Life Celebrations

Ok. Forgetting for a moment the Carpe Diem-thing and the idea that "every day is a new day" or "every day is a me day" (the last being my particular theme song), I'm having some very serious thoughts about how we should re-jigger our thoughts about celebrating life.

Birthdays are nice. Yay, it's your birthday, let's have a party, let's have some fun, let's lavish a little extra attention on you (if you can call paying attention to someone "lavishing")...and then let's go home and resume our typical responses and relationship to one another. Kaput. Done. Your special day is over.

NEXT!

But wait. It took me 39 weeks (actually I think it was 37 weeks...I just couldn't wait to get out into this world and...spend it completely tied up in neurotic spirals of self-destruction - until the age of 30, of course, when everything started unravelling-in a good way. Or maybe I could wait to get FREE of my mother's uterus which housed about the same amount of tension as the Golden Gate Bridge, but without the purpose of actually bridging gaps, huh.)

ANYway, it took me 37 weeks to gestate into an organism that could sustain itself without much aid (food notwithstanding) and one day, the cervix gave way, my "pee" flushed out of my mother's vagina (my birth canal - isn't it interesting how my mother's vagina is my birth canal -- kind of like how Panama's Canal was the United States' "Look how we can manipulate Central & South America" canal. (I'm totally open to correction on this one, but that's how I currently read the history.)

ANYANYway, then, one day, my water broke through my mom's cervix and BAM it's time to be born and 18 hours later (which, spanned across a midnight from Dec 20 into Dec 21), I was born.

All this, and I get ONE DAY to celebrate?

And, in some people's cases, they don't even get one day to celebrate, they get one meal - or a special dessert after one meal.

So, 39 weeks - nevermind if there was actually planning involved -- (I shudder to imagine) -- is knocked down to a few hours of loud interaction, alcohol consumption and, in many cases of my peers who are nearing their.......(((((forties))))...drunken rumination about the point of their existence.

Hm.

I'm thinkin' somethin's off kilter here.

Now I know you know what I'm thinking:

39 weeks of celebrating! February 21-December 21 of each year is my birthabration (that sounds horrible, the word, not hte idea).

But, I know...no one's going to be able to celebrate their life, their existence, for 40 weeks out of each 52-week year. I mean, the cake/pastry and restaurant industry would LOVE it, as would computer software programmers -- can you imagine the software that could track who's IN their 39 weeks and who's OUT, so that you could appropriately send off "Happy Birthabration" emails to the correct people automatically? It'd come out on the Mac for Moms as iBirth'dU.

So, how about celebrating the following dates throughout the year:

ConceptionDay
First/Second/Thrid TrimesterDay
WaterbreakDay
BirthDay

That's SIX days throughout the year (well, 10 months of it) to celebrate your existence. If everyone I knew had six days to celebrate, well, there'd be enough celebrating to keep everyone in touch - and then there could be combined celebrations - my thirdtrimesterday with your waterbreakday, etc...etc... It would be a total boon.

And to those of you who may be rolling your eyes because you have *so* many friends that you can't even keep up with the ONE day of celebration each of them gets per year :-), I say to you: count your lucky stars and know that all your friends will know that you can only be in one place at a time.

Fuck 'Em

I think the word “them” should be recategorized to “four-letter-word” status in our language. The word has lost its literally meaning of simply “not us” and has taken on the denotation of “against us” or “not acceptable to us.”

THEM.

I heard someone say (in a rather neutral tone), “Well, it happened because of them.” And the first thing that popped up into in my mind was the image of “them” as these callous, robotic corporate types (my “them”) who were victimizing a totally innocent, Snow White (which, apparently, is my idea of an “us” – hmmm…more on that later, I think there must be…(Yoda I’ve become.).)

Fortunately, I saw RIG (Reactive Image Generator) for what it was and immediately began recasting everyone in the scenario: the woman speaking was actually not seeing the big picture; the “them” were actually trying their best, perhaps not succeeding; perhaps she was actually sabotaging them’s attempts to make the situation better; maybe the man listening is actually trying to decide whether or not to favor them and the woman was giving him her insight…

So then I had fourteen full-color stories going on in my head all because I was trying to erase the one black-n-white image.

But in midst of the mulit-hued and uber-nuanced re-interpretations of this single utterance, I realized that, in actuality, I knew nothing about the situation.

Well, to be a bit more accurate, I knew five things:

1) There was a woman who said the phrase “Well, it happened because of them.”
2) There was a man with her.
3) I am fascinated by interactions of strangers.
4) I did not know anything else about the woman or the man.
and
5) I have a proclivity toward interpretation

All because of the word “them” and my response to it.

RIG is powerful stuff. Not to be ignored. It probably is responsible for at least half or three-quarters of the disagreements that happen during the course of any given interaction.

**Oh, and about my “Snow White” as “us” thing… I guess I identify Snow White as being an innocent. But she was also disempowered, if I’m recalling correctly, and kinda super naïve. So, I don’t think of myself as being part of an “us” that includes Snow White…but when I think of innocent victims, that’s what RIG provides. How ‘bout for you? What does “us” or “innocent” bring up for you?

