My Icy Summer – Hip, Hip, Hooray

I had hip surgery on June 1st. A friend of mine got real excited about that date – said it was a sign of the start of something new.

What it has been the start of, at least, is a summer of ice and a healing process that seems to be taking its sweet time. I sit around with ice on my back, on my upper leg – side and front – on my knees. Jeez! Ice everywhere!

The weird part: it’s not my hip that’s continuing to really heal. It’s the strength of my leg, it’s lower back pain, and it’s the pain of some unpronounceable muscle and bursa in the outer area of my right leg, down by my knee!

I live with ice on my body.

I have a new appreciation for healing.

I understand that it ain’t what I thought it would be. I thought it would be like when you catch the flu or something, and gradually you get better and then BOOM you’re good to go!

Nope.

This is a deeper process. More emotion, more enforced inactivity, more enforced patience and an entire redefinition of who I am.

I’m in an icy summer for sure, as far as the body goes, but as far as my personal growth, it’s kickass.

Learning to appreciate that: Priceless! Keeping on learning to appreciate that even when you’re not so thrilled…a priceless process.

The Price of Honesty and Integrity

“I was in the path of the tornado… I just didn’t expect the storm would last
as long as it has.”
~ Shawshank Redemption

No one tells you that you can’t financially afford to be honest. But it seems to be true.

At least, that’s what my journey is teaching me at this point: the foolhardiness of honesty.

I am a steady, passionately hard worker – when I have work to do. But my work went away a month ago, and I have been solidly looking for work and networking since then.

There are some things I have learned in the last year that I wish more people knew. I wish people knew that you don’t have to run completely out of money to apply for food “stamps” (now an EBT card) and Medicaid. I wish I had known – I would have applied a long, long time before I hit such dire straits!

So, I applied for food stamps and got them. I moved from California to Ohio, with the financial help of a lot of people chipping in to get me there (and God deeply bless them all!), and moved in with a friend who gave me a room to call my own. I applied for Medicaid and got it.

And then I got a job that was supposed to go permanent. It didn’t.

Through all of this there has been pain. My right hip is, according to x-rays, bone-on-bone. I believe in alternative healing, and I believe in possibilities – I’ve heard too many miracle stories not to; and two of those stories came from friends of mine – so I have been operating both the doctor aspect, and the alternative healing aspect. Still, I’m in pain every day, and I limp every day. I need a hip replacement, or that miracle I mentioned.

It took me no less than 6 months to get even to the brink of getting an orthopedic surgeon. I’m still on that brink, but things are looking up. I’ll make an appointment Monday if one of the three names I’ve been given by my idiot health insurance turns out to be someone that takes my idiot insurance.

(Why do I call them “idiot insurance”? Because they have given me names of doctors that wouldn’t serve me, and names of Urgent Care facilities that were not, in fact, Urgent Care facilities but are instead third-party medical billing companies. I kid you not.)

I don’t want to continue to be in pain. And I will not continue to be a victim to this. So, Monday, I find a doctor – come hell or high water.

I found out today that I was turned down for unemployment. Wonderful. Just great. So I will appeal. I don’t think I’ll win – I don’t think I worked long enough to get it. One month shy.

I’m reminded of a story I read long ago about a guy whose business partners and his wife “divorced” him in one day. He said to himself, “Only God can screw your life up this bad,” and went home and prayed about what to do. Ultimately he was successful and restarted his life in a much better way.

This is what I hope for, for myself.

I’m not a freeloader. I’m not lazy. And I have about $15,000 worth of debt. Plus let’s not forget the car I pay $239 for each month…watching the remainder of my money – about $4,000 worth – just drain away.

So I thought: I’ll go bankrupt. Not something one wants to do, but you gotta do what you gotta do. So I called lawyers. Three of them. The last one told me I’d need $1,000. The first two told me somewhere around $800. Either way, what that does to my so-called “savings” is not a pretty picture. And by the way, who the fuck decided that you should PAY to go bankrupt? I mean, isn’t this just THE most major misunderstanding of the issue at hand???

Anyway, this last lawyer said, “Wait until someone garnishes you or brings a lawsuit before you go bankrupt.” Sweet. Okay. But what about my car? And by the way, if you go bankrupt, and before it’s all finished you get a job that pays over $100 a week (are you freaking kidding me? Unless I’m 12 years old, what job would I take that DOESN’T pay over $100 a week in the U.S.?), then you can be thrown into Chapter 13, where you are forced to pay. Sort of the voluntary equivalent of being garnished. Or is it garnisheed? Either way, it sucks.

I talked to Jewish Family Services yesterday. They’ve been absolutely great to me. I highly recommend them to anyone!

But yesterday I got a call that taught me the absolutely breathtaking price of honesty. My Case Manager told me that because I had a few shekels left to my name, I could get no assistance with filing for bankruptcy. She said (and this is the part that got me), “I’m sure there are people who are lying, and getting the help, but I didn’t think about that when I signed you up here. If you had lied… If I had told you to lie…”

I immediately said, “Fine. Then I lied then. And the truth is I got no money.”

She said, “Too late.”

So I have a choice:

Stay out of work, get my hip fixed by Medicaid so that I can at least walk again and if my car gets repossessed, I can at least walk to the bus. This is now a viable option since I have been turned down by unemployment. Because you are not permitted to turn down an offered job, when you are on unemployment, or if they find out, you can be sued and taken off of unemployment. It’s a great system.

