Doing Sh*t

On my way into my first audition last Saturday, a good friend texted me support, saying:
“You’re DOING SHIT!”

This is in stark (pfft, get it?) contrast to one of my most read blogs, Magical Accidental Orgasm (and I can tell from the stats list that many people find it by searching “Accidental Orgasm” on Google!). The blog was about my realization that I was waiting for someone to come along and prescribe for me my life, my bliss, my path without me doing much of anything. I was waiting for someone to (metaphorically!) “give me orgasms,” as I cribbed from The Vagina Monologues.

But today, two years later, I am no longer waiting. Today, I am doing shit.

This morning I woke up and practiced the bass line for the set my band is playing on Saturday. Tomorrow, I’m going to take my first voice lesson from someone who comes with great recommendations. And Sunday, I will start rehearsal for Addam’s Family: The Musical (which still just gets such the kick out of me!).

(Side-bar: Coincidentally, when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I dressed as Wednesday Addams for Halloween. So I guess it’s appropriate that 20 years later, I play her mother!)

Doing shit. Despite my thinking – always despite my thinking – I continue to put good things in my path. I honestly don’t remember how I found that audition call.

But, I do remember finally having coffee with a friend/acting mentor last Sunday to help me in my newbie, greenness. She is the one who suggested the song I sang for my auditions, and who recommended this voice teacher. She invited me to come over last Wednesday and practice my monologue in front of her.

And last Friday, I invited a woman to coffee who is making a go of the “life as singer” life to ask her how I could get out of my bubble of not being seen. She had many great suggestions, just to get me out and singing. Like choruses, and meet-ups, and this piano bar I didn’t know about that’s here in the East Bay.

I don’t want to do shit. Doing shit is scary!! But I also don’t want to wait for someone else to press play on my life, because that person is not coming. I don’t want to wait for the trumpet blast or starting gun or treasure map or even Ed McMahon, because they’re not coming.

This doesn’t mean that I move any quicker, but despite my fears, doubts, self-derision, scarcity mind, I continue to ask for help and put myself in the path of ... shit.

That’s how all these things have happened. I ran into a friend and jokingly said if you need a second bassist, and in fact, he was just trying to put back together this side project, but thought I wasn’t doing music anymore. Well, now! Yes, please! And so, here we are, about to play a show.

I like the responsibility and accountability it gives me to myself and to my dreams, not to mention to others. Having to show up with other people means that I can’t flake out. I have to wake up and practice, or I’ll be disappointed and disappointing. I have to make audition dates, or I’ll languish in “someday” and “wouldn’t it be nice.” I have to take voice lessons, show up at piano bars, take suggestions, or I will continue to say, “Not good enough, not really, not me.”

If wishes were horses… Apparently, I’d ride. 

Disarming.

I am having a languid, delightful time getting to know someone. A man.

The same someone who inspired me to look at how much I don’t want to let a romantic interest get to know me. And, for whatever this is or will be, it’s really, really nice.

I described to a friend what it felt like to be held – not spooning, or even the enjoyable resting of your head on the guy’s chest – but simply standing, holding one another, like the kind of extended hug that someone forces around you until you relax. Until they can feel your shoulders drop, and your lungs start to inhale again. Until you feel safe enough to breathe.

It’s like that, only without the imperative insistence of the extended hug. This feels, to me, mutual, natural, like we both are relieved just to stand there, heads tucked, arms wrapped, bodies together, and breathe for a minute, guileless. It’s similar to the feeling I sometimes have when I realize that I’ve been holding my breath or breathing shallowly for too long, and I finally take a nice deep breath into my belly. Filling out my whole body with awareness, instead of constriction.

It’s a feeling that you didn’t know how stressed or armored or anxious you were, until it falls away so fucking naturally and quickly, that it almost makes you dizzy. And suddenly, you’re just two people, two hearts, unaware you were looking for relief and comfort and ease, until now you’re experiencing it.

It’s benevolent, and it's grace.

For me, it’s also an awareness, I think, of how lonely and body-starved I’ve been. Not for sex, though sure, but for that kind of holding. To be held. It’s actually, now that I think of it, what I came to at the conclusion of my meditation retreat in January. I concluded that this year, I wanted to learn to let myself be held.

I almost always hold my breath, as I’ve written about before. Even in the safety and constance of my own home. I am always on guard, protecting myself from something. And it’s just so tiring, but I don’t realize it – didn’t realize it, until in this togetherness, I find it fall from around me, and experience feeling unburdened and relieved of that something. 

I am not Fate’s author, I am only the scribe. So, I can only report to you what I know, and share with you how I feel in the moment, today. As everything changes so quickly.

But recognizing for myself that there’s another way of being, that there’s an open way to be, that in fact that way of being feels like its own ecstasy, I think I’m learning that my armor is not as useful as it once was. And that being held, without that shield, is more healing, joyful, and filling than I could have predicted. 

My Brain Reads Like a Cafe Gratitude Menu...

I am pure, undiluted joy.

Honestly, you could culture my blood for Potions class.

There was an impromptu dance party.

I left an incoherent bubbling message on my mom’s voicemail, and called my brother, too. Who told me I’m awesome. And who I told back that he is, too.

For those who don’t follow my Facebook feed, I found out this morning that I got the role of Morticia in “Addams Family: The Musical.”

The one I don’t even know how I found the audition call for. The one I auditioned for this weekend to my own mediocre reviews. The one I was called back for, to my own mediocre reviews.

I’m sensing a trend here: What I think, and what reality tells me, may be two very different things.

And, here, for the better.

The astounding thing to me is this is the second lead role I’ve been offered in as many months. From, “you know your height gets in your way” to “please join us” … Wow.

There’s a quote that called me to sit for a moment in silence on my bed, breathing heavy from the fist pumping, Elaine-thumbs-out dance party:

Don’t forget to pause a minute and thank G-d for everything.

Thank you. Thank you, Universe, for conspiring for me. Thank you, Molly, for showing up even though you’re scared and doubtful. Thank you, FRIENDS, for receiving those phone calls and texts that ask you to send me love and support. Thank you, friends, for sending love and “likes” and hope.

I need you way more than you know.

And you always show up, which is marvelous – like, something to marvel at. Really.

The play will run mid-September to mid-October. This means that I will spend my October 7th birthday in performance.

I spent my 30th birthday with fondue and friends. I spent my 31st in a hospital bed, saying, "Next year: Brunch, huh?"

I celebrated 32, indeed, at brunch with a dear friend and her two kids whose laughter is part of my salvation.

