I Was Waiting For This

I figured this was coming. This morning Facebook's "On This Day" feature showed me a post I wrote two years ago that reminded me of one of the darkest days of my life. I'm not sharing the original post because I don't need to revive it. Those of you who were here then may recall it, but by now the details are unimportant. A couple of things do seem worth noting about it, though. One is that from the two-years-out view, the cause behind the post is entirely irrelevant today, a shrinking-to-near-invisibility dot on the freeway behind me. A connection that at one time occupied the center of my attention now barely registers, hardly moves the needle. For that I can only say, "Thank [deities] and good riddance," and that is all that needs to be said. Another is that even though I was in a place beyond the darkest darkness I could imagine, I called on the power of the dozens of you who stepped in and propped me up that day, and showed me by your examples that I would survive to see dawn again. My gratitude to all of you will never cease; that's always true, but it was especially true in those moments. A couple of comments stand out in particular. In her hope-filled narrative, my dear friend Lori pointed out that "those who have wounded us are the agents of blessed change" and that we become "stronger, wiser, and better for the pain." While I would not have wished any of it on myself nor anyone else, nor do I ever wish to experience it again, both of those insights have been borne out. I survived, I leapt, I landed, and I'm exactly where I need and want to be. I'm very happy; I'm even Thriving (tm) ;) I did some deliberate and careful pruning of things that were no longer serving me, formed new friendships and honed existing ones, and came home in a way that I hadn't been in decades. Deep wounds often trigger a desire for justice and even revenge, and Lori also pointed out that "Time wounds all heels." I clung tightly to that hope two years ago, but I'm delighted to say that from where I stand now, I no longer care whether that's the case. It simply doesn't matter. Luckiest Woman On The Planet is very, very grateful.

Same Sh*t, Different Day

I had a different post in the pipeline, an introspective musing on the arrival of autumn weather and the things I look forward to this particular fall. It wasn't coming together (I'm sure it will) but LWOTP woke up angry this morning. This post asked to be given a hearing and did me the courtesy of nearly writing itself.

This New Yorker article was written three years ago, and of course it could easily have been written yesterday because NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Go ahead, give it a read and tell me you don't recognize the echoes of the past week, the past six months, the past three years and beyond.

The Simple Truth About Gun Control

Sometimes satire has the most to offer in unbelievably awful situations. Here's the article The Onion has run each of the last three times one of these events has occurred. Different dateline, same wrenching story.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

I'm angry and I'm tired of having the same conversations over and over and over after yet another mass shooting. I'm tired of hearing people clinging to their weapons when we know that the likelihood they will ever actually need to use them against another human being – truly need to use them to protect themselves or their families – is vanishingly close to zero. We KNOW what we need to to do stop this insane loss of life. Don't BS me about "prayers for the families" and "but it's too early to talk about the causes." It's not. We KNOW what the causes are, and we KNOW how to fix this. Just as surely as antibiotics work on bacterial infections, sane gun laws would dramatically decrease the horrendous loss of life that we alone among developed  nations seem willing to tolerate, time and time again, all in the name of a misguided (and very recent and self-serving) interpretation of a centuries-old “right”.

BUT BUT BUT!!! WHAT ABOUT THE GUBMINT!!! THEY WANNA TAKE AWAY MAH GUNZ!!! DANGER!!! DANGER!!!

Know where else the odds are vanishingly close to zero? The odds of our government coming to take away everyone's guns. If you honestly believe that paranoid, irrational, costly delusion – if you really think there's a government agenda that would come after your precious firearms, and that clinging to that delusion is worth the horrendous cost in human lives – go ahead and unfriend me. Now. Seriously. Walk out. Drop me a note before you go if you'd like to, but go. Because YOU are the kernel, the source, the core of this problem. YOU are the reason the NRA knows it can buy our politicians with impunity. YOU are the reason they can continue to obstruct any and all attempts to pass sane gun legislation or even study the public health effects of gun violence.

And if you go, as you go, take a moment to ask yourself: Are tens of thousands of human lives really that expendable? Is it really worth that cost, just so you can let others keep controlling you and feeding your fear?

