If Only It Were That Simple….

 

Author Dan Andrews wrote a prompt for the Trust 30 challenge that I don’t find to be much of a prompt at all.  It was kind of a self help book boiled down to a couple of paragraphs.  Regardless, I signed on, and certainly don’t want to cop out.  As such, I took a portion of The Prompt and realized I already had something in the archives that I wanted to say about it.

 

In regards to the kind of person I want to be, I have the following to say:

I want quiet–quiet in my head;

a hush when I close my eyes.

I want to lay my head down and drop to sleep without the agony of the day’s playback on repeat.

I want to feel effortlessly kind, and less a fraud.

I want buoyancy in place of the lead weight in my chest which I think must be my heart.

I want to sigh in contentment at this day’s end, and, instead of rancid ennui, look to the next with optimism and genuine curiosity.

I want pleasing things to feel pleasing, and I want to look at my world with real and unclouded joy.

Alice? More like the Mad Hatter.

I’ve just returned from an interview at Kennewick City School District.  It was short and sweet and I’ve come away with a job as a substitute para-educator.  No twisted knickers please, I had to look that one up myself…it means Fill-In Heartbeat.  Extra Body.  Chaperone.

I am, Dear Reader, a hurricane of thought right now, and am truthfully having a helluva time sifting through it all.  It’s well-documented that, aside from tutoring, I am sans employment.  I’m also at an employment intersection where I can continue on straight or veer hard right into the barrio.  A super smart lady once told me:  “Jennifer, it’ll work, or it’ll work.”  I keep repeating that to myself as I face the polarity in my head.

1.  There’s a certain amount of self-loathing that goes along with being jobless.  What am I WORTH to anyone sitting around my apartment all day, blogging and working on my fitness?  To an outsider, that might sound like a little bit of heaven, but I’ve got news kids:  If I was going to be a kept women, there would have to be OODLES more jewels and private beachfront involved.  Trust.  I am contributing a big, fat goose egg to the world right now, and that looms large.  Towering, even.

2.  Stagnant Credits Column = Plummeting self-esteem.  Ima be real whichall for a second….I very much gauge my own success by salary and the increasing importance of the positions I’ve held.  My advancement since college has been textbook, an upsweeping curve of remuneration, responsibility and expertise.  I was proud of my last job.  Proud of its scope and its stress level.  I earned my salary there, and was salaried well.  Historically, it was very difficult to keep a position there for any period over a year.  Factor in my womanhood, and that period decreased to around 6 months.  I was really kind of awesome at it.

Taking this position means a lopping-off-at-the-knees of all of the above.  It’s requirements were a GED and a heartbeat.  (Although they DID request a college transcript)  I haven’t checked the mall lately, but I’m fairly certain that I could make as much folding a week’s worth of boatnecks at The Gap.  This job means quite a few leaps back toward BEGINNER and away from BIG GIRL.  It’s a blow to my ego, for sure.

3.  The Unknown = Unsettling Pit In My Stomach.  I like a sure thing.  A plan.  Contingencies.  I like knowing what to expect and to be prepared for it.  Stress goes notoriously hard on me, and I’ve learned, over and over, that an Adapted Jen’s Intestinal Tract functions much closer to normal than a Where-The-Fuck-Did-THAT-Just-Come-From Jen’s Intestinal Tract.  Operations is all I’ve known for the past 10 years.  See problem?  Solve problem.  It’s my jam.  Why do I want to go and mess with something I’m pretty damn good at in order to search for something I haven’t yet fully identified?

4.  Fulfilled = Zen Jen.  I hated it more than I loved it.  And I can’t say I ever really loved it.  It fed my ego, absolutely.  Being GOOD at something was like an E pill for my inner self.  A mellow roll for my soul.  It felt GOOD to make more than the Old Man.  Felt good to be more educated and better employed than most people in my private life.  I was silently superior.  I would never lord it over someone, but I was definitely privately glad to NOT be them.

