Putting Spark to the Cold Ground

I once spent a night alone in a biologist’s cabin in Garden Valley, Idaho. It was January and the entire valley was padded with a foot of powdery snow.  I was doing a clinical rotation in that small town and the doctor I worked with had an arrangement with the family that owned this cabin, that it could house PA students during their clinical rotations, when it was not otherwise in use. 

My 1998 Saturn SL with bald tires couldn’t even make it through town without getting stuck, much less the one-lane mountain road on which the cabin stood. The doctor drove me to the cabin in his Suburban, handing me a key and pointing me to the porch of the snowy structure before driving off into the dark. There was no cell service.

The cabin felt lived in. The bed sheets carried the scent of the last sleeper. Personal objects were left about in a way that suggested someone would be back soon to resume their use. A layer of cat hair rested over the couch and carpeting, but it was interspersed with downy feathers. The owner was a falconer—at least I knew this much to explain the mice in the freezer. 

There was an electric heater in the wall of the kitchen that ticked and clanged softly as it warmed and then cooled and then warmed again. The thermostat read 50 degrees—certainly warm enough not to freeze, but not warm enough to be comfortable. I worked on that thermostat attempting to adjust the temperature up, but it would not respond. So I cooked my ramen noodles and stood over the counter eating them while dressed in my coat and hat. Standing while eating a meal at the kitchen counter, or over the kitchen sink, is a lonely way to dine but somehow feels less lonely than finding a seat. 

When I finished, I set out exploring the space. I found a wood stove off of the living room in the back of the cabin and there was some wood stacked neatly beside it. I had some experience with wood stoves so I thought I could probably get a fire going and that might keep the space more comfortable until morning. But I couldn’t find an axe or hatchet to hew the quartered logs into kindling. I knelt on concrete, pulling and willing pieces of wood from those logs, praying for the crackle of a fire to break the silence of the alien landscape. I worked and I prayed and I struck matches and watched them burn out. 

There would be no fire that night. I would unroll my sleeping bag in the bedroom nearest the kitchen, and therefore the warmest, the one that smelled most strongly of cats. I would dress against the cold in my heavy sweat pants, jacket and hat before zipping myself in. I would lie awake in the dark smelling the absent cats and listening to to the tick, tick, tick of the electric heater and then the deafening silence, until I wandered into a dream and onto the cold, morning light.

If fire represents spirit (think Moses’ burning bush or offerings consumed by flame), isn’t there a similarity happening this time of year? Each year, as darkness overtakes the land, a stagnation, a silence settles in me, like ice on the pond, and I can’t imagine Spring because I am entombed by the layer crusted overhead.

I guess we have different words to describe this, like “seasonal affective disorder,” “winter depression,” or just “hibernation.” To call it a disorder has always felt a little unfair to me. After all, isn’t there a rhythm to existence that nature consistently bends and sways with, but we, as humans, do our best to ignore? 

When I consider the way humans have lived through most of history, without magical boxes in the walls that produce heating and cooling, it seems obvious we’ve moved away from the natural rhythm of life. Especially in December when all the world is shutting down but we are rushing to buy gifts, make charitable contributions to offset taxes, and fit in last minute medical and dental procedures because we’ve met a deductible.

But what happens to the home fires with all of this rushing around? I have a good friend and a sister with only a wood stove for heating their homes. They must think about the fire before leaving the house if they want to return to warmth. And when the fire goes out, it takes time and energy to heat the space again. Keeping the hearth fire going, or at least having the ability to make a fire when needed, was a critical job throughout most of time.

I remember the cold of that night when I couldn’t start a fire and I wonder now, how do I tend to the fire? Now that darkness has settled in. Now that the chill of night only gives way to a stiff wind and puff of rain. How do I nourish myself and others? How do I generate warmth and light? 

Joseph Campbell wrote, “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again. You really don’t have a sacred space, a rescue land, until you find somewhere to be that’s not a wasteland, some field of action where there is a spring of ambrosia—a joy that comes from inside, not something external that puts joy into you—a place that lets you experience your own will and your own intention and your own wish so that, in small, the Kingdom is there. I think everybody, whether they know it or not, is in need of such a place.”

We all need a place, a designated time and space, where we can tend to the hearth of our creative spirit. We need conversation with our gods, whether they be personal values, ethical codes or actual deity that influence life here on earth. After all, our relationship with the spiritual is a reflection of our relationships with each other.

But, as that cold night reminded me, fires built without ignition must be built with the tiniest pieces first. Lying bits of wood and paper, gently blowing and then feeding, blowing and then feeding, laying a foundation from which to coax the flames into a roaring inferno. The creative life is no different. There is something very beautiful about putting a spark to the cold ground, protecting it, feeding it, as it grows slowly to the point where you have an actual fire in your life—an understanding of your purpose here, your inspiration, your selfhood, your meaning. 

There is nothing more fulfilling or more important than building such a roaring flame, if for no other reason than when it goes out, you know how to bring it back.

Attention

I smell the ocean on the warm breeze flowing steadily past the skin on my face and arms, which are slightly sticky from the drying salt water. The sun is headed down but the days are long and it will be hours before it sets. There is a seagull walking past, eyeing the abandoned beach blanket next to mine, likely considering if I pose a threat to her pillage of my neighbor’s lunch. Children fly toward the shore on boogie boards and frothy waves. It is summer in San Diego.

When I sit down to write, this is often how I start. I ground myself to what is in front of me, under me, around me and above me. My journal is full of descriptions of the plants, insects and animals in my backyard. It’s a way for me to shut off the constant flow of chatter in my mind and connect to the deeper things. So today, it’s the sand and the wooshing border of this vast ocean, the click of wooden paddles on balls, and the delighted screams of playing children, that  will guide me to connection. 

A couple of years ago I went back to the property that was purchased by my Great Grandma and Grandpa Whipple. It was a one acre lot in Quartzsite, Arizona, a town known for its bustling snowbird community and annual rock show. Quartzsite is the epitome of an Arizona desert with looming saguaro cacti and prickles on every living thing protruding from the earth. I was there in February but in the summer it bakes like an oven. 

My great-grandparents were snowbirds. They started heading south to escape the Idaho winters when my Grandpa Whipple was there to tend to the farm in their place. At first they wandered like nomads through southern Utah, Arizona, Nevada and into Mexico with a travel trailer and a pickup truck. As they went, they collected shells, rocks, and fragments of iron wood which they turned into beautiful pieces of art. When they finally settled into Quartzsite they put a single-wide trailer on their acre lot, complete with miniature blush-pink appliances. 

That trailer has since been replaced, but I visited it once when I was about ten years old. I remember my grandpa giving Grandma a pat on the bum as he squeezed behind her in the tiny kitchen, and smiling, as he said that was one of the good things about the small kitchen. I couldn’t go back there without remembering the quiet, peace of that place, when my grandparents wintered there. 

My mom and dad were there to retrieve any wanted objects from the property before listing it to sell. We found a diary my great-grandma, Ruby, had kept one year as the moved around in the travel trailer. It was filled with short entries about the weather and the plants and the little chores they had done, like baking bread or giving my great-grandpa a haircut. It conveyed a sense of the rhythm of their life. 

It reminded me of the visits I had with my grandparents, both my mom’s parents and my dad’s parents, on their farms in Idaho. We took joy in the land, the yards around their homes and the fields with cultivated crops. We admired the roses, even bigger than last year, and the trees with promising blossoms or ripening fruit. And were the pie cherries on? Or had the birds got to them already? And Grandma had rearranged the flowerbeds, with this one raised up on a little berm and that one reduced in a way that made everything slightly more suited to her vision. We talked about the rain and the cows and the frost and freeze. My grandparents were farmers and that connected them to the land in a way that I will never fully know. But I may carry something in my blood, in my bones, that I inherited from them, and that is attention.

“One of the great misconceptions about the artistic life is that it entails great swaths of aimlessness. The truth is the creative life involves great swaths of attention. Attention is a way to connect and survive,” Julia Cameron writes. Cameron and I have this in common, grandmothers who wrote letters and kept diaries and spoke of the “series of small miracles” unfolding in everyday life, in nature. 

Camron writes, “My grandmother was gone before I learned the lesson her letters were teaching: survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention….The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” 

Attention is how I got through the harrowing pain of my divorce. I wandered the neighborhood, watching the passion vine blossom before turning to fruit. I watched the morning doves nest and hatch and fly away. I saw the cactus bloom an incredible white starburst. I felt the quality of the air shift as the seasons passed. My son, before my eyes, began to speak full sentences and run and climb and race pieces of chalk, like cars, on the cement in front of our apartment. I was preoccupied a lot. My brain was a savage landscape of fear and anxieties, so it became necessary for me to find an escape in the world in front of me. 

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

“The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain—the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed finally, is the pain that underlies all pain: the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, ‘unutterably alone.’ More than anything else, attention is an act of connection,” Camron says. 

My Grandma Hurst’s fifth child, Brent, was born with a heart defect. He was not supposed to live two days, but he lived 18 years. After Brent passed away, Grandma Hurst took up painting. She started taking oil painting classes. She worked in chalk pastels, water color, and ceramics. She is one of the most prolific artists I know. We, all of her children and grandchildren, have her art in our homes and her basement is filled with canvases that have to be rotated because, even among all of us, there is not enough space to display her enormous collection. 

In the last five years, I have come to see Grandma Hurst’s art as an enormous labor of feeling. I have never had to endure losing a child, but I have known heartache and I can imagine that art became for her what writing has become for me: a way to confront and process and heal the the things that cannot be worked out in any other way.

Pain is the place where so much art is born because pain demands our attention. The physical pain I endured with my first laparotomy was so intense that I laid, with closed eyes, focused only on each breath. Even speech was too much of a distraction. When I gave birth to my son, the last hour of labor I was told not to push because I was not yet dilated, yet every ounce of my flesh wanted me to push that baby out that very second, and to hold that back required every bit of the presence and focus I possessed. 

Physical pain gives you something to hold onto but emotional pain has brought me to a similar place. I have crumpled to the floor, but once the wave passes I am left to feel my cheek against the hardwood, sticky with tears. I am left with the physicality of the present moment. When I see a bougainvillea I think of the hours I spent, lying in the hammock looking up at fuchsia petals backed by twilight sky, wondering how I would make it through the next minute, next hour, next day…what would save me from my suffering?

And it has mostly been art, the product of paying attention to the flashing fragments that make moonlight appear ductile, as Richard Adams must have when he described it so beautifully. Noticing the ache in my chest, the wonder of the sticky anemone closing around my finger, the beauty of the tracks chalk race cars leave on the sidewalk, the beauty wrought by my own hand. 

Attention is conduit to aliveness. Please, please, please pay attention.

I am [after all,] my own muse.

"Anyway, the clouds are sagging like the roof of a blanket fort. It feels cozy in a way. And writing here feels like I am talking to a best friend or lover. It feels safe. I feel whole. 

I’m watching the leaves of the tree, two houses over, dance in a breeze I cannot feel. Reminds me that each experience is singular. Even this shared experience with the tree and I under the blanket for sky. For I am reclined on a couch behind a wall and the tree is…well…Do trees always stand at attention? I can’t imagine. I think this tree is stretching, plumbing a root deeper into the earth while the wind tickles her cheeks with her hair dancing across her face. 

It’s wholeness and oneness and stillness and night air thick with dew. We are drinking it in. This is a beautiful night. This is rare."

It’s rare that something comes out of my morning pages that I actually care to publish or use in some other piece of work. But this came out a few nights ago. I didn’t get my morning pages done in the morning because I was working on some other things and by 9pm, I was missing my friend. That’s what the pages have become to me. 