And, god willing, I will spend 33 in pursuit of a dream I have let languish in a faded costume closet. The clothing of another woman in another life.

Life moves and shakes, it do.

And part of my work is to accept that these costumes, these roles, these friends, this love, this life … are for me, too.

Let’s throw open the doors, pull out these moth-eaten dreams, and hold them up to reality. They may be more solid than I’ve wanted to know.

Thank. You. 

Jazz Hands.

Yesterday was quite the hilarity.

I was called back for the dance audition for Addams Family the Musical, and it was just too funny and fun! There was a choreographer, who taught about 25 of us in a small side room off the theater, that had a wall of mirrors and a ballet bar.

There were people who were obviously dancers, and many who obviously weren't. But, we're shown this whole dance routine for about 40 minutes, going over part by part, to make up about only 2 minutes of dancing! Then we were called in groups of 5 to do it on the actual stage... Eek!

It was awesome and hilarious and super fun. I did alright. Everyone had to go a second time, and about half of us forgot it by then. Witness! Human's amazing short-term memory!

I was called to stay afterward to read for one of the leads, and although I would certainly love to take that role, I don't know if I have enough experience. I do think that I'll take a role in the chorus if I get it. I mean, it was a lot of fun.

And the whole concept is just ridiculous enough to be my kinda ridiculous. And FUN.

A friend of mine always used to tell me: Don't forget the "f" word: Fun.

That is the point of all this for me. Yes, theater is meant to be moving and evocative and a distillation of real life for two hours in a way that makes your hours outside of it gain meaning, at least for the few days after you leave the theater.

But, for me, knowing what I do about this very short mortal coil, I'd really love to have fun while I'm at it.

(Monday's truncated blog due to workout studio shift.)

How to Eat an Elephant.

Thank you, to whoever read my blog Perseverance yesterday, which encouraged me to read it, which I’m sure I haven’t done since I wrote it in November 2012. Particularly appropriate today is the following:

With each creative endeavor, as you know by now, I pull back at some point. Painting, acting, writing, singing. I will spend a few months active in pursuance of these interests, and then wane. I will talk myself back from it, in any number of ways, and move back into my mediocrity.

Yesterday, I showed up for two theater auditions. At the first, I sang a bit of a song (“Whatever Lola Wants,” from Damn Yankees) and a bit of a monologue (Sherry Johnson, from The Laramie Project).

It was the first time I’ve auditioned for a musical since high school; I only just heard the whole song on Monday; and I’d never practiced it with an accompanist before. Let’s just say, I could have done better!

(However, I’m “lucky” enough to have already had several auditions where I really bombed, where I said, “I’m so sorry can I start again…” three times! So I know what really bombing is! And I survived.)

At the second audition yesterday, for… The Addams Family, A Musical (HAHAH!!!), I was to prepare only a song, and I sang the same one, this time a little better. But.

There’s a moment in the song, where it hits a high note. It’s one that this whole week I’ve been nervous about hitting, not because I can’t, but because I can’t when I’m holding back. It’s not an unattainable note at all: it’s one I can’t reach when I’m nervous about it, scared I can’t hit it, and am psyching myself out, even as I come to that line.

Then I can’t hit that note. And that’s precisely what happened at yesterday's audition.

And the paragraph from my blog Perseverance is achingly on point. “I talk myself back from it.” That’s exactly what happened.

Now, granted, I’m pretty proud of how I handled everything yesterday, too.

After my first audition, I immediately called a member of Team Molly, and laughed really hard about how I bombed it. The silence of the auditors, the awkwardness, the sad case of the whole thing – I laughed. Because, really, what else can you do? It’s over, it’s done. I can get all butthurt and self-flagellating, or I can ask myself what I learned from the experience.

Which is what I did. I asked it aloud, so as not to give in to the brain gremlins on my drive home: What did I learn?

Well, I learned that I need to practice my songs with accompaniment. I learned that I need to know my songs much better and stronger than one week. And I learned that I really do need to take classes or lessons, if I’m serious about doing this. Which I am.

As with the “real” headshots I finally got done early this year, if I’m really serious about making a go of this, then I have to literally put my money (and energy) where my mouth is. I have to invest in myself.

It’s all well and good to show up partly prepared to these things, and see what kind of results I get. Sure. That’s totally one way to do this. But. That’s not at all what I want. I don’t want to feel I gave it a mediocre chance.

No matter what the results, I really do want to try my best, and this is not at all my best. This is lip service.

Nonetheless. As the first line of my morning pages said this morning, “I did really well because I showed up anyway!!”

I also supported myself throughout the day, instead of falling into despair or hopelessness, which would be really easy. And which would look like coming home to a pint of ice cream and 8 hours of Netflix.

Instead, I drove back to the Bay, went grocery shopping, and went to meet up with friends for an hour to hear their brain dump, and share a little of mine.

And then I went to the second audition.

After which, I created plans for myself so that I didn’t come home and isolate. I made plans with a friend to get out of both our comfort zones and go to this poetry open mic thing that happens monthly nearby. Neither of us were going to read, but just to go to check it out. Try something new. And not be alone in our heads.

It totally worked. I set up for myself stop-gaps for my racing thoughts, for my “not good enough” thoughts. I got into the day and out of myself. And what all of this does is allows me to show up again next time. Because who wants to show up again for something that you tell yourself you sucked at?

Instead, I showed up again, and I will endeavor to support myself with a steadfast vision by taking classes and making sure that I don’t have to feel so psyched out and unprepared next time.

And, just so’s you know. I got called back to the Addam’s Family audition, anyway. ;) Wish me luck!... No, forget luck. Wish me love. 

Prerequisites

I’m still wading through Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly. I can only take mind-blowing awareness in small chunks! The latest chunk being:

The important thing to know about worthiness is that it doesn’t have prerequisites. Most of us, on the other hand, have a long list of worthiness prerequisites [most of which] fall in the categories of accomplishments, acquisitions, and external acceptance. It’s the if/when problem (“I’ll be worthy when…” or “I’ll be worthy if…”)

Sound familiar?

To me it does. And yet. I have other quotes to help combat this if/when thought habit.

One of which is on my fridge, and comes from a book on auditioning, actually: “There are no mistakes, only misinterpretations.”

Brene talks a lot about the difference between shame and guilt. Shame = I am bad. Guilt = I did something bad. With guilt, your inherent worth and worthiness is not called into question, and she encourages us to use “guilt self-talk” instead of “shame self-talk,” if we have to use anything at all.

Which, we usually do, because… we all make misinterpretations!

