Enough Shoes

Often weekends are hard for me; it’s a combination of not knowing how to unwind and have fun, and of having had a week that was just too busy and so all the little life chores end up waiting for me. Piles of dirty clothes look up at me to be washed, the unpaid bills menacing me with late fees. Dust bunnies scamper about, taunting me. One of the ways that I’ve learned to cope with my feelings of helplessness and fear is to shop. I don’t add to my stress by buying expensive things I can’t afford, no, I buy shoes and boots that I get at an outlet store for anywhere from $3.00 to $15.00 a pair, and I rationalize it by saying I need shoes. Who doesn’t? Especially in MInnesota, and when I spend my days running from one place to another, walking from place to place in my multiple roles, they wear out. It’s getting colder, I decided I need a new pair of boots, even though I’ve uncovered three pair in a bag in my closet. Are these still hip? Maybe not.

So, I go to my favorite outlet store, which of course is more than busy on a late Saturday afternoon, and so I wait in the parking lot for a car to pull out. On the other side of the lot, a woman drives in and starts to signal for the spot I’m waiting for, I’m first, I’m closer, and I get the spot. During this time, the woman (in a late model luxury car) honks her horn continuously. Hmm, I think, she’s a bit over the edge. This was my first clue. I then proceed to get out of my car, thinking, “I don’t need to let her intimidate me. I was waiting for the spot, it’s just a parking space.” But also thinking, “Geez, maybe I should just back out and let her have the damned space.” But I don’t. So, as I’m walking to the store entrance this woman screams at me, “What do you think you are doing?” Second clue, a angry person who asks an obvious question like this is already irrational. When I ignore her, she says, “Didn’t you see me signal for that space?” I reply, “I was signaling also” and continue walking. At this point (okay this is more than a clue), the woman yells, “Fuck you!” To which I reply, “That’s lovely.” To which she replies, “So are you.” Hmm, she’s not very good at this.

I feel strangely on edge and afraid; I’m looking through the boots and shoes, thinking, “Will she come in here and get in my face?” Also darkly thinking, “Maybe I should just leave.” But I don’t, I tell myself I’m being silly, and ask myself, really, is a well-dressed older woman a threat to you? So I continue shopping, go to a store across the street, and even mention it when some women at the counter are talking about finding parking. It seems that people get a little crazy when bargain shopping. When I get to my car, less than an hour later, and go the the driver’s side, that’s when I see it. The entire length of the two doors and the front end of my car have been “keyed.” The paint still lies curled up on the edge of the scratch. Wow, this woman really was in a state. She screams and swears at me, and then damages my property over a parking spot.

As I’m there, looking at the damage, an African-American couple get into their car, next to mine, and they ask, “What’s wrong.” I tell them, they are kind, the man asks me “Was it a black woman or a white woman?” Wow, what a question, I’m unsure of how to answer that , but I say, “A white lady.” He’s incredulous, “A white lady did that?” “Hmm, mmm, yes.” The woman calls out to me to have a good weekend, anyway, as they drive away. It gives me a bit of relief in this weird moment of wondering what to do. I call the police and report it, the officer says, I could have called when she swore at me. Who knew?

As I drive home, I ponder the whole situation, thinking, “Should I have just relinquished the spot? Should I have entered into dialogue with her when I realized how angry she was?” I could have said to her, “Obviously, this spot means much more to you than it possibly ever could to me, here, take it.” But I also wanted to not be bullied, not be intimidated, is there a middle ground? So, I ask myself, “Where was my compassion?” Granted, we can’t go around hearing people all the time, or can we? She obviously had much more going on than finding a parking spot. I can only imagine.

So for me to report this to my insurance and to try to have it fixed is probably not worth my deductible. What’s my take away? It’s only a car, and I can’t fix this woman’s anger problem. I had every right to that spot, how could I have known that this woman’s behavior would have escalated to this point? She obviously found a space, parked, and decided to key my car. I have the reminder that possessions are not important, I guess I needed to let go of having a car with an unmarred paint job. I also think I may need to let go of buying shoes and boots to self-soothe. Last night I found the message (in a book on self-compassion) to “accept yourself just as your are.” Now may be the time for me to re-embrace self-acceptance, somehow, it used to come more easily. Instead of craving new shoes, to take a walk, and next time, when someone else wants the parking spot I’m waiting for; I think I will practice mindfulness and abundance, and leave way the place, there’s always another spot, in an abundant universe.

Happy Anniversary Blend

When I go grocery shopping I usually just buy a bag of ground Starbucks or Caribou coffee, but this last Sunday, while shopping, none of them seemed that wonderful, and then I remembered that I saw that Anniversary Blend was out, the last time I was out for a coffee with a friend. Anniversary Blend is one of Starbuck’s special coffees, that they only sell for a short while in the fall. I know nearly all the Starbucks coffees because for a year I worked at a Starbucks, first as a Barista (fancy name for coffee maker) and then as a shift supervisor. I get a lump in my throat remembering, as this was not a happy year for me.

