Ambivalence

Ok, I'm nervous.  It's time to start my Art Show Blog and I've actually got a couple hours this afternoon between lunch and dancing.  I didn't know how to set it up, so Angela came over and gave me the 2 hour intro, and now I know how- no excuses.  Now, it's just straight nerves.  Trepidation basically.

I've been reflecting a lot about what I'm going to say.  Heck, I've been reflecting a lot for a decade.  I'm really tickled that stuff is concluding.  Really.  When I lay awake in the middle of the night or while I'm washing dishes or walking laps or driving about, I'm often thinking about who I'm thankful for and what they've done for me and who I've become and how happy I am- and how I'm going to capture that with brevity and wit and deep sincerity on my blog.

And yet [Yep, that's me- Amy "And yet" Reisdorf] I've been living with these projects for 10 years.  The healing journey it commemorates spans decades longer.  How do I lay the sword down?  How do I unfurl my life from being tightly wrapped around suffering?  How do I actually trade-in my old belief that pain is the only way to learn for a new one like Happy, happy, happy?

At some point, my blog will be a finished product like my quilt and dozens of other pieces.  I like that moment when a piece is done; it's a satisfying feeling.  Aaah, closure.

My finished quilt came several weeks ago by mail and I didn't open it.  I let it sit there until Anjali saw a promising looking package and opened it.  The kids spread it out and walked all over it, touching everything, admiring freely.  I looked and re-folded it but I couldn't bring myself to sit on it or hold it.  Packed it away to get the last signature.  Packed it away to take to the dry cleaners.  Now it's hanging there, dry and ready for pick up. 

Ambivalence.  That's the word.  I used to think it meant "I don't care.  Whatever."  But now I understand differently.  Ambi means both and valence means positive and negative charges which attract, from the root strong or strengths.  I am both drawn and repelled, doing an approach/avoid, pinging back and forth into an equilibrium which appears frozen.

Maybe my questions aren't really "how" questions.  Maybe they're "why" questions.
Why do I lay my sword down?
Why do I unfurl my life from being tightly wrapped around suffering?
Why do I actually trade-in my old belief that pain is the only way to learn for happy, happy, happy? 

Maybe my questions are more about being ready. 
Am I ready to lay my sword down? 
Am I ready to unfurl my life from suffering?
Am I ready to trade-in 'pain is the only way to learn'?

Yes and no.  Yes, I'm ready to begin the conclusion.  No, I'm not ready to conclude.

My suffering and kind friends have been faithful traveling companions.  I've been faithful too-day in and day out, year in and year out.  This closure feels unfaithful, like somehow I'm breaking faith with myself and what I've learned.  And yet, what I've learned and who I've become has lead me here, to happiness. 

Ok, I'm going to upload all the photos onto different pages.  No text, just labels.  Then I'm going to dance this out tonight.  Plus I've got a movie to watch and ponder called The Yes Man. That should carry me to the next steps.
  

Resolved

I suspect that the tooth next to the one they pulled in November is also failing. I've had a series of headaches in the last couple weeks which culminated in a blinding one yesterday. Big thanks to Emily's advice, I dissolved a niacin pill under my tongue and within minutes my headache eased, leaving an ominous pressure in my jaw. I called the dentist, got advice to wait until morning and call back if the pain had persisted. Not only has the pain persisted, it has localized to the jaw bone deep under the tooth. I was dozing after Tim's alarm went off and was awoken by a significant zing followed by the pounding heart of an adrenaline rush. I've popped an advil and left a voicemail on the dentist's after hours line giving him the heads up.

I am resolved. I am not going to try antibiotics for the 4th time in 4 months. I am not going to try a re-root canal. I am not going to be talked out of my self-knowing. I am not going to wait for the infection to be visible on x-rays. I am not going to wait until the pain is a run-away train I don't know how to stop safely. I am not going to be up all night in terror. I am not going to push the play and repeat buttons of all my biggest feelings from my worst days. I am not going to try to save a tooth which died years ago. I am not going to expend my limited healing resources on containment.

