Masks

An old friend of mine, wrote a blog yesterday,    http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=421091304&blogID=449405861    about the grief she felt concerning the suicide of a new friend. In it, she spoke quite eloquently about the masks we wear in public, sometimes in private. Use them to cover up, and deny our real state/s of being. And because I agree with much of what she said, I want to write about something of that issue today.

I like masks. Have spent many pleasant hours creating them. Used them in my classes to explore the different voices we all use in our daily existence. Have done the same in defining archetypal energies, bringing them more alive to those who might be unfamiliar with them, and the role they play in the choices we make and the lives we are creating. My nephew has an entire room in his home, where he displays all the masks he has collected and ones that have been given to him by friends and family. One of my very favorite movies is Mask, starring Cher. Each individual in the film wore at least one or two, character-wise, in the story. Because she is so facially expressive, one can watch Cher go from rebellious daughter, to lonely needy woman, to eager lover, from addict and then to protective Mom, and back and forth again, throughout the film. I thought her performance was fantastic and really underscored the title of the movie.

But what does all of that have to do with you and I? A great deal. We all wear masks at one point or another. They are, or can be of extreme importance to the art of self-protection. The only place we really never need one is inside of our journals. But, even there they might be present if we are into denying some aspect of our reality. A while back, I mentioned my old boss and the role he was playing in my everyday life. So much so, that when I went back to read my morning pages, I found his name on almost every one for days on end. But, it wasn’t just his name. It was his face as well, and I actually felt my own face alter in accordance. Until that moment, I wasn’t aware that I had been wearing a mask in his presence, and to do my job. That was one of the main reasons I knew I had to get out and find another place of employment.

And that place of employment called for another mask of sorts. The masks we wear are the roles we feel we must play in order to survive in the environment around us. The face of the eager wife, waiting for her hubby to come home, is not the one that hubby sees if he inadvertently left her hanging on the phone and is now coming home three hours late from a meeting. What’s even more important is the mask we wear most often. The one we use to project a certain image of what we think most people will find acceptable and meant to hide our genuine state of being, our genuine humanity. That one who is always smiling, is he really that happy, or is he hiding something beneath that mask of easy grins? Does he go home, sit and pour buckets of pain and sorrow into a journal? We can’t and don’t know. And if he is, maybe we should be grateful for that.

If I am honest, there have been times when I’ve wanted very much to reach out and pull off the mask someone was wearing. But, I much prefer to wait and let them do the honors so we can be genuinely human together. That isn’t to say that they will keep the mask off, afterward. Masks are habits, and its extremely difficult to do without them. As I told my friend, yesterday, I believe it is one of the hardest things we can do, to remove those masks, even for a few moments. That is real exposure, and it doesn’t feel safe at all.

Do you know the masks that you wear? What do they accomplish for you? Could they possibly be a hindrance to some aspect of your life? Keep you at a disadvantage in others? Do you have places in your life where you can be free of the masks? Do you go there often, or not? We have talked a great deal about having a best friend, one that accepts us. Is there someone in your life that you feel is safe enough to leave your mask at home when you are with him, or her?

I have a suggestion. Start watching for images of faces that you yourself might be wearing at different times. Put a face to the different roles you play, cut them out, and paste or glue them into your journal. Then write about them, the value they have in your life, and when you most need to put them on. If you are even more adventurous, give them names. Naming a thing lessens the fear it might hold us in. I read that in Harry Potter. Dumbledore said it, so you don’t need to take my word alone.

Opposite Sides And Another Challenge

I truly like to hear at least two sides of an issue before making a decision. In my last blog, I wrote about why we have difficulty with admitting that we don’t know certain things. I knew when I finished, that I would need to address the other side of that issue and speak about what we do know. Synchronistically, I wandered onto a blog, titled What I Know For Sure, http://beccasbyline.wordpress.com/ in which the author tells her readers that she found her source in O Magazine. She goes on to write out a list of things, she knows for sure at the present moment. Then asks her readers to do the same. I didn’t know how to comment, decided to let it digest for a while, and went back and posted my response yesterday.

Then promptly knew what I would write about today. And also knew (I had to have time to digest, remember), how it might be even more difficult to write about what we know, than it is to write about what we don’t know. It’s that carving a thing in stone, I have already written about, doubly difficult in a time and world where the only thing one can be sure of is change. But, I have a friend who started taking carving lessons some time ago, and she assures me that anything, even something carved in stone, can be changed. She knows that because she has done it, not with stone but in wood. She speaks of first hand knowledge, gained through personal experience. She knows what she knows.