Or…I can look for work, and if I get permanent work, find some way to let them know that I’ll need 3 weeks off to get my hip fixed…

Or…I can get temporary work and hope that it’s little enough money (yep, I said little enough money) to keep me on Medicaid, because I can’t afford even Obamacare, which I am a fan of, and get my hip fixed whenever the hell I can.

I’m sharing all of this because I want you to know that the people you may be comfortably judging as lazy, or uneducated…those people are now me.

• I went to graduate school.
• I have skills that are off the freaking chain.
• I have experience, and emotional stability, and strengths like you would not believe.
• I want to work.
• I also want to create something amazing with my life, and I intend to.

One of my major strengths is that I am an idea girl. So, trust me, I will continue on. And I have friends who are trying to help. But got no family. Since I got home, they have not reached out to know me. I have reached out. They have shown no interest in my need for help in finding work, which I have expressed to them. So, I continue to find my family in my friends, which almost everyone comes to eventually – no one’s family lives forever – but it still hurts.

And the last thing I want to tell you is just how mutha-fucking hard it is to go through this. The emotional toll that this kind of thing takes is something that mainstream just. doesn’t. know. about.

When you get up every day, freaked out because no matter how hard you try, your efforts make no difference whatsoever…and you get up every day and submerge even your healthy ego in order to learn, as you do, that even the smallest kindnesses are enormous…and you get up every day and get knocked down every day and know that tomorrow may very likely be no different…and sometimes you don’t even get up every day but you cry and you beat up on yourself because there is no one else there to beat up on and you feel this overwhelming urge to blame something or somebody in order to make sense of this…when friends complain to you about their doctor appointments, or they tell you about their bad vacation or their good vacation, and all you can think is “my God, I would give my eye teeth to have your problems”…

Unless you have a way to deal with all of this. Unless you have friends, support, practical spirituality, will, determination, and yes, anger – the kind of anger that says “I am better than all of this shit, and I will find a way, God damn it!” – then you will give up. Or you will become less than you are. Or you will rise to the challenge.

But you will always know that the world you used to inhabit – the one with jobs, and disposable income, and a more reasonable level of anxiety, and the “no brainer” mentality when asked out for a glass of wine – is one that doesn’t, that can’t, understand what you are going through. But it should.

Because you finally know that the shame you feel is irrelevant and inappropriate; that what is happening is not in fact related to Who You Are. And you stand up and say, “Fuck this! People need to get that this is not a system that helps people who are honest. It is a system that helps people who lie. And that’s why people lie. Not because they are born liars, or ‘low lifes’. But because the system needs you to lie in order for the system to work.”

And that’s when you write something.

Like this.

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If you want to donate – which if you can, you should – these are great places to donate:

Jewish Family Service

They have a food pantry, and they help lots of people that way and in other ways. You can also donate your time in teaching all kinds of work skills and interpersonal skills.

Dress for Success

I went to them yesterday and got not only a great interview outfit, but earrings, a bracelet, shoes to go with it, a purse, a scarf, and a packet of things (dental floss, dry hair shampoo, underarm deodorant). Once you get a job, you get 11 pieces of clothing more. All of this is given without asking for anything in return.

Home: If You Have to Go Broke, Do It Here

I had no idea just how deeply connective this city is until this very day. How compassionate. How helpful.

How much this is home.

And I have to tell you: if you have to go broke, for the love of God, come do it here.

Lots of people – particularly the Californians I know – bitch and moan about places with weather: “I could never live there”. I’m going to tell you just why I’ll put up with all kinds of weather for what I’ve found in exchange.

Getting Help – Remarkable; Not Being Alone – Priceless

Today I went to Jewish Family Services and met with my new Case Worker, Debbie. Here is what I learned while I was there:

• There is a Free Pharmacy in town. Free. Pharmacy. You have to be on food stamps to qualify to use it. Check!
• There are lawyers who will talk to me about everything from whether I should go on disability, temporarily, or not – and also whether I should file for bankruptcy or not. This is gold – knowing options, effects of one choice or another. Options. Are. Gold.
• Debbie knows who I am. It turns out we grew up in the same neighborhood, and went to the same swim club, back in the day. I was a young girl. She was a teenager. So, she knows who I know – or, knew – and she had suggestions for me – people to talk to, who would also understand exactly what my background is and what that means in terms of what kind of work would really suit me.
• Jewish Family Service also has free Tai Chi classes (great for arthritis, which helps me incredibly), and circle drumming classes. Oh hell
• Dress for Success offers not only clothing for interviewing/work, but also live interviews with feedback from people currently in business, currently looking for people. Way I see it: even if these people don’t want my type of help, I can impress the hell out of them with my interview skills and they can be reminded that their buddy needs someone like me.
• Debbie took me into the Food Pantry, and gave me food for a month. 10 bags of food, personal items. Just incredible. I’ve never felt so blessed.
• I may get help with my bills so that I can keep my car, and get help with gasoline so that I can go to interviews. This is…amazing! If I had only known long ago that I could ask for this kind of help before going broke. If I had only known that self-sufficiency is as much an illusion as it really is.

I used to have money. Not millions, but far, far more than most people ever see in their lives. And I don’t have it anymore. What I’m learning to do is let go of my shame and regret and to see that even its loss is about change and growth; I’m learning that in a real way – not just a philosophical way, which is important and impactful – but which is oh-so-much-more incredible when it is experiential.