Yuck, right?  Who wants to be THAT girl?  Always after thinking and feeling those things, I’d hate myself a little.  When a high point in your day is being able to tow someone’s car, it’s time to evict the Soul Sucker and move on.  I don’t know what happy is and I don’t know where to look for fulfillment.  But I’m certain THAT wasn’t IT.  Something is needling at me, and it’s being pretty insistent, a gentle and repetitive tug somewhere back there in the Deep Me.  I know there’s something there.  I know that it’s amazing and I know where NOT to look.  On some days, that’s more than enough. On others, that Unknown creeps right in and takes over.

5.  The Right Time = Now.  When the Old Man made the executive decision to move us here, I was comforted by three things.  The first was the fact I’d get to take an extended vacation at home and on the beach.  The second was the fact that I’d put a cap on it at 2 years FIRM and that was a duration I could endure.  The third was knowing that the Old Man would be making enough money so that I could take some time to find a job that lit my fire.  Well, I’m a year in, and this education thing is growing on me.  It’s time to figure it out.  This job may be low low low in the expertise column, but it will give me time in a classroom, with students.  It’s an opportunity for me to observe and absorb.  I can think of better places than here, but I can’t figure a better time than now.

So, of course, I’m taking it.  I’m going to ‘orientation’ (*sigh*) tomorrow and I’m told I can start working as soon as Thursday.  My hopes aren’t high–they can’t be when an interview is only 3.5 minutes long–but they are there.  This could be a dead end…or the door to the room where I finally come upon a sleeping Meant To Be.

POW!-ell’s

I spent the weekend in Portland, OR.

Now, I’ve lived in the PNW for a little more than five years, and it pains me to say that other than on drunken rugby weekends with the Old Man, I hadn’t yet spent any time exploring PDX–which is a city, I assure you, that is known for much more than “steak and titties“.  With travel credits about to expire, I logged in to Expedia and booked a sweet Starlight Room downtown and planned this weekend.  We found a friend to watch the pets and we piled into the truck, sailing out for adventure.  The Old Man drove us out and I spent a nice trio of hours chatting with him and catching up on the tower of Vogues from my living room.  Upon riding in to town, we picked up the youngest of my brothers-in-law and ate a disgustingly delicious lunch at a hole-in-the-wall burrito joint in the barrio.  (Well, as barrio as you can get around these parts….)

From there, it was off to the original reason for this trip, the dream, the goal:  Powell’s City of Books.  Now, if you Google Powell’s, you’ll see that it is world famous for its size and scope of material.  Set on an entire city block, it is a huge building housing books that must number in the millions.  It is a compilation of used and new offerings, and, in order to offset the damage you do to your wallet upon entering, they do you the service of buying back any books you don’t want in your own collection.  With a $30 credit in hand, I grabbed a handbasket and went to work.  From the minute I stepped into the stacks, I was in heaven.

Floor to ceiling shelves stretched as far as my eye could see….row upon row upon row of books dazzled me and I was well nigh overwhelmed.  Having been to and enjoyed many a Half Price Books, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but I had no idea.  It became clear very quickly that I needed a strategy…wandering aimlessly would do me no good.  It was time for a plan.

1.  Everything Went:  there was no way I would have been able to remember and re-find anything I MIGHT HAVE wanted to return to.  If I was even the slightest bit interested, I put it in my plastic bin.  I sorted everything out and made final decisions just before checking out.  (Note:  It turns out, my first instinct rules me.  I did not put anything back.  Not a single thing.  It was indulgent and decadent. I will not wince until I pay the credit card bill next month.)

2.  Take ‘em Two At A Time:  I’m not kidding you, this building was the size of a city block and 3 stories high.  The ceilings are approximately 13 feet and each of the bookshelves takes advantage of that entire height.  If I were to have walked down a row twice, the first spending time on one side and the second on the other, I’d've been there for days.  Instead, I browsed one section of shelves, and then turned around to catch the same section on the other side.

3.  Leave No Copy Unturned:  From the get-go, I saw that many times, there was more than one edition of a book.  I looked through them all to find the least expensive copy.  This place is kind of like Costco.  Everything is inexpensive, but the sheer nature of buying in bulk is that you’re going to drop a dime or two.  It was in my wallet’s best interest that I pinched pennies where I could.

