Say Nothing

I am not a succint speaker.  I use too many words often to make really simple points.  I talk too much in general so that most of the time people don’t really want to listen.  And I hand talk, feverishly gesticulating as if I’m landing a verbal 747.  Unfortunately the plane never lands because I’m circling around and around my words trying desperately to get to the right gate.

The result of this mess is an uncertain voice.  I think too much about what I need to say and then don’t say what I want even when I think about it.  My heart beats fast.  I sweat.  And eventually I end up saying a whole lot of nothing.

Tonight’s insight came to me the hard way:  via a telephone conference call.  <insert dread>

Calling in at all, for me, was a huge step.  The event we’re planning is important but not something that necessarily demands my input.  I could have easily avoided it, but I am practicing doing my best, being impeccable with my word and taking risks.  This conference call was a personal test.

I was the first person on the line with the facilitator, and I did what I always do when I’m uncomfortable.  I made a joke about my trepidation and then rambled on about something with regard to nothing.  There was a slight chuckle and then, bless her heart, the facilitator gave me a precious gift.

She said, “During the call when there is silence, let there be silence.”

I was still completely overwhelmed the entire hour by five or six of us on the same line, never really knowing who was speaking.  Add in an annoying echo that made us all sound like garbled aliens.  And each time I had a point to make, I’m still quite sure the others wondered who the alien was who couldn’t land her ship.

But in spite of all that, I didn’t feel obligated to speak.  I didn’t fear the uncomfortable nothingness.  If I had something to say, I did.  If I didn’t, I listened.

The amazing thing:  when nobody was talking, the silence said a lot.

100/0

I know.  It has been ages since I’ve been here, but shame is over-rated.  That I’m here NOW is a beautiful step.

My life coach just sent me a link to a small video clip.  The simple premise of the video is that if you give 100 percent in relationship and expect 0 in return…eventually you’ll receive 100.  Based on the concepts of compassion, kindness and respect, I have no doubt it works.  Especially since it is HEART focused, not HEAD.

Which is why my heart feels so blue. 

I recently called for a retreat in a dear friendship.  The art of detachment is not my strong suit.  Words were exchanged.  Feelings were hurt.  Ulterior motives were used.  Attempts were made to remedy the situation and I resisted.  I felt stifled, hurt, powerless.  I had asked for more and was told it wasn’t possible at that moment.  I was told that the attempt to give me more was a “precious burden.”   Worse, when sharing some personal realizations I had made about myself and a love relationship, the reaction was less than supportive.  I felt nothing but the need for time and space. 

But after watching the two and a half minutes of a video…and thinking about this situation for almost three months, maybe my head has been doing too much of the work.   Why did I think that time would make it better?  Time has just been time.  It hasn’t made it better, only more distant. 

I’ve penned a few letters that didn’t get mailed.  I’ve thought to stop by but don’t.  I’ve reached out in very tiny ways via another source with no response.  The reality is this person may no longer need this friendship.  Why?  Because maybe I expected more than was fair in return…at least in that moment.  And maybe the call for retreat was more than tolerable in what was supposed to be an everlasting friendship.

So, here I sit.  Learning a lesson.  A broken relationship.  Yes, I have grown.  The retreat has given me new perspective…which is exactly what I needed.  But I didn’t really pay attention to what the other person needed.  I just unilaterally decided to protect MY heart…and lost sight of the other heart.

I struggle with how to remedy this situation.  It’s my job,  just clueless where to begin.  That’s why the video sticks with me tonight.

Here’s to all of you who have work to do in relationship.  You’re not in it alone.

 The video’s link:http://www.flickspire.com/m/hwnw/HundredZero

Sorry, Baby

The baby I conceived and delivered after years of thinking about her has been neglected.  She’s not even a year old yet and already deserves a foster parent.  Child protection would have my head.  What kind of parent does this?  Not a real one.  Good thing my baby is only a blog.  I hope she forgives me.  Let’s hope absence made the heart grow fonder.

Susceptible Host

Remember about three months back when I was delivering urine in a gift bag?  Yeah, well, there was a reason.  A reason beyond checking every six months for the recurrence of cancer.  I’m under the watchful eyes of all sorts of people in the wellness village and one of them suspected something wonky.  So I peed in a cup and delivered it.  (Read about it in Special Delivery: Urine in a Gift Bag.)

When those golden results came back I had to do other less liquid bodily things into other scientific receptacles before playing with vials and rubber gloves, sealing the bright-orange-look-at-my-biohazard-bag-everybody and delivering my specimen to FedEx to be flown with haste cross country to a big, medical laboratory.

When those lab results came back (just in time for my birthday) I was sent with not enough haste across town to yet another wellness villager who confirmed the diagnosis and set me up with months worth of two powerful pills plus some botanical doozies that even a horse wouldn’t swallow. The reason:  to kill off the three parasites on vacation in my body.  Yes, my body, the figurative Tahiti for three powerful worms that have apparently been there for what the villagers suspect to be quite some time.