I don't have all the answers. I don't know what I can practically do. But I do know how I plan to make decisions about how I vote and which candidates I will support. When I know more, I will do more. This much I do know: it's time to say "enough".

It's Complicated...

I have a complicated relationship with Facebook. As a vehicle for renewing contacts and staying in touch with faraway friends and colleagues, it’s unequalled. I can’t picture how or even whether I’d have moved back to California (through a series of wheels that began turning in 2011) if it weren’t for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild allowed me to retrieve the social capital I needed to move back to my homeland after 38 years away, and it was the mechanism that connected me with the gentleman. Facebook helps me feel connected even when I’m alone. I’ve received some of the warmest support of my life by sharing the best of times with all of you, and you have walked me through the very darkest of times, all via social media.

And yet…

Part of my conundrum is related to my innate preference to flop down on the sofa with my nose stuck in a book. I love to slurp up information and I always have, ever since I learned to read at the age of 3 (my first book was “The Little Red Hen” and my father was my teacher – thanks, Daddy!) I’m format agnostic; paper, Kindle, computer screen – it matters not. As often as not, though, lately my reading takes the form of whiling away hours refreshing my news feed and clicking on links, and I’m not reading nearly as many books (or anything else) as I used to.

But also, at least to my eye, Facebook seems to have changed. I get it about “monetizing” and algorithms and blah blah blah, even though I can’t outline them or tell you what they are. But Facebook is basically an advertising-driven business whose primary objective is NOT about keeping us in contact with each other, but instead is about driving our eyeballs over to advertisers’ pages. So now, instead of a news feed filled with friends’ activities, here’s what I see:

1) interest- and agenda-driven posts (in fact, I seem to get much of my breaking news from Facebook). Now those, I have a little control over and it’s been interesting to see how my news feed has changed as I’ve been “Unfollowing” and “Unliking” pages over the past couple of weeks. I’ve become a lot more selective about what pages and groups I follow.

I also see 2) meaningless click-bait quizzes (What Color Unicorn Did You Used To Be?) and engagement-bait posts (CONTROVERSIAL ASSERTION! YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO CONTAIN YOURSELF! WHAT DO YOU THINK?) I can’t control all of these, but I ignore what I can. Don’t take it personally; I just don’t care to put extraneous personal information out into the cloud-o-sphere if I can avoid it. Silly me, I also like to believe that I can still think for myself and not get taken in by something that’s purely about getting me to click over to a page, and not about conveying meaningful, useful information.

There are also 3) many cute or controversial videos that I seldom click through. I already feel like I’m spending too much time on Facebook and I don’t want to add to the burden; a minute-forty-five here and three minutes there can really add up!

And finally, I see 4) a lot of hatred, and this I DO have control over. I’m all in favor of respectful discussions between people who hold opposing views, and I can always expand my own world view, but life is too damn short to tolerate the flat-out abuse, hatred, judgment, and disrespect that I sometimes see flowing through the pixels. I’ve become a lot freer with the “Block” option and I’m not a bit sorry about it. Enough said.

I also don’t post nearly as much as I used to. I think that’s partly a function of where I am in life, partly about who’s in my life (and who’s not), and partly a function of simply having less time to spend on it. I still have plenty to say, but I don’t have time to squander. I have a job that harvests much more of my attention and energy than the one I left last year, and I won’t log into Facebook using my work computer. I also have a committed partner now (who, interestingly enough, is Not. On. Facebook very much if at all – hmmmm…) so staring at a computer screen is no longer my primary option for human contact. Spending an evening in a real-time conversation or movie-watching with a live human being is pretty nice!

So in the spirit of exploring and adjusting how I spend my time, I’ve 86’d the Facebook app from my phone, but kept the messenger app. They seem different to me and the messenger app rarely, if ever, prevents me from participating in my real life the way the Facebook app did. I know it means no more check-ins and no more on-the-fly photos, and I’m okay with that. I’m keeping my account, not going away, but I’ll be looking more carefully at, and aiming to be much more intentional about, how much time I spend on Facebook.

I didn’t turn this into a status update (except to post the link to this post) because I don’t figure it’s front-page news to anyone except me and possibly the gentleman. My hope, though, is that I can attain a new, heathier-for-me balance with social media while still staying in touch with the people I care about (I’m lookin’ at you!) We’ll see how the experiment turns out.