It was one of the physically hardest jobs I’d ever had, as well as I felt embarrassed, having gone from working in sales & marketing at a prestigious conference center to selling coffee off of interstate 35W in a strip mall. The hours I had to work were really hard on me and my family. It was right around the time that Barbara Ehrenerich’s book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out, and she was telling my story. I was resentful that an already well-off, published writer was now getting money and fame from telling this story. It’s an important story, and I am honestly glad that it is being told, but it’s difficult to read about someone living your sorry life, but hey, not really, because they get to go home to their cushy life after living your life for a while for a book. I ended up with carpal tunnel in both wrists on that job. It was then that I knew I had to find a way to leave Owatonna, I had to find a different way to live.

So, last night on my way to my second job, I stopped at a Starbucks and bought a bag of this wonderful coffee, and I can smell it now, as I write. Good coffee. Anniversary Blend, I looked at the calendar and it is September 27, and I remember, 31 years ago today I participated in a marriage ceremony, I was the bride. I had hoped for lots of anniversaries, I had hoped for a long time to be with Steve, but the Universe and the two of us said, “No.” It was a beautiful day, sunny, breezy, with the leaves starting to turn. We loved each other, and that was enough for that day, and for nearly 15 years after. Life only lets you live in a certain place for a certain amount of time, and then you have to do the work.

The work is different for each of us, but you gotta do it, or you end up hating yourself and other people. It really is like the metaphor of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon, you just can’t live there too long, and breaking out of the shell is hard, hard work, but you get out and you see that not only is the blue sky and the wind and the trees turning color still there, but this time you also get to spread your wings and fly through it all. I had no idea how my life would turn out when I chose to be single again, just like I had no idea what would happen the day I married Steve. Life is a series of events and choices, and getting to choose lets us create the kind of lives we hope to have. We can use our imaginations to shape our futures. I drink a cup of coffee to that. Happy Anniversary Blend baby, got you on my mind.

There and Back Again

There are spaces in between that beckon me; places that you have to squeeze into and bear the weight of to go into. In between sleeping and waking is one of those spaces and I traversed between the two this morning. Starting with Second grade, I went to St. Thomas the Apostle School on West 44th St. in Minneapolis, and then I went to Southwest High School, most of the time, walking. So, I walked from 40th and Sheridan through Linden Hills day in, day out, and as I walked I sorted out my life. The chaos at home, the confusing and conflicting things I was learning at school. Wondering why kids are so mean to each other.

St. Thomas School is now called Carondelet School, a fancy name to match the now yuppie children who attend. When I went to school there we were all just middle class folk, some more succinctly middle than others. This Catholic school is at the top of the hill and around the corner of what is the heart of Linden Hills. It has changed and not changed. Like me, like life, changed and not changed.

But this morning for some ungodly reason, I forced myself back, testing my memory. I tried to recreate the place of the past, piece by piece, store by store, so I can go back, looking for what? Where the flower shop is, a flower shop was, I’d stop in sometimes on my way home from school and buy my mom a carnation, the roses were too expensive. I’d hope it’d cheer her up.

Next to the hardware store was Hawkinson’s Grocery Store, a small family run store. My friend Mary's mom had a credit account there, and we could buy snacks after school and charge it to her mom, we grew fond of Pepperidge Farm cookies, by the box; we’d buy M & M’s by the pound. Across the street from the flower shop was a bakery, the windows steamed and the aroma heavenly on a cold winter’s day. Sometimes my sister and I would have some coin, enough to buy a glazed donut to eat as we walked up the hill. On that same corner is now Twigg’s Home & Garden, when I was growing up, no one had “art” in their yard, maybe a bird bath.

Where Creative Kidstuff is, (very cool toys) was, for a short while a shop called Accessories Unlimited. And it was, scarves, handbags, jewelry, and a hip young woman named Marcia owned the store. We became friends. She’d let me hang out with her after school, she called my mom, so she knew where I was and who she was, and then every so often after school I’d help her sort jewelry, or run across the street to Hawkinson’s and get us each an apple or a single sized serving of ice cream that came with it's own wooden "spoon" (stick). She’d give me jewelry. We were friends until she got married and closed the shop. I was invited to her wedding, but I had the chicken pox and couldn’t go, and then I never saw her again.

