lucky girl

these....for no other reason than I was feeling grumpy.
Not for any reason.
I just was.
So he just did.

This was my answer.

To a friend's question, how do you know you're over someone. Not sure it's perfect, but it's what I think.

You give yourself time.
You don't push it.
You fill your days with people and things you love and you love to do.
You allow yourself to feel, but don't get too involved.
You are nice to yourself.
And you don't stress about it.

I think, and some may disagree, that those memories stay tender for a long long time, something you shouldn't poke at, those become old wounds which just stop mattering. If I think hard, they are still there and upon feeling that tenderness, I get worked up. As if the fact that the pain still exists negates or calls into doubt any happy emotions I may currently feel. Its not the case at all. In each of us is a huge capacity to feel. Those feeling can both exist. I just refuse to give the old, achy ones any time or mental energy. I get to choose what matters.

The Best Ones (or unexpected gifts from the universe)

I'm a lucky girl.

I have an amazing family, a job that makes me happy, a house that's all my own, I live in one of the most beautiful places in the country and I've found a handsome friend who loves me.

Yet, even though these things are never far from my mind, I am sometimes blown over by the beauty and the fact that THIS is MY lot in life. I felt that way on a recent trip to the beach. I convinced my handsome friend to go camping for a night (in the same campground we started our early July trip) and then we headed up the coast and stayed three nights in a house with my family. For the most part, it was a great trip. Not without some family drama, but that's not what this is about.

What this is partly about is the fact that my family genuinely likes each other. We don't get to spend enough time all together but the time we do get, I feel we spend well. We drank beer, walked on the beach, laughed, teased, cooked, played games and sat in the company of one another. The two new additions to our "family vacation" were my nephew-- a fun well adjusted 9-year-old and my handsome friend.

I wasn't nervous about bringing him along, but curious about how it would go. How would they react to them? How would he deal with their brand of crazy? How would I feel with him there? It was better than I would have imagined...as truly most things with him are. (Why am I so worried about everything?) The answers to the questions were as follows:

They did as they always do, made room for one more, listened when he had something to say, talked, gently teased him and passed him their beers to try.

He hardly blinked at their crazy (maybe because he is familiar with mine). He took two naps as breaks and rolled his eyes fewer than four times. He cooked amazing macaroni and cheese that my mom is still talking about. He let me vent, a lot, when my family was frustrating me.

How did I feel about him being there? I didn't question it once. He was supposed to be there.

The other thing this post is about is the beach at Seal Rock. Just south of Newport in Central Oregon is a place that I don't think I've ever been before. Growing up we spent almost every major family vacation on the Oregon Coast, driving up and down hunting agates and spotting seals. We have favorite spots that are totally out of the way and beaches we frequented that were just a few miles from where we almost always stayed. But we'd never spent any time at Seal Rock.

Handsome friend and I stopped on a whim when we had a half hour to kill before meeting up with my family. It was beautiful, but we didn't have time to get close. Just enough time to look and decide that we should come back, preferably at low tide.

Sunday, before we packed up and headed east, my mother, my handsome friend and I did just that. We probably got there about 8...the tide was low and there were more tide pools than I had ever seen. "It's like being underwater." He remarked and as I counted more than 7 types of sea weed...laying down awaiting the return of the water I knew he was right. It was a glimpse into another world. There were waterfalls and starfish (both orange and purple), teeny tiny fish and crabs, green and pink anemones, barnacles, muscles and oysters. There were also people, young and old and even a few not very adventurous looking canines picking their way across this exposed landscape. We were not the only ones up early to bear witness to this gift. Because that's what it felt like, an unexpected present, one that made me nearly giddy.

"Look at this, Look at that." I kept pointing, most likely sounding like an annoying little kid. I felt like Ruby, wanting to wiggle and bounce out of pure excitement and joy. It was totally worth getting up early. (Oh, and you should totally click on the picture so you can get an inkling of how cool this place was, but only from a distance, it was a different sort of cool close up.)

Faith. Hope. and Love.

Isn't this wonderful.

Truly right?









This sweater is made of hand spun and most likely hand dyed yarn. My Fiber Based-BFF (FB-BFF) may be nutzo sometimes, but hell, the girl is talented. The buttons are pictures of Scorpio, my Zodiac sign, Mother Theresa, a well dressed Indian man who might be a god but I don't really think so, and George Washington. (She's also sorta funny). It's soft and warm and gender neutral by design. It is a baby sweater and it was part of my 30th birthday present. It made me cry. The beauty of such a gift and the faith it held in it was more than my lonely heart could process.

My most deeply held belief is that happiness is a choice. (I know, I mention this over and over) The world isn't always exactly what you want it to be, but you choose whether to be mired in the ugliness and disappointment or to should deal with what you have in a way that allows you to continue to be happy. I try to do the second.

But somedays it's hard, and other days it's just impossible. On days like this it's nice to have people around who will carry the burden of faith for you. FB-BFF has offered to do that for me. Literally. Most days I want babies and some wonderful soul around to help me raise them. I want them to have long hair and cloth diapers and play in the sand by the river. She knows this about me. Her own children are so beautiful and she is such a good hard working parent, it sometimes kills me to be around them (although, I get far, far to few opportunities). She knows I fear this will never be part of my reality. She knows this and has graciously offered to carry the faith for me, to believe for me when I'm not sure that I do. This sweater is the talisman of her belief.

I started thinking about Faith and Hope (as big ideas worthy of capital letters) after reading a few of my friend Andrew's blog posts. He was talking about the placebo effect and religion. Which I get. I am neither as well educated nor as well opinionated on this subject, but I get what he's saying.

