Brian's five-year-old, pip-squeak voice piped up from the backseat, "Mom, what are drugs? What do they look like? How do drugs make you feel? Why do people take drugs? Have you ever taken drugs?" My friend, Mindy, kept a steady hand on the wheel while thoughts pinged through her head with machine gun-like rapid fire: What the? Oh, Sh-t! Isn't it a little early for this sort of inquiry? Why is he asking me these questions? Where is this coming from? How truthful do I need to be? What was it that parenting class said about handling kids' out-of-the-blue, tough questions? Oh yeah, breathe, gather information, calmly tell him only what is necessary to satisfy his curiosity, then divert his attention to more innocuous subjects without lying, if possible. A half-truth is definitely alright in this case. Okay, I can do this.
"Why do you ask, honey?" asked Mindy. Turns out that Mindy's Mom, who sometimes takes care of Brian, uses the time-tested strategy of many modern day Grandparents caring for energetic, young children while their own children are out doing something fun, they plop those little suckers down in front of the television and encourage them to quietly catch up on the local news with Grandma rather than tearing the house apart.
Calling the local news "news" these days is charitable at best. It's more like a laundry list of salacious, fear-inducing, sensational stories that the "journalists" were able to put together that day, usually chock full of cheesy stunts and props just to add to the theater of it all. As my reporter friend says, "if it bleeds, it leads." So Mindy's Mom was getting her daily fix of scaring the crap out of herself when a story about Senior U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp came on. It was yet another of those all-too-common stories of someone in a position of power and authority partying like a reckless rock star the minute he leaves the respectable space of his public life, and taking ramped up risks until he crashes and burns. Apparently, when he wasn't handing down harsh sentences from the bench in his courtroom, His Honor had developed a taste for a stripper as his piece on the side, cocaine, marijuana, and prescription pills, and his fall-from-grace story is precisely the kind that the "news" organizations love to feature.
This particular story had created a whole bunch of questions in Brian's young brain. After hearing what led to his incessant questioning, and cursing her Mom under her breath, Mindy began to try and answer / divert. "Well, Bri, drugs are medicine. You know, like pills that the doctor gives you. Why do people take drugs? Sometimes people take them because they are feeling nervous or anxious and they want to feel a little calmer and more relaxed. On the other hand, sometimes people feel a little too relaxed and they want to have more energy, so different drugs or medicines have different effects on people. I have taken drugs, you know, medicine that was given to me by my doctor. Remember when I was in that car accident and my back was hurt? I took medicine then to help make my back feel better.
Brian, with a perplexed look on his face finally spoke up one last time and said, "but Mom, what about the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs?" "Milk drugs and orange juice drugs? What are you talking about?" asked Mindy. "You know, the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs that we have at our house. What about them?" said Brian. "Brian, I think you mean jugs not drugs", said Mindy.
"Seriously?!" she said to herself.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
He Is More Than a Hero
I'm not really a consumer of poetry, but during a college Literature course I fell in love with one poem in particular. The poem "He is more than a hero" was written by Sappho, an Ancient Greek female poet born on the island of Lesbos in the 600s BC. Since reading this poem, I don't think I've come across a more achingly clear description of desiring someone, in this case another woman. Read it and tell me if I'm wrong.
He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you — he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't
speak — my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me.
What a stunning depiction of desperately longing for that which is right next to you, but isn't yours. Lately I've been thinking of this poem from a different perspective. I have a dear friend who, about a year and a half ago, found herself falling head over heels in love with another woman. That in and of itself isn't unusual, but all of this happened while she was a married, stay-at-home Mom to two children, enjoying a very comfortable, secure life and fitting neatly into her little corner of society. It was the kind of thing that wasn't supposed to happen.
My friend, S, is one of the most intriguing women that I know. When we first met, it took all of fifteen minutes for her to start grilling me. If I hadn't found it so interesting, I would've been put off by it. The thing about her is that she's super curious about what makes others tick, and if she likes you, she wants to know everything about you. It didn't take long for me to learn that she grew up under a set of circumstances so tough they leave me amazed she's as sane as she is. She's intense and edgy, but has a huge heart. She's like a scrappy, little street fighter - full of strength and courage, and willing to walk right up to a situation and deal with it, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. Yet she usually manages to find the sweet spot between all of those qualities that allows her to confront without being overly confrontational.
She and I can, and do, talk about everything. There isn't an off-limits subject between us. As her new love was developing, she did me the great honor of trusting me enough to let me fully into her world. I closely observed, and tried to be the best sounding board I could be for her as she stepped off of the safe, solid ground that was her married life, and plunged into the foggy unknown of a new relationship with another woman.
