humble beginnings | hopeful future
THAT I WOULD BE FREE
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
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!
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.
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 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!
I drove to the appointed location, made sure I was on time. I wore the appropriate secure footwear and jackets. I was ready!
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.
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.
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 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:
- Someone who is kind to me.
- Someone who is honest.
- Someone who likes to do some of the same things as me.
- Someone who wants the important same things as me.
- Someone who realizes that people grow and change and is interested in the journey of growing and changing together.
- Holds all the space for complexity and contradiction that exists in me.
- Smoking hot bod.
- Not a picky eater.
- Does not want to live in a car.
- 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!)
- Graduate high school.
- 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.
- Get married before you age out of the college dating pool. (Yikes! Mormon women become old maids at 21?!?)
- 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?)
- 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!)
- Go to grad school to have health insurance to pay for the tumors that aren’t showing up to kill you.
- Work. Wash dishes. Grocery shop. Cook. Exercise to burn off the calories. Repeat for three or four years.
- Run a half marathon. (Because that’s what medical professionals do when life isn’t complicated enough—duh!)
- Have a baby. (Because that’s what married people do when life isn’t complicated enough.)
- 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.
- Realize YOU can actually live YOUR life for YOU. Start doing it.
- Start a journal. (Start being honest with yourself.)
- Start a blog. (Start being honest with others.)
- Spend a few years posting the most literal and vibrant and wounding parts of your life.
- Enjoy kind or thoughtful comments from your parents, sisters and a few other people.
- Wonder if anyone else thinks it’s any good. Wonder if you’re any good. Play whack-a-mole with ego…for years? ...Forever?
- Make mistakes. Write about those.
- Win victories. Write about those.
- Get to know yourself. Write about her.
- Discover that it’s been t-w-e-n-t-y years since you graduated high school.
- Decide that you can attend your reunion because now, unlike 10 years ago, you can show up as your ACTUAL self.
- 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.
- Be saved by the fact that Oprah is constantly talking about intention.
- 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.)
- Remember some people will like you and some people won’t because you’re not for everyone and everyone’s not for you.
- Set a new intention: To show love for the people who grew along with you.
- 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.)
- Walk into the reunion mixer. Hug the first person at the door, your best friend from elementary school.
- Get lost in each interaction, one after another, after another.
- Choose the people who also choose you.
- Hug all of them.
- Boldly call people the wrong name and watch them forgive you.
- Soak up their goodness.
- Soak up their giddiness, honesty, laughter, dance moves, serious faces, wide eyes, clever remarks, humble brags, shrouds, curiosity, and acceptance.
- 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.
- Notice how you all bruised each other because you loved each other.
- Feel held. Feel free. Remember you ARE love. All of you are love.
- 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.
What if I decided I was safe?
When I was first married, I lived in a laundromat.
I say it that way because the apartment was actually IN the building of the laundromat, but I wasn’t sleeping on washing machines at night. During my short time there, I encountered a man who used the bathroom sink every morning to bathe and then spent the day getting high on tire adhesive to the hum of machines and the tinny radio.
I met a skinhead Nazi on a BMX bike and a gang of 13-year-olds who figured out how to melt the hinges off the gumball machine with a lighter. They nearly pulled off the biggest gumball heist of Utah County history…nearly.
I assisted the landlord in covertly evicting a man who lived in his other laundromat and had constructed a giant cross from the casings of washing machines in the parking lot to advertise his church of Heavenly Mother. It stood five washers high and three across and was featured on the local news.
All of this was going on while I was diagnosed and treated with gnarly surgeries and flattening meds for a rare cancer. I bring all this up because I learned, as a young adult, that the world is a strange place.
I considered how the glue sniffer and I would get ready for the day together with only a thin wall separating our bathrooms ,while my husband was already gone to work. I wondered if he noticed too—if he knew I was alone.
I was brought up with traditional principles of modesty. That a man’s job was to “control his thoughts” and a woman’s job was to “protect her virtue” by covering her body. And I get where that tradition comes from. A woman’s naked body incites violence. Hell--even a woman’s clothed body will do that. And what does this say of men? They are completely vulnerable to their sexual desires, even to the point of violence?
The shadow that’s cast from this paradigm is much larger than the actual physical acts that result. There is a cost.
Here’s the kind of experience I waited 37 years to have because of the way we are conditioned about violence against women. (A phrase that completely fails to mention the men who perpetrate these crimes.) My hope in sharing it is that it will illustrate what women lose in a culture of violence. It’s much more than virtue.
Last Fall my mom and dad came for a visit. I was planning to hike Half Dome, but then most of California caught fire and the air quality became so poor that they closed Yosemite National Park. And this didn’t even feel like an injustice because the thought of doing that 16 mile hike in one day, on a clear day, felt a little menacing, not to mention doing it through a cloud of ash. So the trip was cancelled.
