Happy Halloween!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Mindfulness
I feel great today!

Hans and I rounded out our lazy weekend, which wasn't really all that lazy because I did more housework than I've done since I returned from vacation, by watching Birth, a very stylized film starring Nicole Kidman as a woman whose husband dies and who meets a little boy ten years later who is convinced he is the reincarnation of her dead husband. I loved it. Rent it or catch it on cable.

And the change back to standard time made it easier to get out of bed this morning. We have cloudless blue skies and a brilliant sun today that is giving me tons of energy, and, somehow, tons of hope! I'm actually looking forward to the fall and winter, which is a rarity for me, because I feel like the turning inward that will accompany the darker, colder weather will have a positive impact on my life. I'm feeling excitement to write, to submit to journals and magazines, to get the house decorated, to immerse myself in regular workouts and a writing and reading schedule.

I read an article last night in the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, titled "Are Your Goals Holding You Back?" and with the teaser on the cover reading, "What the Happiest People Know for Sure." It talked about exactly the realization that I came to in therapy last month, but the article didn't use any of the psychological terms for it. Basically, it discussed a new book, Goal-Free Living, by Stephen Shapiro that will be released next month. Shapiro believes that making SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-oriented, Time based)--the kind that you are taught to make in time management and personal change classes everywhere--keep you from seeing opportunities at the periphery that might be exciting and fulfilling if you were willing to change directions and pursue them. He also argues that most people's goals aren't really their own, anyway, but come from societal or family expectations and pressures.

When I arrived in college I figured out pretty quickly that the goals I had for my future weren't necessarily my own, and I've been trying to define what my own goals are ever since. I have been pretty good at seeing the opportunities at the periphery, and taking them--my resume is a testament to this--and following what Shapiro describes as a circuitous path. But, I haven't been able to fully rid myself of the need to make SMART "goals," either. I feel compelled to make them, but as soon as they are made, I begin sabotaging my efforts to achieve them.

So this is the big discovery I made last month: I choose to do something for good, personal reasons, meaning I have high intrinsic motivations. This is desirable. Once I have chosen, however, I somehow move the action outside of myself where it can be viewed, judged, and rewarded or punished by others. At this point, all of my motivation to continue has become extrinsic, coming from external factors. What I think and feel about it is suddenly not important. This is undesirable. As my therapist reminded me, most people choose to do something due to extrinsic motivation, then continue doing it because they find intrinsic motivations they hadn't seen before. For example, your doctor tells you you have to start walking to get some weight off. You do it because you are afraid of the consequences if you don't. Along the way, you realize that you enjoy being outdoors, that you enjoy the time to think or to socialize with your walking partner, that you enjoy feeling fit, that you enjoy being thinner. So, by then, usually around week 6 or 8, you are carried along in your walking routine by habit and by pleasure and motivations of your own. I do it backwards. I know how I learned this and it goes way back to elementary school. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.

So, the plan now, and for the next six months, is to make no SMART goals. I am allowed to make intentions that I use each day, but no goals. (This is hard because even in my writing class that finished last week the facilitator asked us to make goals and to figure out how to meet those goals by breaking the required actions down into smaller daily, weekly, and monthly goals. I didn't feel comfortable writing intentions, and instead fell into making specific, measurable, time-oriented goals that were extremely lofty.) For example, the intention my therapist suggested I use for writing is "I will spend quiet time with my thoughts each day and if I feel the desire to write, I will follow that desire." At the same time, I am to engage in physical activity three times a week because I am making that commitment to take care of myself, and not because I expect it to help me lose weight or change the shape of my body. So I guess what I'm really trying to avoid is measuring behavior in any kind of results oriented way, and instead, to engage in activities for the pure joy they bring. This is very difficult to learn. The irony is that, at least from other sources such as Kabat-Zinn and Shapiro, immersing yourself in the present and experiencing the excitement and passion in each moment without worrying about the future is the best way to achieve the results and the change you desire. Like I said, very difficult for this over-achiever-turned-massive-underachiever to grasp. But I'm trying.