Hard to tell where I got them.  Maybe I picked them up along the winding interstate of my toilet-touching job.  Perhaps I adopted their lost and abandoned souls on the bottom of my smelly shoe at the dog park.  More than likely they held my hand after I touched the soil at some particular moment in time when they were no longer fond of the open air and took a direct flight from hand to face to mouth desiring a more secluded vacation spot in my gut.  It doesn’t matter where I got them.  I just have them, asymptomatically and severely. 

Another of my wellness villagers asked me recently when I suspect I became their host.  Isn’t that such a nice way to put it?  “…when I supsect I became their host.”  Sounds as if I planned a black tie gala and played queen at their royal affair, but no.  Just worms squatting in my body for an all-inclusive party for which I clearly missed the invitation.

The weird thing is I intuitively know when they arrived.  I told the inquiring villager that their check-in date was probably right after radiation when my cellular chips were down and I was hell-bent to do something with my healing self, so I tidied up my autumnal yard in preparation for the deep freeze of winter.  The villager nodded, not critically necessarily but with added influence and said, “…when you were most susceptible.”   Well, yes.  But snow doesn’t wait for healthy immune systems, lady.   

I may not know where they boarded my plane or the exact moment when they signed my guest book, but I do believe I know why.  In the last three months all other Universal signs including this parasitic soiree symbolize a whopping, wormy lesson on my susceptibility as a human being in general. 

I can’t blame the worms.  They picked a lovely and seasoned host.  I also won’t blame myself.  This hasn’t been a conscious trip.  From my beginning I have been the welcome wagon to all things needing care.  Stripped at birth of any protective latex I started life susceptible.  Raised to allow all things in needing attention and protection and power, I grew to be the poster child of caretaking.  I’m safe.  I’m loving.  I’m reliable and trustworthy and fun at a party, and most important: I will throw all my boundaries away believing that my job is to care for you.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are perks to the job.  Everybody wants to be needed, right?  Feels good to be loved, huh?  And then one day when least expected this ideal host lost power.   Maybe not even lost it, just realized I maybe never kept it.  Or had it?  Did I give it all away because that’s what good hosts are taught to do?  Or did I give it all away without knowing that I needed to reserve some for me?  Who knows.  I do know that no host is an excellent host if all the lights go out and nobody can see who you are.  Funny-we give and we give and we give and think that’s what people (or parasites) want, and then one day we’re no longer fun to be around because we have so little to give anywhere.

So these worms are my friends teaching me that I don’t have to let everything in.  In fact I can also let go and still be loved and needed and accepted.  It took 40 years of codependent knocks on the head and funky cells in my boob and parasites in my belly to finally begin to understand that being vulnerable and open is not the same as susceptible and powerless.  One is healthy, one is not.  I’m just now learning the difference.

What’s next?  All things wormy inside, at least those feeding negatively at the continental breakfast, will exit or be asked to exit eventually.  I’ll be retested and continue to gain strength.  I’ll still allow a variety of travelers in but with a better understanding of what healthy guests at my resort need to look like.  And every now and again I reserve the right to post a NO VACANCY sign so that I can clean the place, order more tiki torches and take my own rejuvenating vacation to celebrate the me I am becoming for me.

Hydration

I’m still pondering something that was said to me a few days ago.

I was at the co-op shopping for something called Emergen-C.  My homeopath suggested it to help with a hydration problem I seem to be having.  I’ve been out of it, tired, plagued by a dull headache, blah.  Since water isn’t doing the trick and more familiar sports beverages are loaded with high fructose corn syrup, I decided to give it a whirl.

When I brought my few items to the checkout, the chatty cashier welcomed me by asking all sorts of questions.  The typical: Was I a member-owner?  Followed by: Is it hot out there?  Any big plans for the weekend?  Any news to report?  When he scanned my box of Emergen-C, he lifted it up, eyed me curiously and asked, “Are you feeling ok?” 

A little thrown off I gave him my cash and said, “I’m ok.  It’s just hard to stay hydrated lately.”

He handed me the receipt, shrugged and said, ”I find it easier to stay hydrated than happy.”

That was that.  The next customer replaced me in line and our brief moment of being alive in the same space was over.  I took my things and mindlessly walked to the car.  In my dazed state I just sat there, somewhat stunned by just how complex and yet not-s0-complex every moment of life can be all at the same time.  

That tiny exchange with a stranger is still in my head days later.  I haven’t figured out the meaning of it yet.  I just wanted to say that I hope you find some version of Emergen-C in your life today to keep you ”hydrated” in whatever way you need.

Special Delivery: Urine in a Gift Bag

I celebrated the one year anniversary of the completion of radiation for breast cancer today by going to the clinic.  I had multiple tubes of blood drawn and I had to provide a urine sample…the first of the morning…produced at home since the clinic wasn’t open at 5:45 in the morning.  That meant I had to a) collect it and b) deliver it. 

