“Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
–Toni Morrison
Writing Retreats
Whether you are a beginner, an established writer, a published author, or are looking for a creative vacation with your spouse…I have a retreat for you.
Whether you are a beginner, an established writer, a published author, or are looking for a creative vacation with your spouse…I have a retreat for you.
The Season
My eyes water and burn
Where’s the tissues
Hate this Pollen
Glad when the season passes
Then It happened
I opened my eyes
The field of Lavender
in the vacant lot behind the house
Blossoms of light blue, like a blanket of God’s love
Little white flowers that pepper the spot at the edge of the driveway
The gorgeous bouquet on the Bartlett Pear Tree next door
The Clover and Dandelions in my front yard
I’ll wait a while to cut the grass
The way they all mix together and cause the air to smell like new life
I lean back and count my blessings
The world is as He intended
It is me that needs adjustment
Grab a tissue, wipe a tear
Wash the pill down with a splash of orange juice
I wish the season would last a bit longer
I love the exploration of the bittersweet of the season for you. I love that the beauty triumphs over your discomfort in the end.
I like the images and metaphors.
once again, another powerful quote that resonates deep in my soul. Between last week coming to grips with having to say yes to life again and now today, being so beautifully reminded that coming back to life means something was dead. Or at least, almost dead, like a plant that is weathering for lack of sunshine and water and nutrients
actually, I like this analogy. I can begin today to look at myself that a plant that is withering due to lack of nurturing. let me see where my new Greenthumb will take me on this project.
thanks for the reminder of why it’s so difficult
Anita, good luck with that green thumb. The natural resources are all there–you just have to turn to them.
“….coming back to life means something was dead.” is my favorite line. I’ve written eulogies for myself in regards to beliefs and behavior patterns which no longer serve me. I never let go of “parts” of me (like my inner children, my protector parts etc), just beliefs and reactions/conditioned responses. I’ve also written birthday cards to the “new me” after having done so.
Glad to read you are giving yourself the nurturing you have deserved all along.
Thanks Wynne … it’s a challenge being aware of letting go of some old beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve me. A new stronger me is coming into existence. Thanks aogain.
Thank you, Phil, for your spring pollen entry. I, too, suffer spring allergies – not so bad yet this year. Perhaps my teaspoon plus of raw honey most days in a healing herbal tea has helped my immune system – not sure yet.
And Anita’s comment on “coming back to life again” was a good reminder that I am doing the same and need to have patience with that process.
Haiku for today:
I felt dead inside
Sunshine and rain brought life back again
Thank you Mother Earth
Joanne, welcome to the Roadmap Blog. Lovely to hear from you. Hope you keep coming back.
right, I need to remember it takes time. Thank you for that . ah, and to be gentle with myself during the process Indeed!.
Toni Morrison said; “Coming back to life hurts.”
This can be true,
Like frostbite,
Raw and unfinished,
That unfinished business that isn’t home yet, waiting for you to show up and meet it where it is,
For the process of letting it live and change,
Just like the life we inhabit
Day by day
Hi Kendra, lovely to see your post here on the Roadmap today. I miss your writing voice! And you!
I like the metaphor of frostbite, for as you thaw out you start to feel again.
This is so powerful to me. I read it that unfinished business that isn’t done waiting for me to throw it up and meet it where it is. That is how I view my life as I contemplate where I’ve been and where I’m heading towards. I know I’m in crisis mode and I’m talking to a lot of people about it and this site is helping me tremendously with all of your stories and sharing and beautifully crafted words that resonate deep in my soul and give me that beautiful thing called hope.
I’m in the process of coming back to life now with my coming out as a lesbian at age 52 and my new relationship/marriage to my wife. I was a dried up flower in the desert that’s finally getting the rain I longed for. I am blooming in beautiful colors now and there’s no end to how much I will grow.
Hilary, I’m so happy for you. How wonderful to discover love and deep connection at this time in your life. I wish you both the best.
Thank you!
I almost teared up! Thanks for sharing this. It may sound strange, since I don’t know you, but I am truly happy for you.
Thank you! I appreciate that so much!
“I was a dried-up flower in the desert finally getting the rain I’ve been longing for.’ What a beautiful picture. Thank you.
🙂 You are most welcome.
Six months ago I broke my right knee’s anterior cruciate ligament, jumping on a trampoline with one of my nephews (turns out, you never should jump with someone else, it’s dangerous).
I was in intense physical pain only for a few minutes, and then, almost didn’t feel physical pain, not even after having surgery to replace the ligament, three months ago.