When I went on my Artist Date this week, I stopped at a European lounge that just opened in Oceanside. I had just dropped R off with his dad for the weekend. The jazz club I wanted to go to was still setting up, so I stopped into this strange space. The seating was a series of couches, arm chairs, coffee tables and ottomans. An enthusiastic entrepreneur greeted me at the door and let me find a seat. The place was empty except for one group of three women, sharing a charcuterie and bottle of wine, and a lone woman at the bar, working on her laptop, talking loudly to the bartender. I took my seat against the wall so I could watch everything unfold in front of me and I took out my journal to enjoy some dinner conversation with myself.

It strikes me how this is odd. I almost never see people journaling in cafes, and I often get asked what I am writing by my waiter when I do this. It seems we have relegated our work to coffee shops and, while they can be a quiet, relaxing place, I find the energy of a restaurant in the evening to be much more engaging, mostly, for what it brings up in me.

When I ask the hostess for a table for one, they always appear slightly surprised. I believe work travelers probably do this. But maybe not so commonly at the nice places, or maybe they choose to sit at the bar where their solitude will go more easily unnoticed. 

I wonder if the waiter is disappointed when I am the only person at the table, effectively cutting the expected bill/tip in half. But they are usually very kind, and I order a drink and an appetizer (because I find appetizers to be the most imaginative thing on the menu). I order the entree knowing that I will not be able to finish it, but I get a box to take it with me.  

And all while this is going on, I settle into my senses. I watch the rhythm of people in conversation around me: couples looking at their phones, young pairs eating with what’s obviously someone’s parents, two people so eagerly engaged in conversation you can palpate the heat of a new relationship. I observe the energy of all of this and I write, not so much describing what I see but what it brings up in me. “I am [after all,] my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better,” in the words of Frida Khalo.  

In this way, it becomes a dinner conversation with myself. I eat and sip and watch and write. I engage with each bite like I mean to know it, thoroughly. I tip well. I leave feeling quiet, and full and beautifully anonymous to all but me. 

Walking today

Walking todayI saw a bird in the tree overhead,I heard her first,Belting wildly, naturally,Into her head (or out of her heart).She tipped forward and backOn the branch next to the telephone wireWhich might have felt precarious,Except that, so clearly,She was meant for song and this light.Could you help but love her?Silhouette against the sky,Teaching you to sing with herWhole body, whole life, the momentDawn creeps into the sky?

This came out on the page this morning. Creativity is medicine, my love. It makes it possible to start again over and over and over and over...

Happy Monday!

And please take a look at what starts Wednesday! I'll be taking you through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron this summer. This book, this activity, this exercise can be life changing! It's about unlocking your creativity and confronting fear and it can be useful for anyone who feels they are living, not for themselves, but for anyone or anything else.

Read more here! The Artist's Way: A Summer of Creativity

The Artist's Way: A Summer of Creativity!

R is going to be with his dad a lot this summer. It's okay. It's in our parenting plan. But, whenever I have to go a long stretch without him I go through the five stages of grief (sometimes I can do this in a whole weekend!). So for my own sanity and because I so love this book, I'm inviting you to do something with me.

Let's read The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron!

If you are creative but feel your creativity lagging, if you used to be creative but haven't used that part of yourself for some time, if you think you might be creative but never really tried--this book is medicine.

And let me be clear, when I say creative, I mean the most broad and inclusive definition. Anything from visual art and writing, to homemaking to computer programming, to just living a creative life. Actually, that last one is the most important to me. And let me define it: living a creative life means living in the way that is most uniquely you, peeling back the layers of culture and socialization to reveal the truest version of yourself.

If that sounds good to you, or even mildly interesting. Grab a copy of this book and follow along with me for the next 12 weeks. I'm envisioning this as a kind of Julie and Julia experience, but instead of mastering the art of French cooking, I'll be going through the creativity exercises each week and posting about my experience.

So here are the ground rules:

1. Be kind to yourself. This exercise does require a little discipline but if I've learned anything from my work in drug and alcohol recovery, it's this--you can't hate yourself anything. You can't hate yourself into being sober, creative, productive, or kind, at least not with any lasting effect.
2. If you fall behind, just pick up where you can, or, if you intentionally set a slower pace for yourself, just come back to the posts when you get time.

That's it. Two rules.

I would LOVE to interact with you on social. Links are below, if you aren't already connected to me in that way. I'm gonna do my best to create Reels and TikToks to accompany the posts each week. And each week will run from Wednesday to Wednesday, so you can look for new content on Wednesday by end of day.

So grab a copy of this book! It's old so check a used bookstore if you like to be thrifty. This is the link on Amazon if you are convenience-motivated! I do recommend you get a paper copy of the book because you will need to refer back to the exercises and practices recommended each week. There is also a journal available--I've done this twice through and never used the journal but it might be nice--lemme know if you like it! And it is available on Audible or audio format, but like I said, the paper book will be nice to refer back to so maybe get both if you are dedicated to listening.

I'm writing this from my bathtub again! That's one of the things I figured out going through her book the last time - water helps things flow for me. So, I'll be here all summer, soaking and writing, and eager to hear about your experience!

We start next Wednesday, June 8 <3

Love (from the tub),

Michelle

Something good :)

Writing poetry about hard things is easy in a way.

But, what about that whisper from inside that says good things are coming?

The things you've waited for, even silently, as they seemed too big to speak?

They are in motion.

They are nearly here.

All you must do is keeping going.

Keep crossing that bridge.

On the other side, it's still just life, but something sweet is there waiting.

My morning pages are usually a list of my mundane worries, to-do list, things I am mulling over for the 64th time. But today this came out! A strangely auspicious premonition...I guess we'll see!

Still, it reminded me of this from Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things:

"Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.”

I also made my TikTok debut this week with something very important! I look kind of serious--please! know this is concentration--not me thinking I'm a serious dancer.

https://www.tiktok.com/@michelledwhipple

Who is Heavenly Mother?

Note: This post is a throwback, originally published in June 2019, and it still feels true. Feels relevant to the LDS community right now. Feels relevant to the ongoing struggle for the sovereignty of women. But most of all it feels relevant to my role as mother at this point in my life, as co-creator and a witness to the life of my little one (as he become increasingly bigger!). Happy Mother's Day to the divine feminine in each of us.

I’ve been trying to understand, FOR ME, what is the most useful way to think about God.  In the Mormon theology I was raised with, God is male and usually referred to as Heavenly Father.  Mormonism has the beautiful, and added, benefit of a female counterpart to the male God, termed Heavenly Mother.  The idea is that we are all part of a massive human family with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and all of humanity as our siblings.  There’s a lot that I like about this model.  It’s reflective of the family structure most of us have experienced so it’s familiar (it can also be fraught for the same reason).  

Little is said of Heavenly Mother in Mormon doctrine and culture.  This has usually been explained to me to be because she is so sacred that Heavenly Father protects her from the profanity of human conversation.  From a feminist perspective, this explanation is infuriating and degrading.  From the perspective one who views herself as a child with heavenly parents, it’s confusing.  Kids need their mom.  Why would you withhold that?  

Maybe strangely, this issue has been of little bother to me for most of my life.  My religious persona has been quite accepting of these sorts of problems and explanations, pushing them under the umbrella of, I’ll understand that better someday.  Sometimes that umbrella is useful because some of these topics can only be explored with time and life experience.  They live like little ghosts in the back of my psyche until an experience brings them to the foreground.  

This past week, I was talking to my parents about a problem, I’ve been trying to figure out for months.  I presented them with my current thinking about it and my dad said, “That seems really sensible.”  To which I replied, “I’m not going for sensible! That’s not how I’m making decisions anymore.  I want it to FEEL right.”  And he, so humbly and happily said, “Oh! Well that’s your mother’s domain.”  He’s so great!  I can’t remember what my mom said to this, but I remember the energy of it, and it was something about self trust.  And I’m going to come back to this in a minute. 

I want to write a little about what I’ve observed in the nature of the feminine.  And to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s term, I don’t want to get “gender-freaky” about this.  I’m talking about the iconic feminine.  

The feminine creates.  This is the energy in the universe that calls to us to experiment and imagine.  To me, the feminine creative energy feels like lying on my back looking at the clouds and seeing figures of airplanes and unicorns.  It’s not overtly practical or directional.  It might even feel superfluous, but, like air, its necessity is recognized mostly by its absence.

The feminine is the ether.  I like to think about this from the perspective of a child in the womb.  We are swimming in the feminine.  She is all around.  Think about the idea of mother earth.  She is the rock, the water, the sky and everything in between all of it.  Maybe this is why we feel close to the divine as we connect with the natural world.  It’s like pressing a fetal hand into the wall of the womb, becoming slightly aware of the being that is carrying us.  The problem is not locating the feminine, it’s becoming conscious that she is all around me. 

The feminine nurtures.  The feminine says, I will go on doing all of this, holding all of this, whether you notice or not, because I am doing it for my own purpose.  This is the subtle strength of feminine care.  All of this carrying and holding and love is not contingent upon outcomes and results, it is intrinsic. 

I’m sure there is more that could be written about this, but maybe that’s enough to nudge your mind in the direction I’m intending.  I’ve been thinking about these things in the context of Heavenly Mother.  And I’ve realized that most of the spiritual practices I’ve adopted this past year are things that put me in the way of this divine, feminine energy.   

Nature. I’ve noticed that one of the most universal ways of connecting with God or finding peace or hearing the inner voice is to be in nature.  While some are getting dressed up for church, many are heading into the mountains or the sea.  Church is sort of a masculine, direct pathway to God.  It’s like following a map to the divine father.  These are my office hours, so to speak.  But nature is always open—curious and diverse and meandering.  I believe this is where the divine mother lives.

My body.  I feel super cool about my body these days, because I feel like it is this beautiful echo of my divine mother’s voice.  I’ve come to experience this in several ways—child birth, exercise, meditation, sleep—but the yoga mat has been an excellent teacher.  There are truths embedded in my flesh that are revealed only when I am paying very close attention and yoga has given me a way to notice them.  Each time I get on the mat, I have to strip away all the expectations of myself for performance.  My intention is usually to listen or to let go—surrender, release, acceptance.  My mind becomes the servant of my body and my spirit becomes the quiet observer.  Teach me, I say to my self—to the part of me that already knows—the divine feminine.

Honesty.  Some of my most powerful connections with the divine, come during intimate conversations.  Isn’t this how it’s always been with women?  While men are hunting beasts and conquering legions, women are in the back room making dinner or folding clothes and talking about the heart of life.  The feminine divine is in these quite conversations, in the quiet honesty.  She is in the utterance of fear and uncertainty and the humble declaration of faith.  The feminine divine can hold all of this—the ugly and the beautiful, the weak and the strong.  It’s all safe with her.  

Art. Honesty is the birthplace of art.  The feminine divine cheers us on as we attempt to excavate those sacred jewels within and bring them into the world.  She is in the music and the poetry.  We do ourselves a disservice by relegating this category of expression to entertainment, because it is so much more than that.  Heavenly Mother is constantly asking us to dance with her, to sing, to write, to draw, because that is the way we can come to know ourselves in the way SHE sees us.  In the same way I encourage my son’s fledgling attempts at creativity, she is doting over my bad poetry, messy relationships and off-key singing with the hope that I will not let the world close my mouth.  

Linger and rest.  The iconic feminine meanders.  My therapist taught me this months ago and it’s something that frequently comes to mind.  The feminine is like the path along the cliff line that has amazing views but takes a little longer.  I’m someone who naturally values efficiency, so it has taken a conscious effort to allow myself to walk the scenic path.  The feminine suggests, maybe it’s okay to just sit here for a while and enjoy the beauty of this place or moment.  Maybe it’s okay to linger.  Maybe it’s okay to take a nap if you’re tired.  There may be miles to go, but there is time and it’s okay to be kind to yourself.  