Mom and dad offered to watch R overnight to give me a night to myself and I booked a hotel room near the beach in Del Mar. I took myself through the shops along the 101 in Encinitas. I checked in, walked down the street and had a nice three course dinner by myself. Then walked back to the hotel to relax.
After a couple of hours, I became restless. I decided to walk down to the beach. I was familiar with this part of the bluff because I’ve hiked it so many times, just north from Torrey Pines. There was a path from the hotel parking lot into the adjacent neighborhood. I followed it down through a street or two until I was on the railroad tracks atop the bluff overlooking the ocean.
The whitewash reflected only the starlight on this moonless night. It danced so irresistibly, I had to go meet it.
Because I didn’t have a light, I stayed on the tracks that gradually descended to the level of Powerhouse Beach. This beach is appointed with a spotlight that shines like a medical examiner’s lamp into the folds of the water. In this light, what is sexy and mysterious becomes naked and loud.
I turned away from the light into the darkness to the south and the bluff rose up beside me as I walked. By this time the marine layer had begun to settle in against the sandy wall. The air was thick and cool.
My thoughts kept me company as I walked. I passed a few couples holding hands, making their way back to the lighted beach. There was the occasional fisherman with a line cast into the working sea. I walked on more deeply into the darkness.
At the beginning of my walk I considered my safety, as almost any woman would, walking alone at night. I’ve become used to nighttime walks around my neighborhood. But this place was unfamiliar and I started to calculate, the farther I walked, how unlikely it would be for someone to hear me yell if I was attacked. So for several minutes this debate played out: keep going or turn back?
Then I realized that this back and forth was ruining my walk. So I stopped myself and then this very distinctive thought appeared like a light: What if I decided I was safe?
I wondered, What if that was true? I don’t have a weapon. If someone does attack me, worrying about it won’t protect me. And I could turn around and go back but the idea of missing this beautiful night because I am afraid that some stranger is lurking in the darkness waiting to rape or maim or kill me—look at what I’m giving up for that fear.
I kept walking. The thought became more delicious to me. What if I was safe?! Like what if I was safe in all of the other parts of my life. What if I didn’t have to be afraid of court and my ex-husband and spending too much money and performing poorly at work and people stealing my stuff and fires and package thefts? What if I was safe from all of that?
It was like a giant switch flipped inside me. I can just decide right here and now that I AM SAFE.
I took every piece of clothing off my body, placed them on a rock against the bluff and walked out into the black ocean. In the darkness the waves felt effervescent against my skin, like the sea, itself, was toasting me, Be free.
I WAS safe.
That night nothing happened. And now I keep wondering, how much of my mind is going to protecting myself from unseen things that actually aren't even there? How much of the collective female mind is dedicated to protecting ourselves from violence on a daily basis? How much wasted energy? How much time? How much heartache?
I'm not saying women need to stop worrying. It made sense to worry about the glue sniffer on the other side of the wall. Most people are harmless but there are ill-doers out there, seen and unseen.
I'm just dreaming of something better. A world where we are free to focus on starlight and being and breathing and the effervescent waves.
You can make anything!
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
How to start feeling
I grew up in a house with four women which meant there was a lot of estrogen going around. We were pretty adept at late-night sessions, hashing out the latest crises in our lives, letting our advice spill over into the wee hours when judgment for such things is waning and emotions are running high. I was always the more detached, cerebral unit in this group. I used humor as an escape and a facade to avoid these tell-all episodes when possible. For years, these sessions were the glue that held the women in my family together. They defined our get-togethers. Sometimes they left us feeling closer and sometimes they just left us feeling more crazy and isolated. The outcome was always a gamble.
Thankfully, these sessions have changed. My sisters came to San Diego for a getaway weekend this past week. We’ve become better at this over the years. It’s easier. For one thing, the facade is starting to come down. We’re not faking the always-clean house anymore. We’ve dropped the idea that we should have it all together.
Another change that is coming about is emotional autonomy. We aren’t perfect at it yet, but we’ve started to trust each other to take care of our own crap. We are adopting the philosophy of I’m going to assume you’re okay with whatever is happening unless you tell me it’s not okay. Maybe in some family dynamics this would be moving in the wrong direction, but in ours it’s magic. We have a history of being endlessly caretaking to the point that no one will say where they want to have dinner for fear that someone will be disappointed but go along with it anyway. It’s enough to make anyone bonkers.
The third things is that we’ve started to cool it on the advice. Advice, usually, just sucks. It’s not helpful and it often makes the advised person feel like an idiot. We probably suck at this one the most. We still relentlessly advise each other because how do you not try to help your sister when she is telling you about something in her life that is causing her pain!?! That’s why I said we’ve STARTED to cool it. No miraculous change here—just incremental.
