I was in the throes of writing, researching and editing this post last night when my unruly sausage fingers accidentally hit “publish” somewhere between Thing One and Thing Three. If you received a notification that there was a bright and shiny new post only to be told “that page doesn’t exist”–whoops. It was late and I was two bourbons in. Here it is in the completely sober light of day, as it should be.

ONE: DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

I had noticed the random sticky notes and white board messages popping up around the Health and Wellness office over the past few weeks.

Good things are going to happen! It’s a beautiful day, sunshine! If you can dream it, you can do it!

My eyes rolled as if they had a mind of their own as I fished around for a spare dry erase marker in the collection of pens and Sharpies. Chuckling to myself, I carefully printed in tiny black letters “Reallly? I need proof” underneath the cheery, rainbow-hued “good things are going to happen” sentiment. Pleased and amused with myself, I sat down and went about my appointments and tasks of the day. In my mind, I had imagined the start of a playful back-and-forth exchange between this mysterious Little Miss Sunshine and my natural Eeyore-esque self.

A Twitter friend once posed the questions 1.) Which Winnie The Pooh character do people think you are the most like, and then, 2.) Which character are you really the most like?

1.) Owl

2.) Eeyore

Two days later, I returned to the office only to discover my little black message was erased. Wiped away. My sad surprise was quickly replaced with a renewed wave of mischief and I drew a small, bleak frown-y face in the margin where my original retort had lived. Apparently, Little Miss Sunshine lacked my particular brand of humor. The next day, my bleak frowny-face was wiped clean away, too.

One of my favorite colleagues had recently moved on to a new chapter in her life and I had interviewed to fill her job. With her hundreds of miles away in a different state, I disgustedly snapped photos of the happy platitudes that were popping up everywhere since she had left and texted her the photos along with a panicked message: I know you would have never done this! Who is doing this? I can’t take this job with this stuff happening! I think I need to withdraw my application! Help me!

Change is hard. For me, anyway.

I could hear her signature belly laugh as she texted me back off the ledge. Between the two of us, we deduced who the cheery culprit might be and I took a few deep breaths. I mean, they weren’t death threats–they were just mindless, happy platitudes.

It’s the mindless part that gets me.

It was only a few days later when another friend posted this article on her newsfeed. It used a term I had never heard of before–“toxic positivity”–and I immediately began to understand why the happy little post-it notes everywhere had triggered me. Take a scroll through your social media feeds and you’ll come upon meme after meme extolling the virtue of “just think happy thoughts.” As someone whose moods tend to run a little darker than than your standard-variety yoga teacher, I’ve had issues with the “good vibes only” mentality that pervades the yoga industry as well as much of the fitness world. Those days when I’ve been grieving the loss of a loved one, the mornings when my hormones have pushed me into a muddy funk and my bed seems to be my only friend, or my struggles with tough transitions in my life–all of those days could have been eliminated with a positive attitude? Really?

Yeah, no.

I might say I’m an Eeyore, but there’s a whole lot of Tigger in me, too. Maybe even a bit of Piglet. Frankly, I see a lot of Pooh and Rabbit in most of us. Take all those beloved characters, mosh them together and you’ll likely come closer to what it means to be human. With September being National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I believe it’s more important than ever to stop the dumbing-down of our emotional health. Can you imagine what it might feel like to someone struggling with clinical depression to repeatedly hear “just turn that frown upside-down!” or, “no bad days allowed!”

I believe we are capable of accepting and experiencing the wide rainbow of complex emotions within us. Sadness–yours or mine–doesn’t faze me, unless it lasts for weeks and impedes one’s ability to function. (If that happens, it’s important to seek out help. Let’s de-stigmatize therapy and medication–both can be life savers.) But otherwise, give yourself a day or two or three. Journal. Meditate. Get outside and move. Don’t just “get over it” but be brave enough to mine those depths a little deeper, knowing that the shadows you might feel lost in are a beautiful, important part of you. Good mental and emotional health means feeling the full spectrum without being shamed into shallow cheerfulness. Shallow cheerfulness–that’s toxic positivity.

A well-meaning pal once told me that the dear friend that I was grieving the loss of “wouldn’t want me to be sad.” The hell she wouldn’t! When the day comes that I take my last breath, I sure hope there’s one or two people around who feel sad that I died. I hope someone out there sheds a tear or two because that means I made an impact in this earthly life. No one needs to be sad for long and certainly not forever, but just until the grief moves around and through and processes out the way it needs to. Because it always needs to.

Until then, I promise to practice my compassion and acceptance of the sunny, happy notes left around the office where I work. I’ll be grateful that they aren’t threatening or bitter or warning of imminent disaster. But I still might scribble a few dark remarks here and there.

You know, just for balance.

TWO: THINKING OF YOU

August sucked donkey balls.

It really did. And since we’re talking about mental health, I can honestly say I slogged through some pretty stiff depression during most of August. More circumstantial than chemical, and for a variety of reasons far too boring to list, but still. Depression is something that seems easier for me to see in the rear view mirror rather than naming and claiming it while I’m in the midst of it. It’s the nature of the beast and it’s what makes it so insidious and vexing. My heavy clouds are lifting as I write, I’m happy to say. The welcomed showers and cool gray skies have a way of seeping into those tough dark recesses and loosening stuff up so I can move it on out and breathe again. It’s so good to breathe again.