As do each of us. Granted, it is of utmost importance to come to know what we don’t know, that is a distinct step in the learning process. But, if we get so comfortable with what we do know, we may someday take it so much for granted, that we actually forget what we know. We must keep using what we know or suffer the consequences. That was the reason I had to pause and allow myself to catch up with the idea of writing out what I know for sure. I know it because I have been practicing it and discovering the truth buried inside of what I know. It works, because I have used it many times with the same outcome.

Which leads me to the challenge in the title of this blog. I intend to paste some of my response to Becca’s request right here on the page. But, again, because I am a cook who can’t just follow a recipe blindly without adding some of her own spice to the mix, I am going to change the parameters a bit. One of the reasons, I paused, is because I am 62 years old. That’s a whole lot of knowing. I was immediately intimidated by the prospect of trying to make some clear choices from all of that information. So, when I started making my comment, I did it with a certain age and processed from there. This is the challenge: write out what you know starting with your age ten years ago. For each year of those ten, put down one thing that you know from that time period in your life, and expand as needed. Something you learned to be true within your own experience. I will start my own response a little before that and you may use it as an example, add your own spice as you feel led. If you wish, you may come back and put any, or all of it in the comments below.

What I know for sure:

I know that fifty was one of the best years of my life. Two of my children got married, and I was present and helped in the birth of my first granddaughter. One of my poems was the anchor piece for an anthology that was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the Spoken Word category, and I flew, alone, to San Francisco to meet an online friend for the first time, and to go “shopping” on the beach of the Pacific Ocean.

I know that at fifty-one, the heart of my life went out of it, and my world, as I knew it, disappeared forever.

Thus, I know, that genuine love can be the most painful experience one can ever encounter.

I know that grief is stepping off a cliff and descending, seemingly forever, through a darkness that doesn’t want to end.

I know that love, pain, and grief must be expressed or sicken the individual who would choose not to do so.

I know, in turn, that that all takes time, as much time as the individual needs without being told to “just get over it and move on.”

I know that we must each tell our story again and again until we don’t need to anymore because the story has been healed and we can move on.

I know that every single human being needs a means of expression, and that I will use whatever strength I own to encourage that.

I know that laughter heals more and far faster than any other element.

I know that sometimes life gives us a second chance, and we must let our hearts lead us, or risk that chance altogether.

I know that when I listen to someone else’s advice, it is wise to know that most people are speaking to and of themselves and might not really know about what they speak.

I know that teaching another what I know is the best way to learn anything. That students have far more to teach the teacher than she might have to teach them, just as children must teach their parents.

I know that I am a survivor because I am 62 and am still breathing.

I know that if tomorrow comes, I will greet it with eagerness and a gratitude that grows with each moment I am given.

And this last one, you will have to go read Becca’s Byline to understand:

I know that a dog is a symbol of loyalty. No matter, he is rejected, neglected, ignored, or even abused, he will come back and offer his steadfast presence and his joy, if allowed to do so. And that, in turn, is a god that I can believe in.

Have fun, and by all means, write.

I Just Don’t Know

One of the greatest, and possibly most profound, advantages of keeping a journal is that it is the one secure place where one can openly admit that one simply doesn’t know. Why is that the hardest thing to do? To just admit that one doesn’t know about a thing, but especially about how one feels, thinks, or sees that thing? Even more so, when the thing, or object, happens to be ones own person, behavior, or any minute aspect of that? No one wants to be, or appear to be, a fool. Yet, is admitting to ones ignorance a foolish thing, or the beginning of wisdom?

We openly say that no one knows, or can know, everything, yet beat ourselves up when we prove that statement true. Why is that, and isn’t that the state of being foolish? When asked for an opinion, many of us, if not most, panic, even go blank, unable to find any words with which to respond. That doesn’t mean we don’t have an opinion, it means we’ve been put on the spot and would rather be anywhere else at the moment. So, instead of looking blank (utterly foolish), we foolishly speak whatever words come to mind, even if we know that the words are untrue, or foolish in respect to our own person.

And what is the spot we’ve been put on? Public acceptability. We all have the deepest desire to be accepted, to be a part of, to belong. We actually have a need to prove our acceptability. We need others, need their support and even their encouragement. That need is primary, hard-wired into the human psyche, since the first human psyche appeared on the scene and realized he/she couldn’t survive without the group, tribe, or clan. Which makes independence, the desire to be ones own person, on ones own terms, a direct and immediate conflict. Talk about a balancing act.

