”   I look forward that first cup of coffee.  For years, as a yogi, I tried to give up caffeine.  Not today.  The warm, milking beverage slides down my throat.  Yum.  I open my journal, actually a notebook, and put the pen to the page, morning pages begun.  Life goes apace.  I read from Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing, The Perils and Pleasures of the Creative Life.  She reminds me, as a writer, how important it is for me to be a reader as well.  Good advice.  I spend more time watching TV than I do reading.  TV is more a way to pass the time, while reading nourishes my soul.  Dani writes, “Think about it: have you ever spent an hour reading a good book, and then had that sinking, queasy  feeling of having wasted time?”

Upstairs to meditate.  I let my meditation practice lapse over the past two weeks, devoting the majority of my free morning time to writing until I began to notice that I was anxious, paranoid and restless.  All signs of a rebellious mind.  Jimmy and I, started last Sunday, sitting for 30 minutes each day.  What a difference it has made.  Like time spent reading a good book, sitting in meditation is never a waste.  Now here I am, at my desk, writing.  When finished, I will eat a bowl of oatmeal, prepared with love by my dear husband.  I will put on my yoga togs and go out into the world to teach.

I am truly grateful for this day.  Oh forgot to mention, I ordered two books by Virginia Woolf, both on the recommendation of Dani Shapiro:  Mrs. Dalloway and A Writer’s Diary. 

Alcoholic Narcissism

Start where you are.  Right here.  Right now.  Sunday morning, December 15, 2013 at 7:00 am.  Start where you are.  When writing morning pages it is important to keep writing, not to stop not to worry about punctuation or if it makes any sense.  So i decided this morning to try it on my computer and post it on my blog.  It is hard to type and not look up to see if I am misspelling words.  Oh well.

I did not drink last night.  Something is shifting.  I went out to dinner with my son, Jordan, before going to see The Nutcracker,.  Fabulous performances by all.We ate at Flight.  The waitress asked, “Do you want a cocktail or a glass of wine?”  Without thinking I said no I will not be drinking tonight.  I did not feel deprived or self-righteous.  I simply did not want to drink.  We had a lovely meal.  But back to the drinking. I cannot remember a time that I said no to a drink when really I wanted to say yes.   I mean when I have said no, I do not want a drink, my mind has screamed yes, yes you do want a glass of wine but it is best for you not too have one.  You cannot stop.  You will be tired.  You drank too much last night.  You said you were NOT going to drink today.  Do you wan to be like your mother?   You are driving.  Do not drink.

Not last night.  I did not WANT a drink.  Yesterday I thought long and hard about the after effects of drinking.  I wrote earlier in the week that I want to feel good every day.  I want to be clear, steady, and calm.   Well forget that.  If I drink there is none of that.  Yesterday was not awful even though I felt like shit.  It was not  awful because I observed every nuance of how I felt.  I treated my hang over as scientific experiment.  I collected data and, at the end of the day, the statistics definitely did not  favor alcohol consumption.

What does all that mean to me today?  Keep following the questions.  Start where you are in this moment.  Gratitude for my connection to yoga, to my practices especially meditation which gives me the ability to cultivate unbiased observation.  My friend Cyndi Lee wrote last week, Roshi Joan says meditation creates “balanced attention.”Stripping away the mummified skin of my mother, peeling it off my body and suctioning it out of mind, has opened up a bigger perspective.   My drinking has nothing to do with Sally Ellen Kistler Sinclair Smith. ( I do not know the last names of her other 2 husbands.)  My drinking, my relationship, my attitude, the consequences I suffer when I drink, and the amount I drink are unrelated to her.  My mother, according to multiple therapists with whom I have worked, suffered from alcoholic narcissism.

According to an article in Wise Geek written by C.B fox,

A narcissistic alcoholic suffers from both narcissistic personality disorder and alcoholism. These two conditions do not always occur simultaneously, though they can easily feed into one another, exacerbating each conditions. In order to be diagnosed as a narcissistic alcoholic, a medical or psychological professional must evaluate a patient’s health and behavior. The basic symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder include an unhealthy and distorted view of the self as better than others and above criticism. Coupled with alcoholism, this can lead to the incorrect belief that a person’s drinking is under control and is not harming either the alcoholic or loved ones.

There are a variety of different symptoms that a narcissistic alcoholic can display. Some of the more common ones are the belief that the person is better than others, even in the face of contrary evidence. People who are narcissistic may react badly when criticized or when another person bests them, even at a friendly game. When a person with this disorder is faced with these situations, alcohol may be a refuge that allows the person to hide from reality.

