on the train again...

hey everyone,

so I'm on a train again.  feeling quite drained and going between feeling that's OK and then thinking it's weird and distressing.  have some big medical tests upcoming so I'm somewhat frightened.  On the other hand it's been a bitch of a year, I've been traveling a lot and now going up to my parents' house where my stepfather has just come back from the hospital with a back fracture.  In other words, an Al Anon forest fire.  Also sad about some recent misfires in what I had hoped would be a nice reunion.  Am still not clear about whether to continue this blog or not or go anonymous purely but for now I'm still here.

And yes for anyone who wonders about the exhaustion thing, I will be getting checked again for anaemia, thyroid etc. am scared I will end up with chronic fatigue like my mother has but hoping not.  Something about the whole physical business I find scary.  Also I find when others judge me in any way, or I feel I'm being judged, I get scared.  I think this is a hold over from childhood stuff.   Where to be judged was to be punished.

listening earlier to Gertrude Stein talking about her work and I loved how she rebuffed the 'it's incomprehensible' criticism by basically saying, no, it's not.  And the way she answered, with such wit and ability to turn around the question to her advantage, I envy that.  Just had a meeting with someone about a possible show and find myself sometimes so inarticulate or somehow thinking I have to have an answer for every question or assuming if someone asks if I will have a so and so or such and such person I need to have that person already lined up.

By now, by now, by now I think I should be Over this...sigh.

It's snowing outside...first time I've seen snow here.  Where I live now that usually does not have snow has been deluged.

Well my friends I wish I had something more interesting to say but fear not...except that I'm angry that my country of origin wants to assassinate a guy who is the messenger (Wikileaks) rather than examine itself and am happy that my adopted country is filled with angry people right now who are protesting a lot.

I am praying for my sense of health and well-being to return and for some answers about where I should focus my energies...and if there is some retreat I should go on or something along those lines for that to be shown to me...and at the very least some serenity and not a freak out and fighting whatever needs to be healed.  I am I can say fighting a feeling of doom - that no matter what I do ever something bad happens or that because I feel I'm through the grieving for my father therefore now someone else will have to die or I will be sick or something.  A Job complex in short.

I'm writing a lot about Job these days.  

OK, getting close to end of train journey so will wrap this up.

Please send me healing energies if you believe in such things.

love and blessings for the winter solstice

a quick hello

Hi, have been very busy with various projects so haven't had time to write.  The good news they are mostly creative, the bad news is there are too many of them.
Saw students perform last night and that was gratifying, lots of people RSVPing for a new showing of work I'm involved with and that too is gratifying.
As for the deeper emotional territory, I can't go into that right now for a variety of reasons, but as my last post was what it was, I wanted to write something to update it.  Sometimes I find in creative work a way to work through stuff that no other more 'direct' work does.
FYI, I may also shut down this blog soon, as I'm having second thoughts about it.  If that happens, I will write a farewell post.  But for those of you who have done so, thanks for listening/reading non-judgmentally.

Sad Mad Not Glad

Maybe it's Tuesdays and post-therapy don't know but very sad...also a new friend the other week told me about her still-birth and that was very sad.  I'm mad at God, Goddess, It, Whatever...have feelings whether rational or not of being 'punished' and sick of hearing people saying to me in dulcet tones 'you've had a bad few years haven't you?' as if this is some revelation.  No one means it that way, it's meant to be sympathy but because of the twisted space I can get into it feels shameful when I hear it.

Reading Job recently, no joke, Book of Job, to wrap my soul around this stuff and it's helpful actually, in that weird Old Testament kind of way...and then someone reminded me tonight at an AA meeting of a prayer I repeated that I had heard which is 'It is.  Thank you.'  And that helped.

But still I'm mad, really mad, because for all of my yammering on about allowing for a Higher Power's will etc. in the end I'm pissed off that I'm in peri-menopause and don't have a child and I feel insanely guilty for not having done artificial stuff and also for not wanting to jump into adoption, which Everyone mentions.  And it just makes me feel guilty.