Now that I better understand the feminine divine, I see that, because of her nature, she doesn’t fit easily into organized religion.  She is too big and complicated for that.  There are no instructions for breathing!  How would you teach someone to inhale?  Yet, I notice very quickly when I am becoming oxygen-deprived. 

So back to my story about the conversation with my mom and dad.  I don’t feel bad that I can’t remember my mother’s exact words because the words were not as important as the feeling.  And this is true to the feminine divine.  She doesn’t write instruction booklets.  She is unstructured and unshaped.  And because of that she can fit into the spaces where other things can’t.    

This is me in the flow: quiet mind, open heart. I think of these moments as glimpses. I just try to catch a peek of that feeling as often as I can. P.S.-- Heavenly Mother thinks SnapChat filters are fun too!

Heavenly Mother is the essence of self care.  A while back, I realized that the only thing that REALLY qualified as self-care—that really worked—was the activities that cleared the crap off of my soul.  The things that helped me to hear my inner voice.  This is Heavenly Mother.  So maybe you can pray to her.  Maybe you can visualize a heavenly being with kind eyes and a loving embrace.  If that’s helpful, then do it!  

My advice on this topic is really DO ANYTHING.  Reach out into the ether and you will find her because she is everywhere and all it takes to access her is a quiet mind and an open heart.  The practices that will be most helpful are the ones that create those two things.  And when you find her, tell me about it because I live for this stuff now! Namaste. 

Moving on.

Sometimes you get an email on a random Tuesday that's really a box of venom and darkness. And it's from someone you can't block. So you write. Not back to them. But to yourself.

Just because you disgust one person, doesn't mean you are disgusting. You are light. You are fire. Burn, baby.

Moving on.

Grieving the life I used to be. 

Everyone is really disappointed, he wrote. 

I said, 

Most of all, me.

February 2022, Michelle Whipple

Moving on, 4.30.22, charcoal pencil and watercolor crayon

A new direction

I've been mulling it over and I've decided to take a slightly new direction in this space. You can still expect essays but I'm going to put a little more emphasis on poetry and art and creativity in general. And joy in the midst of life that's always shifting and challenging and sometimes just shitty. Think smaller posts more often. Okay? Okay. I'm stoked. See you soon.

Kauai is messing with you

This Kauai trip, it's been interesting. I had the extra burden of writing a book while I’ve been here. That has made the trip decidedly less zen than my typical solo retreat. Also mercury is in retrograde. The Verizon tower was down on the North side of the island for a couple of days, plus the energy feels kinda crazy. Like everything been shaken up a little bit. 

But mainly, it’s been windy as hell. And when I say that, I mean literal hell because I cannot imagine a worse eternal punishment than constant, strong wind. When I’ve traveled to other islands in Hawaii, I’ve encountered this [actually—Maui—also windy, also mercury retrograde…hmmm….] but I was able to escape the bluster by going to a different part of the island. That has not worked on Kauai. I don’t know enough about wind and ocean currents and the jet stream and mountains to say why the island isn’t blocking the wind somewhere, but I didn’t find it. 

Waimea Canyon

• 

  Waimea Canyon at the top!

Still even with the wind, I’ve made the best of it. I did a big hike in Waimea Canyon at the beginning of the week. I descended 2.5 miles and 2300 feet down the Kuku’i trial to the river below. The views were spectacular and I treated myself to a luxurious skinny dip in an amazing swimming hole alongside of four other nymphs. Then I ascended the 2300 feet, which wasn’t nearly as fun, but I felt like having a work out so it worked! 

• 

  Waimea Canyon at the bottom

• 

  Doin' it for the 'gram!

• 

  A beach of sea glass!

Waimea Canyon at the bottom and Glass Beach!

That same day I visited Glass Beach, the site of an old landfill, which has now produced a beach filled with grains of sea glass. It was lovely, but windy and raining and I nearly stepped on a sleeping Hawaiian Monk Seal—a federally prosecutable crime—yikes! So I didn’t stay long. I also didn’t take any sea glass even though I love collecting the stuff at home in California. I get it! Glass Beach needs the glass! I stopped at an adorable used bookstore to get another copy of The Artist’s Way to help me write some of this book I’m working on.

The Men

The universe seemed to be poking fun at me when I stopped for dinner after the long day of driving and hiking and driving some more. I decided I was too tired to go back to the AirBnB for a shower, so I rifled through my available wardrobe, found a clean shirt and threw it on over my dirty self. The restaurant had no wait and I passed by a man who said hello as I followed the hostess to my table, off to the side, away from the bustle—perfect for me with my book and my journal, ready for a quiet bite. 

But I hadn’t had my journal open for a minute before the same man was in front of me asking if he could sit down. Jake. From Boston. The exact name and city of origin as an ex-boyfriend who has made a pattern of resurfacing for YEARS and most recently, just before I left on this trip (I think that’s finally over now). It was all I could do to not laugh out loud, “You've gotta be kidding me!” 

This guy, was young. Twenty-five, I learned. Which flattered me even though the pickings in this beach town were decidedly slim. We chatted for a bit and then he invited me to join him at the table with his brother and three friends, all men from Boston. 

For once in my life, I said yes! 

I am characterizing it like that because, having been married from age 20-32ish and having joined the ranks of people who consume alcohol at age 35, I feel intimidated by this scene, meeting people at bars. I don’t really go to them unless I’m with a man already. Now I found myself surrounded by five of them. All of them decidedly interested in ME. It was really fun!

We played some betting game where everyone puts their finger on a glass. I lost the first two rounds, horribly. Had to dance next to a table of two diners—but the woman diner got up and spun me around declaring she was a ballroom dancer!

We chattered away as I ate my salad and we drank beer. When it came time to leave, is when the real cock-show began. At one point they all lifted their shirts to reveal several sets of nicely toned abs. I saw biceps. My gosh! I want to say it was like nothing I have ever experienced…that’s not entirely true. It’s been a loooooong time since I experienced anything like that. 

They were all so delightful and so nice and so young [the oldest was 30, and we were celebrating his birthday]. I felt to choose one would be unfair to the rest. Maybe they guessed this because, before I knew exactly what was happening, they were playing the finger on the glass game to determine who would get to enjoy a bowl of chocolate mini wheats at my place (I can’t NOT talk about chocolate mini wheats—duh!). 

So the birthday boy won the glass game and offered to walk me to my car. I let him, on the grounds that he had won the game AND it was his birthday. When we got to my rental jeep he asked if he could kiss me. Yes, of course! Because I was in too deep by this point. 

The way he kissed me felt like the other man I had known from Boston, the Jake from back home. Maybe that’s why I pulled back after a few minutes, wished him a happy birthday and drove myself home. 

Maybe that’s why I said yes when he asked me to have coffee the next morning over text. I got coffee and he got a smoothie. We didn’t have much time because I had booked a shuttle at 8am and I was committed to not sleeping with him. But I did enjoy a fiery episode on a picnic table while old people and honeymooners looked on (I guess…I wasn’t watching!). And I wasn’t lying when I told him, “That’s the most fun I’ve had in broad daylight on a picnic table in the public square.” 

He walked me to my jeep, kissed me goodbye and that’s probably the last time I will see the man from Boston. 

…Not the one named Jake. I couldn’t do that! I picked his older brother, which, as a younger sibling, I feel some guilt about. [Jake, younger brother, from Boston—if you ever read this, know—I thought you were just as handsome and beguiling as that older brother of yours. But it was his birthday, and he won the glass game.] 

Older brother and I carried on over text until we both left the islands. I realized regret lives on both sides of this decision. I wrote to him, “I think what we both want is to feel young and alive. We are, very much, both of those things.” I hope he brings those feelings home with him. Older brother told me he would not forget his 30th birthday.

• 

  Not pictured: Older brother. Jake. Or the other Jake.

• 

  Kauai has such lovely, pebbley sand!

The Beach

I went to the beach and braved the wind. The first time, it was arguably not worth it. Lying on the sand getting worked by the wind as you try to enjoy reading a book? Not my fav. Even the ocean was so churned up that I didn’t want to go in deeper than my waist. [Gosh, how do they get the Pacific Ocean so warm and so angry over here?] 

The second beach outing was better. I chose a more protected spot where I did some topless sunbathing [incidentally, it’s going to take a lot of topless sunbathing to alter the blinding whiteness of my chest] and read my book in slightly more peace. This beach also had a fair amount of shells for a little beach combing, and an old man, seated on a bench who told me about the great surf break of Kauai that is perfect for goofy-footed people like me. 

The Napali Coast

I also enjoyed a wonderfully muddy walk on the Kalalau Trail which, in it's entirety, traverses 11 miles across the Napali Coast. I did two miles. Partly barefoot because of the blisters I got on the Waimea Canyon hike. It was lush and lovely. And windy.

• 

  The beach that's 2 miles in. An old man interrogated me about the name of this beach at the end of my hike. I don't know. I don't care. I don't even have shoes on.

• 

  Hi Napali!!!!!

https://youtu.be/cYEfpphCSu8

The Hell-a-copter

This brings me to the helicopter ride. I have enjoyed a good travel guidebook for my vacations in the past. They’ve aided me in having some awesome adventures and avoiding some stupid tourist traps. I am a committed fan of the “Revealed” guidebooks for the Hawaiian islands (there is one for each island). 

So when the author, Andrew Doughty, recommended a helicopter tour as THE BEST WAY to see Kauai, I bit. It was expensive, but I remembered my own travel advice: You are worth it. [Yes! You are too!] So I booked a tour. It got pushed to the last day of my trip, which I think is just as well…now. 

I was excited for this. They called me to confirm the flight the day before and I was on a stand-up paddle board on the Hanalei River. I missed the call, but I called them back from the paddle board, just to make sure I was in. That’s how excited I was! 

• 

  SUP on the Hanalei RIver

• 

  Five stars--so peaceful.

https://youtu.be/bHtSDHzQ0l4

Apparently I look like a bobble head when I drive.

I drove to the appointed location, made sure I was on time. I wore the appropriate secure footwear and jackets. I was ready! 

• 

  This is the BEFORE photo.

A few observations: 

Being in a helicopter is hella-loud. So it’s kind of a surprise when it lifts off because the sound doesn’t really change. I would liken the sensation to what I would expect being dangled from a stand of thread feels like. It is gentle, in a way. And the first five minutes are awesome. 

I chose a flight with the doors off because I was worried about motion sickness. I knew this about myself. I took Dramamine before the flight. 

Five minutes in. I surprise-throw-up in my mask. 

Fifteen minutes in. Vomit is streaked on the side of my leggings because no napkins in the helicopter and I’m not sure I could hang onto it with the wind anyway. 

Thirty-five minutes in, still vomiting and now fear that I might also shit myself, not because we are suspended hundreds of feet in the air with the doors off—trust me!—a catastrophic collision with the Napali coast or a sudden-death fall to the waves below would feel benevolent at this point. 

Thirty six minutes in, flying over my AirBnB, I consider asking them to stop and drop me off right there. Twenty-four more minutes, Michelle. You can do this. Can—but should I?!? I start imaging where the shit goes when you are are wearing leggings and seated in a helicopter with four strangers.

Forty two minutes in. The pilot keeps mentioning me by name. I don’t think he can see me but I’m the only one sitting on his side of this contraption that inspires all of my internal organs to stop what they are supposed to be doing and vacate every possible molecule ASAP…he, the pilot, is telling me he will turn so I can see the weeping wall, the crater, this most remote part of Kauai. The wettest spot on earth, averaging 400 and some inches of rain each year (for context Seattle, averages only 46 inches per year). I’m listening, Steven. Obviously! Now let’s land this damn thing! 