To belong entails knowing what everyone in the group knows, to share like definitions, viewpoints, and opinions that prove we are members of that specific group. To actually admit that we don’t know, sets us outside the group, makes us a non-member and open to immediate, and possibly, painful censure. So, we don’t admit that we honestly don’t know, even if that is true. Then go home and berate ourselves for being both ignorant and false, adding shame to the mixture, on both counts, and really confusing all of the issues. Can’t win for losing, right?

Wrong (bet you saw that one coming). There is a very fine line of balance between public and private existence. And it is one we constantly, moment by moment, travel. If we tiptoe in public, only firmly setting our feet in private, we constantly run the risk of making an even momentary mistake that will end us inside of the censure we can’t afford to our sense of belonging. But, if we step firmly in public, while tiptoeing in private, we risk a constant sense of shame and dis-ease within our own person. Which brings us to that very important dialogue I keep mentioning, that one with self.

The one person I can’t afford not to know is me. Furthermore, the only person I can truly belong to is me. I can choose to give that me to another, even a group, but that only underscores my deepest need to know and belong to me first, so I know what it is I am choosing and giving, and just how much of that I want to give in any given moment. That is true self-preservation on its most basic level. And each and every time, I admit that “I just don’t know,” I am furthering my course, both public and private. I most definitely want to walk that very fine line with as much confidence as possible, at all times.

So I have become a champion of, and at, “I just don’t know.” I freely admit my ignorance and encourage others to do the same. After all, I don’t want to be alone on this journey toward wisdom. Who would I talk to, share my misgivings with, get support and encouragement from, and a good warm hug when I need it or have earned it? I may be becoming my own best friend, but I will always need more, especially friends with skin on em. Not only for the friendship and shared thoughts and feelings, but for the challenge they provide when they ask, “You didn’t know that?” And then proceed to fill me in.

That is the main purpose of my journal. Those pages are filled with all the questions about things I just don’t know. It is both the receptacle of those questions, but also holds a great many of the accompanying answers, that then, allow me to move along that fine line that stretches forever between public and private existence and acceptance. That balancing act, I am finding, I am finally getting quite good at.

A Balancing Act (With Questions)

I recently received an email which contained a video of an amazing Russian balancing act. A young woman stepped onto a spongy pole held, on either end, by two young men. She proceeded to do flips and somersaults, high into the air, always landing on that suspended pole, which because of its consistency and the skill of the two young men holding it, acted as a trampoline. Each time she did so, ones heart skipped a beat as breath was held while waiting for her to land sure-footed and okay on what had fast become a very fine line between her and disaster. When another young man joined her on the pole, even balancing her on his shoulders as they both flipped and landed securely, it was apparent that this balancing act had been taken to an unimaginable level. It was a stunning performance and one that deserved a great deal of applause.

Until now, I have steadily encouraged you to break your silence and to begin to establish the most important dialogue you will ever partake in: that one with self. That is after all, what I am about. But, because I have focused on the breaking of silence, I must now lend a few moments to keeping silent when it is appropriate to do so, and the fine line between those two opposing points. A very different kind of balancing act, but just as precarious as the act I have already mentioned.

There is a distinct freedom in breaking ones silence and beginning to speak, to express ones self, no matter what form that expression might take. Doing flips in the air between one moment and the next is only one of them, and I hardly think we have exhausted the list of possibilities in that arena. However, every freedom, no matter how small or large, also entails at least one responsibility, if not many. There is the responsibility of maintaining the freedom one has allowed oneself to grasp hold of. There is also the responsibility to see that no one is harmed or damaged in the process of claiming said freedom. If freedom is possessed at the expense of another, then it isn’t really freedom at all.

To finally allow oneself to speak of thoughts and feelings, to begin to define ones world, and ones place in that world, is a very heady proposition. And yes, it can be a delicious secret one carries around and hugs to the self out of sheer joy for the new freedom one is experiencing. But, as with all secrets, there comes a time when it spills over its confining boundaries and must be shared. Its fact, reality, and resultant outcome is just too good not to slip out somewhere along the way. To keep it a secret, is to silence it, which lessens its value as a freedom. It must be allowed to grow, to expand, and learn what it is ultimately meant to learn and, therefore, to teach.