4.  Fiction First:  Look, I read everything.  Theory, classics, history, biography…. My name is Jen, and I’m an addict.  The written word is my opiate.  I’ll read a cereal box in its entirety if I’m lacking anything else.  But my collection, though varied, is ruled by Fiction.  My first love, the most dominant, has always been a flight of fancy.  My full attention went to this section.

5.  Let The Eye Rule:  In many ways, if I’m not after something specific, I choose my books like I choose wine at the grocery store:  by the label.  I’ll be drawn in by the cover, and let the final decision go to the jacket description.  At Powell’s there was no other way to do it.  Aside from the few recommendations that I was picking up, this was a purely sensory visit.  A shopping trip of chance.  I wasn’t here to stock up, or round out my shelves (otherwise I’d have spent another chunk of change ONLY on Vonnegut), I simply let myself be drawn in by whim.

In the end, my strategy was only mildly successful.  In three hours, I made it through Fiction and was able to skim the Feminist Theory stacks.  At the end of the Zs, I stared forlornly down at my bin-o-books. The weight of the basket had become a lesson in the isometric isolation of my biceps and the rain on my parade.  I simply couldn’t carry any more.  I tripped around a bit, still unwilling to give up the ghost, and then, finally,  sat to do my final sort.  Sigh. What I needed was a sherpa.  And another 8 hours.

I bid a reluctant adieu to the floors and sections of territory that would remain, to me, uncharted, and thunked my spoils down on the cash wrap.  With a thrill, I re-chose each title as it was uncovered by the last and handed over my Visa.  I called the Old Man to help me with my bags and we headed back to the brewery where he’d been sitting, chatting with his youngest brother for the previous two hours.  We sat as I reviewed my spoils and I ordered a drink.  Which!  Reminds me of:

6.  Books + Beer:  Pale Ales and paperbacks.  Bloody perfect.

The stack is sitting in front of me still—partially because I didn’t sell back enough books to accommodate these which I acquired (this is the express train to an episode of Hoarders, dear reader), but mostly because of the little bit of joy I get from a thing as simple as a teetering pile of tomes.  The rest of the weekend was lovely and even mostly sunny.  But Powell’s and I have some unfinished business, and I eagerly await my opportunity to return.

Things To Avoid When You’re Socially Inept

Oh why??  Why did I do it?  What was I thinking?!  How could I have forgotten and ignored the basic traits in myself that will surely make this endeavor a total disaster?  What if the people suck?  Or are weird?  Or figure out that I’m strange?

Well, I’ve gone and done it.  I’ve dug myself a hole from which there’s no escape.  In my scramble to find ways to enjoy my time here in this Mexican bordertown, I inadvertently and heedlessly hurled myself into a puddle of stress, anxiety and self-doubt.

Upon moving here, I immediately checked MeetUp.com for groups involving things that I enjoy: Hiking, yoga, exercise, trail running, knitting, writing, reading, drinking.  There was NOTHING.  I looked again with different keywords: backpacking, pilates, fitness, jogging, crocheting, books.  Still nothing.

With the summer rapidly approaching, I kept going over and over and over the same lament: I wish I had friends here.  I wished for D to go hiking with.  I wished for Blondie to clean with.  I wished for M to have beers with.  I wished for K to people-watch with.  It started to form into a bona fide funk, and I needed to do something about it.

So I planned a hike.

But I didn’t stop there.  Oh no.  I kept going.

There have to be other hikers here right?  Out of the tens of thousands of people in these three “cities”, there has got to be one or two that are funny and sarcastic and awesome like D, right?  RIGHT?!

And so, on a whim, I paid $36 and started my own MeetUp group called Hiking For Dummies.  I described my goals for hiking this summer and posted the first trip to Palouse Falls that day.  (Which was, incidentally, Friday, the day before the hike itself….I wasn’t lying, I got a wild burr up my ass and three minutes later, I was the organizer and founding member of this group now open to anyone to join.)

I don’t really know why I did it.  I wanted a hiking buddy, for sure; the Old Man humors me and goes when he has no other choice, but deep down, he really doesn’t like it.  It’d be nice to have someone who likes it like I do.  I wanted to meet other people.  Find things to do here.  Discover ways of forming relationships that doesn’t include the bar–which, I fear, I’m rapidly outgrowing.