August was not without its bright spots, though, and some of the brightest were the unexpected cards and notes I just happened to get in the mail when I needed them the most. The simplest sentiment, hand-scribbled across a card that seemed chosen just for me was often all I needed to get through the most tangled up days. No one knew I was slogging through the mud of life, and yet these cards made their way to me at a time when I needed them the most. (Hey, thanks, Universe.) I wrote about the lost art of letter-writing just four posts ago and I believe so strongly in its simplicity, power and ability to connect with those you love.

My friend and yoga peep, Cat, recently turned me on to Thinking Of You Week. Cat is an artist, living and working in Everett, Washington who creates colorful, whimsical, handmade letter-press greeting cards that you can get here.  I have an entire collection of her cards, some of which I’ll be mailing out beginning tomorrow for Thinking Of You Week. Here’s how it works: for one week–seven days–you are encouraged to send one card a day to seven different people. Just imagine those seven souls in your life, plodding out to their mailbox, expecting only billing statements and advertisements, catching a glimpse of a real postage stamp peeking out from their stack of mail. The delight! The surprise!

Why wouldn’t you do that?

Thinking Of You Week begins tomorrow, September 24th and runs through Sunday, September 30th. For all you cynics who are assuming it must be sponsored by Hallmark or some other corporate conglomerate, well, the Greeting Card Association (GCA) is the sponsor, but so what? Sure, it’s a made-up thing intended to sell cards–much like Valentine’s Day–but like Valentine’s Day, why not tell someone you love them? This is where my idealistic Tigger and Pooh Bear influences override the pessimism of Eeyore.

Who’s the first person that comes to mind? Send them your first card tomorrow. If you’re like me, the first three or four recipients are easy to imagine. After that, pay attention to that one name or face that keeps popping up in your head. Doesn’t make any sense? Maybe you feel shy or embarrassed to send them a card? Do it anyway. I believe there’s a reason we think of people at some times more than others. Pay attention to that. Then, act.

You know, just do it.

Our world is bananas right now. So much of what we are going through is out of our control. Everyone has something they’re struggling with. Each of us has the power to brighten someone’s day and spread a little love around. Not in a mindless, syrupy-saccharine way, but in a way that is personal and intimate. Sending someone something that comes from your heart, something tangible they can hold in their hands and take out again when the road gets rough–that’s powerful medicine.

Thinking Of You Week starts tomorrow. Seven days, seven cards, seven people. So much love.

Let me know how it goes.

THREE: MUSIC

This blog was originally intended as a place for me to write about the music I’ve been listening to. Happily, the blog has naturally morphed and weaved and evolved beyond that and into many more things as well. Despite a dismal summer of live music-going, I’m still all about the music. October holds much promise, though, with next month frighteningly jam-packed with live shows I have tickets for. But until then, here are three bands’ most recent releases that I’ve been streaming non-stop.

1.) Brockhampton, iridescence

If you haven’t jumped on the Brockhampton train yet, I don’t know what to say except it left the station late last year and you have some serious catching up to do. Their new release is as fresh and unpredictable as this prolific, rule-breaking hip-hop band has always been. See them live if you can and if you dare. (And yeah, they’re pretty explicit, so if you’re sensitive to that, just move along.)

2.)  The Internet, Hive Mind

This is their fourth studio release and the very first I’ve heard of this delicious, groove-heavy R&B band out of LA and of which I am currently head-over-heels obsessed with. Be careful, you just might fall in love, too.

3.) Hibou, Something Familiar

Seattle-based, one-man-band of Peter Michel, AKA Hibou, is a dreamy, ethereal, musical force to be reckoned with. Hibou performs live as a four-piece band and I’ve seen them (him) twice–first, opening up for Unknown Mortal Orchestra a couple years ago and most recently, this summer at Capitol Hill Block Party. See them (him) live if you can, but if you can’t, download or stream “Junipero Love”, then lay back and get lost in your own mind. Trust me, it’s time well spent.

Happy Autumn, finally. If you need soup, hit me up.

 

 

 

 

It’s been a month since I last logged on to my website. Two full months since my last published post. I miss writing. My body misses it–the release of words and emotions I store away in my tissues–muscles, organs, veins–all tight with unexpressed everything. I feel congested in a deep, visceral way. Vaguely unwell.

You should probably write, my daughter tells me as she looks over and sees me crying during another episode of “Queer Eye”.

This summer has been dizzying. Literally.

ONE: VERTIGO

The neurologist finished his exam and shrugged his shoulders. “Some people are simply prone to having episodes of vertigo throughout their life,” he told me as my eyes struggled to focus back on his face after the head and neck maneuvers he had just put me through.

Well, at least most people don’t die from vertigo, I remember thinking as I drove home. There’s that.

It was nearly three years ago when the vertigo descended with a vengence. I first noticed it while driving home from Tacoma one sunny afternoon. Scrambled brains is the way I describe it. Usually only lasting five or ten seconds, tops, then returning to clarity. Sometimes it would only strike once or twice during a drive, other times so frequently I had to pull off the freeway for a bit. I googled and WebMDed and YouTubed for help in between visits to my healthcare providers. At its worst, I couldn’t bear to lay facedown for my regular acupuncture treatment. The room spun and my stomach churned as if I had drank two too many glasses of pink champagne.

Well, at least it doesn’t happen during yoga, I reassured myself. Until it did. During triangle pose. I felt my legs wobble in an effort to keep my balance as the scrambled brains took hold.

It was my acupuncturist who finally suggested a twice-daily “tea” of Chinese herbs to counteract my “damp” constitution. Willing to try anything for relief, I happily swilled the muddy, gingery concoction each morning and night. Within a month, my brains cleared up.