My therapist would tell you this is all Good news because I'm Feeling it and I think Fuck You Bitch, I don't want to Fucking Feel it!  Even if I know it's good for me, etc., etc...Fuck Off!  And I feel this Rage these days when I do yoga, which is hilarious and true and means I'm closer to my body and then I feel this Need to Express my Rage and don't know how the Fuck to do that and feel I'm supposed to Liberate Myself by running down a road Screaming and feel too self-conscious to do That so feel ashamed and there I am on my therapist's fucking carpet, well the room in the Building Where Therapy Happens, staring at it, feeling about 3, wanting to be taken care of, wanting to disappear, wanting something Anything to take these feelings away and as per usual I am Stone Cold Sober...

and Nothing is going to take the fucking feelings away...like ever apparently.

I'm reading, by the way, not a cheery book but a fucking great one which I can't believe I haven't read before called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and all I can say is if you haven't read it, read it.  It's a gift from God - the good one, the one I don't Fucking Hate right now...

AAAAiiiiiEEEEE
etc.

I'm writing again, that's the good news, not just here but in two other places...a probable stage text and another thing about my ex-husband and me called 'The God Thing' - anyone who knows that story will understand the title.  If you don't, wait for the book (she said hopefully) - it will come out anonymously and will be called 'The God Thing'...if I ever Fucking finish it...The names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent all of whom could be harmed....

I am So Angry...I'll bet that comes as a huge surprise to y'all.  I know this is all Good for Me, but honestly I feel like a lost 4 year old and it's scary, sad and scary and sad.  I have to remember I have an adult present and writing this blog is somehow so weirdly healing...I don't even understand why and like who cares...it's working right at this moment as I'm writing this.

Those of you who read this I wish I could explain to you how much that means, though I have a feeling putting this out there no matter what is the point.

I pray to the Powers that Be, that my anger can send a flame through the darkness and that I will be able to let it go but also let it be...that I don't do extra damage by demonizing myself for these feelings and that I find a way to make peace with it all, not in some fake pseudo-spiritual way but in a real way...not to let anyone off the hook who actually harmed me or who has harmed others but so I can stop feeling all this rage, which at this point, let's face it, is only hurting me.  And if the price of that is letting the motherfuckers off the hook then so be it, but there better be a Damn good reason.

Signing off, in rage and solidarity with Whomever...

Still teary but better

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to quickly write and say I'm not in the excruciatingly horrendous place I was when I wrote the last post.  I'm still quite emotional and have since found out that being menopausal or peri-menopausal means that hormones are all over the shop and depression is part of it...I'm also light-headed a lot which is hard, too.  Went to doctor and will have MRI and will see if my fall last April is the culprit here or what.  I find not knowing what's going on with me physically very scary.  I'm also proud of myself for going to doctors and insisting on care, even if I then kind of back down and soft-pedal it...it's weird.
Was in therapy today and overwhelmed with the amount of times I said/say "I don't know" and a lot of times as an evasion...it's kind of depressing.
I'm exhausted now because I taught today early, was suddenly being peer-reviewed without notice and then to therapy then to an AA meeting so I'm on my last legs...
I'm grateful for having written the last blog and gotten some response and even before that could feel a response somehow...someone said to me this is 'outwarding' rather than the 'inwarding' of journalling and I think that's true...it's a burst of hope into the universe...perhaps someone somewhere will hear me or perhaps even more important, perhaps I will hear me through attempting to communicate outward or something...
Also was amazed when I asked my husband if something was really wrong with me if he'd come back from his long trip away and he said yes.  It made me cry with gratitude.  Does that sound sad to you?  It might unless like me no one ever left anywhere for you ever when you were growing up and spent days you were sick on a sofa at home while everyone was at work or were left with a psycho babysitter so your mother and step father could pursue their careers, etc...Then that moment means a lot.
I looked at him yesterday and realized - oh my God, he is my family.  He is.  This was a revelation.
Grateful for that.
So, now to bed before I fall over onto the keyboard...
Oh no, wait I lied...just a moment to say how exciting it was to watch a group of students today, again first generation to university, etc., doing a short performance including little pieces of text, whispering to individual audience members, leaving us with little shards of text written on paper like gifts, intimacy, cutting up, different levels of address and speaking into a mirror, using the whole space, being brave, brave, brave...makes me cry when this happens, so gorgeous...
ok now...for real, over and out...

Loneliness...

