Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

November 18th will be my brain tumor party. The day I get anesthetized, brain tumor removed and titanium snowflakes in the end. So, that's that. I argued for an earlier date, but in the end found myself begging for the doctor to confirm, at least, November 18th, so that I could plan my life. Then while I was waiting and waiting, it occurred to me that part of my control freakishness is an addiction to feeling I can plan the future...as if...and the reason I know this is an addiction is that when they finally called and said that this would be the date and gave me enough information to make me feel like it was real, I felt the serotonin wash through my system. I felt relieved, and it wasn't even what I really wanted.

What is it with us that we are so concerned with what we're going to do tomorrow? What is it with the calendars and clocks and alarms and blocked out meetings and pick-up times for the carpools? I'm reminded of the lyrics from a favorite Chicago song, "Does anyone really know what time it is/Does anybody really care?" Oh, yes, we care. Let me correct that, I care. So, now I have three weeks that I can plan to the enth degree and busily I set about doing just that in my brain first and then on the calendar. Then I hit the wall.

After three weeks, I have a vague idea of the first three to five days of what will happen, and after that...phew...I have no clue. It all depends. It depends on how well the surgery goes. It depends on how my brain reacts to not having this gray egg pushing at it. It depends on the closure. It depends on whether there is any tumor left in the cavity. It depends on technology and the talents of the busy surgeon. It depends on things I seem not to have control of...

So that immediately informs me...what can I have control of? Har. I can control my attitude maybe, but my emotions are having their way with me. I was confident four weeks ago when this thing was discovered that it would be removed and all would be well, but all this time has passed giving me far too much time to contemplate less favorable results, and to be honest, that really is not where I need to go with my contemplation. Then I happen to watch movies where people die, or are chronically ill because there suddenly seem to be a plethora of those stories, and it becomes really scary. Then it becomes obvious. I have to spend the next three weeks cut off from media and well-intended conversations that emphasize the tragedy of finding out one is not perfectly healthy. In fact, I must do everything in my power not to write negatively about this brain thing.

What I'm conscious of is that when I had my miscarriage and lost my womb, I was immediately willing to go into the depths of my sadness about it. It feels like that was harder. It feels like this experience is more technological and mechanical and that it will turn out fine. Then it doesn't. Then it feels like this long delay must be the Universe asking me to take the time to say good-bye to life as I know it. Why else? I mean it's the night before Halloween and that's the scariest thing I can think of having to go through, and here I am going through it. Boo. How do I climb out of that?

My theory is that the only way past these feelings is through them. Coincidentally, I'm working to finish up a project I started in August. I'm writing a poem for each Tarot card in my own Kosmic Egg Tarot Project. It felt like I needed to complete something, and this was accessible. So, I'm writing the last fifteen poems this week. I've been writing the Minor Arcana suit poems, four a day (nearly) for a couple of weeks, and likely I will need to edit them quite a bit, but I'm happy with my "Nines" and wanted to share one them in this post because I feel like it partially encapsulates exactly where I am with my life right now.

To increase your understanding of the system of Tarot, let me just say that the "Nines" specifically represent the "realization" of each suit, sort of the best and worst of it as a big "aha". The Minor Arcana represent, for me, habits and are thus very mutable, and each suit represents a sort of path that we may be on for a period of time...material, emotional, mental and spiritual...textiles, vessels, tools and light. I will post the other "Nine" poems in separate posts...Here is the first:

Nine of Textiles

Those moments of self-realization create
Sustainability through the expertise I
Bring to the fabric of life. There was a
Time when I could not have survived
The challenges of this moment, but now
I am wrapped in warmth that I sewed
Myself and I can enjoy these conditions
That others would find a challenge.
The Aurora Borealis provides the
Unfathomable vision and my wolf is now a
Faithful companion, who assists my
Daily work to thrive, no matter what the
Appearances and circumstances are
Because I know I can adapt to change.

copyright (c) 2011 Amanda Morris Johnson

Waiting for Perfection

A lot of my life has been spent waiting for perfection, and it is high time I re-define it for myself.  Seems to me that the definition of perfection is where I always go off track. Perfection is perfection, right? This is not to say that I haven't actually redefined it before. In my mid-forties that would be totally naive. So, let's say I'm redefining perfection again.