I’m learning just how blessed I truly am: my friend Mark took me in and I’m safe and warm in a home with two housemates who are fantastic guys. That alone would be enough to be on-my-humble-knees grateful for.

But then I also have friends! And now I have Debbie at Jewish Family Services to help to get me on my feet – no! Much more than that: helping me get onto NEW feet.

You see, I had two epiphanies today (two! That’s a good day!):

• I don’t have to rush in finding a job.
• I’m not getting “back” on my feet; I’m creating a new life, the likes of which I’ve not seen before!

I’ve always rushed. Rushed to beat my own clock – the clock of running out of money, running out of time, running out of strength. Whatever. Running out of something over which I had no control. The epiphany today is one that allows me to truly see my life from a different perspective.

I don’t have to rush to be self-sufficient in the way that society would like to see me. What I have to do is focus, and allow. I have to – at long last – get off the treadmill of proving self-sufficiency and worthiness, and instead aim my feet and my heart at the best of what I have to offer. Because at 57 years of age, what the hell else would I be waiting for? Just another job designed only to help me “get by”? I object, Your Honor!

I could run like a rabbit to the next available position that I could do with my eyes (and, by the way, my heart closed), and it might last another 12 months. And guess what! I’d be right back here in 12 months. Why not use this opportunity instead to align with my real path; the one that actually feeds not only me but all of the people I can serve with what I’ve attained in terms of knowledge and desire to share?

I’m not talking – this time – about the path that leads to a million dollars. I’m talking about the path that is about using me up in joyous self-expression and gift-sharing, offering by glorious offering, by the time I go.

Wow.

It doesn’t mean I won’t take another job – I actually want one! It means that my focus is different; I have my eyes on a different kind of prize in life. To paraphrase a friend of mine: Just when exactly do we get to do what we want to do instead of what we have to do? It seems to be up to us. Maybe not the timing of when, or the mysteries of how, but apparently it is up to us.

It is up to me. I’ve been given the room to make that 180-degree turn. And now that I see that I have the opportunity to make that turn, I’m taking it. Now.

So, no to shame and victimhood.

Yes to Focus. Yes to Intention. Yes to passion.

This is big, y’all. From panic and “how could this happen to me?” and feeling victimized by “bad luck”, to seeing that I am in a birth canal and choosing to honor that reality and make my choices based on a brand new kind of rhythm, a brand new kind of perspective.

So, what does this have to do with going broke in Cincinnati (even though I actually went broke in California, to start with)?

Cincinnati is affordable. Cincinnati’s pace of life is slow enough to give me the room to slow down! (Who knew I needed that?) Cincinnati is my hometown, and apparently I actually know people here (I didn’t realize that at all in the same way when I lived here in the 1990’s, taking care of my Dad after his strokes)! I know people who care about me, and who I care about too! Cincinnati is simple, and artistic, and a little bit jagged with weather – and I like that, because the weather doesn’t insist, as does California’s gorgeous and relentless sunshine, that I be happy, well, and positive all the damn time. Instead, it has rain that says: “It’s okay to have a day where you can be moody, you can sit and focus on feelings that are darker, and that are beautiful in their darkness.” It has snow that says, “Sometimes things are beyond your control, and that’s the nature of things; don’t worry about it. Adjust to that rhythm, because it will change soon enough.” It has chilly Fall days that say, “Time to watch the changes in life, and walk with them, and appreciate them.” It has summer days that say, “C’mon over and set a spell. It’s too hot to do anything else, anyway. Come and connect with each other and deepen those ongoing connections that invigorate and bring meaning to your lives, and sustain you in community all through the harsher weather.”

Look, I didn’t want my life to look this way at this time of my life. I wanted my life to lead me to greater wealth, and success. Instead I went broke. Inconceivably broke. Heartbreakingly broke. Shamingly broke. Until I hit that point of awareness that said, “I can either keep kicking myself for utterly screwing up my life,” or I can find another way, something that feels better and that supports and enhances my life, no matter how the external conditions of my life look.

That’s about quality of life, and finding the “open door” that God is said to be providing.

Here – more than anywhere else I’ve ever lived – is where I’m finding it. Bit by bit.

If you have to go broke, seriously, do it here.

The Solution Solution

I went to a dry cleaner’s a couple of days ago. The first time since I came back to Ohio.

I brought a sweater and a dress jacket to be cleaned. I was nervous – how much was this gonna run me? $30? $40? I had – little by little – grown so accustomed to denying myself what had been normal expenses.

I put the two items up on the counter, and the cleaners took them. I removed my filthy jacket because it was hot in there; I put it on the counter, and someone behind the counter picked it up. I said, “Wait! I’m not going to …” and then I thought, “Hey! Why not?” So it was time to ask The Big Question:

“On second thought, how much would all of that cost me?”

And then I nearly fell down.

“Well…” the young man drawled, “let’s see … $3.50 for the sweater. $5.00 for the jacket. $10.50 for the coat…”

Such a small thing to produce the result that it did: Gratitude to be living here. To be able to draw a breath, terror-free. To not have to ransom my soul for the small moments like these, the small events like this.

In California I lived on Ramen noodle soup for months. Not solely! But definitely far more than a body should do. Because I was stretching out every single penny, and a simple thing like filling a gas tank, or getting something dry cleaned, or paying a bill, or facing the start of the month with its nightmare of rent due, was enough to emotionally lay me out.

