Spirit of the Season

It's New Year's Eve 2016 and the spirit of the season is still in the air.  Venturing out for some special grocery items for my holiday enjoyment, a motorist speeding through the parking lot shouted out of her window after she'd passed me.  I didn't catch all of it, but I did hear something about "right of way" ...on the private property of a grocery store parking lot. *smh*

Counter to the better part of my nature I wordlessly raised a single-fingered salute without eye contact or any other sort of engagement with the obviously riled SUV-driver.  How dare I inconvenience her with my existence!

As I continued on with my shopping I found myself wishing for more inhospitable weather -- folks tend to drive more slowly and not bother with rolling down the window to shout at those pesky pedestrians when there's a blizzard on.  And as I considered the event further I found myself really wishing that the better part of my nature had been in charge, offering up two fingers rather than the single finger that tends to just reflect the same violence directed at me.

I get that we're all in a hurry and want the completion of our errands to go smoothly.  I don't get the need for violent reactions to the inconvenience of slowing one's vehicle to less than 10 mph in a parking lot.  I'd really like to handle minor displays of violence like this with more grace.  I'm not there yet.  I have my better moments; I have my lesser moments.

Back at home, putting away the groceries and wondering at the fullness of my refrigerator, I got to thinking about how much, in terms of grocery items, I'd be carrying into the new year.  And that got me wondering about all the intangible things I'd be carrying into 2017.  Surely that imperfection of mine in responding non-violently to violent gestures would be one of them.  What would be the others?

A Letter To Catherine W.

Dear Catherine W,
I'm excited to write to you...to grant you your wish.

In your writing I could feel how much you are struggling with your situation and your hopes for the future.  I hear your yearning and uncertainty.  The predicament you face is one I know well... What's the next move that's right for me?  Is the smart move even a move at all?  What should I do to help me find what I'm longing for?  Will I ever find it?

These are all big, scary questions, especially tackling them at your age.  I know you probably think that at 25 you should have things figured out already, but go easy on yourself.  It's ok to not have all the answers.  Really, it's ok.

The wish you wrote about is a pretty big and important one; one that I'm sure many people live their whole life without ever fulfilling.  And having this wish of yours now, in your particular situation, when you've got so much uncertainty going on, shows how deep the wish is for you.

As soon as I read that you wished you "could know what a healthy, long-lasting relationship is supposed to feel like", I knew I could help grant you that wish -- though probably not in the way you expect.  I can't necessarily help you feel what this feels like.  However, I can tell you what it feels like, and help you know in a way that's more intellectual than experiential.

A healthy and enduring relationship feels like home, in the heartfelt emotional sense, not necessarily in the physical place-where-I-hang-my-hat sense.  It feels like a consistency of connection, even when the consistency is closer to illusion than reality -- when your mind and heart know no difference, it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other.  It feels like support and unconditional acceptance.  It is a source of strength.  It helps you to see your worth, and doesn't determine your worth.  You are worthy with or without it, and it's likely that you must know -- deeply and fully know -- that you are worthy before you will be capable of experiencing it.

I've recently encountered the notion that each of us is incapable of loving any other person more than we love ourselves.  This seems true and helpful to believe.  In considering this notion, it seems clear that the best place to start looking for, and creating or bolstering a healthy and enduring relationship is within ourselves.

Now I'm certain that the relationship to self is not at all what you had in mind for your wish, but it is your foundation.  And without a strong foundation I would question your ability to build healthy, enduring relationships with others.  So I invite you, start there.  Start with yourself.

When you have mastered the ability to have a healthy and enduring relationship to self, experiencing similar relationships with others becomes easier.  But even better than the ease it brings, it also brings less attachment to experiencing this sort of relationship with others.  In other words, it becomes less of a big deal to discover that having a healthy and enduring relationship with any other given individual is not likely or not possible.

As you grow to have a healthy, enduring relationship to self, the sense of scarcity you feel now -- in thinking you may never know what a healthy, enduring relationship feels like -- will fade.  And even if ultimately you never experience a relationship with another that is as healthy and as enduring (going forward, at least) as your relationship to self, you still know what a healthy, enduring relationship feels like.

With love and best wishes,
Cate

Writing Challenge - Day 21

One of the ideas that Brené Brown presents in Daring Greatly is that to avoid being vulnerable one of the things that we do is make the uncertain, certain.  I've seen how this is true -- from assigning badness (e.g. "What a jerk!") when the unexpected happens, to filling in the blanks with our own stories (e.g. "She's always late because she's self-centered"), and even more elaborate ways in which we try to "make sense" of our uncertainty.

We try so hard to make sense of it, because sitting with uncertainty -- just sitting with it, not trying to find our way out of it -- is very uncomfortable for most of us.  I'm inclined to believe that there are things about our culture that help promote a sense of unease with uncertainty, but no examples come to mind.  Certainly though there are evolutionary connections to fear and vigilance in the face of in uncertainty.  Fear over whether that rustle in the bush was a fellow tribe member or a predator is what helped keep our ancestors on guard and live long enough to become our ancestors!  But since most of us are never in danger of being a predator's lunch, an evolutionary fear or unease with uncertainty doesn't serve us as well as it used to.

To become better at handling uncertainty, I often make it a point to try to just let it be, without thinking up ways to explain it away or analyzing and investigating it into certainty.  It's not easy.  Sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes it's emotionally painful, but I like to think that I'm building a better me by challenging myself to acknowledge and simply be with my uncertainty.