Did I just say teach? Yes, I did (quite a flip, hunh)? I believe that each one of us is hard-wired, before birth, with a message that must be expressed. Most of our growing and development is centered around learning that message and how best we might let it be heard. I keep repeating that the dialogue with self is the most important one of all, and that is the reason. How can we express the message if we don’t even know it exists? It’s as simple as breathing.

The word spirit means: breath, of the air. Likewise, the word inspire, means: to breathe in. And unless, one intends to hyperventilate, or pass out completely, one must exhale, express what has been breathed in. As we move through each day, each moment, we breathe in all of our experiences with our senses, cataloguing them, sorting them out. We need to exhale what we have inspired. We need to define that experience, find words that allow us to understand what it might mean to us and to our ongoing existence, or run the risk of exploding, or imploding, take the risk of completely missing that fine line completely, and smashing into hard ground at high speed. None of which is truly healthy for the self or the world around us.

In the course of sorting and cataloging all of that information, we can and do find that message, the one expressed by the very manner in which we deal with all of those experiences. How we see it all, feel it all, and the thought process we use to understand it, is the very message we express by how we respond to the world around us. Which brings us to even more definitions. Do we react, simply move automatically into learned by rote behavior, or do we respond in the moment, giving that present moment all that we, as individuals, have to offer it?

Is your message Anger? Indifference? Apathy? Or is it Compassion? Awareness? Enlightenment, or Chaos? How do you know, if you haven’t taken the time to discover that? The present moment is all that we truly have to possess. It is the fine line we are balanced on before flipping forward to the next, or backward to get our bearings so that we can proceed to the next one. Do you greet the next moment with utter silence, or thoughtful expression? Do you shout your message, perhaps making it incomprehensible, or offer it wisely in its appropriate time and place? Or, do you simply remain silent, letting the moment pass, never to be seen again?

There is a fine line between silence and whatever message we have to offer. We have far less than a moment to find that line, and land on it securely. Sometimes it is best to remain silent. Only you can decide in that one moment we are allowed. But, silence can easily become a habit that leads to repeated bouts of hyperventilation, or worse. Have you taken the time to discover that fine line in your own experience? How do you breathe? Do you know where and how to plant your feet on that fine line suspended in the air that you breathe, ready to spring up and meet the next moment? Prepared to grasp that freedom whenever and wherever it might arise? It has been said that a wise man keeps and uses his words carefully. Are you such an individual? If you hope to be, it might be best to begin finding that fine line, and practicing your own personal balancing act. And please remember that patience is also a balancing act, especially when and where it concerns the self.

One of Those Days

There are those days, when I don’t wish to write prose. When as soon as I try to compose stately sentences that march cleanly across the page and down between the margins, the pen starts dancing to its own music, doing a jive, coming alive
to something else inside me.

Look, see,
it’s happening again,
this pen has a mind of its own,
thinks its home is center stage
makes no difference how
I might rage, It simply
continues.

(sigh)

So, we’ll try this again, but I can already feel coming bend, curve up ahead, instead of
straight line
I  intended. Wanted to speak of what silence can wreak
how it is used to punish 
a wish to express,
stop forward progress
sometimes
derailing it
altogether.

Guess I must give in, with slightly thinned grin,
 let it have its way
as it means
to sway down
this page,
taking whatever stage
I afford it.

This tool has a lip
that constantly drips
over all well-inspired intentions,
refocusing route in a spouting
shout, mingled with whispers and cries
gone unmentioned.

But,
I’m in control
must cease it wholly through steel of will and determined
concentration. Only to find a distinct peace of mind, knowledge found in unbound truth that silence

has been silenced 
again.  

 

One Moment

11/5/08

We have a new president today, Barack Obama. Each of us has partaken in a distinct moment of history in this past twenty-four hours. We, all together, have opened a new door of possibilities, not just for ourselves, but for each other. We have finally shown ourselves to be what we have always said we were: a melting pot of diverse cultures, ethnicity, where all are welcome and given a chance to live differently and with freedom. We have finally been awakened to the reality of possibilities and the changes such an attitude may bring. We might want to take a moment and mark this one down. Let ourselves think about what this momentous experience means to our own personal attitudes, beliefs, and everyday experience.