There wasn’t one moment that I felt I could truly relax.

When I would visit Half Moon Bay, which I adore, to be at the beach and look at the water, I realized, I was going there in order to sit in sadness. That’s no reason to go the beach!!! I love the beach and the ocean! It should bring me great joy and relaxation! Nope. I couldn’t access it.

There was no place I could feel safely held by the world around me while I went through whatever life gyrations are mine to weather and grow through.

And here’s what I realize now: It wasn’t my fault. I just couldn’t make it there.

Whaddaya know! Ammachi is right! Environment truly is stronger than will.

A dry cleaner visit in Cincinnati and I no longer had to “wait to exhale”. I exhaled right there in the car, and drove away enveloped in gratitude and wonder

Who knew I couldn’t be stronger than a place? Well, that would be me. I didn’t.

“I Am the Birth”

I was talking with a friend of mine today who is 14 years younger than I am, and who – given certain life events – most certainly will not have children. As I have not. We had both some time ago decided that what we needed was the life partner that would bring up within us a sense of sharing so deep that we couldn’t help but want to bring forth life together.

And so far, she hasn’t found that partner.

I bring this up because she said something so profound, I was stunned. She said, almost as if in passing, “I guess I’m the birth. And I help others be ‘born’ too, into their own birthing.”

She was speaking spiritually, of course, and I suddenly saw my childless choice differently.

“I’m the birth.” My God, that’s profound. I’m the one I have to raise. I’m the one who is the light of my life. I’m the one who is to make me proud. I’m the one I’m sending out into the world to be a light unto it, among the other lights in the world.

For the record, I haven’t suffered unduly about childlessness over the years – I suffered far more in my 30’s and 40’s over being without that dream partner. What shifted for me when my friend said these words was the sense of ownership about this choice. In the light of “I have no children”, I saw how much work I was able to accomplish. How much spiritual digging and lifting and surrendering. And a strange kind of weight was lifted. Instead of seeing myself as one of the anomalous people who never married and never had children, I saw myself as … on the right path!

Don’t misunderstand me. I still think it would be absolutely amazing to find a partner and then have that person bring children – grown children, little grandkids, whoever! The more the merrier – into the equation. But what is so much more important is that I’m choosing to shift into the being and attracting of more and more love in all of its incredible forms: friendships, health, wealth, spiritual community, a partner, love with and of God, self-love, faith…oh, these are all such good things! And I know now that everything, absolutely everything that is of any good or value, starts within myself and my consciousness and my heart. I also suspect that instead of loving one child, or two or three, if my gifts are really realized, I may be able to love hundreds or, who knows, thousands of people with my words, or my teachings or performances. Who knows…

I have had a lot of dreams die at my feet. Or have they? I’m not dead yet, not by a long shot, and I am increasingly handing my life, my attention, my misplaced efforts over to the divine within me. I’m easing up on trying, thank God. Because God – or should I say my Godness – can do better than I can. At any age of my lifetime.

I have tried really, really, really hard in my life. At everything. Oh dear God, it makes me want to cry, because if effort and goals were the panacea of success they are supposed to be, I would be the richest, happiest person on the planet. Instead, I tried really fucking hard, and my entire inheritance is gone. It hurts to type it – I’m almost over it, but it still hurts.

I spent my inheritance trying to follow my acting dream out in California. I had everything I needed. Talent. Professionalism. Money. Freedom. Communication. Instead I found myself having to halt, to bow, a lot, to my unrecognized but primary need for community. Friendship. Care. Grounding. And in that bowing to never finding enough of what I needed, I never was able to follow the dream in the ways I wanted. “Why don’t you move to L.A.?” people asked me, and it was because what relatively little support (compared to my past Cincinnati life) I had in the Bay Area would be gone if I moved to L.A., and I would be in danger of depression. And depression and goal-seeking do not go hand-in-hand.

I didn’t recognize that these needs of mine were primary human needs. I thought that I was emotionally weak – that poor flawed little me, I needed to have something other people didn’t need. I needed to put other things on hold because I wasn’t strong enough to do without love and contact and communication and weekly – not quarterly – contact. I wasn’t strong enough to live on my goal alone. I didn’t take into account that I am me; sounds simple, doesn’t it. I’m me. My parents were gone, and I had no more family support. Period. And I was sad and frightened about that. And Lori needed more contact and support than she had.

I also just wasn’t numb! I wasn’t numb to the pain of feeling so untouched, emotionally. And when you feel pain, you stop. Or should do. And I did. I needed a balanced life, which I wasn’t getting. And in true over-efforting fashion, I felt that the entire lack of success was my doing – if I only tried harder…

It is only now that I see that flaw in perception. I’m grateful for it, I suppose, in that I don’t think I’ll make that mistake again.

I now know what I need to be my best and blossoming me: Grounding, interpersonal interaction of a certain depth and constancy, physical safety, a rhythm that supports and nurtures me rather than one that pulses relentlessly against me like a clock screaming, “HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!” That’s the energy of the Bay Area.