The story with emotional pain was very different though. I felt angry, sad, guilty, stupid, and even depressed. As I could not walk, sit correctly, sleep comfortably, etc., I had to stop most of my activities for months, and was forced to look closer at what was bothering me, deep inside.
I understood I had to forgive others and myself, I had to forgive the past. I feel much better now and have regained much of my mobility.
A week ago, I started having physical pain in my knee with workouts, sitting down, and walking. The doctor says it’s alright and we only need to make some adjustments, but I have to admit, I have been somewhat worried about it, because I almost never feel physical pain.
Fortunately, I read this wise quote.
Perhaps the coming back to life of my independence (physical as well as emotional) is what is hurting a little.
Maria, sounds like you went on a journey you never anticipated, that’s still ongoing, the lessons and insights still coming. Good luck with that. And welcome to the Roadmap blog.
Thank you Laura! (:
Were I a cat, I’d be down to my remaining three out of my original nine lives. Which near-fatality is most compelling? Was it the time I almost drowned in big surf at Sharp Park in Pacifica, the Hawaiian Pipeline’s evil twin? When my pallor alerted the mother of my child that something horrific had happened to me while I was at play? Or maybe the time I swallowed thirty-two Vicodin? Or came to in an ICU after my car wreck in 2001?
By the time I sobered up in 2006, I had the emotional depth of a koi pond. I hadn’t felt anything for years. Numb from shock, PTSD, depression, and medication, I could never answer my shrink’s most basic question, namely, “How do you feel about that?”
When I began to “feel,” I felt either angry or “stoked,” with very little bandwidth in between.
The real work began about three years ago in my first authentic attempt to experience the reality of my life without medicating my sorrow. Single, divorced, daughter on the other side of the country, a career in ruins. You get the idea…
When you take away the drugs and the booze, surfing and adrenaline will do just fine. Take that away, and I can act out in compulsive sexuality. Remove that behavior and exercise and fitness addiction is a remarkable distraction. And, when I’m too tired and sore from all the exercise, me and my two best friends, Ben and Jerry are happy watching Netflix until two in the morning.
Two decades ago, I discovered the work of Robert Bly. In his talk with Bill Moyers, Bly stated that “grief is the way to real male feeling.” Even at thirty, I was still too young to comprehend his words. Besides, I had spent three decades checking out in a variety of healthy and unhealthy ways. But I’ve noticed that as my body has aged and I have acquired more time in 12 step recovery, I’m making room for the feelings that I have, until recently, kept at arm’s length.
I was born in San Francisco, child to first generation Italian-Americans. For a culture not necessarily known for emotional equanimity, authentic feelings were neither discussed nor encouraged. Crying wasn’t allowed. My brothers and I could be angry, we just weren’t allowed to be angrier than our parents. When I learned that anger was the mask that sorrow wore, I was surprised. But when the tears began to flow, I felt a relief that I had never experienced.
Tonight after an Al Anon meeting, my buddy remarked that when he put his dog down last week, he “cried like a baby.”
Man, the shame men do to themselves…
I played football for four years in high school, and had to train like a maniac in order to earn a spot in the starting rotation. I’ve been a martial artist for decades, and have taken my fair share of beatdowns, in the dojo, in bars and in the street. But nothing has equaled the sheer discomfort of sobbing until my sinuses were clogged with snot, the capillaries in my face ruptured, and my body convulsed. It takes courage to feel that level of anguish.
When I corrected my buddy with, “No. You cried like a man.” He was grateful for the reframe.
Thank you so much for your honest and humle share. I too am a fellow Al-Anon with a lifetime of the effects of the disease and though I have applied the principles to survive living in the disease and get through some incredibly hard times I’ve actually reached A bottom I never ever anticipated. The diseases insidious no matter which side you’re on. I suppose my higher power is telling me you have survived and now it is time to thrive! So much work to do praying I don’t lose it all in order to get there!
Lynn, Welcome to the Roadmap blog. I hope you keep coming back!
Welcome aboard, Lynn. And thank you for your honesty. My greatest fear was that I would lose my mind all over again when I began to grieve. It turns out that my inability to grieve was the reason I lost my mind in the first place…
Tony, i loved this:
When I began to “feel,” I felt either angry or “stoked,” with very little bandwidth in between.
Thanks Laura. It’s completely accurate. And I’m grateful for the retreat and the ability to return this October.
What a beautiful gift you gave to your friend by reframing his experiencing of sobbing. I’m a therapist and I sometimes help people make purple hearts for wounds and/or losses that have been minimized or even outright dismissed. I tell the story of my father getting a purple heart in Vietnam for a nick on his cheek from shrapnel. He was embarrassed about it because, of course, men went home in body bags or without limbs. “But here’s the thing,” I say, “Getting hit with shrapnel means a bomb went off nearby!” and if I’m working with little kids I add “I bet he was so scared he pooped his pants!”