[To you, dear reader, I will say this—I DID open my eyes and witness the weeping wall amid dry heaves. I did NOT photograph the thing. It was green and wet and my advice to you is to watch an iMAX movie of it. DO NOT under any circumstance, get into a helicopter.] 

Forty-eight minutes in, Stephen reports that we are returning to the airport. It’s at this moment, and only this moment, that I am sure I will not shit my pants in a windy helicopter with four strangers. I’m relieved I will not have to use that aircraft THAT thoroughly.

Sixty minutes in. We land with the shit still inside of me. Graciously, the woman charged with unbuckling me from the craft comes to my seat first. By this point, there is a light layer of vomit over everything in front of me. I tried to be careful! But the doors were off and it was incredibly windy and vomit is sticky! I take the vomit bag that is in my hand with me and leave one in the seat-back pocket on the helicopter. Sorry, Stephen. We all made sacrifices. 

It is hard to walk. It seems the helicopter has taken my dignity AND my balance. But I am committed to find the porto-potty before I shit myself. And I’m proud to say, I do. 

A woman, maybe the one who unbuckled me from my vomit, offers me a ginger ale. I accept, but then she sets it on the water cooler. I cannot summon the strength to mount the journey to the water cooler. So I find a chair and sit. I watch the rest of the passengers from the other flights return. Not one covered in vomit. Come on, people! Then this older couple in the classic Hawaii vacation clothes has the audacity to come and stand right by me while conversing with a (probably honeymooning) couple about all the wonders of New York. I get up and find a corner of cement away from everyone where I huddle into a ball. 

The woman, who got me the ginger ale, who unbuckled me from my vomit—okay this woman has done enough—tells me it’s time to go and asks why I haven’t retrieved the ginger ale from the water cooler. Whatever! (In my head). May I please have a mask? out my lips because I cannot imagine putting the vomit covered mask over my face for the van ride back to my car. 

God bless the woman at the van, who gives me a fresh mask from a pack she had to open. Obviously I’m the freak here.  I do the walk of shame. The last person in the van. The only one with her vomit streaked on her black leggings, jacket and shirt. 

Helicopter ride: Zero stars. 

I wait an hour or so before I attempt the one-hour drive back to Hanalei. I make it within a couple of miles of the house, when I have to urgently pull over and vomit, first into the extra barf bags the van lady gave me and then outside the jeep in the grass. This is two hours after we stopped flying.

• 

  Napali Coast. Not pictured: Me considering jumping into the sea from this height.

• 

  Dry part of the Nepali Coast to the west.

• 

  Waimea Canyon.

• 

  Glen. Dude who sat next to me while I vomited for an hour. I bet he hopes he never sees me again.

• 

  After. Is that a little residue of barf on my right cheek?

The AirBnB

Thankfully, my AirBnB is heaven. Five stars. It’s a perfect place to shower. Lie down. Feel solid ground beneath me. And eventually go to the laptop to compose this. 

• 

  Where I wrote the book!

• 

  Click on this to see the whole panoramic photo.

• 

  Where I hammocked on the lanai.

• 

  The sunrise [insert heart eyes emoji]

• 

  The view!

• 

  This place was perfection.

https://youtu.be/b5w0LVLeCt8

Video tour of the place.

Overall: 

High wind warning beach weather: Two stars.

Lush canyon hikes: Five stars.

Picnic table make out sesh: Five stars. 

Yoga and journal and coffee every morning on the lanai: Five stars. [Especially when it’s raining on and off and the sun is coming up and I’m watching a gorgeous waterfall spilling into the valley miles away.] 

Bottom line--don’t come to Kauai, unless you like old people and honeymooners and wind and vomit with a couple of magical hikes and make out sessions…actually don’t trust this review at all…

…because, the next day--the day I am set to return home--I do a yoga kriya for elevation. It feels fantastic. Pulls me from my post-vomit blues. 

After I hustle to get everything packed and ready to go, I am short on time and I know it. Kauai is dishing out some extra rain and wind. The bagel lady makes a big deal about my rush to get out of there, because they are busy EVERY morning. I get stuck behind some MF who drives 20mph in a 25mph zone. He also stops at a non-busy intersection to let people turn out in front of him, requiring me to say, “What the actual fuck?” to myself, because I’m sure he cannot hear me in his aloha state of mind.

But I make it to the airport. Slide into my A37 spot just as the Southwest flight starts to board. 

And I remember the insight from my yoga session that morning: 

Kauai is just messing with you. Don’t take yourself so seriously. 

I learn that wind originating from the North and completing to the East is associated with strong foundations for a new project. 

Exactly what I need for my book project. Five stars. Sat nam and aloha, Kauai. I feel your magic.

The One Where She Starts Online Dating...Again

I’ve been dating to one extent or another since about 18 months after my ex and I separated. I naively stepped up to the plate thinking that I was basically a good wife and I should be able to find a suitable husband replacement fairly easily. People told me my most difficult job would be sifting through the suitors because I was “such a catch.” Professional, fit, kind, beautiful, blah, blah, blah. 

I started out going on some blind dates with friends of friends. These were okay but didn’t give me sparks, and while that was true, I still felt rejected when there weren’t follow-up dates, texts or phone calls. I was still practicing Mormonism then and Mormon men are decidedly not into dating not-quite-divorced women. This was frustrating because the road from separation to divorce was long (almost 3 years) and I felt divorced in my heart. So the Mormon dudes were either uninteresting to me or they seemed like such microcosms of catastrophe that I was terrified to chance a second date. 

Then I started online dating on a few apps. I remember spending time writing, what I felt was, a compelling profile, and then realizing I was WAY over the character limit. They want a few sentences, not a few paragraphs. So I edited that down and put up some photos. I tried to be honest but I also didn’t know myself all that well yet. 

And there were some dates. Most of the men I’ve met online have been decent and kind, from what I could tell. Of course, there were some exceptions.

I had one guy, a doctor (why are so many doctors creeps!?), just ahead of our first meet up, ask me if I was “a submissive.” Had to google that. It was what I thought. I cancelled the date. Felt like we would be off on a weird foot. 

I saw one man who described himself as “ammosexual” as in ammunition. Yikes! 

I ventured to go on a date with a man who was 14 inches taller than me. He was handsome enough, but as I suspected, I felt like Mike Wazowski paling around with Sully in the North Park bars. This guy also worked in sales and after droning on about himself for at least one beer, I tried to help him ask a question about me by offering that my job in psychiatry often feels like sales, because I’m trying get buy-in from patients on taking medications they need but sometimes don’t want. To this, he responded, Oh! I could teach you a lot about sales. [Insert face palm emoji.]

I had meaningless flings, though I figured out I wasn’t very good at that. Maybe it’s the psychiatrist in me, or maybe it’s the level of authenticity I try to approach life with, but I’ve found that men will talk to me. Like real talk. There was the Brazilian bus boy who was handsome and fit. He had all the makings for a romance novel but his back story was full of tragedy and disappointment. I simply could not use him even if he was okay with using me.

Another who emphatically admired the “beautiful life” I created but ultimately preferred to keep his mask intact rather than join the mess of a real relationship.

And the fireman who couldn’t keep up the ruse. He was deeply sad inside. Firefighting gave his life purpose, but he still didn’t believe he was worthy without the uniform. And life is strange because one day he told me he performed a trench cut (a rarely-used technique in firefighting) on a strip mall fire. I saw that strip mall days later and realized it was where another man had taken me months before to sing at a Korean karaoke joint. The place was destroyed…metaphor?

I think that’s the thing about dating. It’s not a straight line. It is very much a web. Each interaction forms a new thread, connecting one strand to the next in a zig-zag or circular pattern. For most of my experience, it has been indistinguishable which direction things were going. Even in my longer relationships, I was riddled with questions and misgivings. Is this what it's supposed to feel like!?

Just tonight I was listening to Oprah talk to women about their “emotional style.” The segment opened with women responding casually to how they would react if their spouse forgot a birthday or Valentine’s.  Women talked about silent treatment and hint dropping. Quiet resentment. I’ve been in those rooms. I’ve been that woman. 

My marriage was traditional. Man wears pants. Woman’s “power” is in how she can influence (manipulate) her man. It’s covert and inherently dishonest. I sort of always assume I will be good at things, so when I was married I assumed I was good at that game. But when I look back, I see now that we both lost. I lost because I completely lost mySELF. And my ex lost because he never got to know me. I carry some of the blame for the stupid game, but he does too because he didn’t want to know me. He wanted a fulfillment of what he thought a wife should be. 

Aye.

The Oprah conversation left me wondering, how does anyone find anyone at this stage of life?

It’s like I know too much. I know marriage doesn’t solve all problems. I know that loneliness thrives inside and outside of that institution. I know that people have lives secret from their spouse. They bring the baggage from childhood, the last relationship, all the relationships. And what’s funny is that if they had no baggage, that would be even scarier—because, if that’s the case, what kind of Truman Show life have you been living for the last 30+ years!?!

And yet, I still believe in magic. 

Despite all odds. 

I still hope to find my lobster. 

I knew I needed to end my break from dating this summer when, after a gynecologist appointment (which, incidentally was immediately followed by a covid quarantine, so YOU read between the lines), I announced to my sister that I might be falling for my gynecologist. “I need to figure out how to take this off MyChart!” I joked with her. [Luckily, I slept on it and realized that if this guy did go for my advances, then what kind of skeesy gyn was I choosing to date!?!….This is waaayyyy TMI, Michelle. Reel it in!]

So I find myself dating again.

After my last relationship attempt failed. I put an update on my dating app profile (which I must say has improved dramatically since those dark and confusing early days). 

[Note: The days can STILL be dark and confusing. Dating is like walking around a cave without a flashlight—actually that’s a really good metaphor! You have to trust what you feel. There are lots of groping styles. It’s painful and confusing and it reeeeaaally feels like there’s gotta be a better way to do this.]

My most popular dating profile pic--it's a few years old but I still look basically the same...right? Maybe I should photoshop in a few more wrinkles.

My new profile is darn effective though. 

I’ve got some active photos, but not too active. (If my family didn’t live in such granola-eating, Subaru-driving parts of the country, then I would have far less photos in such outdoorsy habitats.) I’ve got a full body shot. Not too much boobs, but not no boobs. I kept my descriptions casual and breezy but included several entry points for conversation. This was all before the revamp! And it was working pretty good. 

But one of the things you have to know about dating apps, is everyone on there has multiple things going on. Every one is complicated. I know that’s a complete generalization, but this is a helpful way to think about it because dating apps can feel like a lot of rejection happening fast. 

There are times when you think an interaction is going well, and then it drops off, suddenly. If you’ve met the person, I would classify this a ghosting and not cool. But if you haven’t met and you haven’t been messaging constantly, it’s probably an inbounds move. 

I’ve decided, that when that happens, it just means that another piece shifted into place for them. They don’t need my possibility anymore right now. That’s it. Getting to this point has relieved me a of a lot of bad feelings about dating apps. 

I’ve learned to assume the best about people when they don’t pick me (at least when they are enigma speaking from the great beyond of the internet). There is a Maya Angelou quote, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” 

Sometimes that’s just not interested or not available. 

Sometimes it’s, I dislike myself so much I won’t let anyone get close to me. 

Sometimes it’s, I’m a huge asshole who works on commercial ships and thinks because you put a poem about how you have perfect breasts on your dating profile, I’m entitled to some proof, even though we’ve never met and I’m probably lying on my couch smelling of fish guts and motor oil eating a greasy burrito. 