A Kid in Adult's Clothing

So, I'm at this 2-day retreat...(does it count as being "at" a retreat if it's held "at" my house?) -- Ok, I'm hosting a 2-day retreat of an arts organization of which I'm a part and it's 12:30 am and we've been working all day - since 11:00 am and I am ex-hausted - as in, I can't keep my shit together - at all. I was incapable of not giggling at the slightest misspoken word or slightest sexual inuendo (someone mentioned that marshmallows were 'elongated' and I couldn't help but say to that person (who was male): "If that's your idea of elongated...")

Usually, I'M the one who keeps it together. I'M the one who holds down the fort and keeps things rolling. Instead, here I was, the one who was being told to focus. Wow. What a turn of events.

I think it goes along with wanting glasses when I was a kid. I always thought that having glasses would mean that I was grown-up. I always wanted to be older than I was. I was being called "mature" and "wise" when I was 12. TWELVE. I mean, ok, a 12 year old can be wise, but I was putting together a RESUME when I was 11. I was pursuing this response from people - adults. I had no peer-to-peer skills. And I was always serious.

Now, when meetings are out of control and misled, I'm still usually the one to keep it together.

But this meeting had other people (folks who are 12-15 years my juniors!) who were keeping it together...so I could relax...for what seemed like the first time in my life.

For the first time in my life I have experienced what it is like to NOT have to be the one who takes things seriously so that others will do the same. I trusted these folks and it felt great.

Just FYI: I wasn't disrespectful. For the most part, I wasn't disruptive. I did have to stuff my face into a pillow for much of the last part of the meeting to keep myself from being disruptive. Not the most professional "face" to put on things, but at least I didn't impede the meeting, which was, in everyone's opinion, very, very successful.

It's nice to be a kid once in a while.

ISO: Brain Taser

I had a full-on temper tantrum last night.
Crying, stomping feet, hitting clothes (What? They were in front of me!)
I cried myself exhausted and then watched the hypnotism scene from Holy Man
(have you seen this movie? I know people totally wrote it off, but I think it's actually quite lovely)
3 times over
And then I watched the "Parcel of Peace" scene
And then I was tired so I fell asleep.

And, WHY?, you may ask, did I have this temper tantrum?

Because people say "Don't beat yourself up."
And I believe people.
Well, not all people, but I believe the people who say "Don't beat yourself up."

The problem with "Don't beat yourself up" is that if one has a proclivity for beating oneself up, then one has a proclivity for beating oneself up for beating oneself up
and then for beating oneself up for beating oneself up for beating oneself up...

Let's just say my brain is black-n-blue this morning.

How to stop the hamster wheel and just jump off into the shit pellets?
(Because even walking in my own shit would have been better than that turmoil.)

Breath.
Kombucha (I am totally addicted.)
Holy Man

And a brain-taser

I think people who get stuck in their heads too much
(ahem...like me)
Need a brain-taser.
Something to shock the brain out of it's overheating, overthinking, overeverythinging

And don't offer me meditation, because the last thing I need is to be left alone with my brain.
It scares me sometimes.

You know the saying, "You don't want to be inside my head." ?
Well: You don't want to be inside my head.
Seriously, folks, it's a very, very BRIGHT chasm, where there's no place to hide and I'm naked inside...
(ok, stop thinking about me naked. it's a metaphor, not a tease. :-) )

Anyway.

Brain-tasers.

Anyone got any ideas?

Pushing 40

So, the other day while I was in Austin, TX (yep, I did my first mini tour and it was in Texas, y'all) someone used the phrase "pushing 40." And then later that day I heard someone use the phrase "pushing 30."

We never hear "pushing 13"
or "pushing 25"

Something about getting to be 30 means we have to push the age...

Are we pushing it away?
Are we being pushed towards it, heels dug in?
Are we pushing the age...like drug pushers?

"50 dollars for 30 years, 100 dollars for 20 years, 200 dollars for 18 years... get your age here"

Again, what is with us and aging?
The anti-aging cream and the "pushing" meme.
"Pushing" 40?
Someone tell me what this means.

From Ben Fong-Torres (http://www.asianconnections.com/a/?article_id=577). I found this by googling "pushing 40."

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE IT to 60. You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there.

Into the 90s, you start going backwards ..."I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

So, obviously, we freak out about aging because we're freaked out about dying.

The two things we can actually take for granted in life: aging and dying - and we fight them tooth and nail.

What the hell would this life be like if we didn't age or die?
Think about it?

What age do you think most people would want to stay put at?
21?
29?
16?

Really.

Can you imagine a nation filled with 16, 21 and 29 year olds?
Everyone would be filled with angst all the time,
And everyone would be looking to "find themselves"
And everyone would be stressed out about the future.
And everyone would wonder constantly about what to do about their lives.
And everyone would think they knew everything all the time.
And no one could ever be elected president. :-)
And women would never reach their sexual peak.
And parents wouldn't have much experience to help raise their kids.

Now, I'm not teen- or twenties-bashing, here.
I'm just proposing that as we get older, we learn more and more
And become, some of us, more settled - not in that "I'm not going to grow" settled kind of way, but in that "Wow, life is ok and I'm ok" kind of way.

So, I'm pulling 39 closer to me each day
While enjoying 38 in every way.