Pale and Proud

My feet are not my only bodily hang up. Allow me to also mention that I'm quite pale.  I've never liked that trait either.  I've been self conscious about it and displeased by it for most of my life. 

When I recently lamented the fact for perhaps the millionth time, my husband said that probably no one else even notices.  Oh, but they do.  Their noticing is exactly why I became so sensitive about it.

Let's start with the middle school boy who followed me most of the way from school to a friend's house chanting "Ghooosst" and making, yes, ghostly moaning sounds.  He noticed, and made something of it in that special pubescent style.  This event made an impression on me to say the least.

Later, when I was about sixteen, I dared to go to a pool in a two-piece bathing suit--a red one even.  A boy I did not know also noticed and made fun of my pale skin.  That was the first and last time I wore a two-piece suit. 

When I was thirty-something, a man who ought to have been old enough to know better commented that my bare legs were blinding him.  By this time, I was over worrying about my paleness and old enough to speak up for myself.  I replied that if they hurt his eyes, then he shouldn't look because that was how God had made me.  That was the end of that.

So yes, people do notice.  There are other, kinder instances that I didn't mention. I'm pale, and I notice it in other people. Albedo draws attention.  If you're not familiar with that word, it's a measure of reflectivity.  I learned it in astronomy.  Planets seemed distant but that concept did not.  

I know that there are steps I could take to quit being pale.  I could try to tan.  I did try when I was a teenager, but "laying out," as we called it in those innocent, pre-sunscreen days, was boring and dicey.  I usually ended up burned instead of tanned, which isn't a hot look either.  I tried a tanning bed once, but I didn't want to spend the money or the time needed to carefully cultivate color, moving gradually from seven minutes to....well, I didn't know my burn limit.  It was way too much work when it was unhealthy anyway. 

Recently someone suggested that I use one of the lotions that gradually darkens the skin.  I already do--one for medium tone skin, at that. The most it's done is take the edge off the glow, which is enough for me. 

Basically, even though I absorbed the message that pale was not cool and suffered bitterly for years from feeling unattractive to others, I've apparently not been so very tortured that I was determined to change the allegedly unacceptable feature, which I have done with other troublesome facets of myself.  (None of them were physical, by the way. I'm noting my priorities now).  I've been aware of this peculiar reluctance within myself for decades:  I may be unhappy because I think that something about me is undesirable to others but that doesn't mean I really want to change it.  What I truly want is to be loved and approved of just as I am.  It's less that I'm bothered by my paleness, than that I'm bothered because other people are bothered by it.

Way back in high school, I read a magazine article that asked the theoretical question "Who would you rather be?"  I believe they had in mind swapping places with someone famous.  It mattered not.  I realized, though it would be years before I used the knowledge to be OK with being myself, that there was no one else I'd rather be. I wanted acceptance not disappearance.  Somewhere under the squishy veneer of people pleasing and abuse toleration, I was already stubbornly, proudly me.  I just didn't know it yet. 

The crucial person from whom I needed acceptance and fondness was actually me.  Life keeps getting better now that I give it and worry less about what other people think. I'd still rather not be pale (objectively speaking, even I don't find purple vein show-through lovely), or have difficult feet and an imposing nose.  I just spend less time focusing on those aspects and more time thinking of fun, challenging, beautiful things to do.  That's a much more profitable investment of energy, for me and everyone in range of my ivory glow. 

Cheap Shoe Wisdom

I have super skinny feet.  Not officially narrow feet, so that I could buy narrow-sized shoes, mind you. No, the bone structure of my sled runners is a normal width.  The problem is that there's not the usual corresponding amount of flesh surrounding those bones. (This oddity is proof that being thin does not solve all one's problems, not even the wardrobe ones.)  Finding shoes that fit properly around my pale, delicate tootsies requires quite a search, or adjustments--like extra holes in straps or insoles or fluffy socks for winter clogs and boots.


My poor feet and equally bony ankles, with troubles enough just being shod, have also suffered denigration from their caretaker for their troubles. I have long envied other people their cute, plump little feet that fill out shoes and balance chunky soles rather than appreciating or just accepting my own. I've learned better now though.  I try to hold my body in compassionate regard, because I still have one that works.  Rather than moan, I finally got round to getting the tool that could solve one problem.  I'm being (a little more) proactive now. I bought a leather hole punch.

Yesterday I did the thing I've been thinking of doing for years to deal with the fit issue:  I got out that leather hole punch that I finally bought and added holes to the straps of some summer sandals.  A greater truth was reinforced while I accomplished that chore.