My brains were clear and the vertigo had stayed away for the past two years. Occasionally, I’d feel a hint of it coming on and I’d grab a bottle of the magic herbs and within a week I’d be okay again. It was such a relief to find something that helped me feel better relatively quickly and painlessly.

It was the trusty herbs that I reached for two months ago when the scrambled brains returned. It had been so long that I had forgotten what life with vertigo felt like. Life with unpredictable vertigo feels tentative and a bit risky. Constantly nervous to venture too far away from home. Dreading freeway driving. Unable to sit and focus on a computer screen for more than a few minutes at a time. My writing came to a screeching halt.

It’s hard to write with scrambled brains.

I knew I wanted a break from the weekly writing deadline I had imposed on myself, but it was never my intention to walk away for two months. Habits are hard to form, easy to break and a bitch to get back to. My writing muscles feel as shaky as my biceps as I curl the 50 pound barbell to my shoulders for the first time in a long time. But after three bottles of twice-daily Chinese tea that looks and tastes a bit like dirt, my brain is back.

And so am I.

Hey–hi. I hope to be writing more regularly again.

TWO: CLUTTER

It was hard to look at the “before” photo I had snapped of my closet. It still is.

Last weekend, I undertook the daunting task of completely cleaning out my bedroom closet. It was something I had been meaning to do for months and had successfully avoided for much longer. The task came up during lunch with a good friend who talked about her love of organization and how our living spaces can sometimes reflect something much greater. My confession tumbled out, almost in relief, sharing my dirty little secret. I told her about my mess of a closet and how it made me anxious everyday when I went in to get dressed for work. Slippery yoga pants in every color of the rainbow, cascading to the floor so many times I just stopped picking them up. Clean laundry left on the bed or bathroom counter because I couldn’t find space to put it back in the closet. I hated my closet and I hated the idea of cleaning it out even more.

Sometimes we have to do the hard things.

I had to cancel attending a friend’s wedding in eastern Washington because my scrambled brains were too risky to chance a five-hour drive by myself. I was left gazing into a weekend clear of responsibilities and plans. The Mister and daughter, both off on their own work and fun adventures. It was the perfect opportunity. Buoyed by a few encouraging texts and guidance from my organized friend and choreographed to the soundtrack of my favorite playlist, I got to work.

Pre-kid clothes. One maternity shirt holdover because I always liked the color. Baseball mom clothes. Trying-to-be-cool again clothes. Mom jeans. Mom sweaters. Eddie Bauer. So much Eddie Bauer. Levi 501s. Boot cut jeans from the Gap. Oh hey–my wedding dress! Tattered hoodies. Riding pants. Yoga pants. Yoga tops. Yoga totes. Hot tub clothes. My Zulily phase, when nothing could be returned. My actually-getting-cooler-phase. Black jeans. Skinny jeans. Ripped jeans. Boots. Boots. Boots.

Donate. Toss. Consider. Keep.

Four distinct piles, the “donate” pile towering far above the other three. I bagged up nine tall kitchen garbage bags full of clothes and shoes and drove them directly to the donation box.

Somewhere between the end of the first day and the beginning of the second, I was gripped with the fear of scarcity. Would I have enough? What if I didn’t? What if I made a mistake?

Abundance. There is more than enough, I reassured myself. My shoulders dropped and I exhaled. Of course there is.

Do I love it? Does it fit? Does it reflect who I really am today? My friend’s directives rang clear in my head.

By the end of the second day, the closet was coming together. Three more bags filled with donations. I stepped back and took it all in. My god, it looks like a little boutique! I thought to myself. Shelves, neatly stacked with yoga pants, organized by color and length. Clear, plastic boxes, each home to one pair of shoes that I could easily identify, tucked on the top shelf. My father’s favorite hat–the one I had taken home with me on the day he died–carefully placed in its own box, along with the bulletin from his memorial. (That is, right after I put the hat on myself and thought maybe I could rock a fedora after all.)

Everything in its place. A place for everything.

I texted my friend the “after” picture. She texted me back all the right things. I looked at my phone again and in a moment of vulnerability, posted each photo on my Instagram feed, along with a short narrative about my weekend of letting go. Side by side, swipe left, swipe right. Before and after.

Holy shit.

It’s amazing what we choose not to see. Overwhelmed with life in general, I had stopped seeing the mountain of clutter right in front of my eyes. I felt it, in the anxiety and stress that crept up in me every morning as I tried to start my day. The way I’d snap at The Mister when he’d casually mention the pile of clean laundry on the counter, rather than in the closet. How I just stopped trying because it wasn’t working anymore.

My closet looked exactly the way my scrambled brains felt with the vertigo.

I look at my closet today and I giggle a bit. It makes me smile. It’s beautiful, really. Clear and clean, with just enough plus a little wiggle room to grow and dwell in possibility.

THREE: SUMMER

My mind keeps flashing on a memory of a secret beach cove I discovered when I was a little girl. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly a “secret”–I’m pretty sure it was someone’s private beachfront. But in my 10-year-old brain, it felt wonderful and mysterious and secretive. I didn’t tell anyone about it.

No one ever noticed when I’d ride my purple stingray down the dead end street that emptied out to Steilacoom Lake. Leaving my bike at the end of the grass, I’d tiptoe down a weedy, dirt path that led to a narrow swath of pebbly beach. Two quiet, modest homes–cabins, really–framed the small patch of lakefront and I’d sit at the water and escape. I never saw or heard another person down there, so I began to think of it as my own. I’d take sticks and trace patterns in the silty dirt and flick rocks into the water, waiting for the satisfying “plunk” of each as it hit the water’s surface. Sometimes a duck or two came floating by and I’d feed them crusts of bread and stale saltines I swiped from home. Mostly, I was alone and unseen and free to dive into my daydreams.