What happens with these childhood memories, is that they become faded, and I wonder if they were real or not. When I see the actual places, I can sometimes remember, but these memories are so laden with emotion that they just take me to a place that resides barely within my consciousness. I think of Marcia, now, and think that I must still be missing her. Her shop was a safe place for me, her words kind, then it was no more. I had no one to help me make sense of her importance in my life, so the memories retain a strange hold and detachment at the same time.

Where the Great Harvest Bakery now resides, was a dairy store. I’d wait in the car out front, parked on Upton Avenue, and watch the long strides my dad would take, as he ran in for milk, when we’d run out before dinner. He’d smile, his blue eyes kind and hand me a package of M & M’s and it seemed that all was well with the world. Next to the dairy store was an antique store that held old musty stuff and mysteries. A couple of us kids would have to be brave to go into that place, the door bells ringing as we opened the door, an older woman who might be crabby, would look our way, glasses down on her nose. “We just want to look around” we’d say. And she’d let us, amused, I imagine.

There are no markers for exploring this inner world. Developmental Psychology makes no mention of our inner journeys and Jung’s or Freud’s dream work only refers vaguely to the lived reality of the spaces between waking and dreaming, past and present. Perhaps it is a dangerous journey or a journey better left untaken. Like the child I was, chastised for daydreaming, for going away, being brought back into the classroom by a harsh voice, being brought back to the brightly lit classroom, being taught about the miracles that Jesus performed, in the past, in a land far far away; as if this information would give me all I’d need to know in a vast and complex world. Some story about loaves and fishes, and in my small child’s mind, I thought if I only believed hard enough, I too might make miracles happen.

I wonder if I’m doing some sort of trance work, evening venturing into these places in between, or if I’m just sulking and mucking about in these half remembered places, wasting time. I picture myself, small, little steps over pavement, back and forth. Looking into the window of Bayer's Hardware Store, at the fancy glass pieces, hoping to save up and buy something pretty for my mom. At 85, my mom just moved into a new condo, and she has a decorative plate, set up on a brass plate holder, on her buffet in her dining room; blue pattern on white, it says, “A Good Mother Makes a Happy Home.” I bought it for her as a child, at the hardware store, still there, same place.

Remembering Who We Are

remember: ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French remembrer, from late Latin rememorari ‘call to mind,’ from re- (expressing intensive force) + Latin memor ‘mindful.’

I recently came across the book title, Healing is Remembering Who You Are, and I like the title, if remembering who we are is being mindful that we are holy. But it also can be difficult, to say the least, to remember who we are if our memories are fraught with hurtful phrases and barely remembered sensations of not being worthy. Maybe healing is not remembering who we are, singularly, but remembering who we are, collectively. Remembering who we are in a space where someone else can see who we are. Activating our mirror neurons in a way that affirms our (and each others) wholeness and holiness.

Research shows that healing happens in relationship, in trusting, supportive and nonjudgmental relationship. How do we find this? I honestly have to say that I first and mostly found this in therapy. This is not to say that I didn’t have family and friends who have loved and cared about me. But it is to say, that how they were able to love and care about me was often suspect. Not out of malice, but out of their own not knowing, or not remembering. In therapy-speak, this has often been called “emotional abuse.” I’m trying to find words that aren’t so accusing, that are more accurate of not knowing. I don’t think someone wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m going to perpetrate emotional abuse on this person I’m in relationship with.” I believe its more an issue of that person, not remembering who they are. Too many of us have forgotten.

On the other hand, when the one who feels the “abuse” doesn’t have words for it, it is helpful to know, for instance, that the feelings you have when someone treats you less than honorable are actually accurate for the situation. So, how do we move away from blaming language into creating language that helps us remember who we are? Can we create safe ways to say things like:
“I don’t feel honored when you yell at me.”
“I feel invisible when you are in the room with me but not present for me.”
“I feel diminished when you don’t listen to me.”
“I feel unworthy when you compare me to someone else.”

So, because one of the few safe places I’ve ever known is a therapy room, how do I move on out into the larger room, (wherever I go, ideally) carrying and honoring my own sense of holiness? One of the ways to frame this is in the context of trust: how to trust others, when to trust others, and with what? And then there’s how to trust myself, and of course, how to trust the universe. If healing is remembering (being mindful of) who we are, how will I recognize myself? Some of these answers, I have found just emerge. It is a dance with the divine, some might say an answer to prayer. It is a remembering to do what we have the power to do and then resting back in letting the universe bring forth the energy we need. This energy may manifest in people or places, or even things.

Last spring, for Easter, I wanted to buy flowers for the table. I ended up buying potted yellow roses. Perfect. After a bit, I realized these roses were a small rose bush, and if transplanted just might keep living and blooming. I was happy that I’d bought something living, not cut flowers, something that might provide me with flowers for a while, for on my budget, flowers are an indulgence. Yet I’m also trying to live in abundance and trust, this balancing act of rejecting what most people around me believe about money and having enough, and well, quite literally trust. Trust that I can have joy.