I like my time alone, and I like goals, and I like moving forward really super quickly. But mostly, I’m like a submarine that sends out pings to the world around her, finding her moorings in the world from her interaction with the others in it. And finding her personal directions from her connection with the inexplicable energy that we call God or Spirit or Self. And because I do move so quickly, in my mind and in my physical movement toward any goals, I need not to be surrounded by a similarly rushing energy. Being in that similar energy just intensifies my need to rush, which takes me significantly out of the present moment. So, back home again, back in slow Cincinnati, I am finding my footing again. I am grieving what I lost – money, sense of direction, security, love, time – and turning to Spirit and saying, “You know what I need. I know more now about what I need. I leave it to you/us to bring it. I leave it to me to dream it, and to walk forward.”

I am the birth. Birthing into what? That is the question. But here’s what I’ve learned. I don’t have to answer it! At my age, after all of the self-inquiry, I can tell you exactly what I would like to do and be and have. I already know. Clearly, however, I cannot make it happen all by myself! And what Cincinnati is showing me is that from all that I am, all that I have, possibilities and potentialities are blossoming that I could not ever, in a million years, have predicted. Not a chance!

Enter: Visioning. Meditating. Allowing. Surrendering. And because I have been brought to my metaphorical knees – and physical knees, if you count the arthritis I’m recovering from! – I understand something now about these things. Oh so amazingly, I now understand deeper than my mind. I understand from an experiential glimpse – just a glimpse at the moment, but I’m deepening it every day that I can – that there is something beyond me that I can actually touch, and drink from. Knowing that that is a possibility, a truth, something I have felt and barely touched already…that is Life. That is intoxication. That is Laughter, and Joy, and Wonder.

I tell you, opening to that which is beyond my everyday, mind-based me is bringing what I could not do alone:

I moved into a room in Mark’s house – Mark, my mid-life savior who I have known since we were six years old! – and he asked me to use my artistic skills to paint a chair his father built years ago. This started me painting furniture. An art gallery has offered to take, and sell, two of them to begin with, and everywhere I go, people are telling me where to go to sell them, where to go to buy the chairs to paint, new types of painting styles to try. I ran into a woman the other day at St. Vincent de Paul’s who saw my picture of one of the children’s chairs, and said, “Ooh! My daughter is going to have a child! Let me have your card!”

Child’s Rocking Chair

Mark’s Chair

I also started a temp job and found an entire new career path. As I write this, I don’t yet know if it will – or how it will – pan out, but what I found was a combination beloved boss-friend-mentor, and that new career path that uses, in such a deep way, all that I am: insightful, planning, goal-oriented, interpersonal, creative. And if it pans out, it could easily be one of those pathways that brings my inheritance back to me in a new way: from my own efforts this time.

And when I have the money I need to activate my membership with an acting agency here in town, I’m already in. That dream is not dead. I’m just putting ground beneath its feet. Blessed traction. Thank you, God! Thank you, beloved! Use me!

I love St. Francis’s prayer. Make me an instrument of Thy peace. In my words: Make me an instrument of Thy music! Artistry! Connectivity! Love! Light! Wonder! Humor! That I may be a tuning fork for others while enjoying the hell out of myself!

I’m the birth.

We are all the birth. With children. Without children. We are the birth.

Setting Sails on Solid Ground

I’ve been working a freelance job (read: temporary) that has been insanely rewarding. I have a boss who is also becoming a friend. He sees who I am, and is training me to be a Project Manager. He gives me hours and hours of his precious time to give me what I need to advance in my knowledge, and he works on getting me to remain there after December work stops on my birthday, Christmas Eve.

I’ve never had this kind of offer of assistance in my entire professional life, and it’s dizzying.

It’s seductive.

It’s ridiculously hopeful.

And it doesn’t pay enough for me to pay bills.

There is no guarantee that I will be working there past the 24^th, and this place is internally “famous” for simply letting temps go without a second thought.

Today, I sat for hours in a meeting; after it was over, one of the other attendees and I were chatting and he found out that I’m an actress. A SAG actress? he asked me. Yep. He said it’s good to know that there’s a SAG actress on-site; they shoot ads and things sometimes. Wow, I thought, how much better can this get? Well, it could become something that pays me something real; something that is permanent.

I spoke to my boss and asked him what the situation is, and there is nothing else he can do, other than help me present myself to his boss (next week when she’s there) and ask her straight out, “Here’s what I do: Do you want to keep me? Temp? More money? Perm? What?” He has done quite a lot, but he holds no purse strings.

As for me, amidst today’s mid-day revel which included Christmas decorating, beer, bourbon, Christmas music, a blow-up Santa doll that shakes with the “cold”, and a Yule log on the big flat-screen TV someone rolled out, I had a realization that gave me pause.

I suddenly realized today that the way I was feeling – uncertain, hopeful, waiting and waiting and waiting – was precisely what the draw of California was like. Always around the corner, there, was a new possibility, something to move forward in hopes that it would work. And that was always a sign! It was always a possibility that could lead to other possibilities! It was always proof that I was moving in the right direction!

It was bullshit.

So all of those efforts I have been making, I have to back off of enough to give myself some serious job searching time. I would love to stay at this company and become (maybe!) a Project Manager. Imagine what that could do for my income over time! At this age, that’s not a small thing.

A friend asked me if I didn’t want to stay regardless – “when do we get to enjoy what we’re doing?” she asked me.

That’s what I am setting my sails for: what it is that I enjoy.

And I am also setting my sails for: stability.

This is like dating. And this particular date only meets half the requirements.50% good is not nearly enough. I’m reorienting my energies. Pulling the plug on this one-sided romance. We’ll still be friends. And if it turns out the way I would like, HUZZAH! But I will put my feet on the ground and be practical. Finally. At last. Right now.