This summer has been weird and unsatisfying. Between the vertigo and the heat and smoke-haze and not having my favorite partner-in-crime available for summer shenanigans, I’ve found myself wishing I had my secret beach cove again. Somewhere to escape to and be unseen.

I felt it today as I strolled by myself though the modest crowd at the waterfront art festival. I walked to the end of the pier and leaned on the weathered railing. The gray-blue expanse of Puget Sound, shrouded in a filter of smoke from the wildfires, lay out in front of me. I wanted to find a quiet piece of beach and be alone with the gentle lap of the water. I nearly drove to Steilacoom Lake in hopes of finding it again.

Summer is not my favorite, but I love summer’s beginning when the finally-warm breezes carry scents of berries and grass. The longer days and early sunrises. Skies full of stars. I am past the days of school-year summer vacations and yet I still get giddy in June. July comes and goes, predictably balmy and busy, the front lawn left to go dormant and brown. But by the middle of August, I am exhausted. I even let my flowers die.

August feels long and dry and a bit lonely. The dog days of summer. A quick reference to Wikipedia even makes the connection of this late summer period to “…heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck.”

C’mon–is August anyone’s favorite?

I sat at the dining room table reading the newspaper yesterday morning, the windows open wide to let in the cool morning air. I sipped my coffee and heard the faint and familiar blast of an airhorn. Fifteen minutes later, it blared again. And then again. Football scrimmage just a mile down the hill at the neighborhood high school. A sure and welcome harbinger of fall.

September can’t come soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE: BROTHER

Have you ever prayed for someone to die?

I was a young adolescent when I began to pray regularly for my brother to die. It’s not something I’m proud of and I’d usually send up a petition for forgiveness at the same time, just for good measure. Life with my brother was a living hell, with regular threats lobbed my way along with his perpetual sneer and general, unpredictable rage. In the summer months, he and his buddies would venture up into the mountains to camp for a few days at a time and I’d pray he’d never return, entertaining fantasies of him taking a quick tumble off a high cliff to a quick and painless death. He always returned, though, along with more threats and the accompanying fear I’d learned to live with.

It was my brother’s birthday last week. He would have been sixty-one years old.

As a young girl, I prayed for my brother to like me. When we were very young, there were days where he’d let me join in on his Lego-building ventures or an occasional battle with his little green army men. Playing beside my older brother made me feel important, as if I had been let into an exclusive, grown-up club. It didn’t last long. His potent outbursts and conflicts with my parents began while he was still in elementary school and only intensified as he grew older.

I don’t remember the date of my brother’s death, but I always remember his birthday. I have his birthday written on the calendar pinned to my yellow kitchen wall. June 5th.

Once we became adults, I didn’t see him for years at a time. This was intentional. I worried about him finding out where I lived and coming to kill me and my family. Regular nightmares of this scenario peppered my sleep and I’d awaken with a jolt in a cold sweat, chest heaving in fear. As years passed, he started showing up at Thanksgiving or other family gatherings—even my wedding. He was pleasant but distant and my fear of him existed on a deep, cellular level. Whenever he left, my insides unclenched and I felt my breath drop from high up in my shallow chest back into my low belly.

Each June, I’d think of my brother on his birthday and imagine him spending it alone with his dog. I feared him and loved him and wanted nothing to do with him, but still felt pangs of sadness over the disconnected rubble of a life he had built. Undiagnosed mental illness, learning disabilities. I often wondered if he had regrets.

I was busy raising my two young kids when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The diagnosis came after months of strange symptoms when he would often call me and ask for help in researching his ailments. He was my brother and I loved him as such, but he still scared the hell out of me. I helped as much as I could, always feeling the seize in my belly and the catch in my breath with each phone call.

My phone rang on a rainy evening just before New Years. My brother had been in hospice for a short time, my other siblings taking turns tending to him in his final days. Just one year prior, I had sat with my mother as she took her last breath and I didn’t think I possessed the fortitude to do the same for my brother.

The first thought in my head after hearing the news that he had died was, well, Tracie–your prayer was answered. I thought of all the hours I had spent praying that he would die so that I could live a life free of the terror his presence instilled in me. A wave of guilt washed up and over me, flooding my chest and throat, taking me under. Then, grief. Huge, sneaker waves of grief, pummeling me with sucker punches at my solar plexus, over and over and over again. I sat on my bed and sobbed.

I had been planning to see him the following day, but he went ahead and died before I was able to. I grieved over the opportunities lost, the loss of the brother that I might have had. The one I fantasized about having instead of the one who haunted my nightmares. I imagined me sitting at his bedside and hearing him whisper a deathbed apology. A plea for forgiveness and understanding. Taking responsibility.

When someone you love dies, your heart breaks. When someone with whom you have a conflicted, complex and unresolved relationship dies, the path of mourning is riddled with detours and potholes.

A close childhood friend of my brother’s hosted a memorial service for him a month after his death. My siblings and I piled into our cars and drove down, wondering who–if anyone–would be in attendance. The brother we knew was a bitter loner. We assumed it would be just us–his siblings–and a smattering of others.

The house where the service was held was packed with mourners. Most were strangers to me, but I recognized a few from our old neighborhood as they came up to give me a hug and called me by my name. I wondered if they knew about his years of threats and attacks. We filled paper plates with casseroles and salads and an informal remembrance of my brother began. One by one, his friends spoke glowingly of my brother’s kindness and love of animals. Of how he would drop everything to help a friend out. How he loved the outdoors and made a point to spend his birthdays in nature with his dog and perhaps a close friend or two or three. They used words like gentle and sensitive and loyal to describe him.