R & R
Topic: Movies
Hans and I have been spoiling ourselves a little this weekend. He finished "season" at his job on Friday because Halloween is his company's primary focus, and I'm taking a three day weekend with Monday off to spend time with Candy's kids on Halloween. (I'm even going to dress up!) So things were more relaxed around here, which has been really nice.

We went to see Everything is Illuminated last night and I was blown away. All I knew about it going in was that it was Liev Schreiber's directorial debut and that he had edited the movie while doing six shows a week on broadway, and that Elijah Wood was the star. It was truly one of a kind. Powerful on a level that makes me want to own it on DVD, which is saying a lot because Hans and I own only about a dozen films and each one is storytelling of a quality we aspire to achieve one day. I really need to see the movie again. Then, I need to read the book. Then, I need to get as much back story as I can on the book and the making of the movie.

This afternoon we went to see In Her Shoes, which was also good, but a completely different kind of movie. Some of the reviews have said that it is a movie for everyone, but I have to say I think it is mostly a chick flick. Hans enjoyed it, but I still think the audience is primarily female. (Hans was the only man in the audience today with me and four other women, and the women talked through the whole movie.... Is this a Burlington/Greensboro thing, or are audiences truly getting ruder as Hans and I have suspected for quite awhile?) I enjoyed watching how this screenplay captured or condensed various aspects of the novel. Sometimes on-screen dialogue said what the narrator in the book had thought, a whole section of the book was rewritten into an encounter with a retired professor who did not appear in the book at all, and some things that seemed important in the novel show up only as small asides that you may or may not notice in the movie. The screenplay expertly captured the feeling and intent of the novel and streamlined it into a story that flowed along so nicely I wondered briefly if Jennifer Weiner, the author, had learned anything from the screenwriter that would affect the cinematic quality of her future novels. But thinking back on the novel now, it was quite visual and none of the pieces felt extraneous or self-indulgent when I was reading it. It held my interest from start to finish, and, as some of you may remember, kept me glued to the couch several nights in a row reading when I should have been unpacking. So I'm hoping that Jennifer's style doesn't change, and I will just say that both the novel and the screenplay used techniques to expertly tell a genuinely good story.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Circling Back
Now Playing: Colinda by Zachary Richard on The Big Easy soundtrack
Topic: Daily Eruptions
This has been my year for reconnecting with people from my past. Actually, I'm in my second year of that. Marc kicked it off by taking me to lunch in the spring of 2004 after about five years of rebuilding our friendship via email. Then I was lucky enough to get back into more regular contact, after a ten year hiatus, with Scott and Rich after last summer's get together at Matt's. I've been back in contact with John recently, too. In part because of his surgery, in part because I've been in need of his perspective and advice.

And on Thursday night, completely out of the blue, I received an email from James who had found me on the Internet and had read this blog. We haven't spoken since the night we broke up once and for all, which was more than ten years ago. Luckily, he wasn't writing to say that he still hates me--although I wouldn't blame him if he did. Instead, he was very kind and worried about my response and said he hoped we could catch up and perhaps become friends again. Wow. Amazing!! I had closed that door pretty tightly and it's odd to have it reopened now. It's not that I never thought about him or about our time together, just that I've been careful about which things I've let myself remember. In truth, I feel pretty cut off from that time in life and from myself in that time--which is unfortunate because the two years we were together were some of the most defining in my life. We shared several firsts, and I can't really think about my time at PIRG or in Washington, D. C. without thinking about him. I wrote him back, but haven't heard from him again, so I can't say how smoothly this transition will go. I am hopeful, though, and grateful. I have never liked being cut off from people whom I have loved and shared significant experiences with. This is a gift.

