Self

Arriving at Woodthrush Woods

By / June 12, 2013

We pulled onto the long driveway at 2:30 am. Darkness filled the spaces between the trees an the headlights only illuminated a few feet ahead of us on the pavement. Yet some part of my brain rejoiced. Ah yes. This place. This is a really good place. So we drove up the pavement where I ran laps last fall. We pulled up to the house and I knew what I would find inside. I knew the paths through the woods to the creek, though walking them would need to wait for daylight. The peace of this place spoke to me again.

When I came to Woodthrush Woods last fall, I hoped to write, to see cardinals, and to see fireflies. Instead I laid the groundwork for later writing, there were no fireflies, and I spied one lone cardinal. That flying red bird was like a promise, things will be better though they’re stressful now. I believed that bird and took the memory of it home with me. Since I pulled myself out of bed this morning, I’ve seen three cardinals. They flicker bright red through the trees. I’m told that fireflies are everywhere in the evening. My visit here feels like a pattern completed, like I had to come back to complete things that I only began last September.

My first day here has been full of organizational tasks. That is my role, to facilitate everything else that goes on. Yet I took ten minutes to walk the loop through the forest to the creek and back. I wanted to feel the springtime forest, full of growth and compare it to my memory of the fall forest, which was settling in for the winter. It was a quick glance. I’ll wander and think again later, perhaps in the evening when I might spy fireflies.

This is a good place and I’m going to have a good visit.

Waiting

By / June 12, 2013

My flight was delayed, and delayed again, and thrice delayed. The first two delays came before I left for the airport, so I waited an extra two hours at home. It was a strange mental space that waiting. I’d already settled the kids for my absence. It would have made sense to use the time for extra work, but I had packed away all of my work thoughts. They were folded neatly to wait until I returned from my trip. I did not want to open them up. It would have made sense to begin unfolding my writer thoughts, to start musing on story elements and what I would write during the retreat. Yet somehow my brain would not do that either. It was as if that cupboard had a time release lock which would not open until after I had boarded the plane. Besides, my laptop was packed already. So I waited, opening myself to the sensation of waiting, pondering those Dr. Seuss verses about The Waiting Place, and swinging in a hammock, because hammocks invite one to be present in now rather than rushing toward something else. Eventually I opened the book which was supposed to be my in-flight reading. I read while I waited.

Life frequently offers us pauses, places of waiting because we can’t move forward in the ways that we want or expect. I do not like them, they feel like time wasted. I get grouchy when I have to wait for my computer to restart, or the light to change, or someone to respond to a query, let alone an additional three hour wait to board a plane. These imposed waits feel like time stolen from me. I had to wait hours until the airline was prepared to take me to my destination. Even boarding the plane was the end of one wait only to begin another one. I thought about waiting as I drove to the airport, because I expected eight hours of traveling and during most of it my job was to wait patiently. I wished that I could skip the travels and just arrive. But then I remembered my last retreat and the way that the journey quieted my thoughts, slowed me down, and let me begin to shift my thinking into a different gear. Sometimes an imposed wait can be a gift, though often I don’t see that gift until later when I see the fruits of it. Waiting changes me, particularly when I accept and embrace it.

I could spend all my life rushing toward destinations and being frustrated by everything in between. Instead I need to remember the times spent swinging gently in a hammock swing, when waiting becomes its own reward.

Something So Small Shouldn’t Require Courage

By / May 14, 2013 / 4 Comments

Strange that the simple click of a button takes fifteen minutes to accomplish. I’d already gone through all the steps to select a flight, debating about convenience and cost, arguing with myself about whether I should go at all. It is a luxury to be able to go. I know this. The writing retreat will be fine without me. I am not needed there. In contrast I will be missed every single day at home. Yet, the kids are anticipating what I’ve arranged for them while I am gone. They’ll miss me, but they won’t be uncomfortable, neglected, or bereft. All the pieces were in place. All the players had agreed that this was the right action. Except some deep part of me wanted to abort, call the whole thing off, stay safe at home. Ah. The pause before clicking is not about logic, it is fear. I am afraid because the last retreat was difficult, because this one has unknowns, because my brain can fabricate worlds of what-if flavored regrets. If I let fear determine my actions my life will grow ever smaller. I will become smaller. I clicked.