Over some period of time, before I knew anything about this, her feelings for her new love were deepening from mere friendship into something she couldn't ignore, but it was far too overwhelming for S to even think about the ramifications of that. This blossoming situation was without a doubt the wrecking ball that would lay waste to the carefully constructed building that was her married life, and it had the potential to render everything she knew unrecognizable. In those early days, she wouldn't admit even to herself what those feelings really meant, so she told no one. But when the message that her heart kept trying to send to her brain ratcheted up from a whisper to a scream, she couldn't ignore it any longer, and she began to spill her secret to me, which she tentatively described as her crush on a red-headed, spirited, pixie of a woman.
Nothing physical had transpired between S and her friend at that point, but the emotional intimacy had become very real, and it was unlike anything S had felt before, including what she had with her husband. Her marriage, which had had issues for quite a while, began to feel like an unbearable sentence in purgatory as she wrestled with staying put and shooting for absolution by trying to make her marriage work, or following her heart and blowing her family apart. I watched her struggle with admitting how she really felt to herself, and then I watched her agonize over not wanting to hurt her husband, her children, and her extended family. She worried and wondered about which of her friends might turn their backs on her if she left her husband and entered into a lesbian relationship. And she worried about being on the receiving end of bigotry from her very southern family and from people in the wider world.
Ultimately, after untold hours of talking with her husband, her therapist, their couple's therapist, her friends, and the woman she knew she was in love with, S took steps to dissolve her marriage. With her typical gusto, once she made the decision to live her truth and go down this path, she decided to just be who she was and let the chips fall where they may. S and her love have now been a couple for a little over a year. It's had its share of very tough moments, but I have to give all three of the adults involved a lot of credit. I have marveled repeatedly at how mature S's ex-husband has been through all of this. He's had some not-so-pretty moments to be sure, but far fewer than most guys in his position would have had. Mostly, he and S decided to put aside pettiness and focus on doing whatever was best for the children to help them adjust to this new reality. It has generally gone well.
As for S and her girlfriend, well women are complicated in and of themselves, but put a couple of them together in a love relationship and the amount of time spent talking through issues can be extensive to say the least. That has been the case this past year. But that's mostly due to S's desire to deal with things as they are happening, to be totally honest about how she's feeling and what a situation is dredging up for her, and to walk right up to it and talk it out. While I've watched from the sidelines all of the tough moments these two women have managed to work through this past year, I can only say that there's no denying that the kind of tough-love, courageous, honest communication S regularly employs would be completely off-putting, if it weren't so darned effective.
He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you — he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't
speak — my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me.
What a stunning depiction of desperately longing for that which is right next to you, but isn't yours. Lately I've been thinking of this poem from a different perspective. I have a dear friend who, about a year and a half ago, found herself falling head over heels in love with another woman. That in and of itself isn't unusual, but all of this happened while she was a married, stay-at-home Mom to two children, enjoying a very comfortable, secure life and fitting neatly into her little corner of society. It was the kind of thing that wasn't supposed to happen.
My friend, S, is one of the most intriguing women that I know. When we first met, it took all of fifteen minutes for her to start grilling me. If I hadn't found it so interesting, I would've been put off by it. The thing about her is that she's super curious about what makes others tick, and if she likes you, she wants to know everything about you. It didn't take long for me to learn that she grew up under a set of circumstances so tough they leave me amazed she's as sane as she is. She's intense and edgy, but has a huge heart. She's like a scrappy, little street fighter - full of strength and courage, and willing to walk right up to a situation and deal with it, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. Yet she usually manages to find the sweet spot between all of those qualities that allows her to confront without being overly confrontational.
She and I can, and do, talk about everything. There isn't an off-limits subject between us. As her new love was developing, she did me the great honor of trusting me enough to let me fully into her world. I closely observed, and tried to be the best sounding board I could be for her as she stepped off of the safe, solid ground that was her married life, and plunged into the foggy unknown of a new relationship with another woman.
Over some period of time, before I knew anything about this, her feelings for her new love were deepening from mere friendship into something she couldn't ignore, but it was far too overwhelming for S to even think about the ramifications of that. This blossoming situation was without a doubt the wrecking ball that would lay waste to the carefully constructed building that was her married life, and it had the potential to render everything she knew unrecognizable. In those early days, she wouldn't admit even to herself what those feelings really meant, so she told no one. But when the message that her heart kept trying to send to her brain ratcheted up from a whisper to a scream, she couldn't ignore it any longer, and she began to spill her secret to me, which she tentatively described as her crush on a red-headed, spirited, pixie of a woman.