Is this what maturity is? Putting my feet on the ground, and setting my own direction spreading my arms with wing-like sails billowing out behind me?

I think so.

Land Ho! Land Ho, dammit.

The Emotional Intimacy Solution

There is nothing more terrifying than emotional intimacy, and nothing more beautiful and rewarding. And Cincinnati is where my practice of emotional intimacy got its start.

I went into therapy in my 30’s, when I was back here the first return time, taking care of my father who was having strokes. I was a wreck; nervous breakdown, the works. My therapist, Tina Byrne, was an unapologetic and very vocal advocate for emotional intimacy. So much so, that when she was around 60 years old, she moved to Ecuador to follow that need for community. Real community. Interpersonal, emotionally intimate, I-actually-and-literally-care-about-my-neighbors-and-friends community.

I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about when I began sessions with her. Emotional intimacy? What the hell is that? Dating? Marriage? Best friends?

I was with Tina for 11 years. Six of those years were spent in Group Therapy with five other women. In those six years I learned what emotional intimacy meant. Now I spend the rest of my life continuing to deepen and open that understanding.

It means not understanding what someone else is doing, or why, at all, and still accepting and loving them, without needing to make them do it “your way”.

It means revealing myself to another – my dreams, and my uglinesses, both – and still allowing myself to be loved and accepted.

It means gently correcting, and being corrected by, another. Taking that responsibility – that response-ability – to respond.

It means exploring, together, our jagged edges, and crawling back away from behavioral ledges that we mistakenly categorize as “that’s just my way”.

It means learning to say, “I’m sorry”, and meaning it. Even when it makes me cry while I say it, because I feel ashamed, or frightened, at the pain that has occurred.

It means sitting in an uncomfortable situation, an uncomfortable conversation, and not running. Letting myself feel, deeply, hurt and confusion – and being able to discuss it, instead of running. (Or being able to come back, if I have had to run.)

It means being able to let in someone else’s appreciation of all there is about me that I either can’t see, or can’t/won’t appreciate about myself. To let myself really feel that.

It means allowing myself to feel, deeply, with and about myself.

It means communicating deeply with myself – including and especially that entire world of myself that I haven’t even begun to open the door to, much as I thought I had.

It means becoming the manager of my emotions, so that when I hear something, I can feel what I feel, and still take the time to breathe, to consider, to research, to ask, to explore…before I actually respond.

It means being willing to ask.

To ask for help.

To ask if I can help.

To ask someone if what I heard them say is what they really meant.

To ask myself if I believe the answer. And to actually choose a response, even when it scares me to carry out that response.

To ask myself for clarity, direction, insight, and wait until I get it.

It means being willing to care. In an active way. To reach out and help. A smile will do. A hug. Sharing information. So many ways to reach out.

Emotional Intimacy is openness, risk, reward. It is painful, gorgeous, frightening, healing, quantum-leaping.

I learned about emotional intimacy first from therapy and then from acting and my deep desire to always go deeper and deeper with my understanding, experience, and the deep freedom of emotional connection. It is a practice. A life-long practice.

And I recommend it. Deeply.

The Daddy Solution

When I was a little girl, around 6-8 years old, my father was bigger than life to me, and so very impressive.

He was the cellist with The LaSalle Quartet, he spoke French and German (pieces of one (French) and a lot of the other (German), which to me was the same thing as a whole language), he seemed confident and joyous, and knowledgeable about things that, as a child, seemed hugely mysterious. (He’s the one on the far right in the first image, and in the back in the second image.)

The one that struck my memory chord today was his knowledge of food, and his love of Findlay Market.

Yes, there is a wonderful place here called Findlay Market. It used to be just one building crammed full of cheeses and meats and breads and God-knows-what – exotic foods that were not everyday for my family. Now it’s one building, PLUS. Places to sit outside and chow down and vendors selling all kinds of artistic wares (when it’s not wintery, of course); shops outside, which includes a beer-and-wine shop with tastings (these are my favorite types of alcoholic drinks, so this place makes me happy), and other shops that sell all kinds of seasonings and foods. It gets crowded inside, and if you can hang with that, it’s a fun experience.

Reminder to self: this kind of crowded is not. that. bad.

Plus, the last time I went I discovered the most amazingly scented oils – for eating, not for adorning

Findlay Market – Winter

Findlay Market – Shopping Day

Findlay Market – Empty Day

Findlay Market – Summer

Anyway, when I was a little girl, my father would bundle me into the car and go downtown to Findlay Market, take me by the hand, and walk me through this grown-up world of exotic foods and adult conversations about types of salamis and pates and tongue (yes, we actually ate tongue – something I would shudder to do now, just because I remember the texture…see what I mean? [SHUDDER]), and conversations in German (Cincinnati is fundamentally a German town, and my father had a really good grasp of that fundamental language since our family was German, and his grandfather spoke Yiddish while he was growing up).

What hit me this morning was a child’s view memory, a sweet memory, of me holding my father’s hand and looking up and up at him, tall above me, laughingly talking with a man behind the elevated counters, while I was aware of the incomprehensible numbers of food options behind the counter which my eyes were just barely raised enough to see.

I feel myself smiling up at him in a child’s open-hearted, open-eyed wonder at this man, this Daddy, this knowledgable and wise man who can somehow know all about all of these foods, and who can speak German, and who people like and laugh with. He’s so self-assured and I can trust him to take care of me. And he’s my Daddy! What a lucky girl am I!