Do you have any thoughts or ideas?

Warmer and Brighter

November sneaked up on me. My visual cues are all messed up. Sunnier, brighter weather means I didn't pick up on the passage of the calendar in the same way I would have in Seattle. The skies were still sunny; the temperatures were still warm, or at least warm-ish; then suddenly it was fall, and then it was November. And now it’s Thanksgiving, and December will be here in just a few days.

How different this approaching winter feels from last. Last fall, I experienced a betrayal more profound than any I could have imagined, the result of which was that my view of the world and the nature of humanity shifted on its axis (along with my self-perception), and all I could see was darkness ahead. Seattle’s weather reinforced the state of my heart and soul as I examined my life from a shadowy place I never expected to know.

But in the midst of overwhelming darkness and intense self-examination, a curious thing happened. A new, tiny voice of clarity began tapping tentatively on my consciousness. I gradually realized that far from being powerless, I had been given an opportunity for transformation. As I struggled to repossess my spirit a fire slowly kindled that sharpened my clarity, reminded me of what I believe is important, and pointed out what I needed to do to honor that. Changes I had been considering from afar, in a “yeah right, wouldn't THAT be nice” kind of way, started to look possible. In particular, I realized that my heart was telling me it was time to go back home to California, after 38 years away. Not only that, I had the resources to make it happen, so I finally concluded, why not? Instead of letting the darkness define the rest of my life, I swung into action. Once I’d made up my mind, a series of questions that had been hanging over my head were suddenly settled. The answers helped smooth the way toward making the move, and four months later I was here.

Sometimes we need a pretty convincing push, I guess. I still think I could have done without that particular one, but even I have to admit that it served a purpose – apparently I needed to fall down a pretty deep hole in order to be willing to take the risks I had to take to follow my light. And from where I sit now, even as it fades toward the Winter Solstice, the late autumn California light still carries for me a promise of abundant brightness and warmth.

For that I am truly grateful.

Restarts, and still feeling pretty darn lucky

Last weekend was the first weekend in, I'm gonna say, more than a year that I could call "normal." Between the personal turmoil, emotional upheaval, and professional angst of late last year, followed by planning the move, quitting the job, making the move, meeting the gentleman, living in others' homes, getting the job, making another move (this time with the gentleman)... well, it's been quite a tumultuous time.

So I've been reunited with my stuff, I'm happy with the gentleman, we're in our own place, everything is unpacked, the sewing corner is set up, work routines are in place, and I'm delighted to see a Saturday-morning note from Google Calendar confirming that "You have no events scheduled today." You mean it? I get to have something resembling a "normal" life again, occasionally have unclaimed time to spend as I please? Wow! Cool!

But besides simply having the unstructured time, the other piece that has finally returned is the desire to spend the time as I please. Doing, or not doing, as I choose. I was in a pretty demotivated space last year, for a lot longer than I care to remember. My very presence had been stolen, and I didn't know how to retrieve it. One of the most visible signs of that was the fact that for a period of time before the move, I simply couldn't persuade myself to do much of anything I normally love to do. There were days when I barely left the sofa. I know why it happened. I wouldn't wish any of it on my worst enemy. But I learned a lot about what's important to me. There have been no real surprises there, only reminders and confirmation. Friends. Family. Familiar places. New experiences. My own brand of being creative (usually involving either food or fabric). Allowing myself to be vulnerable again, and learning to do it without fear. Through it all, many of you acted as Demeters to my Persephone. I'll never be able to thank you enough for searching for me and pulling me out.

I won't pretend to believe that now that I'm settled back in the Golden State, life will always and only be groovy. I've had too many calendar-clearing events in my life to assume that. But as we transition into the fall and winter months, I'm looking forward with hope to spending more time with people who matter; doing things that stretch me, feed my soul, and broaden my world; and leaving something good in others' lives.

I have so many reasons, both new and old, to believe I'm The Luckiest Woman On The Planet. I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy it again.