One pair of cinched up shoes was just bought in order to have that career-worthy basic brown sandal that will see me until fall.  The other pair has been in my closet, and moved twice, for at least three years.  Many times, I've donned outfits that could have been improved by those cute and colorful espadrilles.  Many times, I went less glitzy because they were so loose about the ankle that I couldn't wear them if I would be walking any length of time.  Sunday church was about their only appearance and very few times at that. 

We all know how this goes.  I kept thinking that I really should do something about it but continued doing nothing.  When I lived in Oregon, I had a friend with a leather punch who helped me adapt a belt.  I knew the solution existed, but didn't engage with making it mine.  Most people are guilty of this "I really should..." fog.  It's normal and human.  But I had had enough.  

Here comes the lesson:  By the time I got round to adding holes to the three-year-old cute and sassy shoes, the faux leather was flaking off as I buckled up the newly fitting straps.  Cheap and peeling wasn't the look I was thinking of all those years.  Figures. That's what I get for having such a long equation between instinct and action.  That's what happens when I procrastinate.

OK.  Sometimes things work out just fine when I drag my ill shod feet.  And I'm not castigating myself for my utter humanity.  I'm getting out of that business; it has brought me nothing but misery.  This is just a reminder that I could have been enjoying those fun shoes for the last three years instead of only thinking about them. I could have worn off the top layer of the straps, instead of letting them dry rot in my closet.

There are many other things floating around my head that could be enjoyed instead of pondered, too.  I'm on a mission to act on them at least as much as I think about them because that's how life changes.  Action is what life rewards. Action makes life finer.


Of course, the lesson could also be to not buy cheap, faux leather shoes, but I'm looking for greater truth here. So, the lesson stands.  I'll employ whatever soul boosting and thought managing techniques can help me move into glorious, unblocked doing.  I'll have better shoes and a better life that way, with projects done (Bought supplies for one yesterday!), poems written, skills learned, and goodies baked. I won't get everything done--there's no such thing--but I'll get more done.  And not to check off accomplishments out of fear but to add enjoyment to life.  That's the best reason not to procrastinate.

Surprised by Fireflies

Last Sunday evening we stepped out onto our deck to watch the fireflies for a few moments before going up to bed.  They are a summer treat not to be missed, the earth's luminous exhale. 

Before we could settle into watching the lazy light show, our attention was captured by bats, three of them swooping and circling repeatedly overhead, close enough to see the leathery texture of their wings.  Usually I see them when it's already dark, glimpsed very briefly in the glare of a streetlight or the wan glow of the moon.  This time there was still enough light to really watch them and marvel at their sightless flight.


Eventually, with the light lowering, we turned our eyes back to the lawn below to savor the fireflies.  But that's not where most of them seemed to be.  Instead, the tree line that edges our property on two sides was filled with the dear bugs, twinkling like Christmas lights.  We've never even seen them in the trees before, and here was a display to rivet us until dark had fully fallen.  


I wondered how many of them there were.  Surely hundreds at the very least would be required to fill the crowns of well over a dozen trees.  To think that we are surrounded unknowingly by insects in unimaginable numbers all the time!  To think that humble bugs can do something so beautiful!  I teared up just a little and felt such utter joy.  What a great way to end the day.


In the mornings after I wrote this:


Surprised by fireflies

My worries dart and swoop like bats,
indistinct in low light,
sieving the air for
bugs in the system.
They hiss in the hand.
Do they also perform a function--
balancing populations, say--
or are they only stuck 
in the dark hunt?


Suddenly the invisible crowd
displays itself in twinkling splendor.
Tiny paparazzi in the trees
bear witness to magic.
We stop and marvel.
Any dusk with such a show
is a holiday--Full Life Day,
all of us glowing together. 


I want to be with the fireflies, 
lighting up the treeline like Christmas in June.
Nobody told them there's
no holiday tonight,
just the perfect cool of evening
falling gently on my shoulders,
the soft quiet of a summer's dusk, 
the magic of contentment.

Oh, we are wrong dear insects. 
Twinkle on--I choose you. 
My memory is your jar.

The Heart of the Experience

 
I've been thinking for a few days now about what kinds of writing are or could be fun, allowing the idea to bloop along like the coffee in the old TV commercial of my childhood days--or maybe like the original meaning of that term, to filter through or spread gradually, like rain water seeping through the earth, changing its nature into something that can support growth. I've been watching and noticing what parts of the process I actually enjoy.  To riff off Robin Williams: "Fun. You're soaking in it." 