For a few hours, it felt good.  I was proactive.  The pipedreams of what COULD be kept playing on repeat.  My summer previewed and it was packed with trips and pictures and summits and waterfalls and fields of wildflowers.

And then came the sugar crash.

Mostly, if you met me, you’d never believe me if I told you that I’m generally uncomfortable in new situations and around new people.  But I’m a fake-it-till-you-make-it kinda girl.  I do my best with small talk and smiles and silently pray for a reprieve from someone else.  Until I get comfortable, I’m happiest standing in the back, checking shit out, letting someone else take the lead.  (After that, look out, I’ll charge to the front, but that’s a whole other post on a whole other personality!)

Expectedly, people started signing up.  I had actual MEMBERS who were excited that FINALLY there was a group like this.  I had the type of people that, on paper, were exactly the type of people I was looking for.  Varied hiking experience, varied ages, varied backgrounds.  And it was all of a sudden, REAL.

End honeymoon phase.

It wasn’t long before I realized that it was me who was the organizer of this group.  Me who was going to have to do all the greeting and introducing.  Me that was going to have to take the lead.  Me that was going to have to make the small talk until everyone started picking up on their own.  Me that was going to have to diffuse the awkward moments (the MOST scary because I am usually the CAUSE of the awkward pause…).

And here I sit.  ready for battle once again with my own, probably very mild, case of social anxiety.  Joining a group like this would mean that I could attend when I wanted and bow out if I didn’t.  I could choose who I talked to and who I pursued a relationship with.  As the organizer, it must be equal opportunity to all who join.  Because that’s the type of environment I want to foster.  On the one hand, I’ve taken steps to create a situation that I’ve been searching for.  On the other, I never meant to sign up for the responsibility that goes with it.

My next MeetUp is this Saturday.  I just posted it, and there’s already one person who’s RSVP’d.  Here’s hoping she’s not a serial killer or close talker…..

Latere

I’ve been on the fritz lately.  A little light-headed, a little bit spaced-out (as in, cadet) and a lit of bit restless.  The spring is creeping in and the weather is getting warmer and the sun’s been shining on my face and beckoning me out.  It teases and charms, but by itself, it’s a  pale and gaunt mistress.  When set against the backdrop of my Now, it just barely coaxes me away from the impending funk I can feel floating just beyond my periphery.

There’s a Despair that looms just around the corner and I’ve got to be careful to keep on moving so that it can’t close the distance.  In it’s lint-filled pocket, a grimy hand closes around a cancerous pit of an idea:  ”What if we never get out of here?”  I make desperate lists of places that I want to see, that can take me away for a day or two or four at a time, knowing that my light grows the further and longer I’m apart from this succubus of a town—like the wick on a gaslamp turned up against the darkness.

How many hours to the coast?  The Oregon Coast?  Would it be easier from here? Or a plane ride.  Yes!  A farther jaunt.  An accumulation of frequent flyer miles.  How much to Salt Lake?  Or Phoenix, or San Diego?  It’s awe that I need/crave/thirst for….to be struck dumb….to have an experience that will whitewash this mildew-ridden mediocrity that I’ve been living.  This isn’t HOME and my soul is once again reaching out, grasping for worth and gasping for air.

Don’t ask what it is that will satisfy.  Some days, I imagine that its scent floats on the wind ahead of it, like lilac blooms on early spring mornings.  Others, it’s a train that I run along side, reaching hard as I sprint, only to have the bars just touch my fingertips as it pulls away.  I feel like I am losing time–just missing something that is obvious and grand.  Too little too late for the party that everyone else will be raving about on Monday.

There is something out there just for me, and it beckons…a flickering light through the fog.  I’m squinting very hard now, but can’t make it out.  I’m wishing for a sign, a star, a sigh or a glimpse.  Something.  Anything.  A hint or a clue that I’ll get there and that the journey and unease are merely the tickets to ride.

With What’s Left….

Reverb is back with monthly prompts, I found out the other day.  March’s?  What would you do if March was your last month to live?

With 31 days left I would immediately and without hesitation stop waiting for things to get better.