[Woah—that got specific! And you wrote what poem about perfect breasts?]

Oh, that’s my secret weapon, actually. I wrote a poem about how I have perfect breasts, and when I told my therapist that I didn’t think it was fit for publication on my blog or social media, she suggested I use it in my dating profile. 

I got my money’s worth from that session, because that thing is gold! Since it’s addition, I always get a response. Of course that’s an exaggeration, but it’s not FAR from the truth. Very effective little piece of marketing, that poem is.… 

Okay, you’re getting lots of information here and it’s probably prompting you to pull out a highlighter for all of these fabulous, modern dating tips, so let me try to rein it in for you—dating apps are a lead generator. That’s it. Of course some of your leads are unqualified! Some of them will choose not to purchase and some of them will get told to, “Fuck off,” by your complaint department.

And while I can get emotional about pretty much anything, I really try to keep emotion out of the dating apps. It’s not a popularity contest, it’s a marketing contest. My goal is to generate qualified leads, some of which will progress to the next round of vetting. And if swiping has taught me anything, it’s that there are a lot of different shoes out there,  and supposedly every shoe has a mate. [Like even a Jesus shoe—this man was literally dressed as Jesus…I’m still so confused!]

This brings me to the next phase. The first meet up. Since Covid, sometimes this happens via FaceTime. I actually didn’t find that too bothersome. It was lower pressure. I mean, you have to worry about camera angles and lighting, but not how you smell or what pants you have on.  

More commonly, it’s a face to face meetup, where first move is to act cool while you are waiting for a person you’ve only seen photos of and try to look incredible at all times and angles in case he sees you first. 

Most guys here want to meet for a drink, I’m guessing because it’s cheaper than dinner. Also, easy to exit if it’s not going well. And, you have a little libation lubrication for the conversation. [Yikes! Could there be a grosser way to say alcohol loosens you up!]

Bottom line, I think this is totally fine. I get that investment in a fully planned first date has a cost that may not yield benefit. Still, bars are not a great option for alcoholics, but good news for alcoholics comes next—>

It IS impressive when a guy goes all in on a first date! All in within reason anyway. My favorite first date, hands down, was stand up paddle boarding on Mission Bay. It was a day date which, for me, feels a little friendlier. You get to check out each other’s physique in a non-creepy way. You’re doing something active, but you can also talk. Plus you’ve got the option to proceed to lunch or dinner afterward, assuming both parties are feeling it. But if it’s not going well you can part ways, still having done something fun in the sun!

What comes after the first meeting, I don’t completely understand. Really. Like, any of it. The subsequent dates, the texting, the progress of the physical relationship. I’ve walked the road a few times, but I could not tell you how it should go. 

And it’s all the stuff I was talking about earlier that makes it terrifying. At first you’re just trying to rule out if he’s a sociopath or a narcissist or someone who thinks it would be cool to live in van. 

There’s the things you never thought to ask about too, like was he raised in a nudist colony or a have a wife who also wants to hook up with you, and how do you feel about dating a bisexual man? Wow! I thought I was pretty woke, but being in the actual scene really brings it home. 

And when you think you’ve worked through the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, then you have to decide if you’re going to let this person know where you live. Where you work? Who your friends are? It takes an enormous amount of faith to let someone in like that when you’ve seen what I’ve seen. 

And strangely enough, even after working with parolees and probationers, even after hearing the wildest things from patients, and my co-residents of Walmart parking lots across the nation when I slept in a car for three months (that’s a story for another time and place), I have this curse where I tend to see people as potential. It’s like this freakishly optimistic lens. 

But this, too, is where that Maya Angelou quote comes in handy, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” This has been hard-won but, I am getting better at believing the person over the potential. I like to see what a man spends his time on, because, ultimately, this is what he desires. And very little will separate a man from his desires, at least the kind of men I have experienced.

So as I embark on another round of swiping and first dates, let me remind myself what I am looking for: 

1. Someone who is kind to me. 
2. Someone who is honest.
3. Someone who likes to do some of the same things as me. 
4. Someone who wants the important same things as me.
5. Someone who realizes that people grow and change and is interested in the journey of growing and changing together.
6. Holds all the space for complexity and contradiction that exists in me. 
7. Smoking hot bod. 
8. Not a picky eater. 
9. Does not want to live in a car. 
10. Cheers me on while I run in the direction of my dreams and lets me do the same for him.

That’s a starting place, at least.

And a reminder that dating in your 30s, when almost all of your friends are married, makes you a sort of exotic creature, where everyone both hates the idea and loves it at the same time. SO if you’re with me, doing this crazy rigamarole to try to find some future partner or at least a little companionship along the way, remember this:

All that comes after this part of life is more moments, more days, more feelings, more life. And that’s if we are lucky enough to persist here for a little while longer. All that romantic relationships remedy is the idea, in our mind, that we should be in one. The rest is a gamble, a ride. I like the idea of the ride, so I’m going to keep looking, but I know that life is already here happening every day. And it’s deep, and rich and beautiful right now.   

How To Attend Your 20-Year High School Reunion:

(In 38 EASY steps…because that's about how old you will be when you need this guide!)

1. Graduate high school.
2. Go to college and learn that you might have been too big for your britches. Let the bitches get you down. Aim sights a little lower. 
3. Get married before you age out of the college dating pool. (Yikes! Mormon women become old maids at 21?!?)
4. Learn you’ve got five tumors and five years to live. (How did that Tim McGraw song go again? Sky diving, bull riding?!? No thanks!…and what’s a Fu Manchu?)
5. Keep living. Get confused. 
   • (You: I’m not dead!
   • Cart-master: 'Ere!  'E says 'e's not dead!
   • Man: Yes he is.
   • You:     I'm not!
   • Cart-master: 'E isn't?
   • Man: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill...
   • You:     I'm getting better!
   • Man: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment…
   • You: I feel happy!)
6. Go to grad school to have health insurance to pay for the tumors that aren’t showing up to kill you. 
7. Work. Wash dishes. Grocery shop. Cook. Exercise to burn off the calories. Repeat for three or four years. 
8. Run a half marathon. (Because that’s what medical professionals do when life isn’t complicated enough—duh!) 
9. Have a baby. (Because that’s what married people do when life isn’t complicated enough.)
10. One hundred tiny steps make you realize that your marriage is leaching your essence. Look into your baby’s eyes and know that you must end it, for him.  
11. Realize YOU can actually live YOUR life for YOU. Start doing it. 
12. Start a journal. (Start being honest with yourself.) 
13. Start a blog. (Start being honest with others.)
14. Spend a few years posting the most literal and vibrant and wounding parts of your life. 
15. Enjoy kind or thoughtful comments from your parents, sisters and a few other people. 
16. Wonder if anyone else thinks it’s any good. Wonder if you’re any good. Play whack-a-mole with ego…for years? ...Forever?
17. Make mistakes. Write about those. 
18. Win victories. Write about those.
19. Get to know yourself. Write about her. 
20. Discover that it’s been t-w-e-n-t-y years since you graduated high school. 
21. Decide that you can attend your reunion because now, unlike 10 years ago, you can show up as your ACTUAL self.
22. Get really nervous that you’ve made a huge mistake. Go down the rabbit hole of past failures and insecurities. No one will like you because they know you walked out on them 20 years ago and didn’t look back. They will know you are ridiculous because they read that blog, or because they saw you do mediocre cheerleading or that strange scholarship pageant or they remember when you sang that bizarre choir solo that was more of a wail than song…There are so many you cannot list them all. And some of them are more memories of feelings that actual events. That gripping in the abdomen--I’ve made a huge mistake.
23. Be saved by the fact that Oprah is constantly talking about intention. 
24. Realize that all the fear and anxiety is based on THIS intention: You want people to be impressed with you. You want to be liked. (You’re basically screaming, Love me! Fear me! It’s NOT a good look for you.) 
25. Remember some people will like you and some people won’t because you’re not for everyone and everyone’s not for you.
26. Set a new intention: To show love for the people who grew along with you. 
27. Put on eyeshadow per the directions of the instruction card that came with the palate because this is the most makeup instruction you’ve had since you were 17. (Choose the one called Disco Nights because, you know…you’ve gotta look gooooood.)
28. Walk into the reunion mixer. Hug the first person at the door, your best friend from elementary school. 
29. Get lost in each interaction, one after another, after another. 
30. Choose the people who also choose you.
31. Hug all of them.
32. Boldly call people the wrong name and watch them forgive you.
33. Soak up their goodness.
34. Soak up their giddiness, honesty, laughter, dance moves, serious faces, wide eyes, clever remarks, humble brags, shrouds, curiosity, and acceptance. 
35. Realize that, Yes! Love is patient and love is kind. But love also disrupts. It flips tables. Love is angry. Love is uncomfortable. Love holds opposites. Love is patient—yes, but it moves! Love has no boxes. Love forgives because love sees the whole. Love defends. Love disrupts again. Love holds. 
36. Notice how you all bruised each other because you loved each other. 
37. Feel held. Feel free. Remember you ARE love. All of you are love.  
38. Wake up. Raise three glasses of water, a cup of coffee, and a couple of Advil to the class of 2001. To you. To all of you. Reunited. 

A Well-Tended Muse

Did you know I have not one muse, but several?!?

Okay, why are we talking about muses?

It’s because I get stressed about all the fun things I can do with my life. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, you know?

I'm writing poetry, learning to play the ukulele, cooking, baking, doing preschool science experiments, gardening, planning an epic, layered-rug configuration for my bedroom floor, and I love all of these things. But I’m also writing a book and I try to show up here on the blog with regularity and I work and I’m a mom and often it feels like there are not enough hours in the day.

This is how muses came on the scene. 

You see, I was talking to my therapist about how I get noise in my head that I’m not giving enough attention to each thing. It gets really heavy sometimes.

Barbara, in her brilliance, informed me that I have several muses. (Muses are the 9 goddesses of the arts and sciences, who are tasked with providing humans with inspiration for their given theme.)

“One for poetry, one for music, one for visual art, one for cooking, one for writing…” et cetera, et cetera! And they are like kids, where they get a little jealous when you spend more time with one of the siblings. “But you just have to learn how to talk to them, so they know you love them and will make time for them,” she said. 

At first this felt like relief. Okay, I’m not a bad parent to my muses, I just can’t dedicate myself to all of them simultaneously. But as I’ve thought about it more, it’s morphed into this really fun thing.  

Liz Gilbert writes about muses in Big Magic. She explains that often our muses are standing in the corner, waiting for us to sober up, wake up, clean up and get back to work. Inspiration isn’t being stingy with us, rather WE are the ones who are stingy with inspiration. And the basic premise of her book is that the healthiest life for you, is the life that will produce the most creative existence. So take care of yourself in all the ways and treat your muse like a hot date. Put on make up, wear something nice, eat a good meal and get busy with creativity. 

Ever since that little insight, I have been having so much fun with my sweetheart muses.  I would add that there is one for motherhood, one for work, one for housework—all of those kinds of things too, because those things, though they are less self-indulgent, still require inspiration and enthusiasm—or at least they are SOOOO much more fun that way. 

So, I have this little family of muses around me excited to engage with me! And I’ve been thinking about what they like. What they don’t like. What are their favorite foods, activities, times of day? What’s the best way to hang out? Where do they like to go? And here’s what I’ve got so far:

Poetry Muse: 

Likes nighttime, sometimes early morning too. She’s sexy and fun and laughs a lot. She can get into those intense brooding moods too. She likes nature, likes alcohol. And caffeine—I remembered this because one of my most prolific episodes as a poet occurred when I was camping with my family as a teenager. I drank a Coke with dinner and laid awake with my sleeping sisters in the tent until the middle of the night writing poem after poem. They were completely silly—but I remember that night all these years later—and that’s significant.

