SELF DEFENSE

She’s on trial for a crime.
A situation out of control.
A knife, the dark
Two children at home.
She struggles.
Watch.
Watch her.
The juror checks his watch.
His dinner waits.
He hates her dress.
Convict her.
Convict her.

A fly in the ointment

They gather together
And dream a dream
Absently swatting flies
While tormenting
Themselves
With possibilities.

They comment
On the daily news
And flip the channels
Aimlessly
In search of distraction

They look forward
To their meals
In an unnatural way

They swat flies with a passion.

The Long Darkness

It is the season
of the long darkness
The sun
Is low on the horizon
We wait
In the cold
For light

LIGHT

Makes vision possible
The sharing of light
Warms heart
Hand
And soul

This Moment Here

It's halloween. The little kidlets have come and gone. The entire month has come and gone in a blur. Tonight is daylight savings time. I've never been very good at saving.
The kitties are in the other room. Jose is playing music at Serafina. Alone and wrapped in a soft blanket and the intense events of the week, I marvel at it all.

Resilience

The dictionary defines resilience as the ability to return to the original form, position etc. after being bent or stretched.


Resilience also means the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity or the like; buoyancy.








Consider what you have experience thus far in life. consider those around you. Amazing to see how each of us responds to being bent or stretched; adversity or depression.

Some of us hold on tight to those things, defining ourselves by this pain or that difficulty.









Others seem to transcend them, taking what they can as insight for the future, and not being overly impressed with the rest.

They move forward.





That is resilience.



A while back at a party, I spoke with a woman I hadn't seen in 10 years. When I asked her about herself, she said "there is a black cloud hanging over our family".








Throughout the evening, I over heard her talking with other friends nearby and I heard her say it 3 more times to 3 different people. It's her story, her truth.

I'm not saying, pretend we're happy when we're not. But I believe there is something to this idea of not crafting a story out of our pain, that we then have to stick to.

I don't have the answer, just the question: Why create storylines for our lives that box us in? Why tell and retell our pain stories that keep us looped into the past? Why not speak in such a way that is perhaps more groundless (saying that I've been going through a rough patch is not the same as committing to the story that there is a black cloud over me) I'm saying speak with an open-ness to the possibility of good, of relief, of peace, or abundance knocking on the door of our body/soul/life.

Things change. But if your story is set in stone, you might not notice.

Color Me Happy!

Have you ever stopped to consider the color beige? Beige is the color of billions of walls across the nation. It is the color of a kajillion rugs in north America and an un-nameable sum of pants, skirts and shoes on well meaning souls across the planet. If you're up on what's healthy or have been to the doctor in the last few years, you have already realized that beige is the color of most of the foods on the 'bad for you' list.

Face it. Beige is color's version of middle of the road. Beige represents the no-risk choice. The okay option.

But why oh why would we want to settle for okay?

Imagine your daily interactions like this:

A: How's your day? B: Beige.
A: How's your dinner? B: Beige.
A:How's your life? B: Beige.

Come on people...let's do the unthinkable. Let's consider just for a moment, a wee bit of mauve. (gasp!) Let's leap into a vat of juicy orange. (whaaa?!!)
Let's risk freaking ourselves out with exuberant, with incredible, with delicious.

Yes indeed...just what the doctor ordered.

Slow Train to Weird Town

There are times when you look up from the flurry of activity that is your life and you think 'Wow...time sure flies by!' or ' I can't believe 2009 is half over already!' or, How did I get to be this age? I was just 12!'

Right? you have times like that, right?

Me too. But not lately.

Lately, I feel like I've been on the Slow Train to Weird Town for a bit longer than I bargained for.







I've been having thoughts like 'Can't I skip by this part?' or 'dear god, is it still 2009? You've got to be fucking kidding me!' or 'please lord, can't somebody make a few really good movies this summer that i could lose myself in? Please?!'
Honestly. somebody give me a hall pass already....or a get out of jail free card.





Here's the thing - I find life interesting. I'm not looking for an out. I just...you know...wouldn't mind a faster train through this here terrain.

You dig?

A day in the life

Today is my birthday.







Last night my sweet friend Annie Ready died.
















Tomorrow has its own mysterious offering.

Obsessed

I’m obsessed....

....with TV.








Seriously.

And I’m in a total uproar about this whole digital transition thing. We have the old fashioned rabbit ears antenna









So now we have to buy one of those digital boxes or else we won’t get any channels. None! And it messes with my Tivo…so rude and sad!









And even though this is a very real concern, I can’t help but acknowledge that there are lots of people on the planet with real problems.









I went to the Republic of Georgia last summer







to do research for a screenplay I was hired to write,









and returned home three days before the Russian invasion.







While there I had some amazing experiences – I spoke with ex-president Shevardnadze, who helped them through their last civil war.















I spent time with a high priest of the Armenian church.










I also spent time in an Orphanage.





