Broken Open

This is an amazing song written and performed by Laura C., a woman in recovery. It's a lovely video, albeit with a slightly too conventionally heterosexually happy ending for me. But that small point aside, it tells an amazing story about being open...to change.

With love to all my girls out there in recovery land, and everyone else who has felt broken, once upon a time or two.

To Knit or Knot to Knit

I decided today that I should take up knitting. Not sure why. I learned to knit many years ago, so I know the fundamentals. It must be like riding a bike, right? I get the sense (largely from reading blogs, actually) that knitting can be very relaxing. Which could be of great benefit to somebody in my current state.

I may have a romanticized vision of knitting. There is a wonderful wool shop in our little city. It is 105 years old, and sells the most beautifully-coloured yarn I've ever seen. I wander through it because I love colour, I haven't in the past thought about buying needles and creating something. The shop does offer lessons, a Friday night social/knitting group, and a charity knitting circle. It sounds like something out of a novel about knitting, of which there certainly are plenty, these days. Maybe I think I want to be a knitter, but really, all I want is to be a character in a knitting novel? I'm not sure.

My grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet when I was about ten. (This was the same grandmother who, two years earlier, declared in front of a room full of people that I got homelier every year.) I don't have a very clear memory of the knitting lessons, but I think that I enjoyed the learning, and suspect that it was nice for me to spend that type of quiet time with my "Nannie." I didn't knit anything to completion at the time, I just learned the mechanics, and then put the needles down and went back to Nancy Drew.

I didn't pick up knitting needles again until I was twenty, and pregnant. My claim to knitting fame to this day is a tiny, multi-coloured (pale pastels) baby sweater. With freakishly long arms. The sweater itself is tucked into First Born's memory box. Thinking about it now, I would love to dig it out and just gaze at it again. I still marvel that I made it. As I recall, my Mom had to help me sew the pieces together, and I am pretty sure I let her put the buttons on too. But I knit each and every piece of it, lovingly, and with great care.

The irony only occurs to me now, going on thirty years later, that I completed the one knitting project of my life at the same time that the woman who taught me how to knit, was completing her time on earth. Nannie was 87 when she died, just six weeks after First Born appeared. Nannie met First Born only once. As my Mom liked to tell the story, we brought First Born to the nursing home on one of Nannie's seemingly better days. Nannie had dementia, but could be lucid at times. We thought she was having a particularly good day, that day. As she cradled First Born in her arms Nannie certainly seemed happy as she stroked First Born's cheek, and cooed baby noises to her in her beautiful, lilting Dublin brogue. After a few moments, a look of concern came over her face, and she looked straight up into my mother's eyes, and without missing a beat said, "Oh my, Dorothy, she's lovely. But I think this one ought to be your last." We laughed for days, well - for years, about Nannie thinking my baby was Mom's.

My mother also knit, and I would imagine that Nannie taught her how, just as she taught me. Funny, I've never thought that thought until now, it is pleasant to think it. In addition to knitting baby booties and sweaters (what ever happened to baby booties, anyway), every winter Mom knit mittens for the homeless, and in the last few years of her life, like so many other women it seemed, she took up knitting cotton dishcloths. They were all the rage in 90s. When Mom died, I inherited a handful of her newly knitted, never used, cloths. They too are tucked away, in yet another box. I haven't ever had the heart to use them. I'll pass them along to my girls, at some point, along with the beautiful baby sweaters that Mom knit for them. Sweaters, I should say, with arms knitted in perfect proportion.

So here's what I know. I think I want to knit. I don't know why that desire has come to me at this point in my life, this moment in my recovery. But I'm going to go for it, and I'll just take things...one stitch at a time.