Are we up the challenge? Can we be open enough, within our own minds and hearts, to greet this moment as a good place to begin living in a new manner? One that is freer, than any before it, in a nation that is firmly imbedded in the concept of freedom, or at least states repeatedly that it is. Not long ago, we all together, honored the loss of innocence we, as a nation, underwent on 9/11. Now, we have collectively chosen to take a new step toward replenishing and refilling that gap of ignorance such innocence reveals. We can’t go back and undo that other experience, no matter how much we may desire such a thing. All we can do is learn from that past experience. This is our opportunity.

Will we grasp this opportunity to prove that we are no longer ignorant, therefore vulnerable? Take it for the opportunity it is, to learn the lessons we need to grow away from even more ignorance, toward a future strength that is not based in right through physical might, but one that has been tempered in the crucible and pain of that loss? A strength born out of healing, rather than retaliating in bitterness and further anger? Will we, each one of us, take the time, this one moment, to examine one small thing we can do, today, to show that we will move forward, take this momentous opportunity to become one degree more of what we say we are, and less than what we have shown ourselves to be?

With these words, I have proclaimed that I, as one individual, intend to stand up, to take this moment to risk being visibly counted as one who truly believes, that together, we can be better than we have ever been. Will you?

Talisman

I made another trip to Dictionary.com this morning, before coming here. I had been talking to a friend in Arizona, and she was telling me about a picture she had found and carried around with her because she so liked the face in the image and what it represented to her. Eventually, she got the image laminated and used it for a bookmark. Then enlarged it, bought a frame for it, and has it hanging on the wall in her office, where she comes into contact with it on a daily basis. She now has a talisman.

That’s what prompted my sidetrip to Dictionary.com. This is what I found. A talisman is:

1. a stone or ring, or other object, engraved with figures or characters supposed to possess occult powers and worn as an amulet or charm.

2. any amulet or charm.

3. anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions.

What does any, or all of that, have to do with journal writing? Reread number three, please. It’s obvious that I believe a journal is a talisman, possibly one of the most important ones we can create. As we do so, we may very well go through the same process that my friend in Arizona did. She found the image and was immediately drawn to it. So much so, that she found a way to possess it and carry it around with her.

We may think of jotting down our thoughts, on occasion, then pick up a pen to do so and feel utterly ridiculous at the very action. Put down the pen and walk away. But the thought remains, and one day we actually do it and discover it resulted in some good feelings toward our own person. Or we may hear someone, like myself, speaking about doing it, liking what we hear and trying it out for ourselves. It makes no difference what draws us, except on a personal level, which may be shared by thousands of others, or none. We are drawn. The idea of it has power and influences our actions.

The next step my friend took, was to carry it around with her. You may find that you enjoy this jotting things down so much, that you purchase a notebook that you can keep with you for that purpose. You might feel a bit curious about all of this, so you start writing down how you feel about the experience. My friend started speaking to the image she was carrying around. Either action, which could be seen as somewhat the same thing, gives or invests the object (or notebook) with more influence and power. We are even more drawn, and investing time, energy, and expression into the object and discovering that it has an even deeper meaning than we first gave it.

My Arizonian friend of almost forty years, then named the figure in the image and honored it by finding a way to give it a prominent place in her everyday life. We might do the same and with good examples. The first one that leaps to mind is the fictitious character, Kitty, to whom Anne Frank addressed her diary entries. She even wrote of her reasoning for doing so:

Anne had expressed the desire in the re-written introduction of her diary for one person that she could call her truest friend, that is, a person to whom she could confide her deepest thoughts and feelings. She observed that she had many “friends”, and equally many admirers, but (by her own definition) no true, dear friend with whom she could share her innermost thoughts. (Wikipedia)

When I first set out to keep a written daily account of my thoughts, feelings, and doings, I seriously gave some thought to doing what Anne Frank had done, giving a name to my morning pages. I didn’t do so because, although my desire was to write and therefore maybe become a writer, I already knew the power of naming a thing and backed away from so deliberately acknowledging what this was really all about. In other words, I was a very scared beginner. However, inadvertently, my journal did acquire a name. It became My Morning Pages. And I created a special place for it by doing it daily and not allowing anyone to interfere with that process. Even turning away phone calls from that dear friend in Arizona, to our mutual surprise and shock.

Carving out a particular place and time could also be simply refusing to go anywhere without that new companion, your notebook. Either one, makes our journal, or whatever we choose to call it, a talisman. We are acknowledging it’s primary importance to us, and its prominent position within our existence. Its power and influence over our thoughts and feelings. We do that because it actually holds our thoughts and feelings. Words we choose to express ourselves, create new and different definitions for our own small piece of world and our place in that world, maybe even renaming ourselves in the process.

