the strength of womanhood

Strength in surrendering

All I could do this past weekend was go for a walk in our serene Arb, communing with the trees and prairie grass. Then I got to a crossroads and I paused. I wanted to walk on, but I wasn't sure I had the time for it. A woman who'd been walking in front of me had sat down on a log and was overlooking the view, I thought, and I didn't want her to think I had paused just to follow her next move. So I explained. "I don't know which way I should go." I can't recall the order of our sharing past that, but it sort of went like this (condensed version; I talk fast, so a lot more went into it):

She: "I just want to take the path you don't take."
Me: "I'm just trying to figure out if I have the time for the longer route. I'd really like to take the longer route."
She: "I just want to be here in the Arb. I'm supposed to meet some friends at the college for a concert and it's supposed to be fun, but I just want to be here."
Me: "... I can't decide. I am coming undone."
She: "So am I!!!!"

So then I gave her a big hug.

And then we talked.

mucking around in the mud, opening my heart to the sun

My yoga teacher said something beautiful the other day about the symbolism of the lotus flower in yogic tradition. — How the lotus flower grows from the bottom of muddy, cloudy waters, rising above the surface and opening itself to the sun. Suggesting how we too can open our hearts to lightness and brightness, even when we feel ourselves stuck, mucking around in the mud, be it our everyday mundane lives or grief-stricken anguish.

This reminded me of how another yoga teacher used to describe me as a lotus flower with her petals always wide open. And how sometimes I might try to protect my heart a little by folding my petals inwards a bit when encountering unkindness or aggression.

For me, this closing in without shutting off is a real challenge; it's like I can never tell before it's too late that this would be a good time for closing in a little.

This fall, I will make more of an effort to follow the lotus flower's balanced modeling of exuberant opening up and graceful closing in.

image: wiki

when sentimentality rules

Our house is a sailboat and the fuck is my life but my life is also a wildly exciting roller coaster ride. And I have been finding more calm lately by simply observing and accepting, returning not only to my yoga mat but also to my former dabblings in Buddhism. I'll write more about that later. The bit I wanted to share today is my newfound lesson that sometimes sentimentality rules.

So I have planned this crazy packed Europe tour for my book, leaving this Friday and returning on the 31st in the afternoon. There is no coincidence in my coming back on Halloween. I feel immensely sad and bad about leaving my four-year-old for so long, even if she'll be in the highly competent care of her loving papa. It's my second long trip overseas this fall and on the previous one I missed first day of preschool. I simply can't miss Halloween.

So I've made these really busy stressful plans, cramming as much as possible into those ten days I'm in Europe before catching a flight out of Amsterdam early in the morning of Halloween to be back, well, for Halloween.

And though it may sound like I've gone entirely mushy, the fact of the matter is that it works.

the f*ck is my life

This is no f*ck

I went to a friend's mother blessing yesterday and it was good. It was good, because it was real. It was good because it wasn't all about showering her with gifts and well-wishes, though we gave her those too. It was good because we also shared our losses and pains and our sorrows and worries, even as we celebrated the arrival of new life and the strength of motherhood. As a friend of mine pointed out, the fact that we can so genuinely share our times of heartache makes the celebration of our times of joy all the more heartfelt.

Pain and love always coexist, another friend commented.

I take great comfort in my circle of mama friends; we are the rock mamas.

I need this kind of communal comfort these days. Feeling the ground shifting beneath me, I find comfort in coming together to share pain — and joy. Just life.

There is a section in Cheryl Strayed's bestselling collection of advice columns originally published at the Rumpus Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar that really resonated with me. It's a column she wrote in response to a reader's query that simply asked "WTF, WTF, WTF?" Cheryl responds by sharing one of her own immensely fucked-up childhood experiences of her father's father having her jack him off when she was three, four, and five.

our house is a sailboat

This time right now, these weeks, these months, is probably the biggest and most significant time in the lives of our little family. Leighton and I both got a lot going on, both professionally and personally. Some days it's like I can barely hold on, there are so many things and they are all moving so fast.

It's like time stood still just long enough for us to open up to bliss and savor before we were thrown on board on this whirlwind thing; no, *these* whirlwind things. "Weary legged," a friend of mine said the other day over coffee, commenting on how she personally felt this fall after an intense stretch of professional change.

I've always thought of our house as my sanctuary, but what happens when there's a whirlwind of change going on at home too?

i've caused my sweet 4-year-old to lose her cool

First day of school

We had a sunny summer of bliss, Lilly and I, me taking time off from work to regain some perspective, and she growing ever more confident and amazingly competent at the pool and at the beach. There was no hurry. There was only savoring.

Then comes fall. "Fall of excitement, here I come!" I posted on Facebook while packing up for my first trip abroad to promote my book. Preschool resumed while I was gone; missing first day of that is in itself a faux pas.

I've never missed any of her big milestones. In fact, I've only been gone from her a single night before on two different occasions and that was both three years ago. Then towards the end of this summer, Leighton and I had our first couple's only vacation, leaving her with grandparents she doesn't see that often for three whole nights.