That leaves just one person with whom I haven't reconnected on a personal level, but even that relationship has some form now. He has left a footprint on the Internet that I found just before I drove to Michigan for my grandmother's funeral in 2003, and when I was in Michigan in the summer of 2004, a little voice told me very clearly to pick up a newspaper at the gas station because he would be in it. The next morning, at my campsite in Mackinaw City, I paged through the paper until I found his picture. The smile and the eyes have not changed, which is comforting to know. This year on my birthday I received just the slightest indication that I am, or was, in his thoughts. Since then he has shown me his children in a dream, although he didn't speak to me. I have a feeling that's the extent of the contact I will be allowed to have with him, and given our last round of conversation and the chaos I'm sure it created in his life, I'm glad to have even that. At some point, I would like to have an opportunity to apologize for the extreme selfishness to which I subjected him and for my complete lack of understanding of the choices he had made and what they meant, but maybe I don't deserve that opportunity. And maybe an apology from me wouldn't mean anything to him at this point. In any event, I am glad to know, after many years of uncertainty, where he is and that he is well.

Each of these men have given me back a piece of my past, and therefore, of my self. They are helping me to move forward in my journey toward wholeness, and for that--and for their friendship--I will always be grateful.

In Big Trouble Now!
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Writing
Today is the last day of my nonfiction writing class, which in some ways is good because now I have new tools and new energy to be able to go off and play on my own.

In the shower this morning, however, the title for my next book came to me. Yes, that's right. I said book. I just spent the last two months saying I wanted to work only in short form for awhile and I get hit with the title of a book. Then I get hit with the book's hook. And then I see the entire book and it is so intimately tied into everything else that is going on in my life that I absolutely must write it, and it can't wait. In fact I think the exploration I just did in the nonfiction magazine writing class was my first attempt at writing the book. So, now I am in BIG trouble.

The book is a sequel to Your Mileage May Vary, which is where the trouble comes in. I haven't published the first book, or even looked at it in three years. And here I go writing even more about this stupid bike trip I took at the end of the last decade?? It is very, very sad and pathetic. It is also exciting and irresistable--this is me having to do the work that's in front of me because this story demands to be written. (The story didn't march into the room and slam me against the wall the way Richard Bach describes--it's more like Patrick Swayze in Ghost singing the same song over and over until you do what he wants.)

The book's title: Bringing Me Home

The book's hook: It took seven weeks to cross the country on a bicycle. It took seven years to finally bring myself home.

In addition to a title and a hook, there is a plan. It's all set. It didn't come from me, it just is. Toward the end of the poem that I wrote for my fellow Big Riders while we were in Pennsylvania were the words (sorry, I can't remember the line breaks):

so I'm
still breathing,
still climbing
into this blind curve.

This morning, as the sun rose over ground hugging fog, the curving, climbing road suddenly went straight and flat. The journey continues and this time, I don't need a map. I can see where I'm going and it is inescapable and right. The only other option is to get off the bike, and it's fairly obvious that I can't do that.

So, here I go again!! Amazing and wonderful and scary and happy, happy, happy....

Relapse, Or Is It All in My Head?
Topic: Daily Eruptions
I have been worried for the last three days or so that my depression is returning. I let myself get totally stressed out last week at work and the camping trip did not start out with me at my best. By Saturday morning Dad was completely worn out, so we called it quits and headed home. Depression set in immediately, to the point that I actually found myself crying to my mother on the phone while I was driving home. Sunday was a little better, mostly because Hans is slowly coming back to me from wherever he went. He's taking an interest in my life and trying to find little ways to make me feel loved. He's apparently worried about me, too. We talked last night, after a really unhappy day for me at work where it became obvious that the stress is having a big impact on my health, and he wants me to get back into therapy. I think what he really wants is for me to get on medication, but I'm not there yet.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, so I got up and read the Nonfiction Writing homework for the week. That was the perfect thing. I am getting a lot of energy out of this class, despite the fact that I am behind and will stay that way. When I finally went to bed, I fell right to sleep. I woke up feeling rested and relaxed and excited about writing. I was dreaming that I was submitting queries to magazines, but each time I mailed a submission, a dark haired man I did not know would stand between me and the editor and give me a kiss that my made me feel as though my toes were sinking into the earth. I think he was there to keep me "grounded," and to make sure I felt comfort and joy in the submission process rather than fear. Not a bad way to wake up.