Unpacking Thoughts upon Arriving Home from Vacation

By / April 4, 2013 / 1 Comment

We’ve returned from vacation. Usually this means I am filled with renewed energy and focus. The first few days after a vacation tend to be the sort where I get a million things done and don’t feel tired. I want that. I want to throw myself whole heartedly into work projects and emerge from next week with all of them done. I love weeks like that. The trouble is the “whole hearted” part. I’m not sure I’ll have a whole heart this week. We’re still in the first steps of finding solutions for Gleek and each step in this process has taken a huge emotional toll for me. I think about that sometimes, not being sure whether the path we’re walking is actually difficult or if I’m over reacting. There are reasons to want both of those answers, but I’m not going to spin down that rabbit hole today. Instead I’m going to acknowledge the rabbit hole is there and understand that I’m trying to avoid several more just like it, which could explain why my arrival home did not immediately trigger a burst of happy-to-be-home energy.

I have lots of work lined up for next week. They are the sort of projects which invigorate me and that I enjoy completing. I’ve got copy edits to enter, layout tweaks for Body Politic, a quick Hugo packet layout to do for Random Access Memorabilia, the CobbleStones 2012 edits are due to come back, and there is lots of planning to do for the upcoming challenge coin shipping project. Current count is 30,000 coins to ship in over 3000 packages. It will be the largest shipping we have ever done. These things are exciting. They are interesting. I want to switch into high gear and dive into the work. I’m going to try, even though a large part of me is afraid that my work focus will be interrupted by calls from the school. I already know that I’m going on a field trip next Tuesday and have appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. I want a calm, focused, work week. Next week is not likely to be that week. I’m going to work anyway because the work needs to be done and deadlines loom.

A month from now things will have settled. We’ll be settled into the work of using therapy to change family patterns and to help Gleek restructure her thinking. Things will be more stable. I still mourn for the lost peace of this past month, for the work week I’m not likely to get next week, for the writing I’ve not done, for the little happy stories which slide past me un-noticed because my mind is occupied. To tell happy stories while I feel emotional chaos feels false, but to tell only the stressful things also is false. All of it is mixed up together and when I’m not sure what to say, I default to silence.

We’ve just returned from our annual four day vacation. It was the fourth such family vacation we’ve had and the first in which Howard was truly relaxed. This was our third year renting a condo in Moab and possibly the last because next year Kiki will be in college and we have yet to figure out whether “family vacation” means adjusting things so she can come or if it means those living under our roof. At some point she becomes a separate entity and household, but none of us knows yet when that will occur. We may change our vacation to be closer to Kiki’s chosen college, or we may change the timing. It has been lovely these past three years to have a familiar place to go. We’ll definitely return there again, even if not next year. My list of things I want to see in southern Utah keeps getting longer. These past three years I have learned to love red rocks and sharp blue sky. I’ve learned the textures of the desert. I’ve sat beside the condo swimming pool as my kids play and I look at the side of the mesa reaching skyward beside us. We’ve caught frogs and minnows in the pond and watched bats spin around the street lamp at night.

I list all of that and realize I am renewed. I have a challenging week ahead, but I think I can do this.

Things I Can’t Carry

By / March 10, 2013

Last week in a post I titled tilting I wrote of many beloved people for whom I pray, but I did not say exactly how I pray, and the method is important. The problems are bigger than I can fix and, for at least some of the people, the struggles are part of a necessary growth process. I can’t plead for that to be taken away, because they need to grow. I want them to grow, yet it is hard to only be able to stand by and watch. So my prayers this week were lists of things that I am putting into God’s hands. “Please carry this because I can’t.” is the gist of most of my prayers this week. And He has. He has carried the things, carried me, sent friends to serve me, sent me to serve friends, and generally provided a sense of calm progress through all of the things. I really do mean all, because there was an unending stream of thing after thing after thing, every single day, all week long. It was always some little hurdle at the end of the day that tipped me into tears. I would cry a bit and then He would show me what to do next and onward we would go.