Does this have anything to do with those first two parts of the definition for the word talisman? Yes, it does, but that is for some other day, when I might speak to you about what one (if one chooses) might put into a medicine bag, which is just a container in which one keeps ones most precious talismans.

What Did You Say?

We all know there is a difference between hearing and listening. We can hear a thing many times before we  understand what is being said. When we actually listen, we hear on a different level. I believe that people who write on a regular basis, are better listeners, at least that has been my experience. One of the reasons I began writing was because I had a desire to be heard, really listened to. The biggest surprise in that, was that I actually began to hear what I myself was saying. The main purpose of this blog is to encourage others to do the same, and for the same reason.

As a consequence of that, I take time to visit different blogs and read them. I know that my desire to be heard is far from unique. Anyone who writes for whatever reason, shares that same desire on some level. So, I have a tendency to leave comments to let the individual know I heard what was said. And yes, I go back to see if they heard me, and am glad when that is the reality. It is also why I encourage people who keep a journal to go back and read what they have written. Because if one doesn’t truly listen, one may never learn, or understand, what is being said, especially by ones own person.

I’ve already discussed how easy it is to dismiss or ignore the thoughts in our own heads. That can readily extend to the words we write. If we are in the habit of not hearing our own words when they are spoken, we may go through the motions of putting them on paper and not be paying attention. Our thrust may be toward being heard, more so than to listen. There must be a balance in all things. A giving and receiving, and nowhere is that more important than with our self. One of the simplest exercises to do to discover just how little, or how much balance, we own in that arena, is to write ten times, “I am a writer”, on a piece of paper. Write it with a pen, preferably a pen with dark ink in it. And while you are doing that little exercise, listen to what is going on in your head. Do it right now, I’m more than willing to wait.

Did you hear the Censor kick in? “How dare you say that sort of thing?” Maybe the Editor, or the Lady With White Gloves, come to inspect the job you are doing? “You might want to put a number in front of each of those statements so you don’t lose count,” or, “You didn’t cross the T in the word writer, and your lines aren’t particularly straight, or very readable.” Maybe the Drill Sargeant, “Listen buster, she said ten times, why are you just sitting there, move it, move it!” Mommy Dearest, “Oh honey, this is all sort of silly don’t you think? Why frustrate yourself so, why not go take a nice nap and when you get up, you’ll feel so much better and we can go shopping. There’s this darling little blue dress…” How about the Older Brother, or Sister, “Listen, you idiot, you can’t be a writer, you don’t have anything worthwhile saying, nothing anyone would want to hear, anyway.” And so on, and so forth.

I have done this exercise many times, and never once have I been able to complete all ten statements without hearing the voice/s of resistance rise up, trying to stop me from completing it. It’s such a simple little exercise, but it gets really difficult, real fast, even for those of us who have been writing for years. That repetitive action of repeating those words, again and again, is a lot like carving it in stone, isn’t it? Making some sort of life-long commitment that can’t be walked away from, or ignored. It’s a statement of fact, no question about it, and it doesn’t leave room for questions. Lots of room for resistance, though, which often comes in the form of questions.

At the beginning of this article, I spoke of the difference between hearing and listening. We can choose to do both at any time. Be aware, however, that the choice of either one or the other, is definitely a choice. If we only hear the drone of the words, the tone of the voice, we are apt to never really get the message. If we make an effort to listen to the words, what they are saying, the message can be interpreted far more easily and with a lot less time. Especially when that message is coming from inside of you. It might make you cry or laugh, hug yourself in glee, or throw your hands in the air with total exasperation, but it can and will change whatever step you are in the process of taking. It will alter the barometer of the feelings with which you proceed, thereby altering any and all outcomes.

How much do you listen to those varied voices in your head? Are they so familiar that you don’t even hear the words anymore? Just shrug your shoulders, let the Pessimist tell you, “that’s just how it is, and its not worth doing anything about, cause things are never going to change anyway?” Maybe it’s time to cultivate some new ones. How about the Staunch Supporter, “Hey, you are doing just fine, I really love what you are saying,” or that Best Friend, “Wow, that was fun, wasn’t it? When can we do it again?” Maybe a bit of the Wild Child, “If you say it this way, you’ll have em running, lol,” or Little Brother or Sister, “ahhh, you know that he can’t say anything without using way too many words and I like your stuff way better.” I think those all sound somewhat like that Best Rainy Day Friend we all need to sit alongside of us, that one who leans in, doesn’t ask, “What did you say?” But, says instead, “Boy, I hear you on that one. What you wanna do about it, and when do we start?”