It’s interesting. Yesterday, I got the chance to spend some time with a coworker’s 10-year old daughter who was home for the summer, but didn’t have anywhere to be this week. After way too many days watching t.v. on her phone, I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk yesterday. And so we did.

We walked to the nearby park, and when we got to the water and I encouraged her to touch the cool, lapping stream, she was surprised and delighted, and asked if we could walk in it.

Well, I wasn’t expecting to do that, but SURE! Off come the socks and shoes and into the shallows we go.

On our walk back to civilization (a whole block away), she was reporting a story to me about something that had happened with her father the day before. A story that would likely be categorized as one of Road Rage. As she told the story, I experienced many reactions and opinions. Aghast, sad, worried, judgmental, superior.

But what I said was, "There are many different ways to handle situations, and that was one way to handle it."

I’m NOT the person to tell her her father was wrong, inappropriate, endangering, or negligent. I am the person, in that little short hour, to tell her, Yes, we can play in the water, and you are safe with me. I am not going to pile my opinions onto you, because I know you’re making your own.

You go ahead and love your dad. You observe him, and make your own choices. You be influenced by who and how he is, and you’ll have the chance to work through any of that if you need to.

But for right now... I didn’t even say, "That sounds scary," because she wasn’t telling it that way. She was reporting, to see how I’d react, I think. Was what he was doing appropriate? Wasn’t that funny or awful? No. It was neither. It was human.

(As I write this, I realize that I can use this lesson and aim it in a parental direction in my own life.)

It’s slow-going through Brene’s book, because there’s so much meat to her observations and suggestions.

But her lamplight to guide us and offer hope on this journey of misinterpretations is as follows:

Those who feel lovable, who love, and who experience belonging simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging. I often say that Wholeheartedness is like the North Star: We never really arrive, but we certainly know if we’re headed in the right direction.

By not attaching my own value or values to this little girl’s experience, I get to let her have her own North Star and continue to follow mine. No ifs, whens or buts. 

Pushing the RelationShip off the Edge of the Earth

As I recently found out in “Well, Shoot…” there are things that I claim that I want but if they did actually happen, I’m not sure I could show up for them.

It’s embarrassing to be here again.

It just makes me feel really old and really weary.

And I’ll start with the perfect example that I’m sure I’ve told here before:

When I was in college, I was having a fling with a guy. It was purely physical, no “date nights,” no philosophical conversations; whenever both of us were into it, we’d contact the other. Easy peasy.

Then, one night, lying in bed after our activities, he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner. I was aghast, “Why?!” Because I want to get to know you, he replied, as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

And after that night, I never called him again.

Perhaps to most people it is the most obvious and natural thing in the world to want to get to know the person you’re being physically intimate with. But my years of practicing it otherwise have hardened me to the kind of softness real connection requires.

(I feel really vulnerable writing about this today, I have to say.)

See, there would be no problem if I only wanted to “hit it & quit it.” But I don’t. I would like a connection, I would like a relationship. I would like to be vulnerable and intimate with another person and have them be that way with me.

But when the glimpse of that possibility arises, I bolt. Too much, too scary, I can’t, I don’t know how, is followed by the justifications, You only want sex anyway, why don’t you just hit it & quit it? Stop trying to pretend you want to get to know me.

It’s very easy for me to throw up the barriers, and to put between us one of those cardboard cut-outs of myself: Here is my reasonable facsimile. Have fun.

No, really, just have FUN! Enough with the getting to know me bullshit. Light’s out, Nobody home.

And the trouble today is that I’m really tired of this M.O. And, yet, I’m really terrified to be any way else – the way else being “real.”

So, again, I come to a place where what I say I want (a relationship) in the light of that possibility I say fuck no.

I can lick the wounds of old hurts for many more years to come. I can point to those people to whom I’ve been real and vulnerable and been eviscerated. I can pile up the evidence to say, See, this and this and here is why I can’t show up fully anymore, I’ve been hurt.

But who hasn’t?

To tangent, once again:

There are several situations lately, where I’ve gotten to show up fully, stand in my truth, and not let fear drive me or hide me.

I was offered a job that would pay me minimum wage, but would be in a profession and a capacity that would be a dream. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I turned the job down. I’m able to show up for myself, I don’t have to abandon my truth.

I declined the invitation to my father’s wedding, despite the already rolling-in fall-out. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

I was offered the lead in a play that I didn’t want to be in. And, once again, after much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to turn it down, show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

What each of these are evidence of is that I am creating boundaries for myself, and a value for myself. I am able to weigh and measure how I feel in a situation, and parse out if it feels right for me. I don’t have to make snap judgments of yes or no, of people pleasing, or underselling, or hiding.

I've been scared to be vulnerable because I'm scared I can't show up for myself, or protect myself when I need to. I've been scared to be vulnerable because I think it lays me open to being attacked. 

But, what I have done in just the last fucking month is to back myself up. I have let myself be open to what was true for me, and be honest (enough) with those I had to create boundaries with.

Isn’t it possible then, that the same practice, the same muscles could be exercised in relationships? Isn’t it possible that I can show up with my truth, with all of me, even though, YES IT’S THE HARDER THING, but it’s the most rewarding of all?

I’m having a tough time at the moment accepting that I’m going to have to change my M.O. Not serving me well, surely, but familiar as all get out.

As a friend once sardonically said, “Everybody look at me, but please avert your eyes.”

Oh, you want to look at me. Oh, I find that I want to look back.

Well, Shoot. 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s just a hobby, an escape.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s too hard and I’m not good enough.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because I don’t know how to show up consistently.

Any of these types of questions ever cross your mind? Any of these questions and immediate quashings?

This morning, that question came to me. I always dismiss my writing becoming a means or an ends. I don’t make the time; I haven’t touched the essay my aunt said I should submit to the New York Times’ Modern Love section. I haven’t crafted anything for the The Sun, a magazine at least 3 people have suggested I submit my work to.

It’s just me being me. How is that worthy or interesting or enough?

Because I saw someone else had clicked on it, I just re-read a blog I wrote in January, Remember What the Redwoods Told You, about being “told” by the trees that I was going to live through my cancer. And as I read through the end of it, about being given the chance to be in my life, to make this time worthy, I think about all the procrastination and fear I still let grab hold of my ankles.

This is not a self-flagellation blog; as you can read in italics above, I already have plenty of those thoughts. But, they are just thoughts, not facts. And thoughts can be changed. Through action.

“Act your way into right thinking,” the phrase goes.