Nothing physical had transpired between S and her friend at that point, but the emotional intimacy had become very real, and it was unlike anything S had felt before, including what she had with her husband. Her marriage, which had had issues for quite a while, began to feel like an unbearable sentence in purgatory as she wrestled with staying put and shooting for absolution by trying to make her marriage work, or following her heart and blowing her family apart. I watched her struggle with admitting how she really felt to herself, and then I watched her agonize over not wanting to hurt her husband, her children, and her extended family. She worried and wondered about which of her friends might turn their backs on her if she left her husband and entered into a lesbian relationship. And she worried about being on the receiving end of bigotry from her very southern family and from people in the wider world.
Ultimately, after untold hours of talking with her husband, her therapist, their couple's therapist, her friends, and the woman she knew she was in love with, S took steps to dissolve her marriage. With her typical gusto, once she made the decision to live her truth and go down this path, she decided to just be who she was and let the chips fall where they may. S and her love have now been a couple for a little over a year. It's had its share of very tough moments, but I have to give all three of the adults involved a lot of credit. I have marveled repeatedly at how mature S's ex-husband has been through all of this. He's had some not-so-pretty moments to be sure, but far fewer than most guys in his position would have had. Mostly, he and S decided to put aside pettiness and focus on doing whatever was best for the children to help them adjust to this new reality. It has generally gone well.
As for S and her girlfriend, well women are complicated in and of themselves, but put a couple of them together in a love relationship and the amount of time spent talking through issues can be extensive to say the least. That has been the case this past year. But that's mostly due to S's desire to deal with things as they are happening, to be totally honest about how she's feeling and what a situation is dredging up for her, and to walk right up to it and talk it out. While I've watched from the sidelines all of the tough moments these two women have managed to work through this past year, I can only say that there's no denying that the kind of tough-love, courageous, honest communication S regularly employs would be completely off-putting, if it weren't so darned effective.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Bad Habits
This is something I wrote about a year ago after a tough parenting day.
I'd rolled out of bed that morning and quickly realized it was going to be one of those days. I was tired and as my Grandma used to say, I had no ambition to do anything. The irritations started bright and early as my children bickered vigorously with each other and threw fits. I had a long "to-do" list filled with things that I had zero interest in actually doing. Top all of that joy off with a gray, drizzly day as the backdrop for a family who had already spent too much "quality time" together during summer break, and cabin fever had definitely staked a claim in our house.
Everything and everyone I encountered that day felt like they came with sharp edges. By mid-afternoon, as annoyances piled atop one another, my mood turned pitch black. I had barked at the kids continuously, refused to do anything that would actually make me feel better, and resorted to listening to my iPod with headphones in an effort to cocoon myself from my daughters' unending, fingernails-down-the-chalkboard shrills.
By the time the babysitter arrived, my own personal storm cloud hovered just above my head, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be good company for anyone. Since one of the ways that I escape the unrelenting, mundane tasks that can bury a stay-at-home Mom is by ensuring that I get some solitude periodically, it seemed that the only sensible thing for me to do was to go sit in a dark theater and watch a movie. Nothing about attending a movie solo in the middle of a weekday invites conversation, and that suited me just fine.
Shutting out the world and being entertained by a decent movie for a couple of hours lifted my spirits enough to come home, make dinner and get the children into bed with minimal yelling. Now I fully admit that I may live a little too much in my head, but I really do need a break from the day's chatter to think, reflect, assess my behavior, plan, and hopefully evolve in the process. So once the house got quiet, I looked back on the day and realized that this had turned out to be yet another day, in a collection of them since my children were born, capped with self-doubting, remorse-tinged thoughts that "I could have done better" and "tomorrow, I'm going to try harder."
Late into that evening as the black tide began to ebb, in an effort to connect with that quieter, knowing part of myself, I read some things that felt poignant to me. In this case, I read part of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and a magazine. The novel dredged up deep sadness in me as I read about a little girl who was so lonely throughout her young life, and who was consistently, profoundly disappointed by most adults, especially those closest to her. It made me think of my own little girls and wonder how often I may have stung them with words or made them feel as if they were invisible or unnoticed by me.