My siblings and I exchanged stunned glances with each other and said nothing.

The brother I knew had not existed outside the boundaries of our large, complicated family. I immediately felt silly for all the years I spent pitying him and the sad life I assumed he was living. I felt resentful that all these other people had known the brother I had forever dreamed of having. I felt cheated and duped and completely dumbfounded.

Family dynamics are fluid, tricky and tough to rise above.

TWO: FATHER

I always felt like I was my father’s last chance for a do-over.

Twenty years separate me from my oldest sibling. An entire generation. It’s safe to say that I had a much different father than the rest of my six siblings. Same man, same name, but an entirely different dad.

By the time I came along, my father had transitioned from his first career in the clergy to his second wind as a college sociology professor. Office hours, more or less. He still played the organ and directed the church choir each Sunday, but life was a bit more predictable than when he was a minister. Because of that, I reaped the benefits. Extra time to play catch with me, summer evenings spent kicking a soccer ball around the back lawn, holding onto my bike seat until he wasn’t anymore and I caught my balance and pedaled off into the sunset on my own.

I loved my dad, but I was no daddy’s girl.

He wouldn’t hear of that. Both of my parents valued education and raised strong, independent women. But I always felt as though I was my father’s last hope.

Professional challenges. Hectic life with seven children and aging parents. Struggles with his youngest son. Conflicted relationships with a few of his other children. A marriage that was rarely easy. Dashed hopes and dreams.

My father developed psoriasis early in my life. Crimson, scaly skin covered most of his body, except for his face. We had four bathrooms in the house I grew up in and one was designated as his. My father’s bathroom was always covered in a light layer of dead skin flakes that perpetually sloughed off his angry body. I hated using that bathroom and having to navigate around the piles of flakes. It was as if he was a snake, shedding, continually. Every few years, he’d spend a week or two in the local hospital receiving “tar treatments”–an event he seemed to look forward to. Whether it was the prospect of being tended to by young, attractive nurses or the opportunity to rest, unbothered by the demands of a large family, my dad thoroughly enjoyed his respite covered in tar. He usually came home with improved skin that would last until the next flare-up.

As I got older, he took me to soccer games and watched Wimbledon with me. When my school had an open house, he came and talked to my instructors and returned home boasting of the glowing reports they had given me. She can do anything she puts her mind to! he exclaimed proudly, parroting back the words he had heard from my teachers. And when I finally got up the nerve to move away from home for the very first time, he helped me find my way around Portland and rent my first apartment. We ate pastrami sandwiches at Rose’s Deli on 23rd as he regaled me with stories of living in New York City as a young man starting out on his own.

I felt like my dad was proud of me. Like I was his shining star after so much strife.

My father loved the sound of his own voice–his chosen vocations as a pastor and professor not by chance–and was always game for a lively debate. Politics, religion, social justice. My dad could speak confidently on nearly any topic, but rarely spoke of his feelings. I don’t remember him ever telling me that he loved me, although I never doubted that he did.

I often wondered if his psoriasis was his body’s way of shedding all the pent-up emotions he was never able to express.

The day that my father died, I went back to the small apartment he and my mom shared at my sister’s home in Redmond. I found his hat–he always wore a hat–and pulled it to my nose. Stale cigarette smoke and the unmistakable scent of old, dead skin. My dad’s skin. Familiar, just like I remembered. I took the hat home with me that afternoon and zipped it up in a plastic bag. It sits on a shelf in my bedroom closet.

After he died, the church where he spent most of my childhood as the choir director held a memorial service. Strangers I had never seen before stood up to speak of my father–Pastor Jansen they called him. They told stories of playing games with him during summers at vacation bible school and Camp Lutherwood. How he helped them through their struggles with faith as a young person. How his stories and sense of humor in his sermons made the gospel come alive for them.

Later that afternoon, my siblings and I sat around my sister’s backyard and ate egg salad sandwiches. I couldn’t believe what some of those people said about Dad, one of my sisters commented. It was as if they were talking about someone else. That wasn’t the dad I knew. A tinge of sadness and envy played around the edges of her words. A lost opportunity to have the dad she imagined.

Family dynamics are fluid, tricky and tough to navigate and I never took for granted the do-over dad I was lucky enough to have.

Happy Father’s Day.

THREE: FAMILY

She said it as matter-of-factly as if she was commenting on the weather. No one in the family really thinks of you as a writer. The words stopped me in my tracks, but then I nodded as I digested what she just said and pretended like I understood and accepted her explanation.

Family dynamics are tricky. Insidious and sneaky.

I had been struggling with finding my voice in my writing again and was looking for affirmation from my family. Hinting for an “atta girl” or a word of encouragement. Her words stung at first, like the pinch of a thin needle into a vein, but then spread out through my bones as I sat with them. No one really thinks of you as a writer. 

Well, okay.

As the youngest of seven children, I have spent most of my life looking up to everyone. Deferring. Taking advice. Assuming that I couldn’t possibly know because I wasn’t old enough.

I think I’m old enough now.

A friend recently let out a loud chuckle and asked me, incredulous, who are you? when I described to her how I’ve always tended to automatically defer to my older siblings. She went on to tell me, everything I know you to be flies in the face of you being deferential and passive! You’re a grown-ass adult! Why do you allow yourself to be that way?

Why, indeed.