OK, so I didn't expect to be awake this late tonight and certainly didn't expect to be writing in the blog again so soon, but woke up or didn't sleep because feeling crampy from procedure and freaking out about if something went wrong and uterus perforated and that brought back the whole surgery I had in 2006 to be able to get pregnant in the first place and the nightmare of that recovery, which was followed by the miracle of pregnancy which was followed by the trauma of a miscarriage the day after my wedding...another surgery followed and no more pregnancies and now I'm too old for that to happen most likely and that whole train, along with my husband being away just made me cry and cry and cry...and I have to be up early tomorrow morning and I don't want to be awake and I don't want to be typing this but I can't think of who to call or should say the one person I felt I could call was not in and so here I am typing into the void into a place I don't know if anyone reads, well I know a couple people do but where I'm feeling increasingly lonely because no one comments on the blog even if I get back channel comments, and I know that sounds pathetic, etc...
So that's the state I'm in here at 1:45am my time.  Nice, huh?
I just feel lonely and sad, sad, sad that I don't have a baby and probably won't and don't have any family here where I live now at all and my husband is away a lot and I just feel lonely, lonely, lonely.  When at the hairdresser today the woman cleaning my hair asked if my family lived here and I said no and she had assumed I had brothers and sisters, which I don't and her whole family lives here, 6 brothers and sisters on one road and I almost burst out crying.  I feel so incredibly alone.
I have amazing friends here and everything but no one I feel I can call late at night when I feel like this, and I had those friends where I used to live and maybe even do here but I don't know who they are and I feel too remote from my friends now in my old home city to call them in this state and I know I can't call my husband in this state because phones and him don't work so well and so I just feel alone and lonely and this is a boring, boring post consequently.
Sorry for that, but felt this was my best chance of not ignoring this feeling or just crying my eyes out alone in bed.  Maybe a blog is the weirdest place to do this, I don't know...we'll see.
Heard an interview with Mike Leigh about his newest film and the woman acting in it about how loneliness is the most taboo thing, you can talk about anything else but this...so of course here it is on this blog.  Wish in a lot of ways I never told anyone about the blog because it's fucking embarrassing along with being excruciating, and I feel so ashamed...
I guess my only hope here is that I am not in fact alone and that others feel this, have felt this or at least can empathize.  I hear in that statement an anger, the anger of a child demanding parental love and that's even more embarrassing.
So here it is folks, me uncut, grieving, sad...sad, sad....
please send prayers if you believe in that sort of thing because I could use them.

All is well

So had the procedure mentioned in last post and all is well.  Just regular old hormone imbalance but nothing worse.  That's a relief.  Now I have to figure out whether to continue dealing with some other stuff or not.  Feeling massively relieved today though.

So the challenge if I choose to accept it for the rest of the day is: can she rest?  You know like not even be on here writing on the blog kind of rest.  Pray for me that I can as I need it.

And much gratitude to a very good friend who came along with me.  What a relief to have someone sitting there so when I'm having the deer in the headlights response to anything a doctor is telling me my friend has the wherewithal to record it on her phone.  Phew and wow.  I am having a hard time these days connecting with gratitude so wanting to write it anyway.

Hard time but good to seeing a friend with a child yesterday, it's always tricky territory and hearing stories of other friends having a hard time conceiving and all the happy, sad, scary, joy-filled stories.

Spent this past weekend videotaping leaves for a show and it was gorgeous.  Also the sense of power with a video camera is kind of amazing.  I've always been such a Luddite so this is big news for She who is Slow with technology.  Loving it.  It feels like a kind of 'writing'...

OK, feeling woozy so going off the computer now but wanted you to know I am OK.  Hope all are well.

Emerging from the Busy-ness Black hole

Hi there,
For anyone who actually reads this, I am sorry for such a long time between posts.  It has been a very full time recently, not all bad, some very good but the kind of thing where there's no time to keep up a blog.

I have been working a lot, teaching and such and also working with my artistic process.  Until today my husband has been home, which has been great but also means I have less time to myself.  I have found out he will be gone for three months next year and had a number of responses to that from sad to feeling quite OK about having time to myself, so like usual, a mixed bag.  My big discovery was though that when I allowed myself the sadness and didn’t judge it, it lifted enough so I could see the good side.  Whenever I judge feelings as bad or unworthy or scary or whatever, they get stuck and I can’t move past them.

I’ve also had to face recently and much to my horror how many resentments I actually still hold.  I think of myself as being so rigorous, etc. but then I see they really can pile up, the resentments and I see more and more how I feel I will be run over and turned to mush if I don’t keep them.  For someone who has been in recovery for ages this is quite humbling.  But it also makes sense.