The capstone of the week was Howard’s hard drive failing. This is the sort of event that usually would tip me into a swirl of fear that our livelihood would be destroyed by the failure of one piece of hardware, which is ridiculous. The emotional blow was real though. Howard lost some data which will be time consuming or difficult to replace. Instead of fear, I felt completely calm and strove to help Howard think through options and solutions. Computer recovery will spill into next week as will many of the other things. It will all be fine. The big things are all necessary and the rest is just the ordinary frustrations and tasks which accompany life. I move onward, carrying what I can and handing over what I can’t.

Finding Levers to Remove Anxiety and Depression

By / April 21, 2014 / 2 Comments

When I had my first panic attack it was an extraordinary event. I choose that word carefully, because anxiety manifesting as body panic was an event outside my usual experience, thus: extra ordinary. Unfortunately it was an experience that lacked any of the positive traits that the word extraordinary usually implies. There was nothing fun or exciting about it. All I knew for sure was that my body was behaving in an alarming fashion. My heart raced and beat irregularly; my breathing constricted; I was cold; and I could not stop my hands from shaking. I knew that something was wrong, so I saw a doctor who found nothing in the physical data to explain my experiences. He suggested stress. I remember him suggesting it, but the suggestion rolled right off of me only to be remembered months later after I had already figured out that anxiety was the problem. I found ways to de-stress my life and the anxiety went away. Mostly. Until it came back and I realized that I had to address it instead of trying to ignore it out of existence.

It is easier somehow with an extraordinary event, some thing we can point at and say “That is outside of usual bounds.” But most mental illness does not manifest suddenly and dramatically. It creeps in, becomes part of the fabric of life, erodes what we consider normal. I saw this with my anxiety. After entering with a bang, I adapted to it, got so used to it that I hardly even noticed it anymore. “I’m better now.” I’d say, while adjusting my schedule to give myself extra space. If pressed, I would acknowlede that if it ever again got as bad as that original onslaught, then I’d have to do something. I wonder now why I did not take that lull as a chance to dig in and find ways to heal. Truly heal. As I’m trying to do now in the wake of the second extraordinary onslaught. I’m a year and a half into that healing process and I’ve still got terrain to cover.

Howard’s periodic depression has been part of the patterns of our lives ever since I first met him. We built our lives around it, planned for it, explained it in a dozen different ways. “Everyone has good and bad days” I assured both him and myself. Eight months ago Howard began to call out his depression for what it is. He started recognizing it as a thing to be faced and changed. The more he called it out, the more we saw it, and we had to wonder had it gotten worse or were we just noticing instead of ignoring? We spoke with our regular physician and got on the waiting list for a psychiatrist. Howard has been amazing through this process. I’ve watched him spectate and analyze as he carefully deconstructs his old coping mechanisms. We’re beginning to build new ones and I am very happy to see him healthier in both mind and body. It takes amazing courage to look at a long standing pattern and choose to change it, particularly if there is no extraordinary event to spur the change.

I think Howard’s courage is what lets me be so calm as I look at my daughter Gleek and see the patterns around her. Just as our family structure has been built around his depression, it has also bent around Gleek’s intensity. Her ADHD was diagnosed years ago and treatment helped, but more is needed. Over the last two weeks her anxiety both at home and at school has pushed out of the ordinary. Her teacher has noticed, the school psychologist has noticed, and my own observations concur. She needs something different, more than I can fix by making sure she eats well and exercises; more than me helping track her homework, buying her books on stress management, more than yoga sessions, a sand garden, and long rambling talks at bedtime where I help her sort through her thoughts. As I type this list and it gets longer, I see how very hard we’ve been working to give her good coping strategies. And it has worked. Gleek is amazing. She is able to spectate and analyze with a maturity beyond her twelve years. Her innate strength lets her keep it together and choose the least destructive coping mechanisms when the anxiety strikes. After all of that, she still needs something more, something different. I’ve scheduled a full evaluation for her. We’ll be re-visiting the ADHD diagnosis and considering possible treatments and therapy for anxiety.