As I accept more abundant living and as I’ve learned to be more trusting, I’ve been blessed with a friend who too believes in the abundant universe, who is rejecting the paradigms that we were born into. As I trust myself, I trust her wisdom also, and we are creating a bond of hopefulness and trust. She encourages me in my dreams and visions (as I do hers); and when I’m discouraged by other new therapists trying to start practices, she asks me questions like, “Why is it so hard for these therapists to be entrepreneurs?”

Just yesterday, I completed my graduate studies in Human Development. A huge milestone, but I also have to acknowledge that I’ve used my energy to master studies and achieve degrees, in a way to manage my creative energy, something I don’t want to do anymore. I want to use my energy to create more healing relationships through therapy and grow my business. To create abundance in my life. To do this I have to trust myself, the process and the universe. Trusting education systems seemed safe, and accepted. It was a framework for my energy. Now, as in the Human Development program, I have to create even the framework for my work as a therapist. It seems daunting, yet, as my oldest sister said, “You’ve taken steps, now you need to take a leap.” As in “Jump!”

Fall is nearly here, I’ve brought my rose bush inside by my small kitchen window. The leaves have been falling off of it, and I’ve scratched my hands on the thorns while watering it and taking the dead leaves off. This morning, however, there are several new buds, simply sprouted overnight. New life, ready to bloom into beautiful little yellow roses. Beautiful energy, emerging from dirt, sun, water. One accomplishment behind me; a new one just begun, beautiful energy emerging, ready to bloom.

Forty Years Later

6:00 am Minnesota public radio turns on, all by itself, in my Hello Kitty clock radio. It's shaped like a tea cup, a white plastic cup sits on pink saucer, and Hello Kitty sits on top; and placed on the side of the cup is a plastic orange slice, the night light. I leave it on all night. Classic music fills my bedroom. Blue walls, a black framed print of Frida Kahlo, matching Hawaiian prints of beautiful women from the 40’s or 50’s that belonged to my dad’s Aunt Sue. An antique brass standing lamp. Purses hung on door knobs, books piled on the radiator. I awake, rather glad as I had unpleasant dreams. The music continues, and then The Writer’s Almanac, with Garrison Keillor, and I don’t want to get out of bed. Do I really have to go to work, again, just like every other day? The air is chilly, the bed is warm, the blankets soft. Why does this feel so familiar, the feeling of wanting to stay in bed, and just listen to the radio?


7:00 am KQRS turns on, all by itself, on the GE clock radio that was a present from my parents when I turned 12. It’s a good one, a nice one, with good reception, nice sound, not tinny. On my bedroom door is a nearly life size poster of George Harrison, from his All Things Must Pass era, I think he’s cool, and maybe cute, but looks were never as important to me as persona. My sister just thinks he looks freaky. There’s a poster from an old movie, Good Night Paul sitting still backed by a piece of cardboard, wrapped in plastic, just set upon the highboy dresser. I may get this one framed, so I don’t want to unwrap it. A brass incense burner sits on the dresser, also. Two twin beds, although the room is mine alone, each with a different cotton batik spread from India, purchased at Global Village, in Dinkytown. Rod Stewart is singing Maggie May, I need to get ready for school. I don’t want to leave my cozy bed, I want to lie there and listen, just listen.

My brain is thinking of all the things I need to do today, and what will happen if I’m late for school, and I wonder, did we really mean to create this kind of world? Where kids are stressed the moment they wake up? I look around at my antique trunk, the beginnings of my hope chest, the black and white framed photos I’ve taken, sitting on top. I want to stay home, bake cookies, maybe take a walk. But I get out of bed, make my way to the bathroom, and get ready to go to school.

Dog Day Cicadas

The Dog Day Cicadas
usher in the reign of Ms. Autumn
who doesn’t care that you like it warmer,
or that you want to have berries bloom
again and again to squish into your
lovely mouth and bake into pies.

Who doesn’t care that the days grow shorter
and colder. She heralds in pumpkins and squashes and
apples and cool breezes. She reminds you of school days
and books and new shoes and the smell of classrooms
and that love of your youth, whom you walked around the lakes with
while the water formed waves and the willow branches swung lightly, and you held hands tightly. Thinking this must be love.

Its her turn, its her time, and she’ll make the leaves fall, eventually.
After she turns them one by one from green to yellow, to orange, and golden
and they will all drift slowly from the trees to the ground to form a soft rug under
your feet, or to make a lovely sound as they tumble, dried and crispy, down the street.

Sure as we know, the Cicadas are singing, bringing the return of Autumn, her breath fresh and sure, her touch cool and calm, she says, “Time to get your warm blankets out."