While I was in Georgia, I got one of those nesting doll things…you know what I’m talking about. You open it up and inside the woman is a smaller woman and a smaller woman…








Well that’s the exact opposite of what happened to me when I walked into that orphanage, my heart broke open. And to surprise, the heart inside was bigger than the one I thought I had. I met hundreds of very real children in need in a very real place, called Georgia. I fell in love with one of them and have been trying to adopt her, but the government makes it more than difficult and we lack the funds to take the case to court.




















Yes, this would be a perfect time to give in to world cynicism, or to be obsessed with how scary things are. Or how difficult. But I’d rather not.








I’d rather be obsessed with learning how to open my heart even wider. With learning how to handle painful challenges in a new, more healthy, more supported way. Because while I know challenges will not stop coming throughout life, I know that I have a choice about how I respond to them.

Obsess on staying open....what do you say?

Done

I am celebrating.









If you were looking at me right now, sitting here on the couch, you would not be able to tell that I am celebrating...







but I am.

I just finished the first draft of a screenplay that I've been working on for 7 months. This is the one I was hired to write that took me to the Republic of Georgia last summer for research. That is where I fell in love with the orphan that Jose and I are trying to adopt.




















This project been a very challenging process because it is based on a true story and truth, while stranger than fiction, is not in any was as easy to write or make compelling.

So I breathe in right now and sigh.



I am done.





For this moment, before the dude who hired me reads it, before I am required to dive back in and re-write based on his feelings about it(it's his life, after all) before the ticking time bomb of all that.....








I can relax into the done-ness of it all.



Done. Done. Done.

Halle-fucking-lujah!


This is today's happiness.

Scaling Down

It's a given that many of us are plagued with self-image issues. weight issues.






It doesn't seem to matter how lean or curvy, almost everyone I know has or has had in the past some kind of judgment about their body.



For me, historically it goes like this: I'm certain I am beyond overweight. I look at pictures from last year or years before that and think: if only I was as slim as I was then. Of course, back then, I was certain that I was beyond overweight and was romanticizing pictures from previous incarnations. And so it goes. In the moment I have had a low success rate of accepting my physical self. However I have been practicing. I have been re-training towards becoming as accepting of myself as I am of others. Seeing myself rather than as not good enough, as pure potential.








And then, a month ago something surprising happened. A friend told me to throw away my scale. MY SCALE. Without a scale, how do I prove to my inner critic that I am succeeding or failing? Without the scale, how can I sabotage a perfectly delightful day?

The thing is, I had been visiting this wise friend and did not have access to a scale. (she threw hers out 26 years ago) And....I felt fabulous.




All week. Every day.

And it became clear to me in a way that I had never fully understood before...that when I was 'trying to lose weight' I'd check myself on the scale to see if it was 'working'. if it was, my crafty inner critic would say ( in the sweetest voice ever) you deserve to celebrate! Dessert! Pasta! Wahoooo! Or conversely, if i stepped up and the scale told me nothing had changed or worse, I'd gained a pound, My nasty inner critic would drag me into the dark abyss of 'what good does it do to try and work out and eat healthy?' This sucks! You deserve some comfort. Dessert! Pasta! Boohooo!

After a week of feeling fabulous and not hearing that stanky-ass critic voice AT ALL, I got home and promptly threw my scale away. A satisfying action in and of itself. But what's more astonishing is that it's been a month now, and I haven't heard that cranky voice AT ALL. A successful eviction, it seems.

I can't prove that anything has changed physically...but everything has changed. You know?

Analyze this

There are two types of people that I’d like you to consider; those who analyze






and those who don’t.







Yes, I’m an analyzer. I prefer the term investigator. Either way, I enjoy thinking about why people do what they do, and why I do what I do.






I know there are lots of people on the planet who don’t analyze things. Maybe they don’t know how. Maybe they just don’t see the point. And I get that, I really do.
I mean, why try to figure out why somebody does something or doesn’t do something?
Or what statistics prove? No matter how much we analyze, in the end we do what we do, period. End of story. Or... maybe beginning of story.






People spend a lot of time trying to figure out 'what it all means'.









And as much as I like me some analyzin', it seems like a waste of time when you could be out there living. Being.
The thing is, people can get stuck in the figuring out, and never actually get out and try.






So, when it comes down to it, even though I enjoy the detective work of analyzing, when all is said and done I prefer to fly by the seat of my pants.





And I practice not caring what other people think about that.







Those people (whoever they are) should be busy living their lives, not analyzing mine, right?

Deep breath while we take a left turn on the subject to:

Flying. Falling.







These are similar yet deeply different experiences.
Falling is such a strange sensation.
It’s something we seek or avoid at all costs.
So many ways to fall:
You fall out of a tree.
You fall in love.
You fall out of favor with someone.
You fall asleep.

When you fall, there is always a landing of some sort.








But when you take a leap of faith, there’s always a chance you won’t make it to your destination.








That you’ll fall and fall into an abyss that you may never recover from.









But the thrill and promise of a true leap of faith can fill you with the kind of adrenaline that emerges only in the extreme moments of your life like when you fall out of a tree or when you fall in love.

Some people never leap. Perhaps the safety or comfort of the life they have with all its disappointments,








is a better bet than what might happen when they push off with their feet into the unknown.







For me, leaping is the only choice.




Even if I land on my ass.