man oh man oh man

... were Lester Burnham's last words before he was shot in the head in American Beauty. Moments earlier he was surprised to find himself, when asked how he was, suddenly able to say, "I'm great." And really mean it. Standing under the blue sky and bright sun on this most beautiful of days, I found myself looking up and saying his words: man oh man oh man (and instantly felt the urge to check behind me for a gun).

I write to share the same revelation. I'm great. Anyone who's been around knows there were patches that were decidedly not great (I refer especially to the month of camping out in an abandoned construction site), and there will be such patches again. Making it all the more important to point it out when life is great.

This all came to my attention after encountering situations I honestly thought would have set me to longing for one thing or another. I was genuinely surprised to discover that instead of wishing for what I don't have, I really prefer what I do have to anything else. I'm where I want to be. In every way. I love my family and friends, and find those relationships so fulfilling. I love what I do, and feel competent to do it. I feel good about the food I eat, and the clothes I wear. I don't wish I was richer, thinner, prettier, more or less anything. All of which has nothing to do, incidentally, with being perfect.

Same goes with life. Mine's not perfect... there really isn't even that much to it. When I'm not doing the usual work of living, I'm mostly just bumbling around on the guitar or attempting to cook or playing frisbee with the dog. But some of my contentedness probably comes from welcoming and preserving that simplicity. From loving what I have and allowing it to be enough. And, from being grateful.

I learned my style of gratitude from listening to Dr. Crump teach about the Old Testament Jews. I don't know half of what I perhaps should about Judaism, but I remember learning that all those detailed, particular rituals in the Torah pretty much boil down to being grateful ALL THE TIME. For every moment - getting up, eating meals, leaving the house - there is a ritual that in essence says, "thank you."

I loved that idea, and took it for myself. Gratitude is, really, a good deal about what it means for you. It re-benefits the beneficiary. :) It means you name it when this moment is good, and this one, and this one. Before you know it there's beauty to name all over, and suddenly the whole world offers itself to you (harsh and exciting...). Practicing gratitude opens your eyes to the goodness that's all around, and it makes everything brighter.

Gratitude doesn't only brighten what you see. It helps you see what you might have otherwise missed. Emily of Our Town saw all there was to be grateful for when she returned to one day of her life after she died. She saw every good thing as she had never noticed it in life: coffee, and oranges, and her mother. Clocks ticking. She cried out that so much is happening in every moment, but it happens so fast that we don't notice; we don't have time to look at one another. She asked, "Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

We don't. And honestly I think if we did, we would all spontaneously explode. But by practicing gratitude, hopefully I'll be able to say that for most of those minutes, I was there... and it was great.

baby be friends with you.

It's a beautiful night, at the end of a frustrating day. The moon is conspicuously hanging out like a bulbous, ill-disguised troll behind too-thin strips of clouds. The air smells like wood burning in fireplaces, and it's cool for Florida, but - being honest with ourselves now - it's still warm.

Bob Dylan is singing "all I really wanna do-o-o-o is, baby, be friends with you," while a certain herding dog demonstrates grave concern about the source of that yodeling. Friends are calling my attention lately. Calling me away, I think, from the inclination to label a given day, or anything, as frustrating.

Like today: I all-out forgot two meetings I had fully planned on the day before. And messing up things for which you can't turn back the clock is frustrating! But a friend commiserated about all the things she's missed too, and reminded me how small those mistakes turn out to be against the backdrop of all you usually get right. Another friend suggested how to mend things with the folks I'd stood up.

Like last week: defending a dissertation proposal is stressful, and is just part of the stream of challenges that keeps coming allll the time. Sometimes I worry the persistent work will erode my sense of fun! What if I forget? But a weekend away with a friend who pointed out her surprise that I "play as hard as I work" (and who should win trophies or something for her own ability to do exactly that) let me have a couple days to remember no matter how many papers I write, I can still bring the ruckus.