Writing Challenge - Day 20

Today was Christmas Day, and for me it was much like any other Sunday in town.  A mimosa brunch with friends that was just a little more grand than usual preceded some relaxation, old movies (including "A Christmas Story"), a bath and a nap.  My stab at making a quiche turned out well enough that it got a repeat performance on my dinner plate, and the Mississippi water mill-ground grits that I cooked up this morning have not survived the night.

The bubble lights glow and vibrantly twinkle on my tiny tabletop tree, which features a makeshift aluminum foil bow at the top -- a creative afterthought born of faulty dispensing from the roll.  A couple of holiday cards and a decorative element here and there round out the small collection of items around my place that mark the time of year.

Job search tasks await my attention, but since Friday at 3:00 I've held firmly to my plan to simply enjoy the weekend.  I may take on a few tasks tomorrow, but they'll take a back seat to the hiking and movie-going that are already on the agenda.

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I've sometimes said that I lack faith, and while that's quite true in some respects, in other respects it's not at all.  In some cases I have a lot of faith in people, even despite signs that my faith may be misplaced.  I see goodness in others; I know it's there, regardless of whether it shows through clearly.  I have found ways to get better at giving others the benefit of the doubt, so much so that I sometimes surprise myself.  That feels good.

Writing Challenge - Day 19

A number of new concepts for small writing projects have sprung up as a result of looking through older writings (not included on this blog).  Essentially, out of my fears of tapping the well dry, I've circled back to a combination of two suggestions I'd been offered on getting a body of work collected/created.  Those suggestions were to a) take time to create a list of writing prompts -- perhaps taken as inspiration from previous works -- that might inspire creation, and b) simply gather a collection of older writings without reviewing them.

With these new ideas sprouting like seedlings and a solid plan in place to begin writing my Codex Vitae, I'm overjoyed with the positive outcomes I've realized through this writing challenge.  At this point it's looking pretty difficult to tap the well dry.  And that's a relief.

With luck, I've got a lot more writing to do.  I aspire to write a book.  Perhaps not a very long one, but one that inspires and provides helpful if not invaluable information to its readers.  I don't anticipate making loads of money or even a reasonable living from writing.  My key aim is to allow my thoughts take shape in ways that may serve others.

Over the past few years or so I've been taking small steps toward engaging in a second career of sorts.  The current career (Software Development) is great for scratching my intellectual itch for analytical problem solving, but does little to provide meaning and a sense of 'giving back' to others.  That's the purpose of this 'second career' endeavor.  So far, so good

Writing Challenge - Day 18

I play with fire.  I burn.  I heal.  I come back stronger.  Tempered by flame.

Doing this thing differently, avoiding avoidance, I lean in to absence, let go of reciprocity and give love...just give it.  No really, Just. Give. It.

Facing action incongruent with words, I remain.  Non-reactive.  Undeterred.

There is no way to 'give more than you have to give' when there's always enough and the giving flows freely.

Relishing in the sound and halfheartedly trying to pay attention to the conversation, I steal glances toward the stage.  "What was that?" and "Say again..." signaling each time I catch myself drifting away into the music.  Too worried about getting the steps right during the dance to focus on much else, my brain's not functioning as expected.  I giggle in the realization and let the moment be.

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Reflecting on the Past (8 Feb 2002)

Through the lens of today I see that I wrote of ...
Ignoring things by way of avoidance...avoidance of negativity, avoidance of conflict.
A calm facade masking (causing?) loneliness.
Impossible situations.
Introversion and people-pleasing.
Shoulds.
Laughter.
Relating, being seen.
Desire for spirited, respectful debate -- the kind that supports healthy relating.
Giving up on me -- conceding, to my detriment.
Autonomy slipping away like water through a sieve.
Guilt.  So much guilt.
Stifled expression.
Strong desire for nonviolent communication...without knowing that there is such a thing.
A core of protection and love.
Lacking familiarity with the sensation and emotion involved in the fulfillment of a fundamental need.
The uncertainty and profound unawareness of youth.

Writing Challenge - Day 17

Venturing out into the holiday retail wonderland today, I recognized the sadness, emptiness, waste and violence in it all.  Would-be shoppers jockeying to claim prime parking spaces.  Parking garages eager to cash in on making spending your money more convenient.  Car horns blaring angrily and pedestrians making snide remarks about the traffic and noise.  Queue-lining retail displays full of impulse purchase items exclaiming, "buy me, buy me!"  Ostensibly able-bodied shoppers contentedly riding an escalator in a two-floor store that stairs would have served just as well*.  This is how we make a season merry and bright?

*I suspect (or hope, at least) there was also an elevator for ADA compliance.

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I've been back into playing with code some more this week.  CodeFights was a fun find, and another little thing I did was put together a word count utility on JSFiddle using AngularJS.  Having the word count utility put together essentially helps me avoid keeping OpenOffice Writer open just to assess whether I've hit my goal word count.  Considering that I do most of this writing from a Vista machine that I haven't yet scrapped for Ubuntu, this saves me a lot of memory management lag on stupidly low-resource hardware.  The HTML and JavaScript for my little word count utility are listed below for your code-reading pleasure...and because I'm sandbagging on my word count again today!

The HTML:

<div ng-app ng-controller="WCController">

    <div>Word count: {{ wordCount() }}</div>

    <textarea ng-model="words" rows="20" cols="40"/>

</div>

The JavaScript:

function WCController($scope) {

    $scope.wordCount = function () {

var text = $scope.words;

var s = text ? text.split(/\s+/) : 0; // it splits the text on space/tab/enter

      return s ? s.length : 0;

    };

}