And then I go over seas for ten days. In turn she starts extended days in preschool so Leighton can get his work done.

Seeing her again at the airport last Tuesday was pure bliss. She was so happy to see me! So excited! And the feeling was completely mutual.

But then came the nights with my exasperation at her crawling all over my body. And a house full of stress with both Leighton and I having more than our share on our plate this fall. As they say; when it rains, it pours.

independence: you crave it, and then you don't

In many ways, this has been our big summer of independence for us. Sure, I've been more with Lilly than I was this spring. What with my healing journey and taking time off from work to be with her. Time we've spent mostly at the pool or at the beach. In the glorious sun and heat we've been blessed with this year.

But she turned four this summer in June. And she had her very first sleepover at a friend's house while Leighton and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary in July, going out on our very first full date night out ever, all previous "date nights" having been arranged early in the evening with her at a play date, meaning we'd pick her up and put her to bed after our date (read: anticlimactic). And she hosted a sleepover for that same friend later on. And she spent three nights with grandpa and grandma while Leighton and I got our very first couple's only vacation, on which we had a blast, by the way.

So she turned 4. And she wanted goggles for her birthday. It was a Friday. It was an overcast weekend. The sun returned that Monday, so we resumed our afternoons at the pool: first thing there, she dove under water. She'd been wanting to do that for so long! Her jumping grew steadily more adventuresome. Soon she was jumping far out, swimming 8 feet and more doggy style, scooping up pool water with her arms as if it were ice cream, to get back to the edge of the pool.

By August, she joined the big kids at the diving board. Jumping and jumping, oh so gleefully, her mama (ME!) cheering her on with the true and amazed and triumphant joy and glee of someone high on stunned pride.

wild: staring down fear and aloneness

I picked up Cheryl Strayed's Wild because I so loved Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water featuring one woman's journey from loss and hurt to empowerment and peace through the rugged path of alcohol, drugs, and a lot of sex. The marketing of Wild made it sound like the two women had some things in common (and in fact they belong to the same writers' group). And they do. All of us on healing journeys do. But this one was different. Like with The Chronology of Water I got hooked but not quite as viscerally. The waters didn't run as deep nor wild in Wild I thought whereas reading The Chronology of Water was an immensely cleansing experience.

Yet I couldn't put Wild down and I found it both greatly entertaining while also rather lovely and even poetic at times. Subtitled From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail it features memories from Strayed's childhood and recounts how her own first marriage as well as her family fell apart when her mother died from cancer when Strayed was only twenty-two. On the trail four years later, she is forced to come to terms with the aloneness and fear she'd sought to numb in heroine and sexual affairs. Tapping into her own strength, and detecting her connectedness with it all, she comes out on a quite beautiful note.

fighting the US resistance to taking a break

It started out slowly. The sigh-it-out feeling of relief; that things are coming together; my first book will soon be released (which I hope will free and inspire a lot of moms and women — and dads and men! — in general to claim, own, and explore their sexuality on their terms). Suddenly all the blogging and Facebooking and Tweeting just seemed less urgent. Plus, the days were getting longer, warmer, sunnier. And are still lovingly long, warm, and sunny, even if we've passed the solstice.

I grew up in Scandinavia, light and heat deprived and all: how could I not seize the moment to soak in pleasure and joy right now?

So I did. Like I've done many times before (though not last summer when I was crunching in work hours to get said book done).

Taking time off is definitely not an uncommon thing to do for me and most of my fellow Norwegians (who claim five weeks of paid vacation each summer), as well as numerous continental Europeans. On the contrary: we take pride in it. Which is so unlike most Americans who in the US take pride in their workaholocism though their production and achievement focused obsession shows no improvement is results from those of the Europeans.

getting up and going down

Lilly turned four last Friday: goggles was on the top of her wishlist. She tried them on in the bathtub last weekend as the rain poured down outside, and then when we went to the pool on Monday, she excitedly started jumping up and down, prepping to duck her head down beneath water. And then she did it! Just like that. She enthusiastically kept jumping and ducking up and down, over and over again.

It's not that she's fearless or reckless; it's not that there isn't some apprehension. It's just that this is something she's been wanting to do, testing the waters to do, for a very long time. Lilly, as a close friend of mine once pointed out, very much demonstrates a sense of caution and competence. The quality of standing back and observing, making judgment of what she may or may not be capable of doing; what may or may not be wise to be doing; what she truly would like to be doing or not. I'm quite impressed and invigorated by this modeling; I'd like to do the same.

So this week, I've worked on kicking up into handstand.

four years and healing

After 64 hours of labor: first of many nights together

My child turns four today. How did it happen? Where did those sucking-at-the-breast all the time days go? Now replaced by the talking-all-the-time days. They were, are, both wonderful and draining at the same time, sucking it all out of me while filling me up again all the more too. Plus with some.

Really, I do feel, as I posted on Facebook a couple of nights ago, that my child is my little yodi; my little teacher and inspiration.

balance: it takes work

I believe a lot of us think of balance as letting go. To go with the flow more. And not work so hard. Stop striving towards the impossible goal of fitting it all in. Let go of perfectionism. (I too have been thinking in these terms). However, last week, I came to another conclusion. — Achieving and maintaining a sense of balance takes work. Real, hard work.