Like other friendships. As a girl who's historically thrown her friendship around every which way - to highly variable outcomes - I've spent a lot of time working at people with whom my efforts don't always pay off. I still get frustrated when they don't. But - but. I'm starting to learn. Those friendships that stay have a way of drowning out frustration at what doesn't stay. Where one attempt at connecting fails, there is a net of other connections already there to let me know what I'm really looking for. And how incredibly blessed I already am.

It's fine when it doesn't work out. See, you launch enough of your little filaments (as Uncle Walt put it) and plenty of those gossamer threads will catch somewhere. The ones that need to will. The bridges you'd probably rather not form are usually the ones that won't anyway. And there's a beauty in that. Some strange, benevolent efficiency of loving, maybe. We find our anchors where we belong.

Not to say I won't keep flinging out proverbial filaments at just about whatever crosses my path, including any number of long shots. Some things are entirely ingrained. :) But there is comfort in being reminded that whatever efforts fail, there is a web of friendships ready to hold you if you'll look for it. And if you keep on flinging: well, not everything will work, but there will keep on being something - someone - there to break the fall.

fresh rain will sometimes make you think about this.

In two days, I'll spend 8 hours writing (hopefully) everything I've learned about my work, and offering my view on how it all fits together. Today I take a break from synthesizing ideas on neuroplasticity to spin a few, probably much less cogent, thoughts in a much larger sphere.

It's a typical Saturday morning at The Dollhouse: a girl-and-sheltie dance party (dancing around in boxers with coffee while Otis trots after, towing a stick twice his size). Every Saturday should start with a coffee-fueled sheltie dance party. This one was out on the patio, under the trees and rain which hasn't quit for weeks. Standing there with the cold rain on my neck, singing and pointing at the dog like a bad fourth Supreme who didn't make the cut, I realized: I'm so grateful to not be dead right now.

People say often, and probably not often enough, that they're grateful to be alive. Perhaps I've heard or said it so many times it's become a bit cliche, a thought I fail to connect with on some deep and stirring level (at least, it seems it should be a deep and stirring thought).  But when you conjure the image of lying dead in a church yard, it's somehow different. Or it was for me. 

My friend Jessie died when I was fourteen.  Not surprisingly, it was a wake-up call: that we're not invincible, that anything can happen, that loss can be painful and shocking, more so than I'd ever known.  Today it's a wake-up of a whole other kind.  There is so much she's missed.  Unbelievable things my teenage self never foresaw. 

Since I was fourteen I've met incredible friends, visited twelve (!) foreign countries, made homes in new places all on my own, fallen in love, fallen out of love, been terrified, been angry, been sorry, laughed and learned immeasurably. I've explored the depths of the ocean. And the depths of hearts, including my own. Most importantly I've had countless one-person dance parties, late nights with friends, lengthy breakfasts, rainstorms, palpitations around cute boys, heard amazing music and made my own. I've asked questions I can't answer, and been satisfied not to know. I got to do all this instead of laying in the ground. 

Everybody thinks about dying. Everybody thinks sometimes, whether or not they admit it, about wanting to die. As a therapist (and as a human being) I have to think about what we need to hear when we feel like dying. It's a little different for everyone, of course. For me, rather than thinking forward about all I have to live for later on (which can be an amorphous, foggy vision), it's compelling to consider all I'd have missed if life had stopped, say, when I was fourteen. Life wasn't easy since then by any stretch, but without question, nothing could make me trade it for years in a church yard.  If I feel that way about the past, even with its messes and heartaches, I imagine I'll feel the same looking back in another ten years. And ten years after that. At the very least, I have no idea what new adventures I might miss. 

So, live. Be grateful to not be dead. Stand in the rain. Ask the questions that have no answers. And be glad for all you haven't missed yet.

announcement

This is the continuation of my older blogs. I've enjoyed blogging on MySpace in recent years but I no longer enjoy MySpace, only blogging. Hence the posts to follow will carry my 2006-2008 posts over... and then I'll start adding some new stuff.