If a bomb goes off nearby you should get a purple heart whether you’ve been hit or not, and if you put your dog down, you get to cry, wail, even, like a man or a woman.
I love how good writing is so relatable. I haven’t been an addict, nor overdosed, on purpose or accident (although I did almost drown in the ocean as a small child), but I could connect with much of what you wrote.
Thank you, Wynne. I realized that the reason I write is for connection. I like to call it conjoined empathy. I’m pretty sure I made up the term, but I don’t know if it’s really a “thing” or not. I’ll run it by Laura.
Born Again
by Wynne Preston
I wailed and I wailed, and I wailed,
Down into the the very depths of me.
“Are you ready to rumblllllle?”
Was the challenge from my soul.
(Mental note: Think twice before answering when your soul cries out “Are you ready to rumblllllle?”)
And I did it. I say “Yes!”
On the outside
My life appears to be unchanged,
Same house, same job
Still married,
Same two daughters who
Aren’t afraid to tell me the truth.
And yet,
Everything is different.
Coming back to life means
That everything in your life
Is experienced, rather than observed,
Or judged.
And that after you melt down into nothingness
You are reborn,
Again,
And again,
And again.
Coming back to life means that
You suffer,
That you actually make room for the suffering.
And that you express the suffering,
Despite those with Affect Phobia
(the fear of emotional expression),
And those who are caught up in the same dynamic
You are trying to free yourself from
(read: System’s Theory),
And who are trying to shut you down.
And then,
Once cleansed by grief,
You are reborn.
And as you take stalk of your life
Your see that it is the same
Only different,
Very, very different.
Wynne, I love the whole concept of rumbling with your soul. Just loved it.
Wynn,
Your prompt helped me because it described in other words what I am feeling : grief. it helped me not to feel so alone. Thks.
I know this passage well. it is not the first time I slipped into this tunnel.
wynne, did you just write this? In Awe of you!
Thank you, yes, I wrote it while typing it on this site. That doesn’t always work out, but I’ve been doing a lot of work trying to get through hearing about my daughter’s assault (referencing last week’s post), and so it just flowed. I appreciate your feedback.
I hear and feel tears inside me.Lots of tears.
I feel discomfort. The death of a persona.
I feel like I am in jail again after being forced to sublet my appartment and move to my brother’s place again for a while because of financial issues.
I feel like I missed again somewhere down the road of pursuing my dream.
I feel like life escaped from me again because BEFORE, my spirit was dreaming of something different, my heart was longing to feel true love.
My feet was walking towards a not so clear direction, because I, was not aligned as a whole.
I know I need to move on to a new destination. When I do so, those tears come back again. The adult in me is trying to give compassion to this person inside me who is vanising. My old identity.
The question I had this week is well aligned with this week’s prompt as always. Why is it so difficult to move towards life. I know that life is on the other side.
I know that time, patience, compassion is required. Starting w new relationship is difficult. because of the risk.
Why is it so difficult letting go a part of me that is no longer serving my Self and others. Because this part of me served me for 50 years.
Today, I am not the same person I was and I am welcoming the new. But it is tough. There is a mourning period that I am trying not to feel. This inner persona is composed of all the failures.
I would like to be more flexible towards what life is offering me.
Why is it so difficult to come back to life? Probably because of all the attempts of living a soft, easy going life.
What do I have to do today to feel better about my self ? I am looking for positive reflection in the world outside my jail as I am breaking up my chains. And what are those chains attached to anyway.
I am trying to reach to my own anchor. I am trying to reach to some people to support me. But it feels that this solitude period again is what I need. The most diffiult part is forgive my self. because I was not responsible for those horribles events. Sometimes I cheat myself, I hide few things from me.
So, I am walking on a new road to life. First step is : walking with dignity and self love because I always loved life. My voice will come back. For now it is an inner conversation.
This kind of silence.
Claire
Claire, this is the line that resonated so deeply for me, summarizing your whole piece:
Why is it so difficult to move towards life?
What a powerful inquiry to live with, to sit with. Good luck sitting with that question and feeling into the answers.
“I am trying to reach to my own anchor ” sounds like me reevaluation my own innermost identity … if I don’t know I stand for, I’ll fall for anything … yet I continue to surprise myself by the way I’m reshaping who I am today. So glad you guys are here!
Sounds like you’re on the hero’s journey. And having compassion for all of yourself, the old, the new, the wounds, the defense mechanisms, etc, is the key, giving yourself what you deserved, but didn’t get.