Here are his exact words which I'm fairly certain he will not mind me re-posting. (Sorry, Andrew) "The major gripe I have with religion is that instead of encouraging others to have faith and hope, they insist others have faith in hope in the same things they have faith and hope in."

I love the simple, eloquent and perfectly exact phrasing.

It made me think of a friend I had when I was younger. He was the son of a minister, a Chinese missionary, who had married and brought his wife back to the United States where he led congregations of Chinese Americans. He lived in the same city as me for about four years. He moved to California sometime during high school and we kept in touch, over the phone, for several years. For some reason, he was the first person I opened up to when my parents were splitting up and I felt like I couldn't hold anything, especially myself, together. And we talked and I cried and he told me he'd pray for me.

I felt no cynicism or irritation at his offer, instead, I felt incredibly lucky. I have never been a follower of any religion, and my own spiritual leanings are a rather complicated mess, but when my friend told me he would pray for me I felt thankful. We both knew I didn't believe, but in praying he was holding me up to his highest power. Offering assistance in the form he felt would do greatest good. This was sincerity and love in a pure form. He couldn't help me, but hoped that maybe his prayers could.

(Quick note, I've had other people say this to me and I did not feel as grateful. There was nothing shallow, pandering or overly pious in his offer and his support, which was crucial to it's importance.)

I feel this way about FB-BFF's offer of faith. She knows my limitations. She loves me anyway and still chooses to believe for me. That is love.

This seems critical to me. Love gives shape and support to faith and hope. All can exist simultaneously, but strength comes when the three are fused. In order for that faith and hope to have a shape and substance, there must be love backing it up. Which is why religion sometimes makes sense to me. I understand how all three can be wound together; I understand how such an idea would be enticing. Though I myself cannot believe, I can understand how someone would want to. What I don't understand is religious doctrine that is based on hate or fear....how can hope and faith, both necessary to maintain and grow a religious following, flourish under those conditions? Or why should it when love is so much...easier, freeing, warmer, softer, more welcoming... pick one. I'll be overly simplistic and just go with better. Love is so much better.

My heart is not so lonely these days. The sight of her magical talisman, in my underwear drawer wrapped carefully in tissue paper, seems more sweet than bitter these days. Her faith is still stronger than mine and I am content to let her hold on a while longer, especially because she has not yet asked me to relive her of that particular burden. My handsome friend fills me with a sort shapeless hope that is happiness. Gaining in both strength and consistency I'm in no hurry to mold, poke or prod it into anything more than what it wants to grow into.

My FB-BFF can hold onto the faith, I will nurture the hope, and continue to appreciate that I am surrounded by love.

(Note, I worked on this post off and on for almost 3 weeks. That fact speaks more to my current lack of focus than any other thing. Oh, and Andrew's blog is here: http://oudevoida.blogspot.com/)

a tall order...

but none the less, a gradly noble idea.

It was not my intention...

...for any part of this blog to be a forum for me to work out ideas that are currently inhabiting my WAY TOO obsessive brain. But, some of what I'm writing this summer is an attempt to do just that and since my writing and this blog WERE supposed to be supporting one another, I'm posting what I'm writing and writing what I'm thinking about.

So, I don't know if you've heard of the Fat Acceptance movement or the fatosphere, basically a bunch of websites/blogs devoted to reminding people that fat people are in fact people. I read a few of them, I ignore a bunch of it, but much of it ties in with a lot of feminist ideas that i definitely believe in.

So I read this post: http://www.therotund.com/ , the one about Limbo and now I'm thinking... i can hear you "oh god, when will she go back to school and get a life" and the answer to that is, not yet, but soon. (I'm kidding, anyone reading this may roll their eyes at me out of love and but always ridiculously supportive of me, more than I can imagine that i deserve, but more on that later).

But, there are a few parts which bear consideration: (The italicized parts are direct quotes from the post.)

Fuck deserving it. Okay a good starting point. Who decides what we deserve? obviously we do. And the answer we give ourselves is based on a million factors from major (I worked for my degree I deserve to get a job i love) to minor (I look like shit today, of course the checker at the store was a jerk). But, and she goes on to discuss this but, how do we get to that part where we aren't continually judging ourselves.

Questions of what we’re worth, what we deserve…. They seem oddly religious in foundation to me. Or going back to the old reward system. You can only love yourself if you deserve it. I know the ideas of karma i was playing with earlier this summer do not take into account the idea of deserving, in fact that's almost contrary to what i was talking about earlier, but it is related to the idea of projecting an idea of yourself and what you deserve out upon the universe. How often do we overanalyze events in order to find a REASON they took place, and more often than not, we blame ourselves.

The other idea here is that it is a fundamentally religious question. Do we "deserve" love, of a god figure, of a partner, of our friends, of ourselves.....and if we do, how could we possibly believe it. Maybe I am speaking too broadly here. Too generally, but so often self love is so damn hard, the other people in our lives have so much more forgiveness than that which we offer ourselves. And it is so much easier to forgive someone else than ourselves.

She ends with advice: So, here’s my advice for the limbo period: You don’t have to have come to any conclusions, you just have to table the matter. And then treat yourself the way you would if you already loved yourself. Treat yourself well. And kindly. And treat other people the same way. And it will sink in. So, the answer, according to this beautifully written piece, patience and faith. Really? That's it....Oh good, I was hoping it would be easy.

Part of what I like about this post, and some of the equally well thought out and written comments is that it acknowledges that so many people are trying to work out the same ideas and issues. I think framing it in the idea of Fat Acceptance is slightly limiting. It's a human issue, dealing with ourselves and the ugly parts we have a difficult time forgiving. When it is letting go of those labels and living and thinking and writing and being (or whatever your particular thing may be) is the only way we are going to move forward to whatever we might hope to become. and really, the continual process of becoming sort of seems like the most i can hope for.