Luckiest Woman On The Planet

Originally posted March 5, 2013

Until recently I wouldn't have bet any amount of money that I could live as rich and wonderful a life as I have today. It looked like a sure losing bet. All I could see ahead of me was a grim struggle just to put one foot in front of the other, on all the most basic levels.

Five years ago today I seriously broke my brain, and it was a solid two years before I could say I was back to anything close to my pre-injury "normal". When I began to emerge from the fog and no longer had to spend most of my energy focused on basic functioning and recovery (and sleeping!) I had to figure out what my new normal would look like. Once I declared that I was myself again, I was faced with the task of putting a life back together, and it was impossible to predict what course it would follow.

Before I move on, let me say that I was incredibly lucky. I came out of my injury with choices about how I would live the rest of my life. Many others with my type and degree of injury have more severe residual effects, leaving them with fewer options than I've had. Brain reassembly is notoriously hard to predict, even between people with similar injuries, and I know that my recovery could have gone in many different directions. For some reason I got the miracle.

The first step back into the light was my P-Patch garden. I'd been on a waiting list for a plot for a couple of years, and in the summer of 2010, a spot opened up at my first choice Patch. Score! An excuse to get outdoors and fling dirt around, maybe meet a few people, oh, and grow some Edible Things while I’m at it! Perfect opportunity, perfect timing. I've just signed on for my fourth season, and as I look back at three seasons of work I see a lot of fun, laughter, and yes, edibles, and some sweet connections with my fellow gardeners. Oh yes, please, I'll definitely have seconds - and thirds, and fourths, and more!

My second step was simply putting one foot in front of the other. I started walking in January 2011 with Get Fit West Seattle, which appealed to me because it was billed as a "couch-to-half-marathon" training program. If anyone was in "couch" condition at that point, it was me! The first Sunday morning we all met up, I could barely huff and puff through a half mile walk. I also knew that I had a trip to England coming up in the fall of that year, and that if I didn’t do something serious, I’d be in no shape to enjoy it – I’d never be able to keep up! Less than six months later, I completed two half marathons within two weeks and became an official Half Fanatic (it's real, look it up!) And I was just fine in England! I've continued to walk, at some times with more focus than at other times, and later this month I'll complete my third half marathon. I've made many new friends and renewed some wonderful longtime friendships through walking, and I plan to keep putting one foot in front of the other at a pretty fast clip until I'm done.

The third step was an exponential leap in reconnection. In the summer of 2011, I was invited to a reunion of the drama group from my high school. My first thought was, “Where do I sign?” – this would be the first chance I’d had to see most of these people since I graduated from high school! My excitement and anticipation weren’t misplaced – it was an amazing gathering of wonderful long-ago friends and acquaintances, and I helped close down the party that evening. After I got home, I told another friend “If I died right now, I’d be the happiest woman on earth.” Those connections have been strengthened and even expanded over the last two years in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

There is more I could write about, but nothing I might add would change the fact that the most cherished part of all of the events of the last five years, the part that takes my breath away Every. Single. Day, is you, my amazing friends and family. My life is so much richer and fuller, thanks to all of you. I've made wonderful new connections and some astonishing - even breathtaking! - reconnections with many of you in the past couple of years, people whose paths I never dreamed I'd cross again, who weave together many disparate threads of my life.

I write this not to prove anything about myself, but to express my gratitude, and to honor and acknowledge all of us who have experienced challenges and adversity and triumphed over them, thanks to the support of those who care about us. Which is pretty much all of us, right? We're a tough bunch, my friends. Many of you have faced challenges that would bring anyone to their knees. You have all inspired and supported me so much more than you may know, whether through a kind word, an invitation to lunch, a perfectly-timed phone call, or by sharing my enthusiasm for my latest adventure here on FB and in real time, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope I can offer you even a fraction of the love and support you've all shown me.

Did all of this come about just because I broke my brain? Well, we'll never have a control group to help us do a valid study to answer that question, but I'll stand by my story that it did. If I hadn't experienced that calendar-clearing, perspective-altering event, I don't know that I would taste the sweetness of life, and of connection to all of you, as keenly as I do now.

And THAT is why I refer to myself as the Luckiest Woman On The Planet (LWOTP). I’m so grateful for this amazing life, and incredibly grateful to have all of you in it.