Adulting...

I'm trying to remember what I thought my adult life would be like when I was a little kid. I'm pretty sure it was non-stop doing whatever the hell I wanted without consequence. I was never the kid that dreamed about being married or having kids. I never really felt like I fit, so it made sense that I wouldn't want the traditional stuff. I do recall wanting to be a writer since books were my favorite thing. I remember a plan to be a hot dog vendor on Wall Street--my logic was that the people who worked there had a lot of money and would tip really well. I spent most of my childhood imagining I was somewhere else. I even had an imaginary friend named Roy. I sent him to live in New York City and he got a job as a janitor at the Empire State Building. He would toss quarters off the observation deck for me.

I have a good adult life. I'm fairly interesting, have a cool job, good friends, and live with the raddest Bitches on the planet. I've been doing that reflection and growth thing again lately, trying new things, and while I am decent at being uncomfortable, it's really kicked up some shit for me. But Schooly math includes "Uncomfortable + reflection = growth." Schooly math usually kicks in after I've been single for a while. I have to go through the broke and angry phase and just be pissed for awhile. And it's weird, whether or not I was the one pulling the trigger on ending the relationship, I've always felt better when it was over. Maybe some of us just aren't built for the long haul relationship. I don't say that to mean that some of us are innately incapable of having a healthy relationship. Of course, lots of us are damaged, but I really don't think anyone is hopeless. I say that because I think some of us have hit survival mode where we have learned to draw all strength from within and are completely independent.

The shit's really kicked up in the last month or so and I feel open again. Not open like I want a relationship, but open like I feel like me again. I'm getting uncomfortable, trying golf and painting, training for my race, and just being. I even found a renter so I can have some cash to get my kitchen remodel finished instead of staring at it and being angry. If that's not adulting, what the hell is?

I'm busting down my expectations to the roots and just trying to be a decent human every day. Remembering that only good lies before me and knowing that I can figure out how to get through almost anything.

Picasso's Bastards...

That isn't even a fair comparison, Picasso. I say that having never taken an art history class and having the most basic comprehension of abstract art and abstract expressionism. Yes, I can spot a Jackson Pollock, but if you wanna get granular about it, that's only because Ed Harris played him on screen and who doesn't love Ed Harris?

It's about art, though. I've always been surrounded by artists, some of exceptional talent, but I never really considered myself one, but for a few good writings and a handful of poems. But I think I may have expanded a bit in the last few weeks when I picked up a paint brush to see what happened.

The blame goes to Recovery Queen and her art show. I made a cake for the show the first year, since that's another medium in which I am quite comfortable. That was the cake Janot said, "Girl, you can't bring a cake and not expect a Black man to eat it," and turned it into performance art when he marched over a cut a big hunk out.



I laugh whenever I think of that night.

The second year of the art show, I didn't submit anything. I encouraged, er, prodded, a few other people to be in the show, but my cake game wasn't as strong so I sat out.

Recovery Queen bugged, er, encouraged me off and on during the year. She's an amazing artist, so I figured it was easy for her to say, "Everyone's an artist." And then I realized, everyone is an artist, just like everyone can sing or everyone can dance. It's a little about the degree of how well you do it, but more about having the guts to actually give it a shot and see what happens.

There was an idea floating around my cranium. It was tied to something one of my favorite professors told me once when she said, "Your ability to see the big picture will be your greatest blessing and your greatest curse." Yes, the big picture. The ability to connect the dots and see how things fit. A great skill. Great enough to make me want to rip my hair out at times. When I think about that big picture, sometimes it is oriented toward a specific issue or problem, but this time I was thinking in terms of my whole life. I've never had trouble getting in the helicopter and flying around above my life to see where the gaps are--I haven't ever been that good at doing anything with the information. But for the "Big Picture" art project, I thought about hovering about this whole life and really examining the emotional pivot points. What formed me? Where are the befores and afters? Where were those physical places and how did they make me feel?

I settled on five spaces to explore, some good, some terrifying, and some a bit of both. Intellectually, I have words to describe the spaces, but I guess it's just something I want you to consider coming to see at the show. The spaces are called, "The Place Where People Loved Jesus the Right Way," "The House on Potter Street," The Bronco," "The Brownstone," and "The Girl on the Run." They are just little canvases with cheap, acrylic paint slung on them, but I was surprised at the intensity with which I went at the work. There is definitely a lack of skill on my part, but the work is honest.

If you are interested, the 3rd Annual Recovery Art Show will be held September 4 at Exposure Gallery in Sioux Falls.

Han Solo Syndrome...

"Never tell me the odds!" - Han Solo

Not so long ago, in a town one state away, my brothers and I grew up on Star Wars. It was one of the few things on which the three of us agreed as awesome. I was several versions of Leia for Halloween over the years (and R2D2 once when I was quite small). I remember the Christmas my older brother got the Millennium Falcon--his wonder and amazement at his new toy must have been like a a trip to Mecca or the Vatican for some. My mom would put the story records on at bed time and I'm pretty sure I always fell asleep before Vader captured Leia, but I think more of the story sunk into my dreaming brain.