One writing form that has always been enjoyable is journaling.  That's an easy one, after all.  It's just for me, private and safe.  I have especial fun with it since discovering Julia Cameron's morning pages idea years ago.  I ramble, rant, and wonder.  I disregard grammar and spelling.  Well, never spelling, but I do feel free to let conciousness flow from mind to pen.  It feels rather like opening up the box of myself to see what's inside.  I may live as me, but I still find surprises in there.  It also unburdens me of negative feelings or captures positive ones. It is a life-righting tool that I have returned to again and again.  As I sip my morning tea and scribble, I'm havin' me some fun.  I savor it every day, especially when a poem pops out.


Ah, and there's the other kind of writing I find fun, now that I no longer believe that I cannot leave the page until it's done and perfect.  But I'm not really judging the experience as it happens.  I let emerge whatever comes after the warm up of my morning pages.  The really fun part is reading it later and liking it!  A phrase or word pair that catches me with a little "Ooh!" of pleasure causes me a happy moment indeed.  There is such rightness in an apt description, in pegging the exact feeling of a moment into just the words to recall it to myself or in making a connection between things and/or feelings.  I feel as if I've captured something of the amazement and beauty, or the pathos and struggle, of life as I know it. That distillation is what I believe to be the essence and appeal of poetry.  Hitting that mark, even if only in my own opinion, is indeed fun.  
 
These little essays used to be fun, now that I think about it.  In much the same way as a relationship that ended badly gets remembered that way, I forgot that in the naive beginning I did have fun catching ideas for them and crafting them. I enjoyed the grown-up pretend of feeling like a writer and seeing my words in print somewhere.  Sometimes, I must confess,  I re-read what I've written just for, yes, fun.  Why, I can construct a decent sentence!  Holy cow, that post didn't stink!  To like what I've written is mighty good fun.


Therein lies the secret I think.  Somewhere I stopped writing here for fun and started feeling that I should be making this blog into something, as in something marketable.  I began to compare myself to highly successful bloggers and hope that I could be discovered, become successful like them, settle my destiny.  Ms. Cameron is right.  That's a lot of freight to place on any relationship that I hope to last.  
 
Years ago, a baseball coach told my son something that I've never forgotten.  He said "Comparison is the source of all misery."  That's a pretty broad statement, but he may be right.  When I'm doing anything with an inner focus or for the joy of it, as if there is no comparison or judgment, it is fun.  When I'm trying too hard or expecting too much, it isn't fun any more.  There may be times when judgment and striving are necessary, but I can't dwell on them without becoming blocked and bitter.


I would do better to remember the following:  Writing something that I find moving rocks; writing like there's no tomorrow rolls.  Writing my truth soothes; trying too hard sucks. Also, I'm too old now to waste much time on anything that does not serve me, as they say in the yoga world.  If writing is something that I can't help but return to, like my yoga practice, then I must drop all comparison and striving, and savor it as one of my passions.


I can try from now on to let fun be not the stray moment that pierces the fog, but the heart of the experience of writing.  As in any good  love relationship, every moment won't be passionate and swept away with bliss, but they can be warm and committed and satisfying.

The Point of It All

To support my return to writing, I picked up a book by creativity guru Julia Cameron at my local library.  One of the early exercises in The Right to Write posed a question that was a small mind grenade for me.  The question was:  What types of writing would you do just for fun?

I still have my metaphorical mouth agape over that question.  I'm still having to let it echo and percolate.  I'm still not sure of the answer.  Heck, I can't get past the question.

Fun?   FUN?!

In all the years of my life that I've scribbled in journals and squeezed out poems and even tried to write this blog, I'm not sure I've had much fun.  A little here and there, but that was not, in my mind, what is was all about.  Destiny and compulsion maybe.  Catharsis sure.  But fun?  No, it never occurred to me to make fun the point of it all, at all. 

That seems a little crazy now. I've learned belatedly that seeing how much delight one can add to a task, however necessary, like playing swing music while washing dishes, makes everything go much more happily and productively. I've mostly succeeded in giving up the grim dutifulness that led me to heart-palpitating exhaustion.  I've seen the wisdom in seeking a holy kind of delight in ordinary life, which is of course much easier if I'm following my true calling.  But writing?  I've found it unavoidable, necessary, and insistently beckoning, but not flat out fun.  It was something I had to do, not something I couldn't wait to do.  The old tortured artist routine, I guess.


That's what Julia says is the problem: We put too much freight on something that we should be doing for love and loving the doing of.  We succumb to fallacies ("I need a bolt of free time." Or "I must write well." Or yes, "Art requires torture.") that drain the cheeriness right out of it.  We impose lofty goals on our writing instead of just showing up eagerly every day.