In that fine state of mind - regretting my less-than-stellar parenting efforts earlier in the day - I started thumbing through O magazine and got to the article "31 Ways of Looking at Power". What I read in the section about Pema Chödrön struck me. A native New Yorker in her 70s with four decades of study and contemplation under her belt, Chödrön is a Buddhist nun, prolific author, and respected teacher. The article presented her take on the Power of the Pause. "[I]f right now our reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time." She went on to say that, in the midst of the frenetic day-to-day of our lives, "...we could choose to stop, to slow down, to be still for a few seconds." This pause "creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present", and can give us time to reset ourselves if we breathe and take in the stillness of that short pause.
This turned out to be a pretty serious clarifying moment for me. As a 40-year-old with bouts of extreme moodiness over the past few years (my poor family!), I know with certainty that hormones are a significant contributor, but I hadn't connected with the fact that, for a good part of my life I'd habitually responded to a hormone-induced funk by disengaging from the world and indulging myself in a quiet but palpable fume, single-handedly turning an emotional dull throbbing into an acute hammering. I had always thought of my mood swings as biochemical, uncontrollable things that were just part of the landscape of being female. Until I read Chödrön, it hadn't occurred to me that a large part of my bad moods was caused by habitual response, and was therefore changeable.
Interestingly, none of what Chödrön was saying was particularly new to me. I consider myself to be open-minded and fairly self-aware. I have done my time thinking deeply about what my core issues are and why I do the things I do. I make a regular effort to take stock of my behavior and to change what isn't working. But occasionally, something that's been said before manages to reach in and grab hold in a different way, and rather than just passing through my brain for a short visit, it sticks. This was one of those times for me.
Having absolved myself of worrying about the "why", I was all set to work on the "how". But as so often happens, a few days later all sorts of relevant information about the "why" showed up in the form of a New York Times article. Entitled "Brain is a co-conspirator in a vicious stress loop", it offered up scientific research results that explained to a degree the "why" behind bad habits that get established during tough times. Basically, scientists studying rats have discovered that prolonged stress creates changes in brain physiology that reinforce a tendency to make choices that in no way help those rats get out of the stressful situation in which they find themselves. This was oddly comforting, so I ran with it and took the liberty of applying this to myself. (a) I have created bad habits in my life, and (b) it's possible that my brain rewires during stressful times so that I am most comfortable continuing to make choices that are unlikely to help me get out of the bad place.
That was a rather amazing revelation to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for holding myself accountable, but sometimes it just feels like I'm flogging myself because I can't seem to manage to "do better" even though I have every intention of pulling myself out of the mire. To know that my brain may in fact be working against my better efforts is helpful, and I'm pretty sure that knowing this will allow me to be a little gentler with myself. The silver lining here is that the research also showed that, just as the brain can wire negatively during prolonged periods of stress, it can essentially be rebooted to default neural settings that help us make better choices as soon as we start to take care of ourselves again (e.g. eating well, getting adequate sleep, exercising).
So here's what I know: I've got some bad habits. I'm going to have to work with some uncontrollable things (hormones), some potentially tough but malleable things (stress-induced changes to brain physiology), and fortunately, some things well within my control but which will require extra diligence (my behavior patterns) in order to change my bad habits. Should be a piece of cake!
My daughter's lips were moving but I couldn't make out what she was saying. "What?" I said, pulling off the headphones and pausing my iPod for about the fiftieth time that day.
I'd rolled out of bed that morning and quickly realized it was going to be one of those days. I was tired and as my Grandma used to say, I had no ambition to do anything. The irritations started bright and early as my children bickered vigorously with each other and threw fits. I had a long "to-do" list filled with things that I had zero interest in actually doing. Top all of that joy off with a gray, drizzly day as the backdrop for a family who had already spent too much "quality time" together during summer break, and cabin fever had definitely staked a claim in our house.
Everything and everyone I encountered that day felt like they came with sharp edges. By mid-afternoon, as annoyances piled atop one another, my mood turned pitch black. I had barked at the kids continuously, refused to do anything that would actually make me feel better, and resorted to listening to my iPod with headphones in an effort to cocoon myself from my daughters' unending, fingernails-down-the-chalkboard shrills.
By the time the babysitter arrived, my own personal storm cloud hovered just above my head, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be good company for anyone. Since one of the ways that I escape the unrelenting, mundane tasks that can bury a stay-at-home Mom is by ensuring that I get some solitude periodically, it seemed that the only sensible thing for me to do was to go sit in a dark theater and watch a movie. Nothing about attending a movie solo in the middle of a weekday invites conversation, and that suited me just fine.