Time is an odd thing.  With the impression of leagues of time, we believe in the barely possible.  With the benefit of hindsight, appearances are positive; time creates beauty and progress and change.  The scales of justice are balanced and equal punishment is meted out to all transgressors.  Grand Canyons are formed, skin color overlooked, polio cured.  Long spans guarantee a tomorrow, a next day, a later.  Limitless horizons of future opportunity allow for procrastination, or pushed deadlines; a surety that we may try, try again, believing in that slow train of evolution.

But to cut that length short?  To know, somehow, that your length is edited, curtailed?  Quite a different story.  With little time, small moments are momentous.  Change the proportion, and nothing remains equal.  Suddenly, the idea of WASTE grows in the foreground, an ominous check making sure that what that specific moment is being spent in pursuit of will hold against hindsight and historical scrutiny.  Nothing can change fast enough, progress is gauged impatiently and only hard, sought after results are rewarded with praise and contentment.

With leagues of time, I stay here in Pasco, WA, quietly (?) biding my time for something better.  I allow the Old Man his opportunity to grow in his new profession, knowing that this is a stepping stone for him.  I maintain my gaze on the cloudy and unknown distance, willing myself to believe that there awaits something better, some future adventure/happiness/pleasure/contentment.  I overlook my dire boredom and lonely, friendless solitude.  I plod on, making do with my bookshelves and Skype and this lovely community I’ve found in the blogosphere.  I regard my marriage as a whole, as a process, as what it CAN be with work and elbow grease and…time.

But take away those leagues, and it isn’t the amalgamation of moments that matters anymore.  It’s the moments themselves.  The tiny things.  Without eons or years, the landscape changes and so do my priorities.

With 31 days left, I will pack my flip flops and a couple of dresses, my Tweezers and some books and I will get the fuck out of dodge.  I will stop waiting for Happiness At a Later Date and begin indulging only Things That Make Me Happy Now.  Piled in the car with my dog and my cat (and the Old Man if he so chooses) I will drive, stopping only briefly to see Old Faithful or the Grand Tetons and some old friends in Salt Lake City.  With a quantity of marijuana sufficient to see me through my end of days, I will head stalwartly east, back to my home, back to my heart.

For one week and change I will surround myself in my parents’ love.  I will listen raptly to my father’s guitar and to the songs of my life.  I will teach my mother how to make an actual Cosmopolitan-not those horrendous things she came up with on her own.  I will tell each of them in no uncertain terms how dear they are to me and how much I love love love LOVE them.

We will have a huge party and all who are able or willing will attend.  I will pour my love out in buckets and laughter and hugs and rue.  I will tell each person with direct eye contact why I’ve kept them in my life and what their friendship has meant to me.  I shall hold Blondie’s baby boy in my arms and whisper secrets to him about his momma that he could only learn from me.

And then, I will adjourn to the beach.  Maybe Costa del Sol, perhaps South Beach or Wrightsville.   I will spend the rest of my days by the roar of the ocean, insisting that those with me treat it as a holiday.  There will be bonfires and beers and quiet naps in the sun.  Strolls along the shore arm-in-arm, dancing in the sand, glinting smiles and sun-baked skin.  I will charge each person in my company a task; to each visit a place I had longed to go and to perform a local tradition of remembrance.

And on my last day, someone will take a picture of me.  I won’t worry about it, or fret that it will turn out badly.  I’ll turn toward the camera and smile a genuine smile.  Me with my giant sunglasses, perfect tan and a joint, passing on in a cloud of love and hugs.

(Post Script:  I felt the need to make clear that I’d also have put my financials in order and bequeathed my body and it’s organs to wherever they could be used.)

On Masturbation. For real.

Okay.  Let’s take a moment and talk about masturbation.  And let’s do it candidly. Let’s specifically discuss situations that include amateur pornography on the internet.  I am going to dip a toe in the water,  and share with you, dear reader, something about myself:  I have been known, on occasion, to experience sexual fulfillment whilst reclining on my couch, precariously cradling the laptop with my left hand and arm.  It requires a pillow, frankly, to be anything close to comfortable, but the details are not, I assure you, as important as the general idea and circumstance about and surrounding the act itself.