I’ve “thought” for a while about waking up earlier (yes, even earlier) to do some “real” writing. It hasn’t happened yet, and that’s okay, but I know that I work better in the morning, when my brain cells still have some anima.

And as I was finding this question arise in my meditation this morning, goading me to find a legitimate reason for postponing my good, I thought of a perfect resource friend I can reach out to about this, and actually get something into action. And maybe deadline.

Because, as my acting friend told me earlier this week when I asked her how she “makes” herself learn monologues, she answered, Deadlines. She sets up deadlines by signing up for auditions, and makes sure she has a back pocket filled with current monologues.

To paraphrase, Our growth can come as much from our actively seeking it, as it can from being forced.

But, it helps to be pushed a little.

That’s what registering for these auditions is for me, a push to get back into it, to not let another month and another month slide off the calendar. To make this year “worthwhile,” to me means to actually do those things that I think are for other people, people with talent or time or resources. Bull.

The only difference between them and me is action. Nothing more.

A rallying, warrior cry sounds every day for me. It is my choice to heed its call or to roll over and hit Snooze.

And yet, it is also my choice to condemn myself or not on the days I do hit Snooze. As I wrote yesterday, there’s no use in beating myself up for not being where I want to be – that doesn’t actually get me there quicker.

What helps with all of this is accountability, which a deadline is, but also what friends can be. I’ve been toying with the idea (thinking, again!) recently of getting an “Action Buddy,” or “Accountability Partner” whatever you want to call it.

I know this is a system that works for many people, and I believe it could work for me. So, with all irony, I’m going to add “Get an Accountability Buddy” to my list of personal actions… and see if I can hold myself accountable to that!

Because there is no reason I’m not writing that is valid. I know there’s grist here; I know there’s “enough” talent. I would love to take actions that reflect that knowledge. Because, if you haven’t noticed, I seem to think that Time is our most precious natural resource of all.

Excising a Lily-Liver

As part of my personal work, I am called to amend relationships in my life that are in need of clarity and repair.

As part of that work, I broke down my list of these people into three categories: People I fall out of touch with; Men I intrigue with; and My dad.

I’ve begun the work on those I’ve fallen out of touch with – it’s usually out of a habitual belief that I’m not good enough to show up for relationships and I self-prophesize that by allowing relationships that I value fall away. These are relatively easy to repair, and by doing so, I get to challenge these false and long-held beliefs by being consistent, responsible, and focused on the truth.

Amending my relationships with the second set of humans is more … well, I was going to say more difficult, but it’s not more “difficult,” it’s just harder because I have more invested in those. If you don’t know what intriguing is, it’s those little flirtations, vaguely flirtatious texts or conversations, or over-active “likings” of someone else’s Facebook page in a "winking" kinda way. It’s, for me, engaging in flirtatious behavior with people I don’t want to go any further with, and sometimes with people I have no interest in, but who I know I can reach out to when my self-esteem meter is low for a little infusion of “See, I have value: he wants me,” and a little hit of adrenaline from the oblique exchange.

This is a very old habit. And it’s excruciatingly unfair to both the men and to myself, especially any of those who think there’s still a shot. It’s unfair to me, because I continue to feed the delusion that my self-esteem comes from others, and to crowd the field of actual potential partners with distractions – albeit often very handsome, talented and hilarious distractions.

Since the time that I wrote down the half dozen or so names of those with whom I was actively engaging in this behavior, about half have simply fallen away through circumstance and lack of my engaging. They’re intrigues, not relationships usually, so they don’t require some big conversation like, “Hey, I’m trying to be more clear in my relationships, and I just want to say that I really appreciate you as a friend, and that I see us just being friends in the future.”

The funny thing about saying this is that, when I’ve given that speech in the past, usually the response is, “Yeah, totally! I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Which is fine. I love you and your egos, and I will help preserve them too; I’m not here to bust your balls. I’m just here to offer us both some clarity and let us both off the carousel of “Will we/Won’t we” so that we can get on with our lives.

But. For some of the people on my current list, that conversation is necessary, and in a truncated, “light” version, I had that talk with one of these men recently. And the backlash from it was … well, people don’t like when you change the rules in the middle of the game. And I’m having to show up for the fall-out of that, even though I just want to avoid it. I participated in the game, I should participate in the dénouement.—Oh, but how much easier to Cut & Run!! Oh, old M.O., how I love you! … and miss you.

Because I don’t really do or want to do that anymore. See: first subset of humans: retracting from relationships because I don’t believe I can show up.

It’s the same underlying belief in this second category. 

More will be revealed, and I have some writing to do and a conversation to have with some for whom I’ve changed the rules. It’s not comfortable, but neither is predicating a relationship on false hope.

The final category, I see now, has its foundation in the self-same belief that I can’t show up for relationships. In this case, with my dad, I’m being asked to be honest with him in a way that frightens the shit out of me.

I would LOVE to lie, avoid, detach, retreat, and retract. But each and every day since the invitation to his wedding came in over the phone, I’ve been called to take a different course. Because, I have been using the above mechanisms for how to manage this relationship. I’ve been detached and retracted, and avoidant. And, much like with the men, I’ve created a game that I don’t want to play. One in which my dad thinks I want or can have a relationship with him.

To tangent:

This morning, I will get an ultrasound of my liver to confirm or disconfirm cirrhosis. About two months ago, my liver enzymes came up elevated, and although I simply think it’s my body’s reparation from 6 months of chemo a bit more than a year ago, I am also very aware that in Chinese medicine, the liver is the seat of anger. And two months ago, I was very angry. For a long time. And this dad stuff only serves to aggravate it.

I was at my therapist’s last Wednesday, and I told her that I would really love to be able to forgive him, but I am not able to do that. I’m terrified that my lack of forgiveness for him is perpetuating the problems in my life, and creating holes in the foundation of my life and relationships and happiness -- and my health.

I told her, it’s astonishing to me that I can have forgiveness for my rapists, but not have any for him. Compassion, I have in crateloads. I know how this person came to be, and it’s a sad state of affairs. But, no matter what modes of self repair I try, I can’t find my way to forgiving him, and I feel that I need to in order to move on with my life.

She said something critically important: You can’t manufacture forgiveness.

If I’m not there, then I’m not there.

“But what about that he’s getting older, and what if he dies and this is unresolved?”

You can’t manufacture forgiveness.

I can’t bully or force myself into a feeling that I don’t have. She said that I have some word she couldn’t place that indicates deep disappointment. And betrayal. And this is true.