Being an optimist, I've always been inclined to believe that everything is perfect, even if I cannot perceive it. That's rather vague though, and, when disappointment sets in, can make me feel as if I've gone blind or something. I cannot, at times, even discern what I mean when I say I believe everything is perfect because I'm often very disappointed by the world at large when my sense of justice is offended, or I feel impatient. When I find my mind changed about a long held opinion, I wonder if my previous belief in the perfection of my argument is evidence that nothing is perfect. The ground becomes shaky for the concept of perfection, the longer I live. It's one thing to not be able to grasp the perfection of some oddity, and another to really feel "this is not perfect."

More and more I've been feeling "this is not perfect." I have realized that the choices I made so breezily when I was a young woman led me very far away from my inner home. I've described feeling that I was falling off of a fragile perch of fantasy, but it didn't end when I hit the ground finally. I've often felt disoriented by my new life. The give and take of every day life has sometimes felt burdensome. There are even times I have felt that the only thing to do was to go back to sleep and walk through my life in a dream-like trance, the one where I thought I knew what I was doing.

Yet enough moments of clarity have popped through the fog over the past few years that I find myself in a rather good position, though it is imperfect in my heart. How can I reconcile what I feel in my bones perfection must be, and what it really is? Because until I redeem perfection, my notion of it, my very life's rhythm is always on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall into an endless abyss of suffering, and honestly, I dip my toes into that suffering far too often for comfort or progress.

I thought perfection was very simple: my two kids and a loving husband at home with me, creating a lifetime of memories, and a pleasing writing career. Also time to walk the dog, dance the tango, and do my little daily rituals for the love of God. I thought it was having a house with a garden, and a decent  car, and clothes to wear. I thought a vacation every year would do it. I thought extra money to buy gifts for family would do it. Very simple. I am chagrined to report that I don't even have this simplicity a lot of the time. The only consistency in that list is time to walk my dog, and there are days when even that is hard. I vibrate with a sense of injustice about my inability to manifest this simple list all of the time. What I have seems far more complicated and full of unwanted conflicts with the very perfection I desire. I find myself envious when I perceive that other people have what I want, and then hopeless about ever achieving my perfect life.

It occurred to me this weekend that waiting for that list up there to come together is not only painful, it is futile. It simply doesn't and can't match what is - ever. Ever. So, if I hang onto these simple ideas of perfection then I will always be resentful and angry or sad and depressed. It is not my nature to be angry, resentful, sad and depressed for the rest of my life. Why would I purposefully choose that which I cannot have as my ideal of perfection??? Well, isn't that a long and over-told story? Yes, yes, I've read all the Secret books trying to get there from here, and have concluded it is so convoluted and insane to even hold the imaginary dream together that I've decided to stop. Halt. I'm yielding to another idea...

It isn't that I can't have everything on that list up there. I can and I do have some of it, and it won't be hard to have some more of it, if I do one thing: accept what is.  It is what it is. For instance, my kids live with me half the time. Half the time I have my ideal perfection with my kids. So, my task is to accept that the other half the time is perfect, too. Well, the other half of the time I have is time to write and teach during the day and pursue the interesting career I desire. My task is to embrace that time without mourning that it is different from my time with my kids. My husband is loving and supportive and is often out on the road pursuing his career. When we are together we rarely have any conflict that isn't me feeling upset that it doesn't match my perfect idea of what we could have if he were here more. So my most loving act would be to let that go and be with him fully while he is here.