Leia was the only princess I ever wanted to be. She was smart, pretty, and brave. She shot a gun, just like any other Rebel and I thought she was so cool for that. The girl with the big castle waiting for the prince to come save her or rescue her to his castle never resonated with me. Her special man friend, Han Solo, did resonate with me. Han was my first crush. He was so cute and well, different. He wasn't lock step with anyone, he did his own thing, which made much more sense in what my child's mind thought of as a good rebel. He said things like, "I take orders from just one person: me." He hung out with the bad guys, but he wasn't a bad guy. And there was something sort of fun about the way Leia and he acted like they hated each other, but we all knew they really liked each other. Han would have definitely pulled Leia's braids and teased her if they were in school together. But the other thing my child's brain latched on to was the idea that Han was sort of a lost guy who just needed Leia to save him. He needed to love her to make him see what was important. He needed Leia to save him from the life of smuggling and give him a reason to join the Rebellion and have purpose for himself.

As you're probably guessing, this storyline had a fairly profound effect on me. I call it my Han Solo Syndrome. It's slightly fueled by my Anne Frank quality, where I try to find something good in everyone (even Hitler LOVED his dog, Genghis Khan was tolerant of different religions), but I also think Leia being the rescuer instead of the rescued was huge. (Star Wars nerds--not interested in an argument about Obi Wan being her only hope and needing to be rescued from the Death Star. I'm going macro-level on IV-VI here.) Not a lot of strong women in the fairy tale-type stories, especially when a beloved was involved.

It was the perfect storm of the woman I wanted to be and the man I wanted to love.

It just isn't such a great blue print for today, in this galaxy.

The thing about our world is that our Hans don't get encased in carbonite. Our Hans get encased in far more sinister things like booze, powders, pills, gambling, and mental illness. Measured against the likes of those real-world issues, rounding up a group of friends to plan an escape from an obese, desert gangster sounds pretty feasible.

We can't save our Hans here. Maybe things just work out better in other galaxies far, far away.

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
― Milan Kundera


Just wanted to share this quote with the you since I haven't written in forever. I took a personality/style assessment for a leadership class I am in and my results in the four areas nearly made a square. Apparently this makes me Steady Eddie or a chameleon, depending on one's view. The results in the four different areas are tallied on a scale of one to 100. Some people in the group had 99s in an area and as low as eight in another; I was in a 43 to 67 range. Hip to be square, I guess. But somehow over the course of the discussion, someone posed the question, "What excites you?" Of course, the first thing I thought of was the dogs. Excitement used to be a roller coaster of artificially-induced emotions. Now excitement is, well, nothing, really.

I love going for runs or walks with the Bitches. It's time to process or shut it all off. On Sunday we went out for a walk and ended up covering eight miles. That's over 42,000 feet. And not a single complaint from either of my companions. Just quite company, minus a couple of squirrel or bunny scents.

Doing nothing with them is never boring, Kundera's description of peace with dogs is perfection. They are my peace. They are my confidants. They are my consistency. They are my friends. And only a dog could do their jobs; a human would be crushed under the weight of those expectations. They are so good at being who they are because they can't comprehend the magnitude of their job.

Bitches' Resume

Intelligent
Loyal
Athletic, including training for numerous marathons and half marathons
Not picky eaters
Beautiful
Velvet ears
High-quality snuggling
Enjoys kissing children
Excellent secret keepers
Will do photo shoots for cheeseburgers

Not Opening a Can of Anything Right Now...

I suppose I’ve opened a few cans of worms in my life. You’ve been there, sometimes you say things out of curiosity, sometimes it’s more of a game of poke the bear, or sometimes you are clueless about the effect your words or actions may have on others. It’s a tricky one, balancing between thinking you’re over-important and being aware of the feelings of those around you.

That’s what I’m writing about, on some level I’m writing about how our little seemingly insignificant actions can have really heavy consequences for the ones we love. On some level, I am actually writing about a can opener.

(Side note for anyone who reads these things and remembers the blog about Timmy, my grandma, and Kris Allen, “Live Like We’re Dying” just started playing on Pandora. It’s all tied together, not always with a perfectly placed bow, but it’s tied.)

As a kid, one of my primary caregivers was my great aunt Ann. We never had to go to daycare or have babysitters because Ann would watch my brothers and me. She taught me how to read and braided my hair, so how big of a fan of hers I was really goes without saying. She completed her high school education—not a lot of women did this in rural Minnesota back in the day and she loved to read. She was also a writer and kept these amazing little notebooks of what we kids were up to, our progress at school, and funny things we would say. Like my older brother, “Timmy” in the notebooks, went through a phase where he insisted on calling me a “Peterson Girl” whenever I wore this white hat. He’s 40 and we still have no idea where that came from…

Ann’s husband was killed in a car accident when she was pretty young and she never remarried or had any children of her own, so the great nieces and nephews turned into her grandkids. She really loved kids, so she was also a bible school teacher and a Girl Scout troop leader. She also drove a ’49 Mercury. So imagine being a little kid tooling around town in the early 80s in that old car. I’m sure there were many brief discussions over the years about getting a different vehicle, but Ann never was one to need to replace something if it worked.
That’s another really important piece of Ann’s personality. She was a child of the Depression. Anyone under the age of 30 who might have come across this is super confused right now. Yes, they probably heard of Black Tuesday, the Dust Bowl, and the Depression. But I don’t know how many of them got to spend much time with someone who could make everything last longer than anyone thought possible. Anyone here make their daily driver last 40 years? Who saves every plastic tub from the store? Why would you BUY plastic storage containers when you get one every time you buy cottage cheese? She even used an old wringer washing machine, like the 50s never happened.