And I would love to “get over it.” But I’m not there yet, and beating myself up for not being at a place where I’m not doesn’t help me get there quicker.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll get to this place this lifetime. The very last time I was vulnerable to him and depended on him, he used it as a later opportunity to shame me for not being the daughter he wants. This is a Catch-22 relationship.

But. It’s not.

The catch is that I have to be willing to show up with my truth, which, like my friends and like those men, is that I don’t like who I’m being in this relationship, and it’s harming me. I don’t like to show up in a falsetto range “happy” conversation with him, when that’s not at all true for me, and so I avoid the conversations. But, he’s pressing now, and there’s a deadline.

The truth will out, as Shakespeare wrote. The work on my part will be to get ready to deliver it. To get ready by remembering I’m acting in an esteemable way by showing up for my part of the relationship. I’m also working on steadying myself for the fallout, of which I anticipate there will be much.

Again, people don’t like when you change the rules in the middle of the game.

But this was a game I started playing when I was a child. The rules have changed. It’s time for me to let the other players know. 

To let them know I've stopped playing. 

Hum a few bars?

There’s a famous story in our nuclear family history:

My brother was maybe five years old. He swaggered into the room. Feet planted, arms wide, he opened his lips and belted, “GOTTA DANCE!... Gotta Dance, Gotta Dance, Got ta Daaance.”

This, friends, is a move from a song in Singin’ in the Rain. My family trades in musicals. Broadway and movie musicals. On frequent rotation in our VCR were Singin’ in the Rain, Meet me in St. Louis, Calamity Jane, On The Town. Eventually, there’d be Chorus Line and Cabaret with their more "adult" themes; even Flying Down to Rio and Top Hat, from in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers oeuvre. My mom, brother and I would trade lines like currency, like code, and for us, they were.

All four of us together, with my dad, weren’t a family of deep conversation. Instead, we’d throw these bones of reference to one another as a note of connection and a wink. One commonly used phrase in our house was, “What’s that from, again?” We were almost always speaking in movie lines, not just musicals. Watching movies was what we were able to do together, to spend time the 4 of us, without having to talk, but able to be in the same room at the same task.

Unknown is what might have happened if we'd allowed my dad to join in on the impromptu a cappela fun. We always cut him off, because he couldn’t sing a bar; the trees weeped. But he could whistle, and play the harmonica, and there’s even an old banjo lying around that apparently was his in his younger days.

But, for the most part, it was me, mom and Ben. Trading lines, lobbing tunes to one another, volleying them back, and joining in. So much of my growing up, I see us, in and around the kitchen bursting into a melody. Me, on the melody, actually, and Ben on the harmony. I never had quite the ear for harmony, and he did; still does.

For my bat mitzvah party when I was 13, instead of the DJ party most of my friends requested, I wanted to see a musical with my friends. We lived a short drive from Manhattan, and many of my friends had never seen a Broadway show.

We went to Phantom of the Opera. In a short party bus, about a dozen of us rode into New York City with Nightmare Before Christmas playing on the thick, boxy t.v. screens, since it was mid-October, right after my 13th birthday.

My mom and I’d created gift packages for my friends, little heart shaped wicker boxes with a fake rose with a plastic water droplet on it; a cassette tape of the soundtrack; and a mug with the Phantom mask on it that turned from black to white when you filled the mug with something warm.

I was extraordinarily lucky to have been to some shows already, my aunt, a stalwart New Yorker taking me to see Guys & Dolls and later, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying starring the inimitable Matthew Broderick (if you think him singing Twist & Shout in Ferris Beuler was something… well, I assure you, this man has charisma. And talent.)

But the Phantom theater was magnificent. There’s an enormous chandelier that crashes into the stage during the middle of the play, and we were sitting right behind it, this wide, gold, frail thing about to murder the ingénue. For a group of giddy, hopped up tween girls, this was a pretty cool experience. Well, for me it was, anyway ;)

Musicals are in my blood. I was raised on their fervor, their simplicity, their saccharine lyrics. And I love them. I know they can be cheesy and I know it “doesn’t make sense” that people bust into song all the time. But, you see,

In my house, we did. 

Fulcrum

(No, sorry, this has nothing to with the group of evil spies on the t.v. show Chuck.)

Ever since I listened to this podcast on the development of energy efficiency, I've been thinking about developing a process to create more while expending less.

In "olden times," the podcast said, a day's work could earn you an hour, maybe, of candlelight. Imagine having to work an entire day, just to get one hour of power to your iPhone, let alone your refrigerator or car.

In contrast, through scientific achievement we now, through a day's work, earn a whole lot more power through our effort.

... I can't remember how many days it reported precisely, but to give perspective to it: I pay on average $12 a month for my PG&E bill. (Granted I have most of my stuff attached to power strips I turn off before I leave, and never leave things plugged in that I don't have to.) But, if I earn more than that per hour of my work, I've earned myself over a month of power in 60 minutes.

The point is, science has created a system whereby we work less to produce more. Our efforts are magnified through efficiency -- we don't have to work as much or as hard to get what we need. Science created a fulcrum, a point on which we can pivot our efforts to enhance them exponentially.

In my life, I am in a process and a pattern where I work a lot, like most of us, and what I earn from that pay supports a life that is getting by. I'm not saving much. I'm not spending much. I'm pretty much working to get by.

And I've decided I'd like a fulcrum.

To be specific, I'd like to work less and earn more. (Wouldn't we all? But yes, isn't that the point -- perhaps we can.)

I did some calculating this weekend, and I can earn what I'd like to be earning (more than a "getting by" amount) by working half the time, 20 hours a week, if I triple my hourly wage. Sounds far fetched perhaps. But stranger things have happened. And the rate I'd need to earn isn't outrageous. It's actually pretty attainable for a skilled service.

The question now is, what will the service, my fulcrum, be?

At various times, I've teased the idea of throwing caution and (my own) morality to the wind and thought of prostitution. I'm sure I could earn there, but at what other cost? Result: rejected.

Other thoughts:
Consulting -- in what?
Counseling -- perhaps -- more schooling then?
Coaching -- maybe -- more schooling, too.

But, we're back to the point of the fulcrum -- I can expend energy now in creating my fulcrum. It'll likely take time and effort, but boy howdy! The results!

I don't know yet what the outcome of this line of thinking will produce, but I like that I'm thinking this way, out of the box of where I usually look. Instead of looking again at the job sites I always look at to get a higher paying job but work the same number of hours, I'm realizing I need a different way.

Because I need to be available to the projects that ignite me, and I have to give myself the time and space to do that. ... Without being a starving artist -- I simply refuse to struggle more than I have to. It's not fair to me anymore, when I know there can be another way.