I am also aware now of some people reading this blog so find myself somewhat more shy because of that.  Don’t know what to do about it but just saying it outloud and hoping that will be helpful.

I have a medical exam coming up on Tuesday and am somewhat terrified of that.  It’ll probably be fine but its gynecological and involves instruments and some level of pain so not fun.  Also a bit afraid of what they might find, though probably it’s just a fibroid, already known and some polyps.  The fun of being female just never stops.  Also I am having longer and more sustained hot flashes – already! – and I find this kind of sad, though I also have this other weird reaction – especially in winter – of oh good I’m not always so cold.  A kind of pride at being one of those people who can wear t-shirts in the cold.  Perhaps I should go into construction or start wearing short skirts to nightclubs in the middle of a snow storm.  Whaddya think?

Oh, I’ve had this horrendous realization recently that I do the thing I’ve always judged other people so harshly for, which is steer clear sometimes of people that I feel others may have a negative opinion of…not in the larger social sense but in the micro-sense.  So in other words: person A I’ve decided I respect and like a lot and they have a negative feeling about person B, who I know somewhat and perhaps have a neutral or positive feeling towards.  I then find myself subtly moving away from person B in response to the opinion of person A…etc.  Isn’t that horrendous?  It makes me feel very ashamed so I’m writing about it here as a way of kind of admitting ‘the exact nature of my wrongs’ as Step 5 says.  This same movement can happen within myself, too.  Say Person A thinks x emotion or kind of art or whatever is good and y emotion or kind of art is bad…again, I can ever so subtly watch my feelings shift about this stuff.  Again, horrendous!  Shameful!

And all based on: fear.  Fear that I am not worthy, not trust-worthy, can’t trust myself or my own opinions, feelings, etc.  Again, this seems So basic and like something I should be ‘over’ by now.  And if you knew me and what I do, you’d think: what? No! but it’s true, I know it is.  I think it’s why I’m so picky about friends or anyone I get close to because I know how influenced I may be by them.  And the even weirder thing is: if I feel something strongly in me and defend it, I feel as if I am ‘being defensive’ – so it’s hard to feel where to stand.

Now having said all this, I must add that I don’t do any of this as much as I used to do, and seeing it is a start to letting it go and probably means I already have begun to let it go…in fact haven’t really done this stuff in a while, but it makes me see why I resent it So much if I see anyone else doing this kind of thing.  And I know I’m capable of back-sliding at any time, especially when feeling afraid.

Other things I resent: people who I perceive are more successful than me, people who have things I want and don’t have (sometimes materially but often other stuff too, more intangible), people who don’t like me, people who ignore my artistic work, people who look down on me because I’m from another country, not being heard properly, not being acknowledged, being disrespected, the Tories, the Tea Party, the Democrats, Republicans, Labor, etc...

And what I am doing about all that is this: praying for all these people, daily and over and over again even though it makes me nauseous.  Why?  To be free of it.  I am sick of being a slave to my resentments.  I am sick of being afraid of letting them go.  I’m sick of feeling hypervigilant and like a boxer who always has to be ready to lash out.

Even in this crazy fucking global capitalist horror show, I don’t want to be kept in a box of eternal anger.  Not because it’s ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or even unjustified but because I want to be free of it.  If I can choose it OK but if it’s a knee-jerk reaction that is eating me alive, no, it’s not OK.

I am beginning with some positive work I am doing that is too hard to describe in words but has to do with connecting with some inner delicate place that I am allowing to emerge and involves play, I am finding some part of me that is not up for grabs and doesn’t have to do with stupid social status games and the like mentioned earler, that part of me that lived inside a nuclear bunker until I could allow her out.  Amazingly, she is still there.  She would have had to go into hiding pretty much from the gate, so I am amazed she exist and she is connected to something so much larger and in her I see the universe and it’s extraordinary…

And as I connect more with her, the other shell stuff falls away and I can ‘name it and shame it’ and begin to let it go.  And that protection I discovered in the shamanic healing is also helpful here because I know that is real too.  Because the fact is in the past I was attacked and attacked badly, so I cannot feel safe if I don’t feel there is any recourse to protection…

Now time to sign off and make calls to people who I have been neglecting in my mad schedule.

Would love to hear from any of you if you have any comments.