This prompt is so synchronistic because right now I am literally coming back to life. It was about a month ago that I realized the reason that I was slowly dying. I did not believe I would be around to celebrate my next birthday in December. Even though I am getting better it is really hard for me to put this story together so I am copying the post I put on facebook. Even that only tells small part of the story but maybe enough for you to understand what was happening to me.
THE DAY A JUNIOPR WHOPPER SAVED MY LIFE
January 18, 2018. Was the last day I remember feeling good.
That day I picked up my dentures and I put a triumphant post on facebook about my permanent dentures. I believed it would be only six weeks to two months until the adjustments would be finished and I would be able to chew again. It didn’t quite work out that way…life got in the way.
On January 18, my cardiologist changed my “Afib” prescription that caused side effects that had changed my quality of life for the worse for four years. Three days later the new “med” caused me to hallucinate in a parking lot and have a migraine I couldn’t explain. The doctor told me to stop it and go back to the other one.
On that day it was like nine different stories of the last five years in the life of my body converged in a perfect storm. A few weeks later began a downhill slide that was so serious that for weeks I wondered if I would be around to celebrate my next birthday. The doctors seemed to be doing the right things, prescribing drugs that helped the symptoms I was presenting, then a new one to counter the side effects of that one. Still the profound sense of life slipping away remained.
One day as I drove home from an appointment in mid afternoon, I realized I had not yet eaten that day; in fact I had not eaten for at least two days. I wasn’t hungry. I had no appetite. I realized for the first time that I was starving. I knew I needed to eat but I would not be able to manage to fix myself anything if I went home.
To tell this whole story would take about nine pages so I will cut to the awareness that day in April. No one had asked me if I was feeding myself. It seems the doctors might have noticed that I was losing weight quite rapidly. Even I had not realized until that moment that the sensation I was feeling was starvation and I needed immediate action. I turned the car toward the nearest drive-thru so I wouldn’t even have to walk the few steps to the door and stand waiting at the counter. I knew a “Whopper” would be too big so I ordered a “Whopper Junior” and could only eat half of that.
Within a few moments I began to feel a sensation I had almost forgotten as my body said thank you. It was just a small impulse like the car battery is almost dead: the engine barely turning over after turning the key, but it had promise. Each day now I make sure I get at least the equivalent of a Junior Whopper and some other good food. I have the energy to take better care of myself. Fatigue feels like fatigue again and not just an almost pleasant, listless sensation like sliding into a down comforter.
******************************
I thought that now that I knew what was happening and I started eating things would turn around quickly, but that isn’t happening. I still have very little appetite. A friend suggested that I eat by the clock rather that just when I am hungry. It is actually painful to eat when I am not hungry. I have trouble swallowing, even water. I feel nauseous. I’ll spare you all the other things I am feeling. Some things are side effects of the drugs I have to take. The peaceful, painlessness I had felt as long as I was lying down is no longer there in the same way. I’ve tried to share these things with my doctors but the words aren’t quite right. I am not just tired or fatigued, but what word will let them know what it is I am feeling.
Fortunately I had a series of inspired awareness that helped to recognize things that were happening: my trouble breathing was not just mild congestive heart failure. I couldn’t stand up straight so my chest was collapsing and I couldn’t physically take in a breath. I started lying with a pillow under my back to force my chest forward and practiced conscious breathing. In a couple of days I was breathing more effectively.
There were other things that I realized and was able to slow, though not stop, the downhill slide toward what I was sure would be my death if I didn’t find an answer.
Even now that I have the main answer it is so hard to keep myself fed. I’m going to order meals on wheels for a while. I am feeling better this week but still have trouble having enough energy to take care of things. Writing this has taken a lot more time than it normally would because my mental focus is difficult and for a writer not to have mental focus…!
Strangely, I can still do crossword puzzles and Sudoku as easily as before. If I can walk the twenty-seven steps to get in my car I can drive, but then I need to be sure I can make it into the place I am going.
It is so emotionally painful to be going through this. Will I ever be able to write again?…work on my family food memoire/cookbook? I’m not able to test my recipes. It’s really hard to cook when my energy and focus is to low. Cooking is one of my favorite things to do. I’m not gardening. I’m not singing. I only go to a few meetings so I don’t lose touch with the world. Will I ever get my quality of life back? I know I still have enough interest in life, but I have lost so much recently it is difficult some days to feel grateful for what I have. I try to make plans as if I will be around, like sign up for Laura’s fall retreat at Nancy Brown’s! Now I think I will make it and hopefully be able to get some real work done on my project.