So, if I can find a kind of steady-ish, scheduled-ish vocation that allows me to produce more while expending less, ... well, as Archimedes said when demonstrating the lever:

"Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth."

Card Reading

I had very specific plans for when I came home last night: watch Apollo 13, “take care” of myself, and go to bed by 10.

Only one of these happened.

For most of the day, I was out & about in lots of conversation with lots of people, expending lots of up, outgoing energy, and I wanted to counter it with some quietude. Before coming home for the evening, I was in a coffee shop, finishing up some extra work, and addressing cards for some friends.

I didn’t have the address for one, so I texted her for it, and told her that I must have 10 of her envelopes at home with her address on it; in fact, I had one of hers on my mantle.

She asked me which one, but I couldn’t recall exactly, and told her I’d send her a photo of it when I got home.

This, was the first domino toward the hijacking of my evening.

I did come home, take a photo and send it to her, a lovely decorated envelope with stickers and curly-cues and kind words, like all of hers. Next to it on my mantle (well, the top of a bookshelf, really) were a card from the director and one from the assistant director of the play I was in in April, with deliciously glowing, appreciative, complimentary, and supportive words. Such kindness and such a reflection of my being “seen” by them, in one of my aspiring avocations. The last one up there was a thank you card from my best friend on Long Island’s wedding, thanking me for being there and what a treat it was to have me there, literally in her bed, the night before the wedding, and helping/watching her get ready the next day; that it wouldn’t have been the same without me.

You can see why I keep these things.

But, it was also time to probably pack them away, do some cleaning. And I wanted to send more photos of my friend’s envelopes to her, since I knew she was in a space to need her own (literal) sparkle reflected back to her. 

And, down the rabbit hole we go, into the desk drawer where I keep cards, envelopes so I can remember return addresses (yes, I know there’s a better way), and art inspiration bits, like postcards from galleries or pages torn from magazines.

I’ve known this drawer needs attending to. If, god forbid, I were to croak, it would be hell for the person cleaning it out, and I know they’d just trash the lot, since, who keeps someone else’s old greeting cards.

But, also, it’s unusably full at the moment. Because in it, too, are all the cards I received when I was initially diagnosed with Leukemia in late September 2012, and also a host of them came in around the Hanukkah/Christmas season that year.

I’ve been avoiding having to carve through them. Because how can you discard those messages?

When I was sick, I lined all the cards up on the walls of my hospital room. I taped every single one up around me, to remind me of the network of support and love that I had. Each card, a message of love, faith, healing, fortitude, just for me. You couldn’t come into my hospital room without immediately knowing that I was loved. And how f’ing important was that.

This was not the room of a dying woman. This was not the room of a woman told she had a 40% chance of living through the next 5 years, even with treatment. This was not the room, either, of a woman who looked like a patient, despite the baldness, weightloss, and IV stuck into my arm and chest. I wore jeans and a sweater, like everyone else. I was a human, not a patient. I was a woman loved, not a pity case.

How rallyingly important was that to know, feel, and remember every single day.

But, when the trips to the hospital were finally over, and it was time to reacclimate to living in my apartment full-time, what to do with those cards?

I’m a keeper of things. Sentiments, magazine pages, interesting rocks I find on a mountain or beach. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder, but I do have a bag of gently used tissue paper in my closet … but it’s folded neatly and in color blocks, so it’s okay, right?!

I also have a bag in my closet of the covers to theater booklets of plays I’ve been to; movie stubs; plane tickets; the brochure for a place I went camping or an attraction I toured.

The trouble is, I’m not a scrap-booker, so I just kinda carry this bag of non-chronologically ordered “crap” with me from home to home. But, that’s okay. One day, like the cards, I’ll go through them.

But, last night was for the card drawer.

It was slow-going. I had to take a deep breath before taking the rubber band from around the batch of 2012 holiday cards. I knew this was going to take a while and probably bring things up.

But I began. And with each card, I was reminded of why I’d kept them until now.

Here’s the one from my college classmate, now in LA, saying she’d enclosed a gift card to Trader Joes.

Here’s one from a former colleague saying she loves getting the bloggish updates I was posting then to my lotsahelpinghands website.

Here’s one handwritten from an Etsy company saying “a friend” was thinking of me and wanted me to stay warm. This, I remember, accompanied a package of 6 “chemo caps” ranging from thin to thick, the one I wore most, a fuzzy leopard print that kept me feeling fun and warm. I still don’t know who sent those, as there was no name. Thank you, whoever you are.

Last night, with each, if I knew the sender and their cell number, I took a photo of the card, and sent it as a text with a note of thanks to them. Each text, a reminder to us both of what friendship means, even for people who aren’t close.

It was nearly 11 when I finally decided to stop. I’ve barely made a dent into the drawer. But was able to cull a few things out, deciding that with some, having a photo of them now is enough.

At the closing of this activity, I found myself in soft tears of gratitude. So many people surrounded me with love. With funny cards and sentiments, with crazy wacked-out envelopes, with heartfelt messages of hope and healing. And only a handful of these folks were people I keep in regular touch with. So many people came out of the woodwork to support me.

I was told once during the time I was sick, that I had no idea how many people were rooting for me. I agreed. I knew I had no idea, and I knew that was astounding and one of the greatest showings of human generosity that I’ve witnessed.

I had priests, rabbis, Muslims, and Buddhists praying for me. My mom’s hairdresser and my Aunt’s student. I had a class of kindergarteners praying for me.

I remember, too, when I was sick, trying to figure out how I could send thank you cards to everyone who’d contacted me, but I could only handle a few.

In this retread through the cards, in sending them back out to their sender with my note of thanks, I hope I am closing that loop of love, and letting you all know:

Your prayers worked, and I love you back.  

Aesop was a Scientist.

Chances are, like me, you’ve heard a hundred versions Aesop's fable, "The Oak and the Reed," wherein we're taught to bend like a reed in a storm, instead of remaining stalwart as an oak which will be blown over.

The moral is to remain flexible in the face of challenge or adversity, instead of becoming rigid and unmoving. To move with the times, to let things shift around you without trying to control them or how they’re affecting you. To be at ease with how things are, because when the storm does pass, if you’ve remained reed-like, you’ll stand up into the sunlight again.

Yes, we’ve all heard this, and again if you’re like me, you vacillate between these flora’s coping mechanisms, flexible to rigid and back again. Sometimes within the same hour.