“Rainy Day People”

by  Gordon Lightfoot

Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call
Rainy day people don’t talk
They just listen til they’ve heard it all
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you
They been down like you
Rainy day people don’t mind if you’re crying a tear or two
If you get lonely, all you really need is that rainy day love
Rainy day people all know there’s no sorrow they can’t rise above
Rainy day lovers don’t love any others, that would not be kind
Rainy day people all know how it hangs on a piece of mind
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you, they’ve been down there too
Rainy day people don’t mind if you’re crying a tear or two
Rainy day people always seem to know when you’re feeling blue
High stepping strutters who land in the gutter sometimes need one too
Take it or leave it, or try to believe it, if you’ve been down too long
Rainy day lovers don’t hide love inside they just pass it on
Rainy day lovers don’t hide love inside they just pass it on

 

Do you remember what it felt like having a best friend, someone to share your secrets with, cry with when you fell down and scraped your knees, to laugh and giggle with over silly things and sillier people? Although, for most of us, that best friend definition reminds us of childhood and those long hard days of growing up and maybe never believing we’d get there, I also believe that we continue to search for more of the same throughout our existence. That feeling of warm welcome and always acceptance when eyes meet. Hugs and pats on the back when needed most. Someone who helps you stay in line without jerking you around. Someone who cheers when you succeed, and boos the competition when you don’t quite do so. Someone who lets you know that you are doing the best with what you’ve been given, respects any effort you put out, and knows you will give back the same without being prompted.

We grow up and get busy being the adults we never thought we would become. But there are always those days when the busyness stops and we realize that we need something more. As I started writing this, I could hear the old Gordon Lightfoot song lyrics playing through my mind. We all need rainy day people, a best friend, at some point or another. We also know that best friends grow up, change, go their own way, and fade from the present moment in numerous ways. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a rainy day best friend anytime, all the time? You can and you do. The very best rainy day friend you can ever have is you.

It begins as all relationships do: with a dialogue, communication of one sort or another. At the cost of repeating myself, the most important dialogue you will ever engage in, is that one with your own person. It is going on constantly, every moment of every day, but if you don’t pay attention, don’t listen and respond, it can fade away just like that best friend from childhood. Writing daily, on a personal level, is a deliberate conscious move to make a friendship with the only person you will always have with you. We are all rainy day people, if we allow ourselves to be. We are all best friends, if we want to be that.

Stop for a moment. Think about what you want in a best friend, who do you turn to on those rainy days that we all encounter far more than we’d like? And yes, I know that many of you will answer that question by saying that you find those things in God, or a belief system. Personally, I still need a Jesus with skin on Him, when the storm is raging outside and the lights go out and don’t come back on. I want a real voice speaking in my ear, words I can physically hear whispering comforting things, or singing a lullaby to soothe me. That isn’t to say I don’t think, or believe, that God will get me through, it just means I have realized that I still want someone to hold my hand while God does whatever God is going to do.

I used to ask a question when I found myself in the midst of one of those storms. People have a tendency to come to me when they need a rainy day friend. But when I’d find myself alone on one of those rainy days, I would often find myself asking the empty air, “Where is my Elizabeth, when I need her?” One day, to my own startled shock, after once again yelling that question toward the ceiling, I heard a distinct, but very familiar voice in my head, say with a lot of affectionate laughter, “She’s sitting right here asking that very silly question, again.” I had to join in the laughter and that in turn, felt like a warm well-needed hug.

But there is something else that is just as important about this truth and reality. We all fight loneliness and the fear of being, or becoming, just another lonely individual. We struggle with it and allow ourselves to be bent by that fear. We stay in places and relationships to avoid what we fear most. we allow people to remain in our lives long after they have lost any resemblance to the definition of a friend. No matter how many people, pets, or diverse belief systems we embrace, there always comes that moment when we must confront the fact that we are essentially alone within our own skin. That is the moment we most need the best rainy day friend within our own being.