I had no answer for her other than family dynamics can be a motherfucker. If we’re lucky, we successfully build a life away from the constraints of what our families think we should be. That’s not to say our families can’t be closely-knit, wonderful and supportive and they often are. But if we’re not careful, the dynamics we grow up in can prove to be limiting. Those tender, formative years where we learn how to interact with others. Where we begin to define ourselves as we are in relationship with others. It’s heady stuff and easy to fall into our prescribed roles, even when we’re old enough to know better.

The smart one. The emotional one. The baby. The responsible one. The skinny one. The leader. The shy one. The difficult one. 

I don’t know why my brother felt compelled and safe enough to create an completely alternative life with his friends rather than with us, his biological brothers and sisters. Maybe there was too much water under the bridge and he couldn’t find his way back. I can’t tell you why my father created memories of summer camp and kick ball with kids in his congregation more than the ones he went home to at night. I can tell you that family dynamics can be a slick and slippery slope.

No one really thinks of you as a writer, she said to me.

That’s okay, because I’m plenty old enough now to know that I am.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE: JUNE

It’s the third of June, issue 45. Nearly halfway through 2018. So many words written in just under a year. Far more words than I wrote in the previous three years. But no submissions. Zero.

It was back in January when I published this post and publicly proclaimed that 2018 was going to be my year of submission. I had steeled myself to receive a litany of rejections throughout the year, knowing rejections are inevitable on the path to acceptance in a writer’s world. And yet.

I haven’t submitted a thing. I entered a writing contest and then didn’t win, if that counts. Does that count? I have several essays that are waiting in the wings to be nipped and tucked and embellished into something worthy of submission. I have ideas for two books that are just chomping at the bit to be fleshed out and proposed. And yet.

Writing my Three Things blog has been fantastic for honing the discipline of my craft. It’s made me write, which is exactly what it was intended for. But it takes up a lot of my time and takes me away from focusing on other stuff.

Like submissions. And book proposals. I’ve even been conjuring up ideas for another yoga retreat.

My original intention was to take Three Things out for a full year–52 weeks–and then reduce it down to either twice a month or a once-monthly installment. I still need the discipline of a looming deadline to keep me moving forward, so I’m not throwing in the towel completely. Three Things has become a part of me, one that I would miss and mourn if it died. So, this isn’t goodbye, but I may be scaling it down a bit in the weeks to come. Rest assured, I’m still knee-deep in recipes that I’ll be posting once I’ve got them developed to delicious perfection. Music, too, as we dive into the festivals and concerts and new releases of summer.

My yoga practice has taught me the importance of living life intentionally. It’s so easy to get swept up in the clatter and din of the world and lose focus of the kind of life I’m hoping to build. June is a terrific time to press pause, take inventory and readjust the trajectory of our energy if we’ve drifted off course.

How ’bout you? Does your life GPS need a bit of recalculation?

TWO: TRIGGERS

There’s this thing I do whenever I’m in a big group setting and things are being handed out–it could be papers or pencils or slices of birthday cake at a party–and I’m the only one who didn’t get one. I start to spiral downward. I feel my face get hot as I try to swallow my embarrassment and look blithely around the room in an attempt to masquerade my reaction. It’s usually an innocent oversight, with no personal attack intended. But it doesn’t matter.

Being overlooked and forgotten is a trigger of mine.

I know it stems, in part, from my place in my family of origin. The youngest by far in a family of seven. I cried a lot when I was a little girl, always needing my mother’s attention. Her exasperated sighs and tired eyes and wishing I wasn’t so clingy. My neediness embarrassed her and me. Youngest child, middle child, oldest of the pack–we all carry with us emotional baggage from our youth. And this is just one of mine–I have a whole cast of triggers from life with my violent brother, years of disordered eating, body dysmorphia and compulsive exercise.

What’s yours?

Being forgotten is the trigger of mine that happened to raise its ugly head recently when I was inadvertently left off a group email for an upcoming event. There was no malice intended, no ulterior motive, just simple forgetfulness. I laughed it off at first, but then noticed the familiar sink of my heart and the sharp sting of feeling less than. Unseen. I sat with my sad soup of emotion for a bit, stirred it around and let it simmer. And then I put it in its place and moved on. No one needed to manage my trigger but me.

I belong to a very active Facebook group for fans of a particular podcast and several times a week, someone within the group will post a story with what seems to be a mile of cautionary “trigger warning!” preamble.

Trigger warning: talking about doctor appointments! Trigger warning: lost kittens! Trigger warning: visits with the in-laws! Trigger warning: thunder and lightning! Trigger warning: spiders!

I’m not even kidding. I roll my eyes and scroll on past.

It makes me sad to think we’ve all become so hypersensitive that we look to others to curate a trigger-free world for us. I’d like to believe that we’re self-aware and responsible enough to know and deal with the tough stuff that comes our way. Because it will. Because that’s life. We don’t have control over what anyone else says or does, but we always have control over our reactions.

I can control my reactions. And if I can’t, that’s my issue, not yours.

Expecting trigger warnings for every little thing that holds potential for upsetting someone diminishes the importance of recognizing those who struggle with serious issues of trauma and PTSD. Victims of violent crime, combat veterans, abuse survivors. If my innocuous Facebook post about my dog reminded you of Buster the bulldog from your childhood and propelled you into a tailspin of pent-up grief and mourning, I’m sorry. But your reaction is yours to deal with.

Becoming more self-aware and accountable for our actions and reactions makes everyone’s life a bit easier. And yeah, it takes time and effort, maybe a bit of counseling or therapy. Develop a meditation practice or another mode of self-inquiry. Get quiet and painfully honest with yourself.

Take your finger off the trigger.