Music Muse: 

This muse is responsible for dancing and singing and playing musical instruments. She likes freedom. I think the best gift I gave her was the years I spent studying piano, not because I became a ridiculously mediocre pianist, but I gave her a way to express herself. Leaning into playing by chords came so naturally to her. And now if I can train my fingers to crimp around that tiny ukulele neck, she will have another medium to work in. Music muse works more for the joy of the experience than my others. She is less concerned about perfection. More about the experience. How does it FEEL to dance and play and sing? That’s much more important to her than the executed product. 

Work Muse: 

Likes caffeine. She does her best in the morning and everything kind of falls off after that. She lives for feeling competent and does not like being told what to do unless she asks.  She’s like a well-functioning assembly line. Yes to productivity and efficiency and effectiveness! She hates waste, likes big ideas. She hates getting bogged down with details unless she is moving through them like an assassin. 

Mother Muse: 

She loves home because it’s the best place to relax and putter. She likes the presence of child and little dog. She sounds like happy playing, dancing in the kitchen, food on the stove, clean laundry in the dryer. She likes to say yes and talking about important things, like first crushes and big feelings and airplanes. She wants kisses and cuddles and teeth brushed and toys picked up.

Visual Art Muse:

She’s got eyes! Inspired by faces, color, simple lines. Willing to experiment. She has taste. She lives for the flow state. Which seems to occur most often when seated at a table with some music, paper and color. She likes working alongside of friends. She likes challenge.

Cooking Muse:

Says, “I can do that.” She’s got a lot of confidence because she got used a lot in my last decade of life. So she’s in a kind of semi retirement. I’m happy to see her when she’s here. I’m equally happy to give her the night off and order take out. Same goes for my crafting, sewing, knitting muse.

Garden Muse:

Likes pretty flowers, soil, cool, shady vibes, power tools and big-idea thinking. Hates weeding (my neighbors are like…uh yeah—can you do something about that?). Hates getting poked by thorns. She reminds me of my mama (who just became jealous the other day when I told her about all the good weeding I have to do!).

Okay! so you get the idea and now you can go make your own list of muses. But not because it will make you more efficient or proficient. This is about fun! This is a tool for when hobbies feel heavy. Please don’t belabor them with things like efficiency. 

Once you know your muses, then you get to enjoy them. For some reason it’s easier to care for external creatures than it is for myself, so here’s how I look at it:

I get to hang out with these awesome muses. I take them shopping, we get food, we exercise, we watch TV in addition to all of the things I listed above. 

It’s completely lightened up the responsibility I take very seriously, to live an extraordinary life.

I have helpers.

I take care of them and they take care of me.

This is the beauty of a well-tended muse.

Be.

 Rest in cool water. Dance in flame. Lick up morsels lobbed onto my plate. I was born in ease, In the universe,In myself.Hung the world round my neck,Its weight pulling nearer, nearer to the floor.Stop that. Let it clatter on the floorboards.Skip into the mud forest.Find a shelf fungus,Haunt a cardinal tree.Be. 

I don't know.

Today when I got home, I walked into my backyard and heard a loud meow. 

MEOW. MEOW. MEOW. 

I was not expecting this. I don't own a cat.

I peeked around the side of the house and saw a GIANT, long-haired, charcoal cat. The cat had a blue collar, so I’m going to use male pronouns (but I recognized that female cats may choose blue as well).  

I greeted the cat.

I asked him if he would like to follow me through the open garage door to the world outside my fenced backyard. 

MEOW. MEOW. MEOW.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” I called in my sweetest cat lady voice. [See--I KNOW cats. Though I will admit I did not want to touch him.  He was HUGE.]

“Here, kitty, kitty!” Over and over again until he followed me through the garage and out to the tall grass in my side yard. And the giant cat was gone as mysteriously as he came. 

I did not expect that cat. 

I was talking to my sister on the phone, relaxing on my new outdoor couch, when I looked down at the deck and saw Rio, sitting with a curious look on his face glancing from my face to the dead rat at his feet. 

Now, I am proud of myself because I did NOT scream, which happened the last time he presented me with an entire rat carcass.

But this time, the rat was not completely dead. I could see a little rise and fall in its chest. Rio, seeming to read my mind, attempted to pick it up again. I stopped him. Obviously, I’m the adult here. I need to take action. I grabbed a stick from under the orange tree and returned to the rat.  The rise and fall had ceased. 

• 

  Not as big as the last rat.

• 

  Earlier that week, looking very distinguished.

I poked. Nothing. 

When R saw the rat, he said, “Now we get to look at rat bones!” 

What?!? No! 

Last week, we dissected owl pellets at our friend’s house. I did not know what an owl pellet was. In case you don’t know, I will describe. When an owl eats a mouse or rat or bird or whatever little creature, it is digested partially in the first stomach.  What can’t be digested is held in the first stomach while the digestible material passes into the second stomach.  The owl then vomits a tight packet made of the contents of the first stomach (hair and bones). This is what makes an owl pellet.   

I knew none of this until Rachel presented me with a paper plate holding three clumps of matted hair. With the kids and me looking on, she pulled apart the pellets to reveal evidence of three rat skeletons. And I knew that her daughter was going to be just fine in online kindergarten this fall. 

• 

• 

But back to the undigested rat on my deck. 

Because this isn’t my first rodeo, I knowledgeably covered my hand in a poo bag, picked the deceased rat up by the tail and carried him to the trash can. He left a small pool of blood on the decking, which I doused in hydrogen peroxide and then rinsed with water. (I have a large supply of hydrogen peroxide now, after learning that is what’s needed to rid your dog of skunk smell). 

My backyard is tiny. 

The whole lot is 1/3 of a regular sized lot in my neighborhood. 

And yet. 

It is full of surprises. 

This afternoon I was talking to my sister. 

I’ve been going through another existential crisis following family court and my birthday marking another year. I didn’t really expect it. Not my first family court rodeo. Not my first birthday rodeo. I have been to lots of rodeos—duh! 

My sisters are a good audience for my crazy moments. This past week, I made a recommendation that my sister moon her husband in response to a marital dispute.  I was meaning to be silly but the more we talked about it, it seemed like the idea had real merit. If you want any free marriage advice, DM me, okay? I’m a secret genius on this stuff. Still waiting to hear if the mooning worked….

So I was talking to my other sister and she gave me the idea to write a blog post about why Fall feels hopeful. She said that was the article she wanted to read. 

First I thought about the fall when I trained for the half marathon because my then-husband didn’t want to have a baby yet and I was bored with my career and making dinner and washing dishes. I am not a runner and it felt really cliche because so many people in medicine run out of ways to punish themselves after school ends, so they take up punishing habits like running. But the half marathon was a really good choice in that moment. 

I ran three or four times a week under the massive oak trees in our historic Omaha neighborhood. My mom was so delighted with my decision to do this, that I flippantly said, “If you think it’s such good idea, why don’t you do it too?” And she did.

This is what 15* looks like.

The race was on Thanksgiving day. In Omaha. It was FIFTEEN degrees when we started. It was EIGHTEEN degrees when we finished. The bagels and bananas they provided post-race were frozen solid. We had McDonald’s for Thanksgiving Dinner that year.

But the running put me in a really good place for the winter. Since I left my home on the range in Wyoming (aka—where the skies are not cloudy all day), I’ve struggled with mild depression in the winter—this is part of why I love living in San Diego. And the regular endorphin boost of that exercise made a big difference. 

So there’s one idea. If you need a Fall boost—run a half marathon. 

…I GUESS. 

But it also seems unfair to ask anyone to train for a half marathon when they are working from home and home schooling kids and worried about the upcoming election and the health of their loved ones. And there’s also racism and terrorism and thieves and rapists and Facebook.

That’s a lot. 

Already. 

So if the half marathon’s not your thing, this is the one other idea I have. 

Be open to being surprised. 

Liz Gilbert talked about this in such a lovely way on her instagram stories last week. She called it a spiritual practice, to which cynicism is the opposite.  

Cynicism is the voice inside that says, I know how this goes. I know who that person is. I know what’s coming. The writing is on the wall. I know. I know. OH—I know. 

And we cling to that because we want to feel in control. And knowing feels like control. 

But you know what? 

I DON’T know.

I don’t know how this going to go. 

I don’t know if Trump is going to get another four years. I don’t know if I’m spoiling my son or being too hard on him. I don’t know if the tumor in my neck has grown. I don’t know what that greasy stuff in my patient’s hair was today. I don’t know if I’ll catch any waves. I don’t know how to make sense of the COVID-19 news. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. I don’t know if there will be a goat in my backyard tomorrow. (If there is it will certainly be a distinguished city goat with a neatly trimmed beard!) 

i. don't. know.

Of course I have opinions and fears and anxieties about all of these things. But I’m willing to be surprised.

I’m willing to be wrong. 

That’s the equivalent of faith to me. That’s accepting divine will. It’s not, I know how this goes. It’s not that I get what I pray for. It’s not that I have all the answers. 

It’s that I don’t! And there’s some energy, some force, some goodness in the universe that is working it out for my specific growth. So let me leave it to said universe.

That’s hope. 

That’s spirit. 

Notice the cat and the rat and the owl pellets with wonder. 

Anything is possible.

• 

  Watch dog.

• 

  "That's my navy face!"

• 

  Minimalist. Chocolate. Perfect.

• 

  Birthday air fryer. Goes well with wine and dancing in the kitchen,

• 

  These were delicious (thankfully I like crispy), but I read the directions (afterward) and you shake to avoid burned edges.

• 

  Charcuterie--makes working from home feel fancy.

• 

  Avid scientists in action.

Engage in small c creation

“We do seem to be living in a universe that is in a constant and unending state of creation.  It’s never stopping.  It’s never stopping here either.  We are not witnessing that.  We are PART of that.  We come from that.  We work into that.  

So if the energy of the universe is in constant creation, when you are in creation, yourself, you’re in alignment with it.  And that’s why it feels so good, because you’re in the river of the thing that is happening from here to the outer extent of the universe, always.  And when you’re not in creativity and when you’re not in creation you’re against that flow and that’s why it feels like depression, and that’s why it feels like despair, and that’s why it feels so heavy.  

So for me, the best way that I can feel healthy, which means a sense of belonging, not just belonging to other people, but belonging to this whole weird story that’s happening that we’re in, is if I do creativity “small c" on a small scale.  So if I make something, then I’m also creating just the way that the universe is always making something and for some reason that feels deeply good at the soul level.  And when I’m not doing that I’m stagnating against a power that wants me to create with it.  

So for me it’s profoundly spiritual because there is no greater way to connect with capital C Creation than to engage in small c creation.  And that c can be as small as you want.  There’s something about making something with your hands that just makes you healthy and I think it’s what we are supposed to be doing so we don’t despair.”

Gwyneth x Elizabeth Gilbert: Can Creating Something Small Heal Something Big?

This is taken from an interview Gweneth Paltrow did with Elizabeth Gilbert on the Goop Podcast.  I heard it several weeks ago and I have become enamored with the idea of “small c” creativity.  There is so much power in it. 

A few months ago I felt inspired to put some of R’s artwork on my kitchen wall.  He was in a phase where he loved drawing and I felt inspired by his art.  Then I started to add my own art to the wall and the art of some of my friends (some of it made while they were watching R for me).  It’s become my visual memorial to small c creativity.  Each morning while I’m making breakfast and packing lunches I have several examples of small c energy reminding me that this is where the power lives.  

small c art wall

Starting with the small c has helped me to move onto some middle-sized c creative work.  I finished this oil pastel drawing while I was Santa Cruz.  I just got started with watercolor this weekend (something I have zero experience with).  I’ve been knitting too, which feels pretty chill but still adds and element of small c connection to my life.  