No, this doesn’t happen over night. Most things of enduring value don’t. It takes practice, commitment, and day to day work. But if you are willing to do some of the things I am suggesting, I can promise you that you will find the very best rainy day friend you can imagine or ever dream up. So, get on paper and start defining what a best friend really is, start letting yourself know what a rainy day person would look like to you. Then ask yourself what you need to do to make that happen, how and what you need to do to become your own best rainy day friend.

Checking The Temperature

I have spent the last three days watching my temperature rise and fall drastically in both directions. I am speaking of my emotional temperature, not my physical one, although the physical one did some jumping around because of the other, I am sure. Many of us have thermometers nailed up somewhere outside that we can give a quick glance at and know what the physical reality of our environment is up to. That allows us to dress appropriately, be prepared when we venture out on whatever errands we will engage in. However, a thermometer doesn’t do any good, if we forget that its there and no longer take the time to consciously check it to see what it is reading.

Consciously checking our emotional temperature is just as, if not, more important. Had I ventured out yesterday, I might have been in trouble. As it was, I stayed in and weathered the storm in warm privacy with a bit of help from two friends who happened to call and ask how I was doing. Neither of them had any idea of the emotional thundercloud I was sitting in, but each, in her own fashion, gave me the necessary equipment to get myself outside of the storm, and keep me safe from gusting winds and torrential rain, with repeated flood warnings.

In her book, A Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris explains a wonderful little writing exercise: writing out your own emotional weather report. Mine, for yesterday, would have been approaching hurricane conditions with a gradual change in wind direction that will keep the storm offshore and away from human population. And Tom Waits does a bang up job in his song Emotional Weather Report:  

with tornado watches issued shortly
before noon Sunday, for the areas
including, the western region
of my mental health
and the northern portions of my
ability to deal rationally with my
disconcerted precarious emotional
situation, it’s cold out there…

I particularly like the way he adds specific directions to his report. Locations and directions are important both in the physical realm, and the emotional reality.

When people ask me for ideas about what to write, I always forget this one, but was reminded by my own journal pages from yesterday and today. I glanced at the thermometer, but didn’t let it register the day before. That is so easy to do. Our emotions are always there, always speaking to us, always telling us where we are and what we are headed into. We disregard, ignore, and even deny their potential for measuring our moment by moment lives. It might be very wise to write out a one or two sentence weather report on each journal page created. Make it the first thing, and then go on to whatever else might need to be said. I think I’ve just given myself another assignment. A very practical, but priceless one, at that.

What is the alternative? Watch TV and make sure I catch the weather report? We all know that is, at best, a great deal of guess work, and results only in possibilities, or a constant switching to the weather station for any new developments. Besides, there is no weather man alive who knows the temperature inside of my apartment and why would I depend on someone else’s (expert, or otherwise) definition of my emotional landscape? Yes, I had help yesterday. But not the kind that told me what my weather conditions were. The help, I received, was of the variety of gently chosen words that might lead me to the definitions, I myself, needed to make my own analysis (thank you, Marj and Sandy). And both women engaged in gentle laughter and affection while doing so. Can’t beat that.

Writing a daily weather report is a very creative way of assessing one’s reality. How long, how many days, months, years, have those dark storm clouds been resting against that distant horizon? And what about the weather conditions other people seem to bring with them? That constant shudder of chill so and so carries around and brings into any room she enters? Checking out the anomalies could open doors into possible working solutions. And yes, this is a metaphor: your pen the hand held thermometer, and your pages the opening you alone can set it to. All done in private with never anyone the wiser. Best of all, you don’t need a degree to be able to do it.

If it’s been raining too many days in a row, what can you do about it? Unlike real physical weather conditions, we can change the emotional conditions we are creating. If so and so enters your space, you will know that you need warming cover and can keep it handy and readily available. If, however, so and so turns out to be you, you always have the option to move yourself to Tahiti and learn how to acclimatize to much warmer conditions with lots of sunshine and balmy breezes. It doesn’t have to be work, it is an adventure, if you choose to let it be.

Taking your emotional temperature is a choice you make. Taking the time to do so is another. I sense a dust storm coming on so its best if I make sure the pegs holding down my tent are as firmly planted as possible and then do a quick run for extra provisions which must include Cedar Crest Mackinac Island Fudge, of course. That way, I can listen to the howling monster outside my door while enjoying my own special soothing treat, knowing all the while that the monster will exhaust himself eventually, and I will be ready to greet the coming, and possible, drastic changes in my outer environment. It’s only sand, after all.