Amazing, aka Great Things

[Note: I don't normally put another post up so quickly after a big post like yesterday's, but this one needs to go up and I don't want to wait. And there are lots of italics and all caps, so be warned. And yes, others have told me; I had to see it myself.]

Finding treasures comes from looking

This journaling-in-the-morning thing is so cool! This morning I woke up after 6 hours or a little more and decided to write for a bit before going back to sleep. I didn't end up going back to sleep. The journaling brought me to such an amazing place.

At first, all I could think of writing about was the changes in my medications. That led to thoughts about managing my brain chemistry and a wonderful vision of an orange-robed monk on top of a terrifyingly high, narrow cliff. He was sitting cross-legged, his hands dangling loosely over his knees, his eyes closed, and a wide, serene smile on his face. Every line of his body and face spoke of serenity and peace. And while I know that it's easier to achieve such things when you are not in the world, certainly exceptional people like the Dalai Lama and Thich Naht Hanh are able to be serene and peaceful while interacting with the world at large. I figure I should be able to achieve some level of serenity and peace and have in fact achieved them at times in my life. I want them again.

So I explored what might help me manage my brain chemistry other than drugs: meditation, exercise, visualizing happy things, visualizing actually changing the chemistry. Diet would probably help, too: Sabine read something about how anti-inflammatory diets can reduce depression in women by a significant amount (30%? 40%?), or in a significant amount of women. Today she began researching such diets and ran across articles about a local woman who has developed such a diet and who gives classes about the diet. Honestly, the classes seem to be long-drawn out lectures, one a week for five weeks, explaining the science behind the diet. Given that she's also written a book, I'm pretty sure we will be able to get everything we need out of the book, without paying the $180 per person to take the class. And, basically, it's just another version of the Mediterranean diet, so it's just another reminder of what healthy eating consists of.

Turn Around and Walk Forward

Caution: A long post with complex sentence structure, complicated punctuation, and many, many different metaphors. Not for the faint-hearted.

The best path isn't always the straightest

That's my motto for the year. The last post was all about traumas of the past and how they have affected me and my life. Within the gentle and supportive comments ran a particular thread: perhaps I need to simply accept my past and look to the present and future.

This is not the first time this concept has been suggested to me. A previous therapist became quite frustrated with me for continuing to talk about the past. A couple of friends have suggested that I cling to the past — suggested with increasing frustration and decreasing gentleness. I appreciate the gentle directness of my commenters.

It's true: I do cling to and look to the past. When I was talking to my therapist on Tuesday of this week, I had this vivid flash of me walking backward, taking my cues on which way to turn from what I saw before my eyes. That way leads to missteps and even falling off cliffs. It was a powerful and stirring image. I resolved right then to turn around and use my present, and my visions and desires, to guide me into the future.

Of course, I asked Michele her opinion of, well, everything. What I said in the blog. The idea that I cling to and pay too much attention to the past. Some other stuff. It frustrated me that she didn't respond directly and completely refrained from answering my questions. I'm probably going to push her on that next week.

However, it is ultimately me who has the choice and power to turn around and move forward. I chose the term "walk forward" to indicate activity; I have been almost completely motionless since Mom died, and that was almost three and a half years ago; I wonder how many years that has taken off my life? So "walk forward" tells me to move my body and to participate in my life much more actively than I have been. "Look forward" would have been way too passive.

Transforming Fear Into Excitement

Do you remember the series I wrote back in November, "Memories of Mom"? My friend Judy, Judy, Judy recommended I write those happy memories as an antidote to the sadness that was threatening to overtake me.

On Monday, my therapist recommended I do something similar to transform the fears and anxieties I've been feeling about moving to Seattle into the excitement that also exists. You see, I was telling her about things I missed about Seattle, things I was looking forward to, and how in the last few years that I lived there, my enjoyment of living there turned into stress, and how I didn't want that to be the case this time. She said that my telling her about the positive things transformed me as I told them and that I should write a series of posts about them. So here goes.