So I was actually really honored when my sister opened up to me about avoiding her feelings. She realized she was doing this a lot and had been for years. Numbing out the negative emotion with food or TV or whatever. She said, with the bravest honesty, that she wondered what it would take to give that up--and if she even wanted to.
Her simple utterance rang all my truth alarms. I told her that that was a VERY valid question. It’s a lot to feel. It’s so much. And at first you won’t know how to get it out—how to unbury that stuff that’s been locked away under layers of food and TV and shopping and piles of subconscious. You’ll notice yourself binge eating or binge watching and, now because you’re slightly more conscious than before, you see it. You think, I’m just numbing—what am I numbing? And you won’t be able to figure it out at first.
And you’ll judge yourself because that’s what you’ve always done. Your brain will say things to you like, You’re weak. You always do this. And then you’ll feel some shame about the numbing behavior which will really only feed it and you’ll wonder if you will ever get off this cycle. But what you don’t realize is that your foot is already on the path to consciousness. Because you noticed the numbing! You identified it. So a few weeks or months or years will go by and sometimes you’ll notice the numbing and identify it as it’s happening and sometimes you’ll see it after the fact and sometimes you won’t see it at all.
Then one day, as you reach for your first handful of Cadbury Mini Eggs—or maybe it will happen because you’re surprisingly out of chocolate—you’ll stop yourself and decide to really drill down. What is the feeling I’m numbing? You’ll search for a word, the chocolate smell heavy in the air. Anger…fear…jealousy…tired…disappointment—DISAPPOINTMENT! That’s it! I’m disappointed.
You’ll retrace your feeling steps back through the events of the last ten minutes or ten hours or ten days or ten years to realize that what you’re feeling in this moment is disappointment. And then you will wonder what it feels like--without the chocolate.
You’ll picture a time when you felt disappointed. You might even have to reach back to childhood if you’ve been numbing for a while. You’ll lean into that memory as you lean into the current moment. The lean means that you are getting into your body. You will pull that feeling through your gut, to your fingertips and as you let go of the stoicism you will begin to cry. You might be driving down the freeway sobbing over your steering wheel. You might prostrate yourself on the kitchen floor as the disappointment takes over. You let it.
Part of you thinks this is completely ridiculous. Another part of you worries that now that you’ve started crying you might never stop. But you’ve already come this far so you continue to sob. Tears are now coming from the darkest corners of your psyche. DISAPPOINTMENT. It’s such a simple emotion, so familiar, so easy to bury under layers of chocolate or busy-ness or novels or TV. But now it’s racking you in full force. Your face is covered in snot and tears. You feel strange as the sobs start to slow—no wait, now they’re back again full-force—okay, now they are slowing.
That’s the thing about emotions—they can’t last forever. This is as equally true for the good ones as it is for the painful ones. You look in the mirror and see your swollen eyes and snotty face, but it’s not pathetic. There’s a little fire that’s started in your chest. It’s the fire of self-respect because you did the hard thing—the brave thing. You faced the disappointment dragon. You shouted and beat your chest at the mouth of his cave and he devoured you. Yet here you are on the other side of it, soggy but intact. And that simple fact is proof that you can do it again. Over and over and over again. You can be devoured by the dragon because you were born to do this. You were born to feel—not to numb, but TO FEEL.
The weeks and months and years will pass. Your emotional vocabulary will grow. You will begin to see the dragons on the horizon and the fear of being devoured will become less. Still, there will be times when you put on the sumo suit of chocolate or TV or exercise or podcast. You will check out and the dragon will pass by, but it will secretly be waiting.
Sometimes you will notice these moments and you will judge yourself for it. I should know better! I am enlightened! You really suck at this! But another voice will tell you, you are human and the balance is what it’s all about. Be kind to yourself. Be patient with yourself. Love yourself. That is the way to freedom. At first the shoulds will be loud in your ears. You will wonder if you will EVER be good at this.
The weeks and months and years will pass and you will realize that good is silly. Good is a box and no one is shaped like a box. We only come in human shapes. By then you will suck less at this enlightenment business. But that saying that goes something like, the more I learn the less I know will have come to pass.
You will be very brave about being devoured by the dragon then. For this reason, some people will think that you have too many feelings. You won’t worry too much about those people because you will understand that we all have dragons lurking on the horizon.
Sometimes you will succeed at standing firm while the dragon devours you and other times you will find yourself running to food or shopping or TV or drugs or incessant napping or alcohol or social media or sex or gambling. But because you are conscious more often than not, you notice when you do these things. And the reward of it becomes less because you see it for what it is—not an escape but a delay.
And you start to be kind to yourself, to understand that sometimes you NEED a delay. You aren’t yet ready to be devoured by the next dragon. But because you know you are someone who faces down dragons, you trust that you will eventually summon the courage to be devoured and you will love yourself as you wait for that day.
Here’s to the journey, sister. I'm on it too.