THREE: NO APOLOGY NECESSARY

She was a petite woman in my chair-based yoga class, asking where some of the older chairs had disappeared to. We had recently updated our stash of chairs and the shiny, new ones had seats that were at least an inch or two higher. It’s important that the yogis are able to easily place their feet on the floor while seated all the way back in the chair. The woman lowered her voice and whispered, “I’m sorry I’m so short. I’m embarrassed to have to ask.”

“First of all,” I replied, looking her squarely in the eyes, “don’t ever, ever, ever apologize for your body! Secondly, I’ll find you those chairs and finally, you’re not the only one who has asked me about them.” A look of relief washed across her face as she flashed a shy smile and sighed.

Don’t apologize for your body.

I was nearing the end of a first-aid training at a local YMCA when the instructor had us take a break before the final exam. The private, single-use bathroom nearby was occupied, so I stood in the hallway, waiting my turn. Soon, the door swung open and a young woman in her early twenties emerged. She saw me waiting in the hallway and sheepishly gasped, “Oh, sorry!” as she slipped out of the bathroom.

What are you apologizing for? I wanted to ask her. For using the bathroom and making me wait? For taking up space? Or are you apologizing out of habit because this is what you’ve learned to do as a woman?

Don’t apologize for taking up space. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.

My friend was telling me about her trip to Disneyland, grousing about the distracted crowds, faces in phones, everyone so unaware of their bodies in space. I loved how she talked about making herself bigger to withstand the bumper-car-barrage of clueless bodies constantly coming her way. Shoulders back, elbows out, chin high. I loved how she showed her daughter how to do it, too.

How many women do you see striding confidently through a crowd? How many men do you see trying to shrink and become less-than? It’s a man’s world–or at least it has been, historically. I think it’s time we begin to change that up.

For so long, I strived to make myself as small as possible. To take up less space, be less of a bother to anyone. It was as if I walked through my days apologizing for my existence. Oh, sorry I’m here—whoops.

I’m happy to say I don’t do that anymore and neither should you. Take up space. Make some noise. Turn some heads with your loud, infectious laugh. Tell the yoga teacher you’re gonna need a different chair to better fit your remarkable body. Make your way through the weight room at the gym, shoulder-to-shoulder with all the muscle-y, preening men and high school boys and take your rightful place with the barbells and deadlifts.

Apologies are great and necessary for lots of things: stealing, betraying trust, lying, deliberately hurting someone, making a mistake. But your existence, your body and what you need requires no apology at all.

“I ain’t sorry.” ~ Beyoncé

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ONE:SUMMER

It’s still officially spring, but isn’t Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer? I guess we can start wearing white now. Just kidding–you know you can wear white wherever and whenever the hell you want to, right? And anyone who lives in the Pacific Northwest knows that summer doesn’t truly begin until sometime in late July. (Thankfully.)

I hate the heat, but I love the warmth and promise that arrives between late May and early July. Before the firecrackers are launched and the dog days set in, when the grass is still green and the gardens lush with blooms. It is a heady time, the air full of fragrance–warm dirt and berries, barbecue and cocoa butter.

It wasn’t long ago that I had been searching for a photo that had been downloaded onto our desktop’s library and got swept up in a wave of memories as I scrolled into the summer of 2016. A kaleidoscopic photo diary of that summer–beaches and cities and sunsets and art fairs stretched out before me. A summer rich with experiences. I grew nostalgic and even a bit envious of the summer I had that year. Last summer–2017–had felt different and I wondered why.

A torn meniscus and the resulting pain and limited mobility. A crushed spirit. Lost mojo. Energy drained. I told my friend I didn’t want to go to the drag races last summer because it would be “too hot and too loud” and then regretted missing the heat and roar and the dusty parking lot where we’d wait out the lengthy line of exiting race fans, sitting on the open hatch of my Prius with cool drinks, limp sandwiches and deep conversation.

I closed my photo library on the desktop and immediately messaged my friend, instructing him to write up a wish list of things to do this summer. Concerts, fairs, day trips, restaurants, hikes–bring it on. I told him I would be doing the same and we’d meet up and commit to a calendar of events. We made plans to meet for brunch on a rainy Sunday in March and hatch our summer agenda.

We never made it to brunch that day because I spent the afternoon with the Mister and my daughter in a hospital room in Tacoma, holding the warm hand of an unconscious young woman on life support. A brilliant young woman whom we loved, who–for whatever reason–couldn’t face the future. Her sister, bustling about, taking care of everyone and their sadness, her plans for the future immediately paused and altered in the chaos of life and death.

It is such a privilege to be able to plan. It is a gift to be able to look forward.

This summer, I am not taking that privilege for granted. I now have two knees sporting torn meniscus but my spirit is strong and my mojo is back in town. There will be concerts outdoors and crowded art fairs where I will grouse about the “too many people” and then laugh at my crabby, judgmental self. Ferry rides, just because. Sunsets over water and back fences and forests. Sunrises on those early Thursday mornings when I rise before dawn to teach yoga. Sunrises that I will pause for and notice how very sweet the early morning summer air smells. Snakes on trails. A chorus of frogs at dusk. Showing more skin and caring less. Sunscreen.

Next summer is not guaranteed. Living fully through this summer–through tomorrow and the next day–is a privilege I will not take for granted.

Now, tell me your plans for this one wild and precious summer.

TWO: LETTERS

Twenty years from now, will you hold that heartfelt text from your best friend in your hands and smile at their handwriting and feel their presence?

Probably not. That makes me sad.

I hold the same nostalgic romanticism about letter writing as I do about baking one’s own bread or the musty bouquet between the pages of an old book or bellying up to the bar in the diviest watering hole in town, if you can still find one.