I'm moving at the end of March. In April, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival takes place in a set of towns about an hour north of Seattle. I love tulips and it's too hot in Houston to grow them. Sure, you can buy a pot of them and water them and enjoy them for a little while, but it doesn't get cold enough for the bulbs over the fall and winter. I've missed them.

The Tulip Festival is wondrous! Fields and fields of daffodils and tulips of all colors as far as you can see. And my favorite place of all is the Roozen Gaarde, which is landscaped with every tulip imaginable, and many that aren't. There are so many types of tulips, from the basic tulip we are all familiar with to tulips with fringed petals and coming in all shades of the rainbow.

My girlfriends and I used to go to the Tulip Festival when we could. One year we went, it rained and we took pictures of us looking very downcast in the rain, our arms filled with tulips. Another year, I was going with just one of my friends and her two young children, until her youngest barfed in the backseat all over everything, including her older brother. We went back home and I went by myself that year. But no matter whether I went alone or with one or two friends, I loved it, loved browsing through the fields and the shops and taking pictures. After we looked at the tulips, we usually wandered over to La Conner to have lunch and look at the shops. They had a most wonderful yarn shop there: I hope it's still in business!

This year, I will be there for the Festival and my girlfriends and I have already made plans to go. I'm very excited about this and plan to plaster my blog with pictures of tulips for your pleasure. If you ever get the chance to be in the Seattle area in April, you should definitely make time to visit the Tulip Festival.

Wow, I can feel the excitement bubbling inside of me and there's a big smile on my face. Yup, I do believe that writing this series is going to have a very positive effect on me and my upcoming move. I hope you enjoy it too!

A Day of Beauty

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in therapy and processing and my inner life that I kind of ignore the outside of myself. Even when I take walks in the park, my mind is going on about myself and my issues, wants, needs, etc. But yesterday, a good friend took me out of myself and into nature.

I got up at 5:30 for a 6:30 am pick-up. I didn't have breakfast because we were treating ourselves to kolaches and donuts along the way. I timed it well because I had just one more little thing to do when he called that he was waiting in the parking lot for me.

At first it didn't look too promising. There had been a forecast for 30% chance of rain and it was a little sprinkle-y and very cloudy when I got in the car. But we drove and drove to the southeast, talking and enjoying each other's company.

When we arrived at the nature preserve, it still didn't look promising. We hadn't seen any groups of snow geese along the road the way we had a couple of years ago. And it was still cloudy and overcast, making for a very flat light.

Traffic jam! The white in among the marsh are snow geese on the ground.

But inside the preserve were some 20,000-30,000 very smart snow geese. They can't be hunted inside the preserve and they simply covered the marsh, flying in and out, possibly looking for their favorite neighbors to land next to within the honking, foraging, white mass. Even with the cacophony of honking, we could still hear the explosions of gunfire from the hunting areas just outside of the preserve.

You Probably Want to Know

"So," you've probably been thinking. "How is Skye doing on her new program?"

Well, I'll tell you. I started out strong last week then completely stopped it when my period started and I just wasn't going to exercise. I don't exercise during "that time of the month" because it makes everything worse: heavier, more crampy, more bleah. I did accomplish my Tuesday task so was able to watch Castle, and I accomplished my next two tasks and watched both Project Runway and MythBusters. But the exercise went to hell.

Now I am back on with the exercise as of this morning, plus I walked in the park this afternoon. I have a task to do tomorrow and I have, thanks to the creative spark from Deb, created a chart with tasks prioritized and sorted, with different sets of contingents/rewards attached to each priority, and color-coded and printed so I can keep track without having to open the spreadsheet any time I need a reminder. 

The tasks I have to do for any given contingent or reward (yes, I put ice cream on there a couple of times, and yarn) are not difficult or even terribly time-consuming. Later, as I get better at this and am able to sustain greater efforts using self-discipline (or being less self-indulgent), I can pursue bigger tasks or sets of tasks.

