If Things Were Perfect

Biking in the winter has its ups and downs, and today, I was lucky enough to experience the full range:

Up(s): The sun came out this morning, and my bike ride to the Capitol was beautiful.

Down(s): I had a little spill this morning doing something that wouldn't have caused a spill on roads that weren't icy; the bike ride home tonight was f*&%ing freezing -- two below with the wind chill, to be exact.

There's a big part of me that likes all that comes with being a biker in the winter -- I feel better when I bike to work, and it's empowering to do it even when the elements test me. Also, lots of people tell me I'm "hard core" -- and for the most part, I like being hard core, especially when that's how I'm feeling. But I'm not going to pretend that I'm not happier biking when it is warm and green and the lakes are shimmering rather than solid.

Hence my Moby selection this evening:

Give me summer

Give me summer

Give me summer

Give me summer

Broken darkness my cold end

I look for places I've never seen

Nothing moves but the quiet on the street

Now I open my eyes to this

Isolated walking long hard hours

Winter cold just brings me winter showers

It's so brutal with the cold sky

Wrapped in cold late at night

Yeah, some of what he said, and the other issue for me in the winter is getting out of bed in the morning. Despite my best efforts during this, my first week back to full-time work, I didn't get out of bed every morning to meditate or do yoga. I didn't even get out of bed early enough to be ready to leave the house when my kids were on the two days that they were here. That's not cool. Whatever the season, that needs to change -- winter just increases the challenge for me. I'm determined, though -- I can meet that challenge, and I will!

Not an Addict

I've been intrigued with addiction for a long time, and although I've had my moments of excess, I've always been able to chill when necessary if a habit gets out of control -- alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine are all substances I've had to walk back over the years.

A couple of years ago I was reading a fascinating article in The New Yorker about addiction, and as I read about the drug addicts and alcoholics in rehab, I was feeling pretty smug about the fact that it hadn't ever come to that for me. I'm not an addict, I thought, just like this sexy Sarah sings:

It's not a habit, it's cool

I feel alive

If you don't have it you're on

the other side

I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie)

And then I got to the section of the article that broadens "the beast" to include the unavailable man and, just like Sarah Bettens, I realized maybe that's a lie.

A couple of years have passed and lots more healing has occurred since my initial read of the article, and I think I've made considerable progress in this department. The men I choose just keep getting more available. Still, it's the closest I come to being a junkie, and it's a good lesson for me in how booze or smokey treats are for some people. Me, I can enjoy those vices, but I can take them or leave them, and if I decide to leave them, I don't keep focusing lots of my energy on them. Not so with the mens...

Fields of Gold

This song has been running through my mind over the past few days, probably for a couple of reasons. I think it popped back into heavy rotation on the internal jukebox when I was forced to go from happily ensconced to in withdrawal, buoyed by the happy possibility that said ensconcing would happen again at some point in the future:

Will you stay with me, will you be my love

Among the fields of barley

We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we lie in the fields of gold

These fields of gold are a powerful metaphor for me, and sometimes they are necessary just to make it through. I wonder a little bit if they can be dangerous though, too, or at least, from my experience one is wise to leave room for the fields of gold to play out significantly differently in real life than they have in the mind.

One of the ways I learned that lesson is connected to the other reason this song has gotten so much play over the past few days. This is a song that my first love put on a CD that he made me years ago. (The version on that CD was a woman, maybe Eva Cassidy, but I'm not sure.) Having only ever spent one summer together but feeling this strong connection that lasted through the years and suggested the possibility of a great love, I'd listen to these words over and over again:

Many years have passed since those summer days

Among the fields of barley

See the children run as the sun goes down

Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You can tell the sun in his jealous sky

When we walked in the fields of gold

This summer, we finally had the chance to reunite, and it didn't happen the way it had in my head, or in his. And although we had to deal with some feelings of disappointment and awkwardness, when we let go of that, we did find ourselves walking in fields of gold, just not in the way we'd expected to do it. I haven't heard from him in a little while now, and when that happens, sometimes I just worry a bit. I'm sure he'll resurface again soon. I'm so grateful for all the lessons I've learned along the way through him, and I'm trying to apply them to my present circumstance, knowing that even if my current love won't stay with me and be my love among the fields of Madison, it doesn't mean that we won't walk in fields of gold:

I never made promises lightly

And there have been some that I've broken

But I swear in the days still left

We'll walk in the fields of gold

Stand By Your Man

Tonight I went out for dinner and drinks with two female friends who are choosing to remain in marriages that are less than fulfilling. Before I went through it myself, I would have judged them for this -- but now I am fully aware of what is lost when you give up on a love, not to mention a family, and I'm also really conscious of what it is like not to have the strength or the self-love necessary to demand more for yourself. Particularly in a culture where woman are expected to make sacrifices (and I'd probably be hard pressed to find an example of a culture with different expectations of women, since this expectation is largely driven by biology), it isn't easy to embark on a path of putting your own happiness first. I firmly believe that one of the things we model as parents is tending to our own happiness (or not), and that to do so is a gift to everyone else in the family too. My ex-husband had a tacky plate collection that hung in the kitchen of the first house we lived in together, and one of them read:

When Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

And I reckon that's true, to some degree.

I also had tea today with a friend who has decided, after years of being unhappy in her marriage, to leave. She's in a much better place with herself than she has been in years -- living from a space of truth. But she's about to experience the horrifying feeling of waking up in the middle of the night (or the morning if she's lucky) and knowing something is profoundly wrong, and then realizing that your children aren't sleeping in your house, or, in my case, you're not sleeping in theirs. I've never experienced anything more painful than that.

