So, if you ever visit my "Cool People" section, you'll meet Little Purple Cow, author and photographer of Cool People I Know. She has challenged herself to do a daily self portrait. I shuddered at the thought. Me on the other side of the lens? I was nervous about capturing my image only because some days, my situation feels so raw. Then I thought about the things others would think... that I'm so self absorbed or boy does she look old... then I thought... F*em.

I'm not sure I can hold to the daily self portrait, but I think I'd like to track my restoration on a monthly basis. This is 03.01.08. I obviously ruminated over this decision for a while. Maybe the April issue will come out on time. That is, if I give myself permission not to care what you think.

Just so wrong...

When life gets you down, there is nothing better than a stupid and meaningless Japanese game show to make you laugh. I feel less human for watching this, not because of the disfigurement due to marshmallows and rubber bands but because I almost lost all bodily functions laughing my butt off.

God I hope you can see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOfZPZJHnKg

~

Dreams and Miracles

This has been a challenging season for me, not because of what has been happening but because I have had to forcibly shift my way of thinking. Each night, I go to bed feeling like Syciphus wondering if I will ever get that bolder up and OVER the dang hill. I'm mentally and sometimes spiritually exhausted.

But that doesn't always mean I get to actually sleep.

A few nights ago, I collapsed into bed after our nightly routine of pajamas, brushing teeth, and prayers. I begged God to send me some sort of uplifting words or images in my dreams. I tossed and tossed and finally got comfy.... just as the electric company parked out on my street to do "regular maintainance" at 1:00am. Being the middle of their workday, they didn't think twice about leaving radios on and truck doors open. After I thought I had blocked the radio out of my head and started to drift off again, they began pulling out all their tools. Apparently the next thing they are supposed to do is drop them all over the asphalt so that it echoes throughout the street and ping right into my dark room just for the purpose of startling me awake.

Heavenly Father... zap them... HARD. Oh yeah, and send me a soothing dream.

An hour later, it was dark and quiet... until a little voice came crying into my room. Something about having to go potty and the lights not working. I forgot about the outage and thought, "Oh man! Did we forget to pay the bill???" Thirty seconds later, I had the presence of mind to fumble us towards my bathroom before having any incidents that would keep me awake any longer than necessary. Once she was tucked back into bed, I prayed to God for the third time that night to visit me with his dreams. To reassure me that all would one day be right. But I just tossed... and tossed... and eventually went to sleep in fits and bursts, but no deep REM.

Darn.

The next day, I was at the computer attempting to put our most recent drama in perspective and not give it any more power than all the good that has been coming my way. I was happy to take a break and answer a call from my City Girl daughter. "Is everything okay, mom?" I stammered a little and then just admitted that no, in fact, things were pretty tough. I told her about the previous two days and tried really hard to hold back tears of despondency. "I thought so..."

"I had the weirdest dream about you last night."

After talking and reading and praying, we realized that God had visited me through my beautiful daughter. The vision he gave her translated into something meaning that things were going to be okay. Specifically, to learn from the situation, not to dwell on the negative, and that soon I would be cleansed from my troubles and disappointments.

Praise God.

God comes to us in all forms. It's our job to be present and listening when He comforts us. They may seem like little miracles sometimes... Nothing that the Vatican would consider big, anyway. But for the receivers, these miracles are as big as the parting of the sea in order that those in captivity would be set free.


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Sappy Feel Good Chain eMails

I don't normally read anything that says FW: FW: FW: You have to read this! They bog down my in-box. They list the most trite advice. They come with silly cartoons of animated animals and dancing flowers.

But sometimes, they come just at the right moment.

I got one of those sappy advice emails tonight. I know my friend means it as an electronic hug, so I opened it. There were some things about exercise and food and all that. It all made sense but nothing that stood out to me. Almost at the end, I got to the good ones. The following was the portion of the list that I found so timely for me and, I think, just great advice for being a decent human:

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
(CAN I GET AN AMEN?!)
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
"In five years, will this matter?"
27. Forgive everyone for everything. (eeeekkkk... )
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time time! (Yeah!)
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
(I am living walking proof of this one!)
31. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
(Oh my soul... yes... yes...)

Numbers 25 and 31 are my life right now. I'm working (really trying, anyway) on Number 27. The others are just good ways to live. I wonder what life would be like if others followed, or at least moved towards some of these ideas. Hmmm... that would be nice. Less grumpiness. Less misunderstanding. More time spent on the positive. More time smiling.

And then I woke up.

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Which one(s) stand out for you?
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Clean Sweep

Clean Sweep’s Peter Walsh has a new book out. All about the physical cleaning out of one's junk. This is what he said in a recent interview about the show:

Our show was never about the stuff. I told the producers early on that you can only organize so many closets and garages before people lose their minds… We all have stuff. What we had to do was tell people’s stories through their stuff, and see them realizing what their relationship to the stuff had become.

This last move, I purged. A lot. I did what I’ve seen on Clean Sweep. I made piles. Then I made those piles go away based on what was unnecessary. It’s amazing what you take with you that is unnecessary. Many of my choices were made for me based on the rental that we were moving into. It's fully 1,000 square feet smaller than our last home. Talk about simplifying your life!

The relationship I have to the six tubs of stuff that I could not part with is a deep one indeed. Nineteen years of being a mom plus eighteen years of being alive prior to that. I have old journals, albums, corsages, paintings… nothing I dare part with. But that's all I allowed myself for fear of becoming...

my Mother.

I have real issues with that woman, so it’s easy for me to criticize her shortcomings… bear with me. She has homework… HOMEWORK… from the 50s. She has almost every drafting project she ever worked on rolled up in tubes. Lots of tubes. She has blurry, underexposed, and just really bad pictures. Endless boxes of them. She has stacks upon stacks of magazines that she keeps for decor ideas for her dream home. She even holds on to items that make her angry. Physically hangs on to objects that cause her pain. Why? Lord only knows.

There's an old Spanish saying: Aprende de cabeza gena. That loosely translates to “Learn from the mistakes of others.” I have learned a lot from my mom, but in a rear view mirror kind of way. If she did this, then I’d make sure to do that. If she suggested to do one thing, I'd investigate the opposite. The most visible example of how I've made sure to be very different from her is our relationship to stuff. Nowhere did I learn more about the dangers of holding on than from my mother.

She doesn't just hold on to items. She holds on to regret. Not about anything she's done... that would be too hard... anything she never had can be directly linked to a number of usual suspects. My dad, her parents, old bosses, me… always someone else’s fault. That’s another lesson she taught me… let me rephrase that… that’s a lesson she modeled for me, again in the rear view mirror: Accepting my part. This act even has it's own column in Step Four of the recovery process. Some of you know what I’m talking about. Step Four is all about inventory. The yuck. The baggage. The poor choices.

Owning up to my part hasn’t been easy, but neither is carrying around a lifetime of junk.

~