Brenda Ueland and The Twelve Steps of Writing

Best Friend is one of the strongest supporters of my writing dream. We met when we were both 15 years old, and that girl has witnessed the best and worst times of my life. Although it wasn't always easy, Best Friend has loved me for 35 years, even through my least lovable moments. (She didn't have to like me, she just had to love me.) It was Best Friend who, twenty years or so ago, knowing about my desire to become a writer, bought me Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. I devoured that book, and adore it still. I plan on blogging about it and a couple of other books that I have recently fallen in love with, over the next few days. But I have to start with another book, one that I also acquired several decades ago. I'm nearly but not completely positive that I bought this one myself. The book is Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit.

First published in 1938, this slim volume continues to inspire. Poet and writer Carl Sandburg claimed that it was "the best book ever written about how to write." As a believer in twelve step programs, I am attracted to Ueland's claim that there are twelve things that anybody who wants to write needs to know and to believe. These steps or principles, according to Ueland, and presented verbatim are:

1. Know that you have talent, are original and have something important to say.
2. Know that it is good to work. Work with love and think of liking it when you do.
3. Write freely, recklessly, in first drafts.
4. Tackle anything you want to—novels, plays, anything.
5. Don't be afraid of writing bad stories. To discover what is wrong with a story write two new ones and then go back to it.
6. Don't fret or be ashamed of what you have written in the past.
7. Try to discover your true, honest, and untheoretical self.
8. Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers. Remember how wonderful you are, what a miracle!
9. If you are never satisfied with what you write, that is a good thing. It means your vision can see so far that it is hard to come up to it. Again I say, the only unfortunate people are the glib ones, immediately satisfied with their work. To them the ocean is only knee-deep.
10. When discouraged, remember what Van Gogh said: "If you hear a voice within you saying: You are no painter, then paint by all means, lad, and that voice will be silenced, but only with working."
11. Don't be afraid of yourself when you write. Don't check-rein yourself. If you are afraid of being sentimental, say, for heaven's sake be as sentimental as you can or feel like being! Then you will probably pass through to the other side and slough off sentimentality because you understand it at last and really don't care about it.
12. Don't always be appraising yourself, wondering if you are better or worse than other writers. "I will not Reason & Compare," said Blake; "my business is to Create." Besides, since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of Time, you are incomparable.

Brenda Ueland died in 1985, at the age of 93. This book is still in press. If you haven't got it, and you want to write, I recommend it highly.

An Ottoman is Worth a Thousand Words

I was sitting with my legs stretched out over my ottoman this afternoon and realized that there was just way too much stuff under my feet. As I leaned over to start clearing things off, I was struck by the story that the ottoman was telling. It encapsulated so much of what is going on in my life. In no particular order:

The Remote

I use it to check the weather in the morning and to make sure there is no breaking news on CNN, then I tune into and crank the Spa or Nature Channel for the rest of the day. Soul Mate gets home by 4:30, and that's the last I see of this device.

Eat Magazine

Just grabbed it at the grocery store yesterday. I don't bake, but if I did, I would make the rhubarb galette from the recipe on page 28. It would appear as though a galette is just kind of a tart without a crust top on it.

Chatelaine Magazine 1949

I teach women's history, so I love to collect old women's magazines. This issue from 1949 would not appeal to vegetarians. An unusual number of the recipes are "jelly" oriented (vegetable marrow jam, elderberry jelly) and quite a few ads are for what were then referred to as "table-ready meats" such as bologna, the ever popular pickle and pimento loaf, and Prem, a close relative I believe, to Spam. I was also amused by the "Nerves: A Blight to Good Looks" article. Especially this sentence:

"Living in a constant state of tension can be the forerunner of tiresome and serious ailments, such as heart palpitations, chronic headaches, indigestion, high blood pressure, and, perhaps most devastating of all to women, loss of  hair."

Or, perhaps not.

Deck of Melody Beattie's The Language of Letting Go Cards

The card I picked today:

Accepting Change

Today I will be open to the process of change. I will trust my Higher Power and believe that the place where I'll be dropped off is better than the place where I was picked up. I know that change is necessary to take me wherever I need to go.

Sounds good to me.

Deck of Cheryl Richardson's Grace Cards

Today's pick:

Surrender

Surrender is the key that unlocks the door to grace.