There are no easy answers to this conundrum. And it's not for anyone else to say whether it's the right or wrong thing to stay in an unhappy union. For my part, I feel super lucky to be in a position of having the possibility of a more amazing union than I'd ever dreamt of, and as hard it was to get used to and as difficult as it can still be, I wouldn't trade that possibility for the chance to wake up in the same house as my children every day. I went through wishing it didn't come down to one or the other, and then realizing it did, and knowing that following Tammy's admonition just wasn't right for me, even though I can see that it is right for many people:

Sometimes its hard to be a woman

Giving all your love to just one man

You'll have bad times

And he'll have good times

Doing things that you don't understand

But if you love him you'll forgive him

Even though he's hard to understand

And if you love him

Oh be proud of him

'Cause after all he's just a man

Stand by your man

Give him two arms to cling to

And something warm to come to

When nights are cold and lonely

Stand by your man

And tell the world you love him

Keep giving all the love you can

Stand by your man

Hometown Glory

Round my hometown today, there was a new Governor being sworn into office with much pomp and circumstance, there was a woman excited to start a new job, there was a woman wishing she was still hanging out in coffeeshops, and there was a woman wondering whether her hometown, or at least likely to be her hometown for the next decade, would ever include her mountain-loving man. (Yep, all those women are me.)

Adele to the rescue with her magical voice:

Round my hometown

Memories are fresh

Round my hometown

Ooh the people I’ve met

Are the wonders of my world

Are the wonders of my world

Are the wonders of this world

Are the wonders of my world

Tell Me Something Good

Last night my daughter and I were watching Happy Feet, a movie about singing penguins that includes one scene with a montage of songs from the 70s and 80s. I heard a lot of lines from old faves, but this is the one that's still with me upon waking the next morning. And I think I know exactly why.

I talk a lot about opening your heart to love, but I haven't given a lot of credence to the reasons we so often don't. Here's the reason, in a nutshell: it's scary.

Last night, I had some really uncomfortable feelings come up that were related to the lack of control that necessarily comes to surrendering to something that big. I didn't like it, and a few months or even weeks ago, I might've just started talking my way out of it -- focusing on the things I don't like or that are difficult -- and managing to arrive at the conclusion that takes me right back to the power seat, right back in control -- as if I could say to myself "Good. Yep. That's better. You don't need to feel that way. You can still just walk away." At that point, the first verse described where at least part of me still lived:

You ain't got no kind of feeling inside

I got something that will sure 'nuff set your stuff on fire

You refuse to put anything before your pride

I got something that will knock all your pride aside

But I did let in. Wall after wall came down. And I got to the place where I was open and asking for and receiving all of this:

Tell me something good (tell me, tell me, tell me)

Tell me that you love me

Tell me something good (tell me, tell me, tell me)

Tell me that you like it, yeah

Got no time is what you're known to say

I'll make you wish there were 48 hours to each day

Problem is you ain't been loved like you should

What I got to give will sure 'nuff do you good

And now that I've been in that timeless, dimensionless place, where wishing I had 48 hours in each day only scratches the surface of the strength of my desire, now that I've been loved like I should, now that I've had something that sure 'nuff did me good, I'm finding myself a little lost again now that the physical separation is back.

But it's a different kind of lost than it used to be. I no longer have the desire to find more solid ground if it means moving away from love. How's that for telling you something good?

If You Want to Sing Out

Cat Stevens has been sending me subliminal messages for a while now -- just itching to be the song of the day. New Year's Day: there are sooooo many songs I could post about this day of intention setting and launching a new year filled with limitless possibility. But as I sat in my yoga class this afternoon doing lion's pose -- where you hang your tongue out to your chin -- I realized that Cat's day had finally come:

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out

And if you want to be free, be free

'Cause there's a million things to be

You know that there are

You can do what you want

The opportunity's on

And if you find a new way

You can do it today

You can make it all true

And you can make it undo

you see ah ah ah

its easy ah ah ah

You only need to know

Well if you want to say yes, say yes

And if you want to say no, say no

'Cause there's a million ways to go

You know that there are

This song carries a powerful message -- and one that is easier said than done -- that all you need to do is decide who you are and where you want to go and then set off in that direction. Why is this hard to do? Because sometimes there are things holding us back.

My yoga class was all about the chakras, and it's the same class I've been to for the past three years on new year's day. It's been cool for me to see how I've changed over the course of those three years. For example, last year on New Year's Eve, I had what the yogis might call an imbalance of the second chakra (related to sexuality among other things) -- which manifested itself in me picking up some stranger in a bar and going home with him at about 2am to some seriously unsatisfying sex. What was I looking for in that exchange? A little lovin'. But I was looking for it with my fourth chakra (heart) so tightly sealed away I couldn't possibly have felt love. I felt empowered -- that's all about the third chakra (sense of self, healthy ego) -- but I was closed down to love.

This year I find myself in a completely different place. Second chakra feeling balanced, fourth chakra open for business -- blood flowing between the two -- and a healthy sense of self (third chakra) enhancing the whole experience. But that doesn't mean there isn't work to do. As I talked to my teacher about what my challenges are likely to be in the new year, it kept coming back to first (root) and fifth (voice) chakras. So maybe I'll let this tune be my theme song as this year gets rollin' -- at least until the next set of shifts come:

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out

And if you want to be free, be free

'Cause there's a million things to be

You know that there are...