One of the hardest parts about mental illness is that it all takes place inside the brain. It is tempting to believe that we can just think our way out through willpower and motivation, but this is like trying to move a rock with your bare hands. You can do it if the rock is small, but sometimes it is a boulder sunk deep into the ground. Then willpower and motivation must be applied to a lever, for example: a treatment plan formed with the advice of psychological experts. The first step to finding the right lever to remove your rock is being willing to admit that this rock is in your way, that it needs to be moved, and that you probably can’t move it by yourself. The lever you need may be a lifestyle shift, medication, therapy, service to others, restructuring relationships, or seeking healing through faith. Finding which life changes you need–and applying those changes–requires great motivation and willpower. The answers are as individual as the people seeking them.

My family has some rocks we’ve been walking around for a long time and I’d love to take a jack hammer to them, but I’ll settle for some good levers and a solid team willing to help. Now is a good time to get started.

Friends When Needed

By / March 8, 2013

Two days ago I wrote about people you need in your parenting village, but it is not only parents who need villages. In the past week I have been greatly blessed–more than once–to be brought into contact with exactly the person I needed, even when I didn’t know I needed them.

I saw her from a distance in Sam’s Club. She was a long-time friend with whom I have very infrequent contact. I almost said nothing. She had not seen me. I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, in fact I was feeling the opposite of social. My head was full of things and I wanted to think them all through. But her name flew out of my mouth and she turned to me with a smile. Within three sentences our conversation dove straight past chatting and directly into the heart of our lives. Her current struggles mirrored mine. We stood in the aisle at Sam’s Club for forty minutes and when we parted we both felt lighter.

The letter arrived in a pile of bills and I opened it last, because I like to savor the best bits. The friend who wrote it to me had no way to know exactly what my week had been like, but her words brought tears to my eyes and helped me on a hard day.

It should be easy to call my friend and say “I need to talk” but somehow that call is difficult to make when I know for certain that talking will lead to crying. Instead I emailed and scheduled a brunch get together, warning her that I intended to unload piles of thoughts. She cheerfully told me that it was a wonderful idea. So we met. And we talked. And we took turns crying. But there was less crying than I expected and more laughing. I returned home feeling lighter.

This time there were two letters nestled among the bills. The last responses from my Month of Letters missives. I’d abandoned sending daily mail sometime toward the end of February when everything got to be a bit too much. But these two friends wrote back to me. I opened the letters and read, happy to hear how they are doing, and to hear the answers to questions I asked in my own letters.

I stood at my kitchen sink, pondering my day, when I felt I should call one of my friends. Our friendship was built on in-person visits. We weren’t really phone call people, but I looked at the clock and knew I had half an hour before it was time to pick up kids from school. It was exactly enough time for this call. I knew it without knowing how I knew. So I called. And she needed to talk, even though before my call she hadn’t quite realized she needed to talk to me. Our conversation wound down after about twenty five minutes and we said goodbye. I hung up the phone feeling lighter because I’d gotten so many answers lately and it was nice to be the answer someone else needed.

Six conversations with six different women, all of whom made my life a better place this week. I am so very grateful for my village.

On Being Over Burdened

By / February 24, 2013 / 3 Comments

I sit in church with my journal open on my lap, writing the thoughts that come into my head. The page fills up with things done and things yet to do. The pieces of my life tumble out and I try to put them into order on the page. I begin to plan the week to come, surely this is a good use of my Sabbath contemplation time. I shuffle the pieces and assign them to days, half listening to the speaker at the pulpit.