My BFF commented on the previous post that it would be better to do these tasks due to rational cause-and-effect or cost-benefit analyses, but I'm not up to that level yet. I'm kind of at toddler or young child level when it comes to personal self-discipline (I'm still fine with professional self-discipline), so I have to start with what works. 

I Wrote A Novel!

I've been writing my own things since I was seven years old, when I wrote my first poem that wasn't an assignment for class. My father took that funky little poem with it's not-always-exactly-rhyming lines and called each of his six siblings and read the entire thing to them over the phone.

This, I thought, was powerful. This is what I want to do. Nothing else I did ever brought me that kind of reaction from my dad or my mom. So my future was chosen.

Of course, I mostly wrote short stories growing up, and the beginnings of novels. In college it was all short stories and expository pieces. When I went back to school to get my technical writing degree, what I wrote was even further removed from my dream of writing a novel.

A Sally Fields Moment

The past year-and-a-half has taken me places I've never imagined. I never imagined taking care of my cancer-stricken mother — or being able to for that matter. I never imagined moving back to Oregon then back to Houston, all in the space of six months. But more than that, I never imagined finding out that So Many People Like Me!  They really, really Like me! (And one or two have even said 'L-O-V-E'!)

Yeah, I have a strong Sally Fields side. That Oscars moment of hers was very painful to me, because I could (and still can) identify so strongly with her. 

It's such a wonder to me, to be liked, to be loved. My parents loved me, as did my brother. So did my grandparents. I imagine that while I was very young and very cute and had few significant opinions of my own that my aunts and uncles and some of my older cousins liked or loved me as well. I was 8 when I found out that not everyone loved, or even liked, me. It went downhill from there. Apparently I am one of those people who often causes others to form very strong opinions one way or another. 

There's lots of history and tons of stories in there, but they aren't the point of this post. The point of this post is that, as a result of my difficult year-and-a-half, especially the last month or so, I have found out that many people I like and respect Feel The Same Way About Me! It matters because it hasn't always been so. It matters because it feeds the part of me that needs external validation and that has been feeling empty for too long. And it matters because I have lost the favor of several who cared, or said they cared, during that time. This is not a one-to-one correspondence in growth here folks. I believe that I have acquired approximately 5 to 10 times as many "likes" as I've lost.

I think I'm feeling a bit dizzy; perhaps I'm coming down with something. Oh yeah, I think it's that thing called a Sally Fields Moment. I think it's a crazy little thing called 'loved'.

Beach-Happy

Even in the midst of anxiety- and angst-inducing situation and activity, I am smiling and I feel like Champagne — little bubbles are starting at my toes and tickling their way upward.

Why? Because I'm beach-happy. It's kind of like being slap-happy, except that I've been "slapped" by being at the beach.

I took a walk today, longer and harder than any of the (extremely few lately) walks I've taken in Houston. There are no hills in Houston. I walked the seven-or-so-story stairway down the bluff to the beach, then walked along the soft sand wayyyy out to the firmer sand. Then I played tag with the waves because it was almost high tide and the water kept changing the edge of the firm sand. I took pictures of waves. I watched the people and dogs enjoying the sun and sand and waves. I watched the waves. And I just couldn't stop smiling. 

You might think that means I should really be living at the beach, and I couldn't say you're wrong. But note that I am ecstatic on a sunny day at the beach. I am emphatically not ecstatic on a gray, windy, wet day at the beach, except on occasion. 

If I could live anywhere I wanted and had the money/income/ situation to do so, I would live at the beach, but I would probably move further south. Supposedly it is warmer and less gloomy on the southern Oregon Coast ... I've never been there. And I've never been on the East Coast beaches.

I have things to do in Houston; I am not ready to leave there. However, I can easily see myself continuing to live and work in Houston, and visiting the Oregon Coast throughout the stormy parts of the year (the Autumn storms are amazing) and living here all summer, because summer is hell in Houston.

Being at the beach, in good weather or during torrential storms, makes me very, very happy. Which is why I feel like a cross between a grinning fool and a very fine bottle of Champagne.