Understanding time seems to be part of the quantum leap I need to make. Linear time has allowed me the opportunity to divide my life into all of these little compartments of full attention. I always said that perfection for me was to be fully awake and aware of the moment, and I can do that because I'm not really being pulled simultaneously in a lot of different directions. Maybe this won't always be, so maybe I should enjoy the perfection of what it is for a while? I really do have a life where I am capable of focusing on a few things. How many times have I experienced this? Maybe I could trust it, and fill the empty places where I've been known to feel sorry that I didn't have what I thought I wanted in that moment? Maybe, just maybe, that empty space could stay empty and WITHOUT the mourning.

It occurs to me that I've had the "setting of intent" and acknowledging and envisioning of desire all wrong. It occurs to me that I may in fact get everything I want, just not the way I've been expecting it...all at once. Maybe life is an unfolding fan, one rib opening at a time, and maybe it isn't until that very last breath that we get to see the whole perfection of the open fan. Maybe waiting for that moment is kind of a silly proposition because it means it is over. So, rather than that whole perfection, I want to enjoy moments of perfection unfolding, one-at-a-time, accepting each one for what it is. I can't look back at the fan bits that are open already, and wish they had been of a different design, because then I wouldn't be able to see what this rib, this one I'm unfolding right now, is and I'm really curious.

Christmas Present is a gift...

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
  - Robertson Davies

What about that? What if we simply stop worrying about our present unhappiness, knowing that it is weather that brings unexpected gifts? Every year I swear I will do this holiday season differently only to be swept up in a tsunami of activities and expectations "other people" demand that I participate in without regard for my health, well-being or wealth. To reject the holidays seems to leave only the bah-humbug aspect of my persona grimacing with resistance. I'm searching for a middle ground that will leave me bounding into the New Year rejuvenated and raring to go. I'm attempting to overcome the two extremes of "too much" and "too little," and set a moderate course that I deeply feel will acknowledge the meaning of gathering up the people of my life with joy rather than dread.

I believe many of us unconsciously create poison jars during the holiday season to store up our forbidden resentment so that we can project all of the season's advertised aspects -- peace, good will and being of good cheer. A poison jar is usually a vulnerable person in our midst who "never seems to do anything right." My wasband was an excellent poison jar for me because he did not understand that I was never going to do Christmas like his own mother. Our conflicts over Christmas included everything from decoration and food, to exactly how presents would be opened and who was invited to share in this debacle. There was always an internal calculation on how much should be spent on the holidays that was never the same between us. Years away from this fiasco, I see my own flawed behavior and I'm really sorry about it. My gift to him is to acknowledge it. I loaded my self-loathing onto him without any thought at all about it. It was a perfect projection so that I could be the Christmas hero, and I always was the Christmas hero and he always was the Christmas villain. I'm quite sure I am not alone in this behavior.

Obviously, though it is a well-worn path, I have no desire to stay on it for this year or any future years. I will not be happy if I manage to make my current husband into my Christmas poison jar. In fact, I have been going through a sort of Christmas purge for the last four years, admitting to anyone who stumbles into my sphere at this time of year that Christmas is simply not what it used to be and that gift exchanges, holiday meals and just about anything above the bare minimum is out of the question. It was partly a financial consideration, but also it has been a sanity decision. My budget has been so tight that all I could do was meet my kids' desires as well as possible and everyone else got jipped including myself. Even so some of these past few years my kids' gifts were cobbled together from discount stores and help from my parents, my boyfriend-now-husband, and they were disappointed at times. I know that.