I am calmly and swiftly going to have him pull it out. And I will put it in my tooth box with honor.

Possibly, it will not come to that. Possibly, it will get better. I am open to being pleasantly surprised. But since the infections in my molars started 25 years ago, I doubt it. And I'm not expending one more drop of hope or energy on trying harder for this.

My teeth are a symbol of my life. I have tried. I have waited. I have hoped. I have expended time, money, emotion, and the juice of my life. I have tried some more. I have hurt and hurt and hurt while I hoped and tried. And then have hurt some more. Some things yielded. Some things healed. But some have not and I am realizing at near-40 that some never will. I could never accept that before. I wielded my sword until my hand froze around it because losing meant I was a loser. If I admitted failing, I would be a failure. Winners never quit and quitters never win and all that jazz.

I am now ready to trade off. Dead teeth are not worth agonizing over. Some things are worth walking through my terror and body remembrances of pain for. Happiness is. Peace is. Joy is. I am. My dead teeth are not. Neither are my fantasy relationships nor my perfectly accomplished childbirth nor the approval of the disrespectful nor the affection of the unsafe.

I wanted to feel capable and competent and approved instead of betrayed and wimpy and irreparably flawed. So I tried harder and whipped myself into painful relationships which always had "so much potential." I tried to earn respect from those who despise me and embraced the menacing. Because THEN, I would be a winner. THEN, I would be acceptable. My heart would never break. My body would always perform. I would always triumph.

Except I was never happy.

Oh, I could feel happiness from time to time like a cool breeze in July but I didn't live there. I didn't know contentment. Year after year my themes tapped my deepest longings for satisfaction and rest and joy and power and pleasure and now happiness. I find myself swimming in a happiness so deep I can't touch bottom. And oddly it seems to have nothing to do with winning or being acceptable or demonstrating my ambition in accomplishment or being liked by the hard to please or getting people to do what I want.

I checked out a Paul Potts opera CD because I had watched his you tube video and been moved despite not speaking Italian or ever before liking opera. I drove listening to song 3 (I'll try to get the title) and wept- tears pouring down my face and running onto my coat- weeping because he sang my beauty and grief and glory in being a human being. Being fully alive, pain and all, is worth it.

To trust myself in being fully alive, I need to know that I am no longer going to sacrifice myself and my happiness in vain. I am not going to force myself to be with people I feel worse around. I am not going to sacrifice my peace to impress the difficult. I am not going to traipse back into the trauma to try to overcome it when I could walk respectfully around. I used to be afraid that I would never be happy again if I entered the pain, so I lived in the metropolis of Fearanddenial. Then, when that failed, I dwelled in the desolate Painandterror for years, like the Isrealites pitching tents for 40 years in the desert. Now, I could move into a nice place in Peaceandhappiness but find myself wondering if I accidentally wound up back in Fearanddenial instead.

How could I possibly be happy ever again after accepting everything I am, everything I am not, and everything I will never be?
How can I trust myself ever again after knowing how I've chosen before, knowing that even if I always try my best it won't always work out, and knowing that even with the best advice I can be tragically wrong?

My best working guess is a mishmash of things. Things like cheesy lyrics to old country-western songs like, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, know when to run." And things like dancing more and buying myself my favorite flowers more often, just because. Going on walks with people who make my heart sing and listening to songs that make me cry. Spending time with people who make me proud to be a human being and telling and retelling every noble story and good deed I know. Revealing myself in an art show and putting it out there for all comers. Snuggling with those I like to be close to and eating food that I really like. Realizing when I'm straining irritably and responding to myself kindly.

Today it means starting blogging before daylight, responding to Mark's interruptions for a hug and a breakfast right now, washing Anjali's hair in the sink, looking for snowpants for myself at a clearance sale, buying Mark a cool toy off Craig's List for his plane trip to FL, figuring which good food I have time to prep and enjoy today, wondering how to prepare my space for friends this afternoon, and wrapping up this blog.