Yes, I get that.

Writing As a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives

I have been too busy writing to do much reading, but I look forward to sinking my teeth into this book by Louise DeSalvo. Like Natalie Goldberg and several other writing gurus whom I adore, DeSalvo talks a lot about ``writing as practice.`` In fact, DeSalvo even terms it ``The Yoga of Writing`` and claims that ``Committing to the practice of simply writing is as transformative as is telling our stories, as is linking our feelings to the events in our lives.``

These things too, I know to be true.

And that is the story of my ottoman.

International Women's Day, March 8th

In honour of International Women's Day, another blogger suggested sharing something written by a female ancestor. I hope to find time to dig up and read the many letters that my mother wrote to me when I lived a letter's distance or more away, but I can't do that today. So, I don't have much close at hand, but I do have a short excerpt from a diary entry that Mom wrote in 1996. (She only wrote in a diary very sporatically toward the end of her life, mostly at my urging.)

June  28, 1996
The reason I picked this book up - I want to start putting down some of my thoughts. For instance: today George went to Edmonton with Eric and I decided to clean some windows and put my "Les Miserables" tape in the player (I only play it when I'm alone). While I was rub-a-dub-dubbing the windows and singing along with the music, I recalled a day a few months ago at Debra's when she, Dawn and I were listening to the same music and Dawn and Deb broke into song. (We three saw Les Mis together at the Jubilee and loved it). Anyway, they were both singing their hearts out and altho I laughed, because they don't really have classic voices, it was one of the special moments of my life, they most likely have no idea how happy I was to see the closeness between them or how very much I love them. I only wish the same closeness could be shared with the boys, maybe someday!

Thanks Mom, for taking the time to put down your thoughts. If you were here you would know that our voices haven't gotten any better, but you will be pleased to know that my sister and I both listen to our favourite music as loud and as often as we please, regardless of whether we are alone or not. Debra in particular, still favours the music from Les Miserables, whereas I remain partial to the Phantom of the Opera. Of course, there is no such thing as a "tape player" anymore, we listen to our music on iPods. You wouldn't be into iPods because you didn't like putting things in your ears, but they also have docking stations. I know, sounds weird, hey? I am sure you will be happy to learn that since you have left us, both of your "girls" have actually shared moments of real closeness with one or the other of our brothers. We'll try to get a few more in, in your honour.

Happy International Women's Day, Mom. This one's for you.

Lost Dreams Reawakened

As part of my healing process (you'd need to read another post or two below to catch up), Soul Mate and I took a four day weekend up island from where we live. We spent the weekend driving, hiking, and savouring gourmet meals at several world renowned restaurants, including the Wickanninish Inn, where we dunked toast into the most expensive eggs on the island. More than anything, each day we took great pleasure in  each other's company and relaxing in nature. I hadn't chilled like that for a really long time. Although I have been "'taking it easy" for the three weeks that I've been home off of work, acupuncture, therapy and doctor's appointments take a lot of energy. Especially the therapy. 

Getting away from "it all" was an excellent idea. The drive up was not entirely relaxing because we hit a snowstorm going over the mountain pass that we had to conquer before descending into Pacific Rim National Park in order to reach our final destination, Tofino. It was a good thing that we brought the four wheel drive truck, and not my Nissan Cube.

I can't think of a more stunningly beautiful and outrageously laid back place in March. Within just a few hours of walking the beaches and hiking the trails, peacefulness and serenity began to replace (my) anxiety and depression. Thankfully, Soul Mate doesn't get depressed, and is seldom anxious, although as of late, he has expressed some anxiety about my mental state. He thinks that how I feel, matters. Which says a lot about why I believe he is my soul mate. He is not a worrier, just a pretty happy go lucky guy who is rarely ever heavy hearted. I'm guessing that seeing me lighten up so soon into our trip was a good sign for him. Neither of us knew when we set off on our adventure if I was going to be able to pull off a good time.