However, one story I didn’t know was one I heard on the little audio book I’m listening to now: The Biodome Moral.

(Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the Pauly Shore movie, but it’s valuable nonetheless.)

Scientists in the 80s, the book reports, created a perfect replica of Earth and Earth’s atmosphere within a dome. They then sent 8 scientists into the dome to live there for 2 years. Among their findings was what happened to the trees.

Inside the dome, there was no wind and no storms. The scientists assumed that without the challenges of storms to damage the trees, they would grow taller and stronger and faster than those outside the dome.

Indeed, the trees grew faster and taller. But not stronger.

The trees were weak, and easily uprooted. The scientists discovered that the trees needed the challenge of the storms, of withstanding the storms, in order to become strong and healthy. By eliminating all adversity from their lives, they became big and tall, sure, but they also became hollow and weak.

Remind us of any other species?

I am not an advocate for adversity. I bristle vehemently when told that adversity is "a blessing," as I’m occasionally told about my cancer.

Which, by the way – never tell someone that. If they want to say that to you, great; listen, nod, be compassionate. But never be the one to tell them that it makes them stronger, never tell them that there will be a gift from it, or that it is itself a gift. All these things may be true, but fuck you, healthy person, for telling me to look on the bright side of leaking out my ass for a month. Even though you mean it authentically, lovingly, and truthfully.

I happen to know these things are true. I write here that they are; that having had that adversity has impelled and propelled me to engage in my life and in activities that I’d procrastinated on; necessitated my creating new relationships and boundaries that I’d been too scared to create before. Having had and survived cancer has irrevocably changed the rest of my life and given miles of perspective to every other storm I may encounter.

But if you haven’t noticed, sometimes we get tired of encountering storms, and I’d really prefer for you to not steal my lemons to make your own lemonade. -- And I still wouldn't call it a blessing. An opportunity, I'd concede. But I'm sure no one ever said: Bless me, father, with life-threatening illness. 

... I guess I still have some letters of complaint to write to the Universe's customer service department.

So,

The absence of storms makes us weaker. But, the preponderance of storms makes us exhausted.

To continue in fable-speak then, I suppose it’s appropriate to quote Goldilocks on the merits of balance and the middle way. To endeavor to create, withstand, be free from and grow from challenges that are not too big, not too small, but “Just Right.”

In case you weren’t sure, I was the one dancing.

Last night, I got an email reply to my inquiry about volunteering for a day-long community social action project in the Fall. The call was for artists of all types, and if I’m anything, I am an artist of all types!

The email came back: YES! We’d love to have you; here are some painting projects: Create a mural; touch-up-paint a building; paint a wall; help kids decorate bags for food that will be donated.

If you read my blog, Men at Work, about circumstances that have come to fruition since being put in my “G-d box,” you may remember (as I do, since it’s now tacked to my fridge) that in that box was a list of things I wanted to do, accomplish, or participate in. The second on the list, just after "being in a band," is painting a mural.

At the time I was writing my blog about it, the mural didn’t seem so important anymore. In fact, I reflected, "Sure that’d still be totally rad!" but that doing a mural doesn’t feel as prioritized as some of the other items on the list, like finding a creative job I enjoy, or being in a musical.

And yet. Here’s an opportunity I would never have thought would come to be an opportunity!

The email said the mural would be in collaboration, and there’s more info that I’d gather from the committee members, so I wouldn’t be doing this in isolation at all.

However, I notice, too, that my typical/habitual reaction is to say, "I’m not an artist on that scale or level, so I’ll take the job of helping the kids decorate lunch bags."

I know that’s my automatic response. I know that’s my fear response. But, I also know that there’s validity in saying, I’ve never done this before, and I would love to help, but I’d also need help.

And, so, that’s likely what I’ll say. I’ll be honest with where my talents are, but also where my aspiration is. I mean, if I never, ever step out of what my comfort zone is, how will I ever know what I am capable of, hm?

That doesn’t mean taking risks at the detriment of a community project just to say, “Of course I can do it.” It's detrimental to me (and to them) if I take steps that are developmentally inappropriate out of fear or pride. That doesn’t mean not to stretch out of my comfort zone (which, FYI participating a mural at all is!!), but it does mean that I start with a 5 mile hike, not 10.

This all feels very parallel to the job of the lead role in the play I was offered. I know it’s a stretch of my talents. I know I’ve never done it before, but unlike the play, the mural is something I’d really love to do. I appreciate the organization, their mission, and think it would be a lot of fun.

More will be revealed. I will let them know my truth, and be willing to say, "I don’t know if I can take the lead on this project, but I would love to be 'second in command' or co-chair of it -- truly involved in its creation and completion."

Instead of playing it safe with the colored bags (something I know I can land easily, have fun with but not be learning much), I think the way to “dare greatly” here is to offer to help out on the mural however I can, and learn a whole lot on the way. Then maybe next time, I can confidently say Yes to taking the lead.

Here’s to being willing to cross more items off that list! (And here's to my "daring greatly" in the first place by writing to them that I wanted to be involved at all.) 

"Person-To-Person"

Of course it is a pity that so much of all creative work is so closely related to the personality of the one who does it.

It is sad and embarrassing and unattractive that those emotions that stir him deeply enough to demand expression, and to charge their expression with some measure of light and power, are nearly all rooted, however changed in their surface, in the particular and sometimes peculiar concerns of the artist himself, that special world, the passions and images of it that each of us weaves about him from birth to death, a web of monstrous complexity, spun forth at a speed that is incalculable to a length beyond measure, from the spider mouth of his own singular perceptions.

It is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifying to think of that we usually don't. And so we talk to each other, write and wire each other, call each other short and long distance across land and sea, clasp hands with each other at meeting and at parting, fight each other and even destroy each other because of this always somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other. As a character in a play once said, "We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins."

Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life.

[...]

Of course I know that I have sometimes presumed too much upon corresponding sympathies and interest in those to whom I talk boldly, and this has led to rejections that were painful and costly enough to inspire more prudence. But when I weigh one thing against another, an easy liking against a hard respect, the balance always tips the same way, and whatever risk of being turned a cold shoulder, I still don't want to talk to people only about the surface aspects of their lives, the sort of things that acquaintances laugh and chatter about on ordinary social occasions.

I feel that they get plenty of that, and heaven knows so do I, before and after the little interval of time in which I have their attention and say what I have to say to them. The discretion of social conversation, even among friends, is exceeded only by the discretion of "the deep six," that grave wherein nothing is mentioned at all. Emily Dickinson, that lyrical spinster of Amherst, Massachusetts, who wore a strict and savage heart on a taffeta sleeve, commented wryly on that kind of posthumous discourse among friends in these lines:

       I died for beauty, but was scarce
       Adjusted in the tomb,
       When one who died for truth was lain
       In an adjoining room. 