Now, I’ve done this before for my labrador.  It took a few mishaps over his 10+ years before I finally learned the art of flawless pee collection.  Once I stupidly forgot to glove the collection hand.  The next time I had the hand gloved but forgot to take the lid off the container.  (The noise of liquid on plastic startled him so much that he jerked and peed all over my arm.)  The final time I had the hand gloved AND I removed the lid, but I moved too fast once he was finished, brushed the container on his privates and watched a perfectly good sample water my grass.  Years later I’ve finally got it down.  (It’s an elaborate process that involves duct tape, a yard stick, and stealth-like moves on my part that really should be patented.)

But this was the first time I’ve ever had to do it to myself.  I’ve peed in a cup AT the clinic.  Never before asked to bring urine TO the clinic.  So out came the same type Glad-lock container that I use for the dog sample.  (NO—not the same actual CONTAINER, the same TYPE.)  I left the duct tape and yard stick in the closet, gloved the hand and voila—another flawless collection.

The difficulty came while considering the delivery.  When I’ve taken the dog’s urine to the vet it hasn’t been a big deal.  That’s because everybody knows it came from the dog, and the dog doesn’t care.  But when a human is carrying a container filled with yellow liquid into a medical clinic, it’s not like you can lie and blame it on the dog.  Plus, there are so many obstacles to actually getting the sample there. 

First you have to deal with sealing the container.  I don’t care how tight Glad claims their containers seal…you can never be too safe.  Then there’s the actual delivery package.  Be bold and carry it in hand visible to all?  Or discreet and avoid any stares?  I opted for a pretty gift bag.  What a nice friend I am to be making a gift delivery, right?  Plus, since I had sealed the container inside a Ziploc baggie there was limited risk that my “gift” would leak.  Even so, no matter how prepared you are, any time you board a busy clinic elevator and have to ride six stories with your urine in a gift bag, there’s a tiny element of nervousness.  It was like knowing something that other people didn’t know and having to force myself not to suddenly scream out under stress,  “I have pee in my bag!”  I was happy to exit the elevator.

Only I found myself leaving the elevator and sitting shoulder to shoulder in a 4×4 sized waiting area of the actual lab.  Unless one is completely clueless wouldn’t YOU wonder what a patient who signs in at the window is doing with a gift bag in the lab at 9 in the morning?  I totally would. 

That’s why I could have KISSED the lab technician when she opened the waiting room door-looked down at the chart to find my name-looked up, as if she had known me since grade school, and cheerily said without any hesitation: ”Hi, Annette.  Did you bring chocolate chip this time?”

From Yes, But to Show Up

“Yes, but, I work.”  That was my pitiful response at the dog park today when my friend, Sunny, gently nudged that when people start a blog they’re kind of expected to keep posting, hello.  At least more often than twice!  I tried to hide the disappointment in myself by filling the void with more yes, buts.  Yes, but, I’ve been busy.  Yes, but, there was the holiday.  Yes, but how do people find time?  Yes, but…but…but, um…  Then, thank goodness, my dog, Tess, snarked at another dog and the subject was changed.  Good dog! 

I have no excuse other than to admit that my life up until now has been ruled by yes, buts.  That’s why it has taken me this long to start most anything, including a blog.  That’s also why I’ve careened nearly to forty years old wondering where the first thirty-nine went.  Even cancer and surgeries and radiation didn’t completely knock the yes, buts out of my system.  What the heck will it take? 

I was recently listening to a rebroadcast of author Kate DiCamillo (who I love) being interviewed on public radio.  She was on a book tour for her most recent book, The Magician’s Elephant.  I listened intently, riveted to her words, her thoughts, her unique humor.  My reaction to this repeat airing was the same as it was the first time I heard her.  It was mostly a mixture of creative admiration followed by a spiral into despair.  Spirals like these are frequent and quick and go something like this:  ‘She’s funny-great books-wonderful role model-such talent-imagine if-I wonder how-you could-yes, but…’  And right as I was about to turn her off, envious of another so and so (this time a lucky book author who must have been born with an agent in her hand) my yes, but was interrupted by a child’s voice that confidently boomed (even with a toothless, lateral ‘s’) into the Q & A microphone.  She asked, “What do you tell kids(th) who want to be writers(th?)” 

And Kate’s response went something like this:  Do you want to be a writer?  (Uh, huh.)  Any adults out there wondering the same thing about anything?  Or other kids maybe?  I don’t really know other than to show up.  Show up for your life.  Take risks.  There are stories all around you.  Listen to people.  Pay attention.  And carry a notebook.  Show up and carry a notebook.  The rest is pretty much up to grace.

Ok, then.  Do you think I’ll need to hear that same public radio broadcast a third time to get the message?  Or be nudged by a friend to keep at it?  Or threatened by a really scary thing out of my control that reminds me life isn’t permanent?  Probably, yes…but…something is different this time.