It's like in yoga. When you practice a challenging balance post, you have to muster all your core strength and mindfulness not to fall out of the pose. Balance is hard to attain and it's easy to fall out of. But in yoga, if you fall out of the pose, the idea is to always enter the balancing pose again before moving on to the next pose.

people who never get angry frighten me

One of the things I respect the most in people is relentless honesty including on the less finer moments of life. Like couples' arguments, of which you don't see too many blunt personal anecdotes, despite their commonness and recent research finding couples arguing stay together. Which is why I ultimately fell in love with Poser with its forthright disclosure of everything, including marital bickering which the author, Claire Dederer, comes to see "not as the beginning of the end of the world but as just another way families communicate." "We bickered pleasantly," she concludes.

Recounts Dederer earlier in her book about a "not entirely successful" date night out, "that vaunted American custom," which, when you are married "buzzes irritatingly on the periphery of your consciousness, the way New Year's Eve does for single people." They were out on a date night to celebrate her birthday, but both were exhausted, possibly with the flu, and on deadlines. Feeling rebellion fomenting on her side of the table at the lack of her husband's courtship and conversation, she "glared briefly" at her husband.

witches and yogis: lining up my people in times of trouble

"In times of trial and tribulations, I line up my line of people," mused my therapist in last week's session. She went on listing sever spiritual leaders, some poets and a few philosophers. She explained that in situations like my own where there are no parents to "hold you" and "call you forward," one can find other figures to provide that sense of safety and support.

This sentiment makes such good sense to me; I left our session with a profound sense of hope. Until later in the week, I found myself floundering. Because, who are my line of people? Have I failed to do my homework here? Am I that alone?

peace, love, courage: a yogi's mindful approach to birthdays

My birthday falls on the first day of spring, and spring is my favorite season, but not for that reason.

Spring has that ecstatic sentiment of new life to it—the rejuvenation of life—but also a tender, almost vulnerable, skinless feel to it.

Some spring days have me flying high, and I've been known to take my birthday celebration seriously. But this year I wanted a more mellow observation. Something sincerely true to where I'm at in my life right now. Which is a mixed bag.

Professionally, I really am flying high. I have a book coming out this fall; I got a new job; and I've been invited to give talks and readings from my book this fall in places around the world, including in Mexico, Norway, Germany, and England. I also have found more balance in my life, with more hours for me to work, and more opportunities for dates. I even got an extra special early pass at the gym, so my time working out there won't interfere with my work-work time.

balance, schmalance and sheet therapy

I’ve read somewhere that depression is worrying about the past, and anxiety is worrying about the future. I've been doing a lot of both lately. And aside from writing about it here now and then, I haven't done that necessary murking around, as my therapist calls it, not to feel like there's this huge tsunami brewing that will wash over and drown me.

So I went back to therapy this week for a third round of serious murking around. I realized when talking with my therapist that I had somehow fooled myself into thinking that my previous rounds of therapy had, if not fixed me, at least sort of allowed me to take care of business and put it behind me. Not true. The wound inside will always be there. I can distract myself as best as I can, but it won't make it go away. And the more I avoid going there, the more I refuse to let it be part of me, the uglier and more ashamed I feel.

home is where we light a candle: on homesickness at Christmas

Digging through Christmas decorations, I recently came across a printout of a chapel talk I gave as a college professor at St. Olaf College ten years ago for a Norwegian Christmas service. Christmas is sort of unavoidably in the air these days, so I thought I'd share it with you all for sentimental reasons. Those of you who know me, will understand that this issue of 'homesickness' is complex to me, to say the least. And you'll know that to me it's all about jól and not Krist-messe (Christ-mass).

I suspect everyone feels homesick at Christmas. Even those who're "at home" experience, I think,  a sense of homesickness; a yearning for Christmas as it "once was."

It is a bittersweet sense of loss and nostalgia. On the one hand, it is a recognition that we can never go back to this "once was." On the other hand, it is a nurturing of this "once was." Finally, it is a suspicion that it never really existed, and that it fares better in our emotional and imaginative world.

women with "wrong" bodies and attempts at healing

Lilly and I: May she never be
told her body is "wrong."

Women are constantly bombarded with imageries that tell them there's somehow something wrong with their bodies; that they don't measure up. But this post is not about those kind of "wrong" bodies. This post is about when Western medicine tells women their bodies don't function right; that they're "wrong."

I got this message from an early age. Feeling unsafe at home, I suffered from insomnia from an early age. I had headaches, frequent colds, and in general a poor constitution. There were concerns I would go deaf when I grew up because my hearing was "poor" (I think it was selective). And they wanted to test me for diabetes since I was "too thirsty" all the time (see, I've always been a swiller.)

The real problems started when I "failed" to get my period. I maybe had a little spotting at some point late in middle school, but it never developed into anything. When I was 18, this was cause for alarm. There were frequent hormone tests and attempts at jumpstarting my period with strong birth control pills; pills that were later taken off the market because of near fatal side effects.