Shutting out the world and being entertained by a decent movie for a couple of hours lifted my spirits enough to come home, make dinner and get the children into bed with minimal yelling. Now I fully admit that I may live a little too much in my head, but I really do need a break from the day's chatter to think, reflect, assess my behavior, plan, and hopefully evolve in the process. So once the house got quiet, I looked back on the day and realized that this had turned out to be yet another day, in a collection of them since my children were born, capped with self-doubting, remorse-tinged thoughts that "I could have done better" and "tomorrow, I'm going to try harder."
Late into that evening as the black tide began to ebb, in an effort to connect with that quieter, knowing part of myself, I read some things that felt poignant to me. In this case, I read part of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and a magazine. The novel dredged up deep sadness in me as I read about a little girl who was so lonely throughout her young life, and who was consistently, profoundly disappointed by most adults, especially those closest to her. It made me think of my own little girls and wonder how often I may have stung them with words or made them feel as if they were invisible or unnoticed by me.
In that fine state of mind - regretting my less-than-stellar parenting efforts earlier in the day - I started thumbing through O magazine and got to the article "31 Ways of Looking at Power". What I read in the section about Pema Chödrön struck me. A native New Yorker in her 70s with four decades of study and contemplation under her belt, Chödrön is a Buddhist nun, prolific author, and respected teacher. The article presented her take on the Power of the Pause. "[I]f right now our reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time." She went on to say that, in the midst of the frenetic day-to-day of our lives, "...we could choose to stop, to slow down, to be still for a few seconds." This pause "creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present", and can give us time to reset ourselves if we breathe and take in the stillness of that short pause.
This turned out to be a pretty serious clarifying moment for me. As a 40-year-old with bouts of extreme moodiness over the past few years (my poor family!), I know with certainty that hormones are a significant contributor, but I hadn't connected with the fact that, for a good part of my life I'd habitually responded to a hormone-induced funk by disengaging from the world and indulging myself in a quiet but palpable fume, single-handedly turning an emotional dull throbbing into an acute hammering. I had always thought of my mood swings as biochemical, uncontrollable things that were just part of the landscape of being female. Until I read Chödrön, it hadn't occurred to me that a large part of my bad moods was caused by habitual response, and was therefore changeable.
Interestingly, none of what Chödrön was saying was particularly new to me. I consider myself to be open-minded and fairly self-aware. I have done my time thinking deeply about what my core issues are and why I do the things I do. I make a regular effort to take stock of my behavior and to change what isn't working. But occasionally, something that's been said before manages to reach in and grab hold in a different way, and rather than just passing through my brain for a short visit, it sticks. This was one of those times for me.
It occurred to me that if my moody days are mostly habitual, then what I need to do is remember this when those days come and adjust my perspective about my crappy mood by accepting that it's just where I am instead of struggling against it. And though it will probably feel about as uncomfortable as rolling around in a fluffy pile of fiberglass insulation, I need to muscle through and force myself to do the things that I know will make me feel better in those moments. And honestly, it was liberating to think that I didn't need to do a lot of navel-gazing to divine the deeper "why" behind my bad habits, I just needed to change my actions.
Having absolved myself of worrying about the "why", I was all set to work on the "how". But as so often happens, a few days later all sorts of relevant information about the "why" showed up in the form of a New York Times article. Entitled "Brain is a co-conspirator in a vicious stress loop", it offered up scientific research results that explained to a degree the "why" behind bad habits that get established during tough times. Basically, scientists studying rats have discovered that prolonged stress creates changes in brain physiology that reinforce a tendency to make choices that in no way help those rats get out of the stressful situation in which they find themselves. This was oddly comforting, so I ran with it and took the liberty of applying this to myself. (a) I have created bad habits in my life, and (b) it's possible that my brain rewires during stressful times so that I am most comfortable continuing to make choices that are unlikely to help me get out of the bad place.
That was a rather amazing revelation to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for holding myself accountable, but sometimes it just feels like I'm flogging myself because I can't seem to manage to "do better" even though I have every intention of pulling myself out of the mire. To know that my brain may in fact be working against my better efforts is helpful, and I'm pretty sure that knowing this will allow me to be a little gentler with myself. The silver lining here is that the research also showed that, just as the brain can wire negatively during prolonged periods of stress, it can essentially be rebooted to default neural settings that help us make better choices as soon as we start to take care of ourselves again (e.g. eating well, getting adequate sleep, exercising).
So here's what I know: I've got some bad habits. I'm going to have to work with some uncontrollable things (hormones), some potentially tough but malleable things (stress-induced changes to brain physiology), and fortunately, some things well within my control but which will require extra diligence (my behavior patterns) in order to change my bad habits. Should be a piece of cake!
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