In addition to lifting my droopy spirits, nature's healing power and the slower pace quickly did wonders for my creativity too. That, and a strong Americano at dinner Thursday night kept me up late thinking through and excitedly solving some screenplay storyline problems that I'd had no cure for previously. By the time that dawn broke on Friday, I had remembered that once upon a time or two, in my past, I had been convinced that I was meant to live in a small but beautiful, laid back town, like Tofino. I don't think at this point in my life that we will be moving to a teeny tiny town. I have a life, a home, family, and career in the small city where I live. But it was fascinating for me to reflect upon the fact that 25 years ago, when my dream of becoming a writer first surfaced, I had just moved to a house on the ocean in another very small, coastal community with First Born, Yoga Kid and That Other Husband.

Of course, Yoga Kid wasn't doing yoga at nine months old, but she could have used it, she was shaping up to be a terror of a toddler. Kind of odd considering how they both turned out, but First Born was a completelly mellow five year old back in those days. She's the lively one now, but still just as cute as ever. They both turned out very well, luckily for all of us. That Other Husband (he turned out okay too, but only years after I divorced him) did not really suit laid back life on the edge of the ocean at the time. Let's just say he was used to living on the edge, but not of the ocean. In any case, I wasn't paying too much attention to what he was all about in those days anyway.

My family didn't know anything about my writing dreams way back then. When I announced to our potential ocean dwelling landlord that "I am a writer," my mother, who was visiting at the time, tried not to laugh out loud and give my "lie" away. That Other Husband ignored my remark altogether, which says a lot. We got the house, and I had the opportunity to explain more fully to my Mom about my heart's desire to write. I honestly don't really remember what she told me, but I like to think that she would have said, "you can do it, of course you can." Mostly what I remember is that Mom was amazed at my gumption to declare myself a writer, when I hadn't written a word, for all we knew. She and my Dad always did like my gumption, I think. I remember when I decided to go into treatment just over a year later, my Dad said that I would do great in recovery, that it was going to take hard work but that I had the balls to do it. Thanks, Dad. That one has always stuck with me.

Well I bought myself a typewriter (god, who remembers typewriters) and I do recall sitting at my bedroom window, looking over the ocean while I pecked away and first learned that writing does not come easily. Who knew? I remember that First Born would sometimes sit behind me on my bed and write (it came easily to her) and draw quietly, while Yoga Kid napped across the hall. I think I have some of that early writing somewhere around here, I'll dig it up one day, when I have the courage. I can almost sense the feeling that I had, sitting struggling over word choice, trying to get down on paper what I was experiencing at the time. I felt so much joy thanks to my beautiful little girls and the inspiring setting, but there was a fair bit of confusion and pain too. Some would call it insanity. Hell, even I would have to call it insanity.

In any event, life took a few interesting and time consuming turns in the year after I landed on that beach and raised my writer's flag. In 1987 I raised the most important flag, the white flag of surrender to addiction. Some of my current writing (even here, in this blog) is about the years in between that time and place, and now. I'll keep filling in the blanks, I am sure. It's been an interesting life, this life of mine. I remember when I got into recovery, I worried that life would be boring. That I would be boring. Hasn't happened, yet.

Where I am trying to get to here, the point of today's narrative is, that as I stood overlooking the ocean in Tofino this weekend, things felt different and yet oddly familiar. I am not certain that it was the place that entirely made the difference, because I already do spend a lot of reflection time by the ocean where I live. No, I think it was moving at a slower pace that started to draw out memories, creativity, and a stronger sense of faith in my self. I have come to believe, again, that I have the balls to take care of myself right now, and I know that I am going to be okay. I don't think it's just gumption anymore, but gumption plays a part.

Gumption or god's grace, it doesn't really matter how I got here again. But I am a writer. No lie.

"We ask ourselves when we stopped believing in ourselves and when we stopped believing in anything outside ourselves. Through this process, our lost dreams may reawaken."

(It Works, How and Why, 46)