My pen pauses in its track on the page. Where do faith and peace fit into this schedule I’m creating? Where are the spaces for contemplation and inspiration? Mine is not the only plan for this week. My Father in Heaven sees more hearts than I can. He knows when I am needed to solve a problem for another person. Yet I have constructed a schedule with all the hours defended and assigned. I erect barricades to prevent anything else from adding to the load that I already carry. No. I can’t do that. I’m too busy. And thus I shut out not just people who carelessly ask me to expend my energy on unimportant things, but also God whose errands are always worthwhile.

I look at my neatly arrayed task list and know that I need to be open to inspiration as I sort my plans for the week. I need to be prepared for my plans to change at a moment’s notice. I tap my pen next to the first item. Does it really matter? Is this thing I intend to assign myself really important? Does it serve a larger goal. My pen pauses for a moment and I reach for answers. Yes. It stays. My pen points to the next item and pauses. No. It is busy work. I cross it off. Pause by pause down my list.

My life is over full. I have more things to do that I should reasonably be able to manage. When I am done with checking my items, I add a few more. They are things which I feel should be added to my long list. As I do a calm confidence fills me. When I over burden myself, I struggle with my load. When I am open, when I take on additional burden because it is right and needed, then I am also granted the capacity to carry that burden. The new burdens, and all the others I accumulated for myself, are made light. I face the week with hope and joy rather than worry and stress.

At Saturday’s End

By / February 23, 2013

The wind blows snow everywhere today. I see it misting off of rooftops as I drive past. Then the gray of the sky grows darker and more snow falls so that in the next cloud clearing the wind will have more to send flying sideways across roads and fields. I watch the snow, interested in the combinations of wind and water. Deep inside me there is a sense of waiting, part of my heart is hibernating, laying in wait for the world to warm and flowers to begin blooming. Some years we have crocus by now. This year we have wind blown snow.

The dryer buzzes, it is time for me to pull warm clothes from it and feed it the next pile of wet. That buzz has accompanied my day as I try to catch up on a multitude of tasks that were left languishing in the past two weeks. Our fridge is fully stocked because I finally made a list before going to the store instead of making a harried dash for things we’d run out of. The boxes of books and convention supplies have migrated out of our front room and down to my office. Soon I will find energy to disperse them into the storage room where they belong. All the merchandise unpacked and waiting to be organized into orders from customers, or perhaps to be re-boxed and shipped off to conventions. The spaces in my house are beginning to emerge out from under the things that were stacked in them.

I should be putting the kids to bed now. To be honest, I should have begun that process over an hour ago, but at the end of the day I have little energy left for making things happen, even things I know will make life better tomorrow. Once we go to bed Saturday will be over. I need another Saturday to finish all the organizing and putting away. Instead time marches onward into Sunday. I like Sunday, having a Sabbath for resting fills my soul. Yet beyond it I can see the edge of Monday and I know that work is waiting for me there. I like my work, but there was such an onslaught of it last week that I would like a little more time before getting back to it. I just want a bit of a pause. I wish I could sit in my hammock swing surrounded by the greenness of my garden, but all is white and bleak out there. Instead I’ll take a few last breaths of scent from my fading hyacinths. Then I’ll go downstairs and declare bedtime.

After LTUE 2013 is Complete

By / February 17, 2013 / 2 Comments

The extent of my post-convention fatigue became apparent when I crouched down with a scoop of kibble to pour into the cat’s bowl. She was standing nearby, very intent on being there the moment the food hit the bowl, except I began to lose my balance. It was a slight bobble, the sort I usually correct without even noticing, but I couldn’t. I teetered and the cat startled, spinning to face me with wide eyes as her feet tried to bolt in three directions at once. I think it was the skitter noise of her claws on the hardwood floor that really undid me. I began to laugh. The laughing absorbed all of my remaining energy and balance abandoned me completely. A slow crumple landed me on the floor, head leaning on a nearby stool, my knees surrounded by all the food that had fallen when my limp fingers released the scoop. It was not that funny. I knew it wasn’t and that was part of the reason I could not stop laughing. I laughed because I was too tired to stand up again, because the cat sported a tail like a bottle brush, because kibble was everywhere, because it was so ridiculous for me to be laughing this much, because my children had accumulated in a hovering crowd wondering what on earth was wrong with their mother.