A person who is a narcissistic alcoholic may also disregard the feelings, opinions, or needs of others. Family may confront the alcoholic and explain how the person’s drinking is harming those around them, but the person with this disorder may react as if it is everyone else who has a problem. The narcissistic alcoholic may dismiss the concerns of loved ones as irrelevant or incorrect, claiming that the drinking is under control, is not a problem, or that if it does hurt others, that these people should learn to deal with it.

I have spent a lifetime observing these behaviors in me.  I know every one of us has the capacity for every possible behavior.  I also know that through meditation, therapy and self observation it is possible to heal and cultivate balance, freedom, joy and compassion. Compassion is not my strong suit.  I admit displaying an attitude of disregard to others feelings.  When my daughter, Katie, was ten or eleven, she went on a bicycle ride with her father.  They rode down Morningside Drive, a beautiful secluded street in midtown Memphis.  Unbeknownst to Katie, there were multiple speed bumps on this street.  She hit one fast, flew over the handle bars, and landed on the concrete.

Jackie brought her right home.  Instead of showing her mercy, I was angry.  She was so hurt and rightly so.  “Mom, you do not have a compassionate  bone in your body.” I modeled the behavior I learned as a child.  When any one of the six of us siblings got sick or hurt, my father yelled at us. “God Damn it, I do not have the money to pay for another  fu _king doctor’s visit.  Why can’t you be more careful.”  Or,  “It’s just a sore throat.  Get over it.”  In the second grade I developed a cough that persisted for months. I never received medical attention.  Later, when applying for a health card I needed to work as a waitress,  the x-ray revealed I had scaring from histoplasmosis.  The doctor told me I probably contracted it as a child.

My first yoga teacher, Felicity Green, told me to cultivate compassion.  She said, “You have little or no compassion for others.  Work on being kind, loving,and generous.”  Foreign words to my ears.  My first response when hurt is to retaliate.  I now have the skill not to react, but the reflex remains ingrained.  I have to pray, “Divine Mother, clear my heart of all hatred, anger and resentment.  Please heal my broken relationships.”  I am trying now to make amends to two people in my life, my sister, Carrie, and a friend from whom I am estranged.   I have reached out to both and each has declined contact.  I understand.  There is a long history of being harshness, judgement and distancing.  Compassion.  May I be compassionate.

I will not drink today.

Hello world. Day 11 of sobriety.

One day at a time.  We are all in this together.  More from Tao:

Suddenly, things snap into focus.

I’ve been pursuing unity all my life,

But could only glimpse the monstrous vision in fragments.

I has haunted me for years.

Each time I sighted it, I struggled to make it concrete.

At first, it seemed I only had a sculptor’s yard of unfinished figures –

Then it slowly began to make sense,

More and more this mystery life comes together.

It make take years more to reveal the whole.

That’s all right.

I am prepared to got the distance.

It goes on to say, “then with each step upon the path of Tao, your certainty rings from peak to peak.”  Wow, that is how I feel today.  I want to stand on the mountain top and shout out, I feel free.  I am grateful not to be drinking now, today.  What will tomorrow bring?  Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.  The world is not ours to see.  Que sera, sera.

In re-reading some of my morning pages from early September, I was struck by the number of references to alcohol.  Here are some examples.  9/9/13 – Drank so much damn alcohol over this past weekend.  It was as if I was floating in it.  Disgusting, gross.  9/10/13 – All I needed was that blow out weekend to realize how tired I am of drinking.  I am tired of relating to the world through the fog of alcohol.  9/22/13 – It is really no fun to have to much to drink.  No off button.  No alcohol tonight or tomorrow.  Give it a rest. 9/25/13 – No more alcohol.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Groggy.  woke up in the middle of the night.  Drinking is not the answer.   9/28/13 – Do not really like drinking anymore..  I do it to be social.  9/29/12 – Do not love my relationship to alcohol.  10/2/13 – So you drank too much again last night.  How does that make you feel?  do you feel food about yourself?  Does it add pep to your step?  Do you feel more alive, more energetic?  When are you going to wake up and stop this?  I cannot believe you think alcohol enhances your life in any way.  Fucking alcohol.  Walk away from it.  10/29/13 – Need a break from alcohol.  Going forward on Sundays and Mondays, no drinking.  10/30/13 – Definitely starting today.  Ask for help.  Divine Mother take away my desire to drink. Guide me into the light.  Let me see the world through clear eyes and an  open heart. No alcohol.  Okay good., My body is screaming at me, please no more alcohol.

Wow, so glad I have this record of the past few months.  There is so much more, but the message remains the same.  Quit drinking.  I cannot say I will never drink again, but I will not drink today.  Divine Mother, thank you for another day of sobriety.  I am so incredibly grateful.  Words cannot express the relief I feel, the joy, and the exuberance.  Life is good.