*sigh*

I will always think of my father when I go to Findlay Market. And now that I’m home, I will think of him there often.

The Surrender Solution

I had a talk today with a really kind County worker. Kind as she was, the situation we were talking about sent me to the bathroom in tears. Tears. Again.

Okay. Okay, Lori, tears are okay. No problem. The attitude that follows that is what really counts. That’s where I’m taking a stand that reminds me of what I went to – surrender-wise – when I realized I was going to move back to Ohio and I had no idea how that was going to come about.

Sorry. Let me explain.

I got Medicaid when I got home. Then it got canceled. I am not entirely sure why. I’ve gotten a couple of answers about that and they differ. However, I finally got this woman on the phone today and she said I should be notified in a few days whether I have been reinstated or not. In order to be reinstated I need to make less than $1,321 per month.

I’m working a temp job, right? So, if I make more than $1,321 per month this month, then I get kicked out of Medicaid – or in my case, kept out. Then, when I no longer have work in the middle of December, I apply again and wait 30 days for the decision again.

This is insanity.

Plus, I have meds that I have to take each day.

So I ended up in tears in the bathroom, because it seemed to me that for every time I try to swim forward, the system pulls me back and says, “Hey, no! Don’t work, and then you can get healthy!”

What the fuck???

Honestly, I have to say that. I can’t think of any more appropriate response then “What the fuck???”

So I come out of the bathroom and back to my desk and I think to myself the most life-affirming, surrender-y thing. I am grateful and more than a little surprised at the grace of the thought even coming to me:

“Lori, do you want to spend this time in anger and freaking out, or do you want to spend it in trusting? Relaxing into the process, whatever it is?”

And honestly I have to say that relaxation sounds better. Walking through this nearly inconceivable time of my life with a wry sense of humor sounds better.

Sounds, in fact, like walking in faith, without a preconceived idea of what that means other than “Mother is with me”, “God knows what you need”.

How many times have I cursed and yelled at the heavens, “If you know what I need then why don’t I frickin’ HAVE IT?????? Why am I suffering???”

My Hindu friends would say, “Karma!”

My Christian friends would say, “God’s testing you!”

I have no idea what my Jewish friends would say, which is sad since I was born Jewish, but there you have it. Maybe someone can tell me.

For every religion there would be a way to frame the answer to “why am I suffering?” in such a way that it would at least feel understandable. I have never liked the framed answers, because they don’t seem complete to me. I can’t really “get with the ”, inside myself, y’know? They sound like guesses, and I want the truth. (Yes, call me Mulder, my X-Files friends.)

Fact is, there may be no answer that will satisfy. It is what it is, y’know? And my point of power at this point in my unfolding life is to look at and go, “Y’know, this is feckin’ NUTS!” and feel my lips turn up at the corners, wryly – oh yes, totally wryly in my non-religious Jewish expression of the eternal “oy!” – and say, “Hey, God! This is crackers! Good thing you’re on the job, because this one is snafu’d beyond recognition, and you know I can’t fix it.”

Why does all of this remind me of my time preparing to come back to Ohio? Because after that decision, and after 3 days of doing a little, and then sitting down in despair, freaking out because I didn’t know if all of my efforts would work out, I had a similar breakthrough. I said to myself, “Self, you can either go through the next 3.5 weeks in misery, or you can just put one foot in front of the other. Period.” So I put one foot in front of the other, and people came through (you know who you are), and situations came to pass. It was pretty amazing.

So, in this particular craziness, I choose to let go of the learned response of fear and despair. I choose to be practical, and to have chats with Spirit about how I walk this one out.

I do have another arrow in my quiver – I can go to one of the hospitals that has a specific program for fulfilling meds.

In the meantime, God, this one is snafu’d beyond recognition. Do your stuff. Peace out!

Kindness Ho!

No, not that kind of “ho”. C’mon! No, my friend. More like a sailor-ish “Land Ho!” Because after last night, I’m convinced that there is something to be said for fewer people living in one area.

I’ve been to the County on business, I’ve been to the BMV (here, it’s the Bureau and not the Department of Motor Vehicles), and last night I added the E.R. to that list, and I so deeply appreciate the kindness of Cincinnati.

The Bay Area is knee deep in people. It’s a place of great need and not enough assistance to provide for all of that need. This creates a lot of tension in the people who are providing the help, and a lot of anger in the people who need it.

Cincinnati is so much smaller, it blows my mind. My friend Tizzy (short – so to speak – for Theresa) finds it near-impossible to believe that the traffic here is basically no-traffic-at-all, in comparison to the Bay Area’s non-stop flow of cars. She says, “But…but rush hour is awful!”

Of course. Anytime and anywhere you’re staring at someone’s vanity plates for 10 minutes is a pain in the ass. We humanoids don’t tend to feel very patient when we want to be wherever it is we’re going in our mad rush to be there.

But anyone who has lived in the Bay Area will tell you that there’s just something about that place that makes every journey out of one’s own surrounding area feel as though you have trekked to Asia. It could be the bridges. It could be the nine million cars and people and the exasperation and rushing and non-stop-edness. That’s not to say that I recommend staying within a 10 mile radius of your place. But it does seem to be a factor of a place with enormous numbers of people.