“Mom? Are you laughing or crying? Are you okay?” They asked.
Yes. I was both laughing and crying. Everything was fine, but I really needed to curl up into a ball until the twitching tension in my body calmed. I’d spent three really good days, filled to over flowing with good things. I’d just reached complete overload and required a complete system shutdown so that I could reboot and function again.

One of the greatest gifts given to me during this LTUE was parceled out in tiny pieces over all three days: I have a professional identity separate from Howard’s. It used to be that I was the business arm of Schlock Mercenary, Howard’s handler and support. It is an accurate description, because I do those things. I like being an integral part of Schlock. Yet I also wanted to be myself with my own things. It sometimes got frustrating to only ever be relevant as an appendage. “And this is Sandra who makes things run for Howard.” In the past three days I was only introduced that way once. All of the other times people mentioned my blog, my picture book, or my presentations. They might also mention my work for Schlock, but it became part of the picture rather than the whole of it. I saw it when people came to the table. They would talk to Howard and then they would come have a separate conversation with me because they had things to say about what I’ve created. For the past several years Howard and I have been working together to help me establish a separate professional identity. LTUE let me see that we’ve begun to succeed.

Another joy was setting up Kiki’s artwork on part of one table and having dozens of conversations with people who admired it. Kiki herself was able to have those conversations on Saturday when she sat next to her art and created something new. I love seeing her glow. It was not just the praise, but also the realization that the career she wants is actually possible, that there really are people out there who will buy her work because they love it. She sold three pieces, but the hope she brought home is far more valuable than the money.

I had a presentation and two panels, each of which went really well. I left feeling like there was lots more to discuss, but that we’d covered the truly essential pieces. Enough people came to tell me they enjoyed the presentations for me to know that I was part of something that was valuable to someone else. I also came away with new panel and presentation ideas. I’ll have to update my presentation list.

Then there were the conversations. I spoke with long-time friends who are in hard places right now. I rejoiced with friends who had good news. I joked with the pair of friends who traveled from Hawaii to stay in my house and help us with running our dealer room tables. I met people I’d only known online. I talked with fans who come back year after year to see what is new and who become friends. There were new people just discovering Schlock and my writing. Some came up simply because they’d been in a panel and wanted to talk further about the topic. We talked with long time business partners and new friends who needed advice. Often the conversations were short, like small gifts dropped off to be fully appreciated later. A few of the conversations ran across hours filled with topics both silly and important. Each was a gift of time and connection. I’m still turning them over in my head.

I frequently end up jellyfishing after conventions. I drift through my house like a jellyfish in a current. With the cat food incident I realized I’d pushed beyond drifting fatigue and into a realm of complete blitzed-out incapability. I lay in bed so exhausted and so wound up that I didn’t think sleep would ever come, but unable to muster the usual frustration I feel for insomnia. And it wasn’t insomnia really. Sleep arrived quite quickly, it was just that my body was informing me in no uncertain terms that we really should have rested long ago.

I woke Sunday morning with things still to do. Four children needed to eat breakfast and be herded into church clothes and off to the meetings. Our friends needed to be farewelled because they had a long drive ahead of them. I needed to figure out how to make myself suitably presentable for church while minimizing effort and maximizing comfort. My feet were not at all interested in wearing pretty shoes. Church was followed by a meeting during which I needed to be coherent and organized. I sat in corners at church, not asleep, but definitely conserving energy. After my meeting I came home and slept. This is all part of the convention recovery process. Tomorrow will be a day of re-establishing normal and clearing away the last of the convention thoughts and mess. I have follow up tasks for next week including writing up my presentation notes.

LTUE this year was an exceptionally good experience. I loved the Marriott venue and I hope they’ll make that into a permanent home.