• 

• 

• 

The piano and my voice continue to be sources of small c.  I think of singing along with my car stereo in that context now.  Learning to play piano by chords has really freed up the piano to become a small c-type exercise.  I can play almost any song and process the emotion of it through the keys and my voice.  It’s powerful.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhVQdrbCUMQu0026feature=youtu.be

So what’s the benefit of small c?  What can you really get out of it besides mediocre art?

The main benefit I see is that I have developed a comfort level with myself.  I have come to know myself through small c.  I’ve started to hear my inner voice through the writing I do here and in my journal.  The inner voice has grown more recognizable as I assuaged the inner critic with a reminder that this doesn’t have to be good.  My inner critic told me the leaves of the watercolor plant should be green but my inner voice thought rainbow might be nice.  

When I do small c creativity, I start to hear the difference between the two—the inner voice and inner critic.  But small c dials back the intensity so a risk becomes less scary.  

I use small c in the way I live my life, as I’ve left behind the manual for living that I used to follow.  Small c invites curiosity, What if I told the truth? What if I said the hard thing? 

What kind of small c are you doing?

Who is Heavenly Mother?

I’ve been trying to understand, FOR ME, what is the most useful way to think about God.  In the Mormon theology I was raised with, God is male and usually referred to as Heavenly Father.  Mormonism has the beautiful, and added, benefit of a female counterpart to the male God, termed Heavenly Mother.  The idea is that we are all part of a massive human family with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and all of humanity as our siblings.  There’s a lot that I like about this model.  It’s reflective of the family structure most of us have experienced so it’s familiar (it can also be fraught for the same reason).  

Little is said of Heavenly Mother in Mormon doctrine and culture.  This has usually been explained to me to be because she is so sacred that Heavenly Father protects her from the profanity of human conversation.  From a feminist perspective, this explanation is infuriating and degrading.  From the perspective one who views herself as a child with heavenly parents, it’s confusing.  Kids need their mom.  Why would you withhold that?  

Maybe strangely, this issue has been of little bother to me for most of my life.  My religious persona has been quite accepting of these sorts of problems and explanations, pushing them under the umbrella of, I’ll understand that better someday.  Sometimes that umbrella is useful because some of these topics can only be explored with time and life experience.  They live like little ghosts in the back of my psyche until an experience brings them to the foreground.  

This past week, I was talking to my parents about a problem, I’ve been trying to figure out for months.  I presented them with my current thinking about it and my dad said, “That seems really sensible.”  To which I replied, “I’m not going for sensible! That’s not how I’m making decisions anymore.  I want it to FEEL right.”  And he, so humbly and happily said, “Oh! Well that’s your mother’s domain.”  He’s so great!  I can’t remember what my mom said to this, but I remember the energy of it, and it was something about self trust.  And I’m going to come back to this in a minute. 

I want to write a little about what I’ve observed in the nature of the feminine.  And to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s term, I don’t want to get “gender-freaky” about this.  I’m talking about the iconic feminine.  

The feminine creates.  This is the energy in the universe that calls to us to experiment and imagine.  To me, the feminine creative energy feels like lying on my back looking at the clouds and seeing figures of airplanes and unicorns.  It’s not overtly practical or directional.  It might even feel superfluous, but, like air, its necessity is recognized mostly by its absence.

The feminine is the ether.  I like to think about this from the perspective of a child in the womb.  We are swimming in the feminine.  She is all around.  Think about the idea of mother earth.  She is the rock, the water, the sky and everything in between all of it.  Maybe this is why we feel close to the divine as we connect with the natural world.  It’s like pressing a fetal hand into the wall of the womb, becoming slightly aware of the being that is carrying us.  The problem is not locating the feminine, it’s becoming conscious that she is all around me. 

The feminine nurtures.  The feminine says, I will go on doing all of this, holding all of this, whether you notice or not, because I am doing it for my own purpose.  This is the subtle strength of feminine care.  All of this carrying and holding and love is not contingent upon outcomes and results, it is intrinsic. 

I’m sure there is more that could be written about this, but maybe that’s enough to nudge your mind in the direction I’m intending.  I’ve been thinking about these things in the context of Heavenly Mother.  And I’ve realized that most of the spiritual practices I’ve adopted this past year are things that put me in the way of this divine, feminine energy.   

Nature. I’ve noticed that one of the most universal ways of connecting with God or finding peace or hearing the inner voice is to be in nature.  While some are getting dressed up for church, many are heading into the mountains or the sea.  Church is sort of a masculine, direct pathway to God.  It’s like following a map to the divine father.  These are my office hours, so to speak.  But nature is always open—curious and diverse and meandering.  I believe this is where the divine mother lives.

My body.  I feel super cool about my body these days, because I feel like it is this beautiful echo of my divine mother’s voice.  I’ve come to experience this in several ways—child birth, exercise, meditation, sleep—but the yoga mat has been an excellent teacher.  There are truths embedded in my flesh that are revealed only when I am paying very close attention and yoga has given me a way to notice them.  Each time I get on the mat, I have to strip away all the expectations of myself for performance.  My intention is usually to listen or to let go—surrender, release, acceptance.  My mind becomes the servant of my body and my spirit becomes the quiet observer.  Teach me, I say to my self—to the part of me that already knows—the divine feminine.

Honesty.  Some of my most powerful connections with the divine, come during intimate conversations.  Isn’t this how it’s always been with women?  While men are hunting beasts and conquering legions, women are in the back room making dinner or folding clothes and talking about the heart of life.  The feminine divine is in these quite conversations, in the quiet honesty.  She is in the utterance of fear and uncertainty and the humble declaration of faith.  The feminine divine can hold all of this—the ugly and the beautiful, the weak and the strong.  It’s all safe with her.  

Art. Honesty is the birthplace of art.  The feminine divine cheers us on as we attempt to excavate those sacred jewels within and bring them into the world.  She is in the music and the poetry.  We do ourselves a disservice by relegating this category of expression to entertainment, because it is so much more than that.  Heavenly Mother is constantly asking us to dance with her, to sing, to write, to draw, because that is the way we can come to know ourselves in the way SHE sees us.  In the same way I encourage my son’s fledgling attempts at creativity, she is doting over my bad poetry, messy relationships and off-key singing with the hope that I will not let the world close my mouth.  

Linger and rest.  The iconic feminine meanders.  My therapist taught me this months ago and it’s something that frequently comes to mind.  The feminine is like the path along the cliff line that has amazing views but takes a little longer.  I’m someone who naturally values efficiency, so it has taken a conscious effort to allow myself to walk the scenic path.  The feminine suggests, maybe it’s okay to just sit here for a while and enjoy the beauty of this place or moment.  Maybe it’s okay to linger.  Maybe it’s okay to take a nap if you’re tired.  There may be miles to go, but there is time and it’s okay to be kind to yourself.  

Now that I better understand the feminine divine, I see that, because of her nature, she doesn’t fit easily into organized religion.  She is too big and complicated for that.  There are no instructions for breathing!  How would you teach someone to inhale?  Yet, I notice very quickly when I am becoming oxygen-deprived. 

So back to my story about the conversation with my mom and dad.  I don’t feel bad that I can’t remember my mother’s exact words because the words were not as important as the feeling.  And this is true to the feminine divine.  She doesn’t write instruction booklets.  She is unstructured and unshaped.  And because of that she can fit into the spaces where other things can’t.    

This is me in the flow: quiet mind, open heart. I think of these moments as glimpses. I just try to catch a peek of that feeling as often as I can. P.S.-- Heavenly Mother thinks SnapChat filters are fun too!

Heavenly Mother is the essence of self care.  A while back, I realized that the only thing that REALLY qualified as self-care—that really worked—was the activities that cleared the crap off of my soul.  The things that helped me to hear my inner voice.  This is Heavenly Mother.  So maybe you can pray to her.  Maybe you can visualize a heavenly being with kind eyes and a loving embrace.  If that’s helpful, then do it!  

My advice on this topic is really DO ANYTHING.  Reach out into the ether and you will find her because she is everywhere and all it takes to access her is a quiet mind and an open heart.  The practices that will be most helpful are the ones that create those two things.  And when you find her, tell me about it because I live for this stuff now! Namaste. 

Be bad at ANYTHING

I’m a big advocate of journaling.  The habit of indulging myself on the page has become a life-changing, enriching, emboldening, expansive endeavor.  I write about stupid things.  I joke that if my posterity ever read my journal they’ll be like, “Who is [fill in the blank] for whoever is causing drama in my psyche?”

“It’s not important!” I’ll reply. 

“Yeah, but that name is mentioned like 7000 times in here!” And because it's in a word document they can ctrl+F and actually get an accurate count. *Sigh.*

Then I’ll reply with some sage wisdom about how what is going on in life is always more about you and less about the other people that step in to fill certain roles.

Because it’s been such a helpful tool for me, I have trouble not advising everyone to journal all the time.   But this isn’t fair—because some of us aren’t writers!  What if someone told me, Michelle, I really need you to sculpt this life experience—like pour it all into a sculpture.  Make me know what you are feeling and doing and being in this moment with clay…or worse—marble.

I would respond with a lot of fear and drama in my head because I know nothing about sculpture.  I could do it.  I’m confident of that.  If I applied myself, I could produce some piece of sculpture that would represent a piece of me.  It might take me 30 years but I could do it.  But WRITING is so much EASIER--for me!

So there is something to are said for picking a medium of expression that feels somewhat natural.  Maybe you have some skill with drawing or photography or singing or welding metal fragments.  There are so many ways to express oneself--the point is to pick one!

What holds us back from picking one is the inner critic.  It’s the voice that develops at some point between the time we are first introduced to crayons and the seventh grade.  It’s the voice that says, You aren’t any good at this.  This is stupid.  No one wants to read this.  That drawing doesn't even look like a person.  That critic becomes somewhat helpful as we navigate school, friends, college and career selection.  That voice can push us into areas where we have natural ability.  But eventually it becomes a crippling companion.  It’s the Tanya Harding brute force that takes us out at the knees.  It’s ugly.

So the first step is in identifying the voice of that critic.  When it pipes up, just take note, hear what it says.  Then realize that you are not bound to it.  You are free to be BAD at anything you put your mind to!  

There it is.

You can do anything as long as you’re willing to be bad at it.

You are hereby liberated!

So the choice in medium becomes less important—do what fills you in this moment!  I’ll admit, writing was a natural choice for me.  I chose it because I felt I was already a little good at it.  That’s okay!  And some days I draw and I’m really VERY mediocre at drawing but, when I’m most successful is when I’m willing to be bad at it!  I like drawing and maybe some day I’ll take some classes and figure out how to be better at it, but why should that stop me from expressing myself that way now!?!

There’s an unspoken rule, once you reach real adulthood (I’m not talking age 18—I mean the time in life when you can really do you) that you should only do things you are good at.  That rule is silly.  And it sucks.  Literally it sucks all the fun out of life.

Recently, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the piano.  I took lessons from age 8-15.  I *should* be quite proficient with that amount of lessons under my belt, but I’m just okay.  That just-okayness held me back from playing for years and years!  And I LOVE playing the piano.  Finally I decided that was silly.  When I got a piano in my home, I considered taking lessons to get myself up to a proficient state, but then I chucked that idea right out.  NO!  I’m going to allow myself to be bad at it. Taking lessons so I feel worthy to grace an instrument I love with my music was so silly.  I’m worthy right now.