Last night I visited the E.R. in an attempt to put my health back on track, with or without the health insurance which has been interrupted due to County snafu (Happy flippin’ Holidays). I thought to myself, “Well, I’ll just go, and I’ll explain what’s going on and maybe they’ll be willing to help me.”

I walk in there and I am greeted by two women standing at a podium – swear! – by the gizmo that checks you for guns (what a weird freaking time we live in – who the f*** brings guns into a freakin’ ER?), and they are smiling and asking what they can do for me, and am I there to see a doctor. I say that I am.

“When that woman is done over there, you can go up to that window. Now, how did you get here?”

“I drove.”

“Here. You will need this to get out of the garage.”

It’s a get-out-of-garage-free card. I’m so grateful I almost fall to my knees and pranaam to them.

Here’s the thing: this is an E.R. waiting room, right? It’s about 5:50PM. And there is one woman at this “window” – it’s really a desk – and there is one other person in the waiting room (yes, you read that right: one).

In, oh, 2 minutes, I get up to the window and they are asking me questions like, “Are you thinking of hurting yourself or another person? How did you get here? Have you traveled outside the country? Been near anyone with Ebola?”

Really?

And you’re talking to me without a mask…You poor babies! Just sayin’…this is a hazardous job.

So, I have my Driver’s License and my now-defunct Medicaid card in my right hand, ready with my true-but-aggravating story of having my insurance canceled unnecessarily, because I’m waiting for the “usual” question: “Which insurance do you have?”

That question. never. comes.

Instead, I don’t even get a chance to sit down to wait; I am taken back into the E.R. and put into a room to wait for care.

Which I get in spades. First, the doctor who is the head honcho that night, apparently, comes in to say hello and ask what’s up. I tell him. When he finds out I have no primary physician yet, he promises that they will get me one. Really? Sounds good to me! He leaves. In comes the nurse, with the doctor – a young woman of foreign birth, maybe island? – standing in the doorway taking notes on our talk.

The doctor asks me to repeat everything because she showed up a sentence-and-a-half late. So I do. And that’s when I start crying, because I’m telling her it’s been a madly stressful year and a half, and that my partner died last year…and then the tears, because my phone oh-so-kindly “reminded” me a few hours ago that it is Vince’s birthday tomorrow (today, now – 11/21). So she grabs a paper towel and hands it to me. But quickly she goes, “Oh no, that won’t do,” and runs off to get me a little box of that hospital Kleenex they have. The doctor. Gets me Kleenex. Really? And makes me throw away the abrasive paper towel I’m still dabbing my face with, because “that’s too abrasive”.

Next I get a visit from another nurse who makes sure I’m okay, and then in comes a woman named Theresa who wants me to electronically sign the things that in the Bay Area they make you sign at the window before you get anywhere near a doctor, or a hospital bed. She offers to get me Advanced Health Directive documentation and I gratefully accept. And she is the one who asks me if I have insurance. After I’ve already been there for 60 minutes, and they’re getting ready to treat me. I love this. A lot. I tell her my story, and she rolls her eyes in commiseration, reassures me that Medicaid is 30 days – maybe 60 days – retroactive, and that she will have someone call me from the hospital whose job it is to help people like me who have financially fallen down and gone boom with their lives, to deal with the hospital visit and whether they are billed or not.

Back comes the doctor to tell me that they can do nothing for the “pain management” of my leg, but that they are going to give me a kind of Mylanta-ish plus lidocaine numbing concoction for the acid reflux that’s kicking my *&##%&@# ass for days now (and that I think has been on the rise for weeks and weeks, now I start to see the symptoms in my personal rearview mirror).

I ask her if they give steroid shots for bad hips, and she looks for a moment as if I have asked her if she might give me some heroin! “Oh no! We don’t do that here!” I reassure her that it’s okay. I had to! She looked a bit overcome at the question!

Another nurse comes in and gives me this concoction drink that immediately numbs my mouth and tongue and throat so completely, I think I won’t be able to swallow for an hour, and for a moment I’m wondering if I’ll be able to breathe – panic – so I throw open the door and ask a passing nurse. She looks at me like, “Really???”

In any case, having treated me, they all leave me there with a TV – a TV??? In the ER? Yep. A little TV that swings away from the wall on a huge arm. Thank you, Jesus. I’m so surrendered at this point, sitting on this hospital gurney/bed, eyes all awash from tears, and my body just absorbing the medicine, watching TV, the thought goes through my mind: “Fuckit, I’ll just stay here all evening. The door’s closed, no one’s been here for a while to check on me; maybe they’ll just forget about me, and I’ll just hang here – me and my TV and my gurney, chillin’…”

Only I got chilly, and had to open the door myself to let the heat of the outer area come in.

The doctor came back, distracted but still present somehow (she had cases that were actual medical emergencies – the place was hopping, actually – asked if I was better, and when I said I was better than I had been, she said I could go.

But I didn’t think I could – I still needed paperwork for getting a primary doc, didn’t I? So I sent one nurse for the first nurse, and when she came in, she was so kind, as if she had all the time in the world (she didn’t). She called me “sweetie” – she is about 28 years younger than I am – which was lovely, and told me to have a good evening and take care, and that love she exuded just carried me out into the night.

When people have time to care – when people have time to decompress in their lives as a whole – more compassion, more love, more humor, more connectivity can happen. And does.

And yes, it does make me cry to think about that. With gratitude.