Travel Tribulations and Exaltations

or How I came to the Coast, met Julie of JulieLand, and rediscovered the Need for Sleep

For those who don't already know, I flew from Houston to Oregon on the 18th and Julie promptly visited me here on the Coast. She arrived late Wednesday night, we stayed up way too late talking (plus I was already two hours behind and suffering from a 4- to 5-hour, broken sleep the night before — I don't always travel well), and she left Thursday about 8 pm. And we didn't accomplish nearly enough or spend enough time together! But much fun was had by all, and there was much rejoicing (and we didn't even have to eat the minstrels! — we did, however, eat dessert).

The fun began when I forgot to bring my cell phones with me. I discovered this delightful fact when I got out of my car at the Park 'n Fly lot in Houston. Too late to go back and get them (yes, there are two and no, I won't explain it right now) and how would I call someone to get them for me?

Portland's elevated walkway with clear "ceiling".

The line to check baggage was long. The line thru security made the baggage line look like a poser. A third of the way thru the security line and I was wishing for my cane; my lengthy exercise-free phase and my "oops, accidentally undernourished" streak made me weak and unready for such a long time standing. When I finally arrived at the gate, perfectly ready to upgrade to first class, the flight was not only full, it was already boarding! I typed up a couple of urgent emails and sent them off so people would know that I had no phones. It has been (and continues to be) Very Uncomfortable.

Long flight, interesting seat mate, too little room, got a kink in my back (not the good kind and I'm still working on it). Waited three hours for the shuttle out to the Coast, then half an hour for my ride home. At least the sun was shining. 

I got the basics of food, went home and exploded all over my bedroom (luggage here, clothing there). Then I proceeded to email Julie and nap until she arrived around 11. Ah, the wonderfully distinctive sound of the VW Bug (original) engine!

Julie was everything I imagined she'd be and more. We had the best time and we both talk a mile a minute when we are excited. We both adapted our sleep schedules. Then, instead of tromping thru the treasure cave (storage unit), we spent the day dealing with dead car battery, trying to charge it, getting new one. I think some of our activities were redundant, but that's okay.

Julie's the cute one. I'm the scary redhead.

While waiting for the car, we wandered around the shops nearby (one or two were highly interesting), then went home. At least Mom's house is within walking distance from the mechanic, a very useful aspect of that mechanic shop (besides being trustworthy and good at their job).

Then it was time to take a nap, then have dinner, and there went Julie, driving off into the darkness toward Eugene.

I'm already looking forward to this coming Wednesday and I'm trying to catch up on my sleep beforehand!

Now I'm off to rest up so I can write another blog post later!

The definition of family, part I

"Of all of these things, the greatest is love."

As everyone knows by now, my natal family is gone. I lost my dad in 1978, my little brother in 1983, and my mom last summer 2010. Yes, there are relatives, but none of them is as close to me as the most distant and lurk-ful of the Betties.

And therein lies the rub. My family believed in blood family but not in non-blood family (I think there were only two exceptions over the years). So I have no roadmap to follow. Simply learning to think "I still have a family" is no easy feat for me.

I have a friend I've known since I was 11, and we still communicate, but she has strong family bonds and her bonds to other friends are stronger than mine. Yet, when we are in contact it's like the intervening time — which might be years — didn't happen. Leah lives in Wisconsin.

My best friend is a man I've known since my junior year in college. We've been involved. We've been best friends. We've been furious with each other and said things that in most relationships would be unforgivable. And we've sat with each other thru death and grief. We've shared a house with another friend and an apartment between the two of us and for most of that time everyone thought we were an item, even tho' we had separate bedrooms. I didn't know that he was still in love with me until years later when he broke down after seeing me with the man I'd moved in with. (Stupidest decision ever, but that's another story.) Steve lives in Seattle.

I love the whole world

You cannot be sad when you watch this video. It's probably my favorite. It's the Discovery Channel "Boom De Yada" song. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/NqV3clvlC4Q