I’m taking opportunities to challenge myself in this way.  I selected some challenging songs that I love.  One of them is from A Star Is Born and performed by Lady Gaga.  I do my best to play and sing like Lady Gaga, which is hilarious!  But I tell you what!  I get a lot closer to sounding like Gaga by shamelessly TRYING than I ever did by playing small.  You won’t see me on America’s Got Talent EVER, but if you want a private, amateur performance in my living room—then I’m your gal!  And all that’s changed is my willingness to be bad at it.

The same thing applies to surfing.  Every time I paddle out, I face some of the same old insecurity demons.  Then I just decide I’m totally fine being the worst surfer in the water and sometimes I am, and sometimes that mentality allows me to immerse myself so fully into surfing I completely forget about the ranking system and just surf!

I love how Mark Nepo describes this.  He says that when we are gifted with something, it’s tradition to be told that we should become that thing.  If I’m decent at writing, people will say, “You should be a writer.”

“But the power is in the DOING, not the in the BEING,” Mark says.  The power is in the verb, not the noun.  So forget about being a writer, and write!  Forget about being a singer, and sing!  Forget about being a surfer, and surf!  Focus on the verb!  Do the thing!  Pick the medium!  Be the YOU doing the things that bring you to life!

This is my commitment to myself—to continue to allow me to be bad at things—because that’s where all the power and all the life is!  Here’s your permission slip to do the same!  Namaste.

Kids are the best examples of immersion. R just spent 90 minutes outside tonight relocating muddy water in cupfuls to different locations in the yard...mud might be his preferred medium...

You can make anything!

Ruby and Don

There are two places in the world where you can find evidence of my great-grandmother, Ruby Evelyn Hines.  One is a stretch of farmland situated on Marsh Creek in Southern Idaho.  I grew up visiting my grandparents on the farm every summer and every Christmas.  From the beginning of my remembering life, Great-grandma Ruby stayed in a little yellow trailer house, next to the original farmhouse where my grandparents lived.  When we arrived for a visit, we would often pass Ruby, out for a walk on the narrow lane.  My sisters and I would venture over to her trailer house after greeting my grandparents.  I remember her answering the door with a generous smile, asking, “Now, who are you?”  Ruby had Alzheimer’s and didn’t remember our names but she always invited us in to examine her trinkets and treasures and feed us a snack.

Ruby married my great-grandfather, Vivian (yes, you read that name correctly), when she was only sixteen.  Ruby didn’t seem to shy away from work.  She frequently worked along side V (as she affectionally refers to him in her journal) in the fields, kept a garden, kept bees, sewed, knitted, crocheted, and cooked for her family and the farm help.  

Four years after their marriage, my grandfather, Don, was born.  He was their only child and she was a powerful mother.  She traveled once a year with my grandpa on the train to Oregon to visit her family.  I like thinking of them as a brave, little duo, working hard and loving hard.  My grandpa speaks of his mother with such affection that I know this must be true.  With a twinkle of admiration in his eyes, my grandpa recalls that his mother had BIG arms.  “I could never milk a cow as fast as she could!”

The other place you can find Ruby is a little quarter-acre lot in Southwestern Arizona.  When my grandpa was experienced enough to take over the farming operation, V and Ruby retired to the desert in a travel trailer for the winter months.  I didn’t visit this place until several years after her passing so I don’t know, first hand, what it meant to her, but her spirit is alive and well there.     

Flowering cactus surrounded by quartz

When I visited a few weeks ago, I found a journal of hers from 1960.  Ruby recorded, in a few sentences, what she did each day of that year.  Most days there was a report of the weather, including high and low temperatures.  I imagine that spending the winter months in the mild climate of the Southwest felt like a luxury worth recording.  The weather report was usually followed by some tasks she completed, like knitting, baking bread, letter writing, cutting V’s hair or sewing.  There were days they spent on the road, days V spent fishing, evenings Ruby spent rock hunting, trips to Mexico, trips to beaches of the Baja peninsula, and evenings spent playing cards with friends.  The theme of the journal was her constant creativity.  Even in retirement, her days were spent creating.

There is a shed on the quarter-acre lot that houses a hodgepodge of artifacts, evidence of her creative life beyond the typical domestic arts.  Ruby collected hundreds of shells on the beaches of Mexico.  She drilled them and strung them on wire to make decorative baskets.  There are snuff containers of tiny colored shells that I imagine she purchased for a project that either never came to being or has since been lost.  I wonder if she collected the shells, simply for the pleasure of holding and having them, the same way I enjoy colored paperclips.   I find a tiny lizard skeleton in a lidless canning jar.  The desert holds onto him in the same way it retains these pieces of Ruby and V.  

Ruby's collection

Ruby moved around a lot as a girl.  Her father was one of those people that hated to stay in one place. During her childhood they made their way from Kansas to Colorado, back to Kansas, to Oregon, then back to Kansas, back to Oregon, then Idaho.  They moved three times while in Idaho before Ruby married V at age 16.  I imagine it felt good to stay in one place! But I also think all of this moving may have taught Ruby from a young age, to love the place that’s in front of your face.  For a woman who spent much of her life trying to make green things grow, and visiting her extended family in forested Oregon, she clearly loved the desert.  She must have been an avid rockhound because the barren ground is covered in unique mineral specimen, deliberately placed at the foot of decades old cacti.  This is the bit of Arizona that I remember from traveling there as a kid.

What Ruby created on the desert floor around her 1950s Spartan park model trailer, is completely worthy of designation as American folk art.  Mosaics constructed from naturally colored stone stretch out in each direction.  And what I love most about it, besides the fact that it still exists today, disturbed only by the spring weeds and some years of desert dust, is that she did it for the pure love of making it.  Why else?!?     

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this:

“Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all. We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified, and we are brave. Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege. Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us. Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise—you can make anything.”

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Sometimes creativity feels like a crushing chore, but when I think about Ruby it feels more an attitude.  An irrepressible impulse that played out in the bread she baked, the cows she milked, the clothing she sewed, the baskets she constructed, the beets she hoed, and the rocks she laid.  Her mosaics matter enormously and not at all, in the same way that each life matters enormously and not at all.

Ruby Jr.

I have a niece who shares her great-great-grandmother’s name.  Along with the name, she bears a physical resemblance and the same penchant for artistic expression.  My 93-year-old grandfather cannot look at Ruby without tearing up, overwhelmed with memories of his mother.  I’m reminded that maybe that’s the greatest creative legacy we leave behind—the people.  I see her strong arms on my sister.  I see her precision and artistry in my father.  I see her quiet, enormous heart in my grandfather.  And I see her ability to make any place feel like home in me. To carry Ruby forward in the world in our spiritual DNA--what a sacred privilege!

Practice makes practice

When I was first learning to surf, my experienced-surfer friend, Clare, encouraged me to practice my pop-ups.  She recommended lying on my stomach on the living room floor and practicing the process of paddling, then pushing up and popping up.  The pop up is important in surfing and something most beginner surfers struggle with.  It’s the movement that allows you to go from lying prone on the board to being up on your feet in two quick movements.  First, you push your chest up off of the board (think upward facing dog, not push up), then you bring your feet forward in one movement placing them on the board and becoming upright.  Many people will hesitate meaning they only get to one knee, which can work for a while but will eventually, if not immediately, hold back some success. 

I practiced this on the floor at home.  I practiced it with her in the sand on the beach before we would paddle out.  I immediately understood the importance of the practice—to build muscle memory. Muscle memory is procedural memory. It’s building the coordination between movement in a way that allows you to complete the movement without conscious effort.  Practicing the pop up is helpful for a beginner (and really any) surfer because it allows the movement to be made without conscious effort. 

Imagine yourself sitting on a board, watching the waves come in.  You finally decide there is one that is coming at you in the right way that you can be in position to paddle for it.  You are paddling forward checking the wave’s position against yours as you paddle.  The paddling requires a big effort so you are paddling hard, the wave hits, you start to feel it pushing your forward.  This is the moment for the push up/pop up sequence.   If you are like me, a lot of mental energy already went in to getting to that point.  I am still a little hesitant that I might nose in causing the board and me to pushed under the water.  In that moment, the muscle memory of the pop up allows me to commit without much mental energy and get to my feet.  I’m getting better at this but it has taken A LOT of practice.   

I see this pattern repeated over and over again in my life.  Practicing the piano, when I was young, was building muscle memory.  Learning to type.  Learning to play the saxophone.  Cheerleading stunts and dances.  Volleyball skills.  The repetition builds muscle memory which eventually makes the activity unconscious. 

Muscle memory is another term for motor learning--the repetition of a movement until it become automatic.  It’s easy to think of physical examples of this, but what I want to write about today are the other practices I do that are kind of like muscle memory.

I want to create so I write.  You get to see some of it here but I write way more for myself than I publish.  When I first decided to start writing, I wrote at least five times a week for 6 months before I published anything.  And even when I started publishing, it wasn’t because I felt ready.  I just recognized that I would never feel ready.  It would always feel vulnerable to share my writing, and I wanted to do it anyway.  So most days I write something for myself, even it if’s just a short paragraph.  And I try to post here three times a week.  I’ve said this before, but this has been the single greatest sanity builder.  There is something healing in the creativity of this practice.  I process things through writing that I can’t process any other way.  After I wrote the post on Sunday, I emerged from my bedroom and my mom, who was visiting, said, “You look lighter!”  On days when I feel blocked, I remind myself to simply keep writing, to keep showing up for myself.

I want to have courage so I ask myself what feels brave and I do it.  At least I really try to.  I live with a lot of fear.  It wakes me up in the early morning some days.  It makes it hard to fall asleep some nights.  I have found that the best antidote for fear is to remind myself that I am brave.  A while back, I wrote a courage list in my journal.  I made a list of everything I had done in my life that required courage.  What a helpful exercise!  Now, I have made it a conscious practice to be brave in my life.  When I do my morning thought download and empty out what’s in my mind, I sort through it to identify which thoughts are the fear voice.  This consciousness allows me to know when fear is driving the car so I can kindly ask fear to get in the backseat.  There is not much that feels better than the feeling that comes after courage. 

I want to be sane to I expose myself to the outdoors and exercise.  If it's been more than a day or two without it I start to get antsy.  That's the muscle memory.  That's the intrinsic reminder that I need to recharge in this important way.

These are a few examples of mental/emotional muscles I’m trying to strengthen.  Here’s why I care.  When life is going good, I don’t really need these things.  It’s when it gets hard that they become so important.  It’s when the wave is about to roll me that I need the muscle memory of the pop up so I can get to my feet and ride the wave.  Because—there are days when I absolutely need to write and I don’t feel like it.  I don’t want to face the reality of what’s in my mind.  There are days when I hesitate to do the brave thing—so many days when I want to let fear drive the car.  There are days when it’s hard to do the mom thing and go to work and run the household and care for the friends and family around me. 

Those are the days I need the muscle memory.  I need my body and spirit to know what to do because I’ve been practicing it.  It's the physical manifestation of my intention. 

Something I'm just starting to work on is play.  Brené Brown calls it "laughter, song and dance" in her research.  I used to be really good at this but it's been buried in the seriousness of life.  My life, even the things I enjoy, has become a checklist of activities that have a function for my mental or physical health, household function or work.  I think I need a serious intervention to bring play back into my life, so if you have any suggestions, please help me out!    

Malcom Gladwell wrote, “Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”  I’m less concerned about getting good at any of this and more concerned about being freed by it.  But, I like his acknowledgment that the power is in the process, not in its perfection.  So let’s be intentional about what we practice and let’s be kind to ourselves as we do it.  Namaste.