It's really my fault. The big neon arrow is right over my head flashing "her fault" in a variety of colors. I have chosen to focus on re-raising myself this past year. I rebooted my entire life in the past four. Every year I have an excuse now to side-step the hooplah. This year my excuse: I have had health problems that significantly slowed me down to a dependent crawl. Though my now husband is incredibly generous, I feel guilty that I am taking his bonus and overtime to create Christmas for us, and I am utterly confounded by how to make this sensible in my own mind. He wants nothing to do with planning the holidays and is happy to put me in charge -- am I a poison jar for him I wonder?  In fact, he is very non-judgmental and not apparently invested at all in any outcome except to please us as he can. He has been the Christmas hero for us in the last three years running without a doubt, and yet he asks for no credit and stands on the sidelines without commitment to anything except doing his best to meet the expectations of the culture he finds himself in. When I ask about his Christmas memories he draws a blank or mentions a hotel room in Turkmenistan with vodka and a Soviet-trained surgeon who worked to save his foot from infection. It's a totally different ball game for him in terms of expectations and I take heart from that, but then it all rests with me to figure out how Christmas et al will play out.

I'm trying very hard to be reasonable and wise with the given resources. I'm not a crafty person, and so it isn't like I can knit a sweater or hat for people, and anyway if I do those kinds of things then I'm not writing and if I'm not writing then there is no hope for a future that alleviates my husband's burden and shares responsibility. As much as my children love the character of Mrs. Weasley, I also expect that if I could knit them a Christmas sweater, they'd be about as enthusiastic about it as Ron is when he receives his hand-magically-knit monogrammed sweater with disappointment. So you see me going round and round. All the time investment it takes to make things like gingerbread houses, and give parties interfere with my long-term goals in more than just the activities themselves, but also in the fall out of getting sick, being waylaid by lack of energy, etc., and being broke at the turn of the year. I don't have it in me to create that kind of homey perfection even with months of healing behind me. I have a hard time just keeping up with the laundry and I'm trying to learn how to accept reality rather than make up more layers of fantasy. Deep down I believe that my children will, in the long-run, appreciate that I have created an option for them to embrace in the future if only the option will make itself obvious.

One thing I've learned how to do in the past year, that I didn't know how to do before, is wait rather than act on my voracious impulses. What I've discovered with this waiting thing is that the world actually spins without my involvement. You smirk, perhaps. Well, it was a discovery of importance to me to realize that things come up without my planning them, and it usually turns out much better than I guessed it would. For instance, last week I wrestled with the idea of reserving a horse and carriage ride in Denver for a special experience that wouldn't add clutter to our lives, but I waited, balking at the cost and questioning the value, and a friend just told me there are free hayrides in a town nearby on weekend nights to see the lights of small town America. Hazah! It's a different experience, for sure, but it is within my budget and has no built-in disappointment because what could one expect but something quaint and small? I return to the lessons of my own childhood low-expectations and am reminded that gratification is not necessarily for sale. Playfulness enters the picture again when you don't have every minute filled with extravagant plans. If my kids change their minds a dozen times before Christmas about what they want to unwrap, it's okay because I'm not shopping until the last minute. If the stores run out of what they wanted then the surprise they get will hopefully work out. If I can't afford their first choice, I've heard dozens of desires that will be almost as good. The point is that there will be something under the tree, and that the things take a back seat to spontaneousness possibility.

A great thing has happened with my kids' lowered expectations over the past four years. They are starting to look at the price of things in catalogs and they're SHOCKED at the cost of things they've received in Christmases past (i.e. American Girls, and Nintendo DSI). Now that my daughter earns money of her own through babysitting, she values a bargain more than ever. Even my 9 year old son looked at the Target ads for hours and decided to ask for very reasonably priced items. I have to guess that their reduced desires are a testament to the benefits of having a sane mom, and this spills over to birthdays and other celebrations too. They see the difference and it's getting better all the time. This is my hope.

Christmas Present is leading to a Christmas Future that is not dreadful, but is mysterious and unknown. I'm no longer convinced of the sales job that "giving is better than receiving" either, even hand-made gifts take up space and are not necessarily treasured as much as the time it took to create them. The consumer society locked into the idea of buying until the guilt goes away is just gross. How to bring my children down to earth, and tell them the truth that I believe about this time of year is the option I hope to at least begin finding this year...