When people tell stories about finding a stack of letters bound by string or elastic, I feel a tingle down my spine. Words and paper, handwriting and emotion, all bundled together for someone to hold up to their nose and inhale. Tangible and real, an exchange of communication between humans that you can touch and feel and hold in your hands. I love it so much.

I’ve always been a letter-writer. I juggled a constant stream of pen pals as I was growing up and still keep in touch with a few via social media. I keep a ziplock bag of cards in an office drawer that I pull out when I think of someone and scrawl out a greeting and slide it into the mail. Whose heart doesn’t leap a little at the sight of a real postage stamp on the top right corner of a hand-addressed card or letter tucked into the monotonous stack of bills and solicitations found in most mailboxes these days?

The Mister and I met through a letter I wrote to the management company of the rock and roll band he worked with. Even then, letter writing was beginning to fade and few twenty-somethings took the time and effort to do so. I like to think it was the novelty of it that got the Mister’s attention, or perhaps it was my witty way with words or clever ideas. I wish he had kept that letter, but when you’re young and immortal you throw things away without much thought to the future.

I don’t save every birthday and Christmas card, but I do have a file folder where I stuff the ones that are covered with handwritten sentiments and love. I have a letter from my mom, sent to me when I was living on my own for the first time in Portland. She writes about going to The Sizzler with my dad and what TV shows she’s watching and how the house is too quiet without me. The sight of her meticulous, small handwriting fills me with love. I have a little note from my father, his rangy script thanking me for helping him grade a stack of college finals when he was overwhelmed with work. And if you’ve ever handed me a note or letter or a card expressing how yoga has impacted your life, that’s tucked in there, too. I take those out and read them again on days that feel hard and dark, those times when I wonder if I’m doing anything right.

I love the immediacy and efficiency of texting. I love how it keeps us in touch with each other, even with a simple kissy-face emoji when we’re too busy or tired to write more. Email is great to make plans and do business with. But you can’t hold any of it in your hands. You can’t see the familiar handwriting of your loved ones. It’s not the same and it shouldn’t replace the art and intimacy of letter writing.

So, write someone a letter today. It doesn’t have to be pages long. Tell them what they mean to you. Bring up a memory that makes you smile and write it down and share it with them. Send a birthday card, a thank-you note, a love letter. Doodle in the margins and sign your name with a flourish that feels right.

I’ll send you one, too, if you want. Message me your mailing address and I promise to put something in the mail for you.

A little something, a happy surprise for you to find in your stack of bills, to hold in your hands and maybe tuck away in a file to pull out again on your darkest days.

THREE: FLOW

I’ve been watching you lately.

You who come to my class with your head tangled up in your worries and fears. I see you.

For the first eternity after beginning to teach yoga, I never looked up. I practiced in the front of the class, on my mat, breathing and cueing and moving and sweating just like the rest of you. My need to prove myself to you. Like you wouldn’t believe me or take me seriously as a yoga teacher if I didn’t show you that I could do everything I was asking you to.

I missed out on a lot.

I missed your triumphs when you caught your first millisecond of balance in Crow Pose. I missed seeing half the class drop to their knees because I was so intent on challenging everyone–on proving something to someone, mostly myself–that I forgot about who was actually in the class and what they came for. I missed seeing your cheeky t-shirts as you rose up into that first Mountain Pose that read “mama needs a cocktail” or “made of star stuff” that would have made me smile, or even laugh and get to know you a bit better.

In teacher training, my teacher would often cue us through Sun Salutation after Sun Salutation until my shoulders burned with the fire of effort and rivers of sweat streamed down my legs. She was looking for something from us. Not grit, not endurance, not mettle.

But flow. Dropping. Releasing. Getting out of our own way. Flow, baby, flow.

That moment–that magical moment when a class collectively drops into the rhythm of their breath and gets out of themselves is stunning. You stop tugging at your top, so worried that your beautiful belly which bears the evidence of the human you built there might show. You rise to standing at the top of your mat, strands of hair plastered willy-nilly across your face with an expression of utter peace and contentment. You don’t bother to wipe the hair out of your eyes because you don’t care and your lack of caring makes me smile. There’s no hurry up or keep up or fuck up because you are being far more than doing.

It gives me chills every single time. It makes me remember why I love my job.

Recently, I had read an article about Pattabhi Jois, the father of Ashtanga yoga, which made a claim about Jois prescribing twelve Sun Salutations a day as a cure for insanity. First of all, Pattabhi Jois was not a doctor and probably should not have been prescribing anything for anybody. Secondly, I was never able to locate that article again, so I cannot vouch for its validity. But I can vouch for the medicine that yoga has the potential to be. Yoga, in its purest sense, not yoga in its commercialized and commodified form. Not the perfected postures in color coordinated outfits Photoshopped to highlight the young, thin, white model’s muscle definition. But yoga as a means of dropping ego and self and diving into the depths of breath and presence. Getting out of your manic mind and into something greater.

Meditation in motion.

I see it during Locust when you gather energy into your core and allow your breath to lift you up, almost effortlessly. I see it as you pause, taking time to find your roots and stability and then kick back and stretch forward into the balance of Dancer’s Pose. I see it in your soft, steady gaze as we hold Warrior 2 and you realize how fierce and grounded you truly are. I see it as you lower to your knees and bow to the floor in Child’s Pose, honoring the reality and truth of your body today.

In my second eternity of teaching yoga, my practice is paying attention. Watching, guiding and reminding until I see you drop the noise of yourself and flow into something greater.

I see you.