Maybe I have classically failed to approach this alleged love of mine with the proper rose colored glasses, and a little jolt will open my eyes to the possibility of just enjoying each other.  I hope that's my only failing.  I'd love to enjoy this thing that seems to need doing in my life.  If I can find some pleasure in bookkeeping, surely I could enjoy writing, especially since it's supposed to be for me, not a job assigned by someone else.


I wonder if I think I want to write because it's just another layer of trying to prove myself worthy in my own eyes.  The people I admire most are artists and creative types.  Am I trying to be one so that I'll feel as if I'm the kind of person that I think I "should" be?


Sometimes we don't want what we think we want or need what we think we need.  Alcoholics, addicts, and over eaters know about this phenomenon.  They may think they want a drink, a hit, or a brownie, but what they really want might be a loving feeling or a sense of self worth.


One day I was pestered by thoughts of a dress that I didn't buy.  When I investigated my feelings more closely, I realized that the core craving was really for beauty.  After that realization, I no longer worried about the dress that got away.  There are many routes to beauty, and I found another way that day to make some without a new dress.  I was satisfied when I got what I really wanted, not what I thought I wanted.

So, do I really want to write?  Do I really enjoy the process of writing?  Or do I want to bare my soul in the hope of outside approval and smashing success?  

If the answer to the first question is yes, than by God I want to enjoy it.  I want to sit down at my computer and write out of the overflow and delight of my heart, which is the most honest and infectious reason to do anything. If the answer to the second question is yes, than I already know that I can give myself the approval I need.  I will not write if I'm only using writing.  It's got to be real.  Relationships of any kind should be based on healthy desires not usurious need.


For several months, while I haven't been writing, I've found myself missing a creative outlet.  I wanted a puttering passion to anticipate with uncomplicated eagerness.  I wanted a hobby in the best sense of the word, an activity that I could enjoy and yet find fruitful.  I wanted to dust my hands off after a good tinkering-about time, relishing output without pressure.  Frankly, I wanted play with dividends.  


Why in heaven's name did I not treat my writing that way?  Because there has always been too much torture about being good or discovered, and too little freedom to play, trust my instincts, be unabashedly me. This has got to stop.


The blockage and misinterpretation, I mean.  Not the writing.  Unless I'm really not doing this for love.  I'll be considering the question further.  If I don't start having mostly fun pronto, I'll know what to do, and the tiny portion of the world that sees these words will no longer have to suffer them.  If I can start making this a dance, then I intend to enjoy every word, even if no one else does.

I Know Why I'm Here

Now that I'm back, let's get caught up.  Fix yourself a cup of tea and let me tell you why I'm here.  No, not the BIG PICTURE version.  Not yet. Why I'm here in this little barn and not on the farm that I thought was my destination. 

It took me a year and a half, but I figured out an answer for myself.  We all have the power and freedom to believe whatever we want, and I believe that I was put here in this place on purpose.  The point became to determine the purpose.  I've found two, actually.


One reason that a parental God might put me here would be to help cure me of my perfectionism.  Almost every wall of this charming home is salvaged barn siding, grooved and faded, with strap hinge shadows and nail tear stains in places.  As for the floors, the wide pine boards downstairs are a bit pre-distressed and too soft to prevent further damage; the stair's historic treads were reassembled with their raw sides up; and, as I long ago mentioned, the floor in our bedroom is composed of highly improper top nailed lumber that still wears grade stamps here and there. The kitchen and bath cabinets were hand built; they are neither standard nor elegant. I could go on.

Basically, the woman whose huge desire has always been to have a beautiful, gracious home was practically shoved by divine guidance into what used to be an outbuilding, for Pete's sake!  Now, though, it's a showplace of imperfection--quirky, charming, lovely imperfection.  It's just what I needed.  When there's no possibility that a wall could ever be smooth, I don't have to try or fault myself for not doing so.  It has so much rough character that it's a vacation for my perfectionism tick and a lesson in letting go--with beautiful, low effort results.  I can surrender the standards I wasn't meeting anyway, enjoy my home more, and still have people say that they love my house. Thanks, God!

The other reason to stick me here in this barn in a small town with little job opportunities is to make me lie fallow.  There was an essential question that I needed to answer, and I needed to be quiet enough to hear it.  I needed to have the busyness by which we usually define our lives stripped away in order to heal from overwork and come to understand--nay, decide to believe--that I'm worthy, whether I'm doing great things or not. I'm good enough just because I am, with nothing to prove, no race to win, and no grade report.  I could finally quit trying so hard and just be. About the time I settled that question, I got the job that I'm loving, even though I could never have seen it coming.  

Also, this spot on the map happens to be the town between where my sweet husband works and the town where I now work.  It all comes together if we just go when we're stage-nudged and let the plan show itself later. You know, after all the wailing and impatience are over. Double thanks, God!