Our discussion will focus rather, on the question of the moments after, where I pointedly and deliberately erase the history of the browser so as to conceal the inscrutable and sometimes odd inroads to web-assisted  self-fulfillment.

The question, plainly:

From whence the NEED to purge and maintain secrecy?

Assumed:

That I am not alone in the Act of Erasure and that it is commonly practiced amongst my peers, my contemporaries, my fellows—anyone really who finds it possible to labor for a moment, under the consideration, that their computers could be accessed by the person closest to them.  I.E. That It’s Not Weird To Do This.

I don’t feel that it’s shameful, in the least: neither the act of self-pleasure or the use of internet porn are depraved in any way.  And yet, I am consistently beset by the need to keep them both silent and hidden.  Why?

A Discussion On Why We Blush

Masturbation is a deliciously selfish and decadent act.  It’s a flight of fancy for those in the sexual know.  I’d wager a hefty sum that it’s also one of the few instances where the majority of adults exercise their powers of imagination.  It is as long or short as it needs to be, not to mention a deft show of expertise and efficiency in its execution; hardly a wasted motion or movement.

Without pretense or guise, masturbation allows the indulgence of fantasy.  Further, an indulgence of UNCENSORED fantasy.  I imagine it as  a highlight reel of turn-ons; all fetishes and kinks given open rein.  And then, to be able to connect to a VISUAL medium wherein can be found the LARP of the innermost desire?  Perfectly splendid.

But what that medium does, is leave a trail of smut and skin, that I would prefer the world (read: The Old Man) not see.  Because there’s the off chance that what I look at really IS just THIS MUCH too far.  ”Never would have thought THAT about her!” comes the whisper of anonymous and imaginary onlooker.  ”*snigger*”  Prude?  Hardly.  Shamed?  Nah.  Embarrassed, demure and the slightest bit modest?  Assuredly.

And what of the things that, for no other reason, are preferred unspoken?  I posit that not all dreams or desires are meant to be shared.  To a certain extent, the unknowable has a lustre and gilded coating that is destroyed the minute it’s actually experienced.  In it’s journey from fantasy to reality, an experience is ripped from it’s pedestal and placed directly in our line of vision.  Once lived, all bets are off and the sheen of new is hammered to the dull patina that covers empirical knowledge.

In the end, I continue to erase and to preserve my little secrets.  So there.  Keep your eyes on your own paper.

On Babies; Part Deux

I would be lax if I neglected to identify and acknowledge the other side of this reproductive coin, and so, I’d like to share a secret:

In a small, brightly lit, yet out-of-the-way corner of my inner self, I quietly nurture the idea of having a daughter.  When no one is looking and I don’t have to worry about appearances, I imagine laying my hands on a fat, round belly (visible only from profile or head-on, mind you, because It will be a perfect pregnancy with no additional fat….) containing a teeny, tiny girl with dark eyes and hair patiently waiting for her grand entrance.

When she does arrive, we are two peas in a pod, and I know, each time she looks up at me in wonderment, that it is my duty to be a better person and to cultivate and nurture that astonishment, against all ravings of my inner cynic.  From the top of her perfect head, I breathe in that flushed, baby scent and am calmed, eager to give away my smiles, easier than ever in the past.  She is me, in microcosm, but with a chance at being effortlessly joyful and unburdened.

For her, I skip and thrill, and leave aside storm clouds and doom.  My hands shake no more in anxiety, for they must be steady to contain her own tiny and reaching paws.  I sing, off-key, tiny little love songs into her sleeping ears, so that, even in dreamland, she knows my hopes and love.

I imagine her, a babe-in-arms and then in front and then in backpack.  I see her in my own mother’s arms, something I share to say: “Look, we made it.”  She sits, with feet swinging behind an ancient Martin as my father teaches her tiny fingers to bang out “G-L-O-R-I-A”, re-animating a musical sense that skipped me entirely.  I see her off to kindergarten, and then to her first dance, and then college, secretly pleased that I look so good “at my age”.

She’s a little pipedream I have, in quiet moments.  When no one is looking.