Thanks for listening. I see how much was in me now.
No more extreme measures for the tooth. No more standing around in the borderlands. I'm ready to trade off. I have a lot of life to live and a lot of myself to enjoy.

Kindness for myself

I've been feeling particularly impatient with myself this last couple months, wishing I could simply power through my struggles and get over it- over the pain, over the weight, over the fear, over the medical expenses, over the infections.
Then, I read this website which deeply moved me and I realized that many people who have been abused like I have never heal. At all. But I have. I am not remedial; I am miraculous. And this has given rise to deepening kindness for myself and deepening gratitude for those who've made it possible.
I am anticipating writing about my journey and my faithful companions in my 40th Birthday Art Show blog soon. I never tire of recounting this goodness.

Getting what I wanted for Christmas

Last Sunday at church the choir was singing Every Valley Shall Be Exalted from Handel's Messiah and I was wishing I could hear the Halleluia Chorus which wasn't in the program. I started wondering if I'd have some time to go in the next week and hear it before Christmas and concluded that I wouldn't. Bummer. But then, at the end of the sermon, they played this. I stood with tears streaming down my face.

Listened to it again today and I was so moved by how happy I am and how much I'm enjoying my life. My theme for 2010 which seemed ridiculous this time last year was "Living deeply into my own life and my own body is pleasure." Yet, here I am living with so much pleasure that when I heard this song again today, I threw my hands up in the air with tears streaming down my face from the sheer unexpected happiness.

Yesterday in Uptown

It was snowing and I was driving slower than the woman walking two Afghan hounds was walking. So I had plenty of time to check out the bumper sticker and of course now I can't find a visual on the internet when I search. The bumper sticker said,

I support some-sex marriages

This sets me to grinning every time I think about it.
Tim and I listened to an excellent series of lectures on male sexuality which led to interesting discussions and have informed my thinking. Having always been pro-sex in marriage myself, I am now a staunch supporter.
Hey, Tim, could you provide a link to those lectures for me in comments?

My quilt

This week, I mailed my quilt off to Missouri to be finished. It was like sending my child off for kindergarten or something. I packed it, taped the old cardboard box with duct tape, and hit the post office. I expect it back in January 2011 in time to be in my art show.
After a decade and everything and everything, I can't believe the next time I see it, it will be done.
Wow.

A few good things

Read my sister's blog and got inspired. Here are a few goodies I've been enjoying.

Women, Food, and God- great book. Very thought provoking.

Grace and Peace- Have appreciated this song for years but couldn't find it again and then a friend sent me the info today. Enjoy.

Conspiracy- A movie which I have a hard time finding the right adjective for. It's a 2 hour long meeting of Nazis deciding how to solve The Jewish Problem- based on actual minutes of real meeting. Very thought provoking and eerily reminiscent in style to business meetings I've sat in.

Finally, my new fall recipe of the month: Pumpkin Butter.

Set oven to 350. Cut pumpkins or squash in half.
Bake pumpkins or squash cut side down until fork pierces easily.
Discard seeds.
Scoop flesh into pot on low heat. Let simmer gently on low heat, stirring frequently.
Add a little maple syrup to taste.
Add a little alcohol if you've got it- either a teaspoon or two of vanilla or a little white wine.*
Add pumpkin pie spices to taste (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, allspice)
Add a teaspoon or two of butter.*
Salt lightly to taste.
Simmer and stir until it is the consistency of apple butter, adding a little water if needed.

Use it over angel food cake or in oatmeal or with vanilla yogurt or mix in granola or put it on toast or muffins- pretty much use your imagination. It is fantastic- warm and fragrant and satisfying.

** Both fats and alcohol carry flavor so adding a little will really ramp up the flavor.

Have a good day and enjoy!