Today is very cold, but the sun is out, and my planning meeting with Sudie went well this morning. Overall, I'm still feeling good.

And, yes, I know. The point of mindfulness is to stay in the moment and within myself. Whether or not the sun is shining should not really affect my well-being, but today it does.

Violence and Viggo
Topic: Movies
Hans and I saw History of Violence yesterday with the after-church crowd. There was one other couple who might have been close to our ages, and about four couples who were definitely older. They all tittered and talked through the entire thing! The men were made particularly uncomfortable by the graphic sex scenes--I think this may have been the first time I've seen 69 used in a movie in a movie theater--but none of them seemed upset by the graphic violence. In fact, several men and women cheered and clapped when one character was shot. It wasn't a cheering and clapping kind of movie, by the way. Nor was it particularly shocking. It was simply an honest depiction of what "happened" in this particular story and it didn't look away when the bedroom door was closed, nor did it romanticize the blood and guts. In my estimate, a fine film that will stay with me quite awhile. It kind of reminds me, in retrospect, of the movie In the Bedroom.

We had taped an episode of Charlie Rose interviewing Viggo Mortensen about his role in the movie and watched it last night. Viggo is so soft spoken it's kind of a shock, especially when he starts speaking out against the war in Iraq and the present administration's policies. Charlie mentioned a website that supports a small press that Viggo started called Perceval Press. The site is about much more than books. Check it out!

Personal Health, Public Ignorance
Read this article on High-Fructose Corn Syrup on SPROL! I usually check out this site for its environmental health stories, but this story, that talks both about personal and public health, hit so close to home, I just had to share it.

Lonely Dreamer
I woke up this morning having the craziest mismatched dream! I was at Disney World preparing to audition as a dancer--using music and clothing and a hairstyle from 1983--and as a flute player in a marching band (just for the record, I only played flute in the marching band on the occasions when the junior high joined the high school on the field and for one week when I was at camp with my second high school before they agreed to let me be the featured twirler instead) with about ten pieces of music to memorize. I was there with Candy and with people from my first high school, now in their present, grown-up incarnations, and with a few friends I've made since high school. One of them, I think it was Michael whom I met here in North Carolina when I was first getting settled, touched my face tenderly and gave me a huge hug just as I was going in to my dance audition. The touch broke something loose. It was as though the sudden and innocent presence of this single act of physical connection suddenly made me aware of how entirely absent physical intimacy had been in my life. I woke up aware of an overwhelming sense of loneliness, but also feeling that, in the dream at least, that was somehow about to change as a result of the auditions I was putting myself through.

Lack of Substance
Topic: Daily Eruptions
I feel like I've been disconnected from this blog lately. I've been trying to finish up my writing class and start the whole mindfulness thing, and I think I'm still trying to do too much and not finding, or making, enough time to do any of the things well. So what else is new?

I'll be gone again from this space until Sunday. I'm going camping for a couple nights with Mom and Dad and Brendan. It will be the first time Brendan will have been camping since he developed language skills, and the first time he will be aware that he's "camping." He's all excited that he gets to camp in a campground--rather than in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard--but he's not sure what a campground is. Very cute! It will also be Kaija's first time camping and sleeping in a tent, and my first time camping in North Carolina since the Outer Banks trip my first summer with Hans eleven years ago. I'm sure Kaija'd be more comfortable in new surroundings if Hans were coming with us, but I can't talk him into it. He's worried about his allergies flaring up. So it's just going to be a "mother/daughter" adventure.

See you soon!

New Church?
Topic: Daily Eruptions
When I was driving home one day last week, I passed a church with a small metal sign advertising a web address driven into the lawn near the road. I have noted the name of the church once or twice in the past, but it never stuck in my mind. As I drove past this time, the web address seemed to read www.holyhillbilly.com. That sure got my attention! A little farther up the road the large lawn sign for the church came into view: Holly Hill Baptist. I like my name for it better. I think I may even know a few people who would attend church if it had a name like that.