Some people would say that things just turned out like this by chance.  They could be right, but it didn't feel that way.  The desire, tingling excitement, and coincidences that have led us this far had such an imperative about them.  I don't mean the shallow yearnings that I've felt for a new pair of shoes, although the soul might need those occasionally, too.  I mean the huge, quivering, gut-level YESes that you can't deny. Or the nagging longings that persist and insist until you have to shut them up or live in constant torture.  Which is why I'm back here again, on the cyber page.  I believe in an inner life, and I'm trying to live it, rather than just watching it. 

Not that it's easy to be truly oneself.  Like I said, it would be so much easier to be ungraced by creative urges--way less messy and challenging.  But aren't the best things in life messy and challenging?  Love, family, education, and more cause us to thump our heads and stretch and grow.  And it's all worth it.

The uncertainty and confusion have all indeed been worth it to be here now, in my conveniently located, bargain Country Living home enjoying self-worth for the first continuous time in my life.  Who knows where we go next.  I still believe that there's a farm out there somewhere for us.  I check the real estate listings every Saturday.  Until the next attack of the tingly leadings, I'm grateful for this cozy detour with meaning.
 

It Will Be Mine

Last September, I eked out a sad post on a particularly bad night and fell back into silence.  In November, I tried to follow up with some kind of explanation/return attempt.  I gave up and quite forgot about it.  A few days ago I suddenly remembered  that I had an unpublished post sitting here and read it.  It's honest and possibly just as pathetic, but I still liked it.  Mostly because I like myself these days.  I'm kinder to my mind's offspring.  I allowed it to stand, and it appears below, after which I hope to continue the story because I must.  
 ::

My last post was pathetic, even to me. Pathetic has been sneaking in for a while now, in absences and mentions.  That night in...was it really September?...revealed it in all its  inglorious nakedness.  But I really was trying to get at truth.  I still am.

The truth is that I began this blog in utter naivete and somewhere lost my first-grade pride in just doing it, succumbing instead to frustrations, outsize hopes, and wasteful envy. I've been frustrated by my lack of progress in photography skills, which was compounded by my perfectionistic desire to have my blog be as beautiful as others I see.  And successful.  Don't forget that.  Hordes of followers, droves of commenters.  I found myself wanting it all.  And that's a lousy reason to do anything.  It smacks of high school approval seeking.  I really wanted to be past that.  Apparently I'm not.

I first dried up after we fell in love with and moved into our barn/house.  I had begun writing with a story line of townies moving to their country dream life.  I blathered on about house and farm plans, trumpeted big schemes---and veered away from all that, without really understanding why (although I do now--more about that later).  I felt sheepish, a little afraid that readers would think negatively of me.  As if it matters.  I have to live my own life, and a blog is, by its very nature, the personal prerogative of the author.  The discomfort was probably entirely my own, but it dented my enjoyment.

Then there was that frustration with photography.  I have not advanced in the mastery of light or of the camera I have.  It just hasn't happened.  That took some of the fun out of this thing, too.

Reading other blogs didn't help either. They're beautiful and/or well written and reminded me that mine was not either.  It all became an exercise in flagellation and envy, leaking through the seams of my posts and finally landing with a thud in the last one.  I was trying to get down to truth in the hope that something good would come of it.  Instead, the pathos ante was upped embarrassingly.

But I still believe in personal truth.  There are moments when it works very well to state honestly and openly what is true for me at the moment ("I'm feeling really awkward right now" etc.), paving the way for honesty in return and usually relief all round. 

So...I'm feeling really awkward right now.  Even this isn't going well.  And now it's time to go to bed and focus on the fact that I have a new job.  Go with what's working and move on.  I don't have to do everything well.  That includes this blog. 

::

I can't say that I'm proud of this post, but I own it.  I'm human, and here I am being publicly so.  The things that we're truly meant to do, the activities that define us, will not leave us alone until we do them.  Eventually, we have no choice but to follow instructions or live in torture.  Desire nags like a mother.  No, like a whiny, insistent child.

My husband has a similar struggle.  Creativity is hard.  It would be so much easier to work our good jobs, watch a little TV after dinner (if we had TV), and go to bed.  But we can't.  It always seems that there's something missing if we're not doing something creative. 

So we have made a new year pact at mid year.  Starting today, we will return to our creative endeavors regularly and intentionally.  It feels a bit like I'm climbing back onto the wagon---again--but I take that risk.  Making life a finer thing is not without risk and hard knocks and effort.  And I am no quitter.

I don't know what this blog will be now.  But it will be, and it will be mine.