Maybe I will see some of you there!
Beverly, I’m reading your post in Boston. I’m here for our daughter’s college graduation. My heart goes out to you. I am so concerned about your well-being and the seeming ineptitude of your doctors. I’m assuming your children know how serious things are for you. There are times in life when we don’t have the wherewithal to advocate for ourselves–and for you this may be one of them. How about sending those closest to you a copy of your post?
Thank you Laura for your support and suggestions. I called all seven of my middle aged children to let them know what was going on, but I don’t think they begin to really understand how grave things are. Two of my daughters I am able to keep up to date. One is a nurse. I especially try to keep Kate, who I live with, up to date. She and another friend Have gone with me to appointments and taken notes.
Thank for your suggestion to send a copy of my post! I have though of that but hesitated, so I probably will now.
Some friends have been really interested but the questions they ask and their observations suggest that they can’t really understand. They make projections based on their experience and perceptions and I can’t seem to find the words to articulate what I am experiencing. It is so confusing, frustrating, and emotionall;y draining!
Now. Right now is when I need CPR from spirit. Right now is when I feel still, stagnant, inspired yet immobile. The spring itch without the will to fulfill. I know I’ve done it before though. I’ll tell myself a story of a time to spark a spark.
My shoes were all wrong when we landed in Northern California. I didn’t know how much longer the blocks were here than in Boston, how unavailable the parking was, how everything here is trudging up hills or tottering down them. No more sashaying from the car to the door in under a minute on 3-inch heels. A life of flat and rubber soles began a few weeks into my tenure here, after much suffering, shuffling, blisters, more reasons to sob. One of a zillion mistakes I made in my blind eagerness. One of scores of details I didn’t think through.
Not yet 30, full of hope and desire, eager for change, open to anything. Not knowing how much it can hurt to land hard on one’s feet, especially in the wrong shoes. Maybe I should have gone for the shoulder roll. As it was, we hit the ground hobbling, my ambitious partner and my naïve self.
Too late realizing that everything that had been holding me upright—friends, job, family, roots, all that I knew—were now 3,000 miles away (100 miles for every year of my life to that point), and there they’d stay. Striking out on one’s own can feel just like that: striking out. What have I done? Physical weakness, emotional poverty. Self-pity, confusion, and such aching, aching loneliness.
The cashier at the grocery store didn’t know how confounded and groundless I was. She yelled at me for swiping my debit card too soon for the second time after she told me to wait. I waited til I was outside to cry. Again. I shouldn’t have. Maybe it would have softened her to see my tears. Maybe she’d never left a life behind. Maybe she had, and that’s why she was so angry. Maybe something had been ripped away from her. Maybe her feet hurt. I was too wounded, then, to care.
He started leaving for conferences practically as soon as we got there. The too-big house we bought too soon, too high in the hills, overwhelmed me. I adopted a dog and a cat we weren’t ready for so as not to be so rattlingly alone. I didn’t yet understand the importance of grounding one’s feet into the bedrock of any new place before taking on commitments such as these. (Before doing anything at all, really.) They survived, the stalwart little souls. I think they forgave me too.
We’d secured the mortgage based in part on the salary from a job I never should have taken. No part of me connected to any part of it. My soul began draining out of me in a slow drip. A Mr. Coffee of misery, each morning bringing a freshly brewed cup.
My east coast brand of sarcasm didn’t translate. I backpedalled in response to horrified and confused faces, downshifting my self-expression. Throwing parts of myself into the dumpster to lighten the burden of not knowing who I was supposed to be now.
Adventures are adventures because of their challenges. Misled by reading about them, being inspired by them in films, I’d never actually felt the pain of the difficulties in my bones, guts, heart. It all looked doable. It all seemed easy.
Having leapt blindly into what I didn’t know was a black hole of unknowns, I bumbled my way back to life. It was by way of the inane and humbling moments—blundering into the walls of the new space to orient to its edges—that my resurrection came. Inhaling deeply to ward off panic, I began inadvertently to siphon the scents of redwood and eucalyptus from the fog. Out of desperation connect creativity back up, I took classes that proved to be the trailheads to my new life.
Ten years later I am feeling dusty, dreamy, dormant. Too content, if there is such a thing. All is easy and routine. I am profoundly settled and in love with my life. And I am itching to be re-potted. This’ll all happen again, then, though not in the same way. Having been forced to find feet I didn’t realize I’d lost, I learned what I needed to about growing new roots.
Foresight aside, though, do I have wherewithal for a second resurrection? Maybe I’ll don some sturdy hiking boots and take it from there.