       He questioned softly why I failed?
       "For beauty," I replied. 
       "And I for truth,—the two are one;
       We brethren are," he said. 

       And so, as kinsmen met at night,
       We talked between the rooms,
       Until the moss had reached our lips,
       And covered up our names.

Meanwhile!—I want to go on talking to you as freely and intimately about what we live and die for as if I knew you better than anyone else whom you know.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, preface to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1955.

Car Conversations

Because the question isn’t: “Would you rather be in a play or not be in a play?” anymore. Maybe that’s what it was a year ago. But my vision has changed, as visions are allowed to do. And more, it’s probably that I’ve allowed myself to see more of my vision, rather than it actually “changing.”

Now, the question is: “Would I rather be in a play, or be in a good play?”

It’s the same coin as the line of thinking that goes: Well, at least you have a job.

That, at its core, is very true, but it seems to me that when we’re living in integrity with our values in as many places in our lives as possible, we’re doing more good – for ourselves and for the world.

When people are living lives that are engaged, they inspire me. There are circumstances that can keep us from this expression of our true selves and skills, surely. There’s war famine racism classism sexism disease and all manner of ill fortune. I recognize the privilege it is that I’ve been able to crawl out of (and partially been born out of) the first tier of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” out of the pure and simple satisfaction of the needs for food, shelter, clothing, and income.

I am reminded of a phone conversation I had with my mom several years ago. I was in the car with a friend when my cell rang. I answered, we spoke a few minutes, and the call ended. What struck me later wasn’t the content of the call, but how I behaved during the call. My friend overheard every word and all the manner and mannerisms that came out during my conversation – and those behaviors would align perfectly with how I interact with my friend.

There was little to no difference between how I comported myself in relation to my mom and how I was in relation to my friend. That alignment of “personalities” was completely new to me. I was always someone different with friends, coworkers, family members, lovers. Although there are necessary adjustments you need to make in those various relationships, I was always way out of alignment – they all were completely disparate personalities.

My car conversation allowed me to see that I was “aligning the films of who I am,” as I later put it. It wasn’t about a shift from wearing different masks to wearing the same mask; it was about relieving myself of the masks at all – and being the same ol’ me no matter where, when, or who.

This feels completely parallel to my circumstances and predicaments these days: How to bring the same person, with the same boundaries, needs, and self-esteem, to work, to play, to relationship.

How to live in integrity, which, to me, means aligning the films of ourselves. Not participating in self-abandonment, and bringing every endeavor and relationship into the light, and questioning if it meets our standards of what we want for ourselves, and if we’re meeting those standards through our own action.

It’s all well and good to report and purport that I want to cease settling for less in many areas of my life; it’s another endeavor entirely to take actions that support that desire. Again, that’s integrity – being who you say you want to be.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am leaving this play. When my friend last night told me that her “intuitive hit” was that I could find work that I love, I began to well up. It's not about permission to do the play or not do the play, even -- it's about giving myself permission to do that which I love. In every arena of my life right now, I’m endeavoring to find that which I love – which starts from acknowledging and listening to and giving enough credence to self-love to do that.

If I am purporting that I want to do what I love, but there are still these fissures of contrary action, I’m offering a divided message to “the Universe,” but mostly to myself. If I engage in that which doesn’t feed my soul and my joy-meter, I’m giving the message that it’s (still) okay to abandon my desires, and that my desires aren’t that important to me anyway.

It’s time for me to have a car conversation with the Universe, one in which I am myself – self-confident with a hint of doubt, a vehement believer in the need for joy and alignment, more than a tad bit wacky – no matter who’s on the other line. 

Thou Shalt...

I’m always hesitant to share my meditations. Like listening to someone report their dream, which to the dreamer is a fascinating pursuit, and to the listener is … not. But. This morning’s meditation was too illustrative and too relevant to current musings not to report. So, bear with.

“What is blocking me from making this decision around the play?” Around quitting or staying in it. I can’t even get to a firm decision either way, get a spiritual “hit” either way – even after conversation, taking an inventory of my fears around it both ways, and even after regular old "getting quiet" meditation.

So, this morning, I plugged the headphones into my iPod, scrolled to the drumming meant for this type of meditation and went in on a Shamanic Journey to find out what the heck is going on since the “normal” pathways to clarity are so gummed up.

Standing, in my mind’s eye, at the edge of the cliff that overlooks all the land that makes up my self (occasionally I'm reminded of Mufasa showing Simba all the land in Africa that is his domain), I asked the above question: What is blocking me from making my decision?

Without warning, the sky turned black, the light sucked out of the land, and a voice stormed, “You have to do this play.” This was no gentle cosmic answer. This was violent insistence. This was, I don’t care whether you want to do it or not; you have to.

This, is not my voice. But, apparently, it’s there inside me, blocking my decisions. I certainly can’t even know whether I want to do the play or not, if there’s a damning demand to do it regardless of my desire. This wasn’t a request, this was an order. This wasn’t a suggestion, this was a decree.

And if you’ve read me for any period of time, you know that voice is probably internalized from a parental source of the masculine variety.

The fear, no, terror, I felt when everything turned black was so evocative of how I felt as a child, I’d forgotten what it feels like to feel so small, so unimportant. On my couch, in my living room, in 2014, I pulled my blanket tight around me and cowered into the cushions.

There are cases and circumstances when, certainly, we don’t want to do things. As you also know, I hate doing my dishes. But, I do them. I know I “have to.” I know that as a child, we’re required to do things that we don’t want to do, because it’s for the good of the family, the good of your education, the good of your health (who wants to get a teeth cleaning?). But, this isn’t that.

As I recorded in my journal what occurred during meditation, I wrote what came to mind after it – the counter, the compassionate response to this demonic, demanding voice: “Molly, You don’t have to do the play if you don’t want to. There is no wrong decision here: If you do it, you’ll have more opportunities to do things you love; if you don’t do it, you’ll have more opportunities to do things you love. This is an abundant world. Just keep honing your vision and asking for help.”

Because there is no right or wrong here. But I haven’t been able to get anywhere on this choice because there's been this internal override preventing me from making it. I can’t know what I want if I don’t think I’m allowed to figure that out.

This still doesn’t make my decision one way or the other ... yet. But, I suspect that identifying, addressing, and removing the block to making one will help.