But it wasn’t like she was stuck in a time warp, it was just who she was and what she valued. Plus, the car was super cool, so that trumped anything seeming weird.

She never missed a day with any of us kids, so it was a shock when she got sick. Even though she was old, she was Ann and Ann didn’t get sick, so my adolescent brain was alternately confused and angry. She didn’t waste anything, ever. She not only always went to church, but she taught classes and was in those ladies groups. She helped with Christmas programs and Girl Scouts. And now she had to lie in a bed in a nursing home for however long the he/she/it she spent her life serving decided. She’d had a stroke, which eventually meant that part of a leg had to be amputated, but immediately meant that she could no longer speak. The voice that helped teach me to find my voice was silenced, replaced by taps and attempts at pointing on a picture board.

My mother, another relative, and I spent many hours cleaning out Ann’s house when she first moved into the nursing home. It’s always the same story when one doesn’t have the long-term care insurance; the bills were mounting, so the assets needed to be sold.

I still dream about being in that house from time-to-time. It had a laundry shoot, a pull down ladder from the attic, and a pantry for canned (canned at home, people) goods in the basement. A single garage just big enough for the Mercury, standard living room, two bedrooms, and a single bathroom with only a tub, no shower. I’m not sure how a relator would spin it into magic—post-war charm?

But the kitchen was really cool. Not because of the spill over of Ann’s sizable salt and pepper shaker collection or the big table she kept, even though she lived by herself. Again, it was the old stuff that got me. The stove from the 40s, those mountains of reusable margarine containers, lightly-stained cabinets with their sensible hardware, and the laminate countertops with the metal edging. The ladies said if there was anything I wanted, I should just ask. Since I wasn’t sure where we would put the stove, I figured scoring a few of Ann’s super cool kitchen utensils would be appropriate. I spend more time baking and cooking with my actual grandmothers, but they were both a bit more modern, so going through Ann’s stuff was really treasure hunting.

Because I didn’t want to seem pushy, weird, or any of those other things a teenaged girl is concerned with, I selected only two items for me personally. And of course, they were weird: a potato masher and a can opener. I can honestly say that I didn’t use the potato masher for a good ten years or so, but it makes the best mashed potatoes. You see, for years I didn’t think I even liked mashed potatoes. Really, I didn’t. Least favorite thing about Thanksgiving: Mashed potatoes. I can’t tell you why I picked the potato masher that day way back when saying Michael Jackson was a national treasure didn’t raise eyebrows. I can tell you that, years later, I learned that I liked boiled potatoes, with the skins on, with a little butter and cream, mashed with that potato masher. Skins and lumpy. Who knew? I guess Ann did.

The can opener was old school, plain silver with a church key. That was how she opened cans of pineapple and drained the juice first, so I wanted it.



The can opener lived many places with me and was used a lot. It was the most simple, sturdy thing in my life and I thought of Ann every time I used it. When life was shitty, I wasn’t cooking much and I didn’t want to think of Ann when opening bottles, so I got a key ring opener for that. During those times, the can opener went to the back of the messy kitchen drawer.

When life got better and stayed better, I started cooking more and cans of tomatoes and beans needing opening for some crock pot wonder or chili. And every single turn, the can opener worked like a charm. It wasn’t rusted over or cranky, it just was. I have no idea when or where she bought it, but it certainly inspires the idea that “they don’t make things the way they used to.”

But then one day the can opener was gone. I tore the kitchen apart, inexplicably wondering how I could have misplaced The can opener. Ann’s can opener. The thing that reminded me of her with every good turn.

I asked Man Friend and his reply was easy enough. He’d taken it to a job site because he grabbed a can of tuna to make a sandwich. He must have left it there. It was a friend’s place. It was no big deal. He would get it back.

And I was standing in my kitchen, crying about a can opener.

I told him why it was important to me. I don’t know how effective, “But it was Ann’s, Ann’s” really is through snotty tears. Maybe someday he will see this. That was well over a year ago.

He tried to make it right. He brought home a can opener.

“This is the only one that was there.”

But it wasn’t Ann’s. It was shiny. It turned so much harder. It wasn’t a full church key.

It was something you could find for three bucks at Walmart and use to go camping.

I know man friends around the world die a little, whether from concern or annoyance, when our tears start, but I couldn’t help it. I felt so betrayed. I felt ashamed for losing something so important.

Honestly, a part of me is still upset about the betrayal. I know, it’s just a can opener, but every time I used that stupid one, I still think of Ann, but now I feel like I let her down.

So tonight I am asking Ann to let me be wasteful and silly. I am going to throw the perfectly good can opener that I hate away. I am not interesting in finding it a good home. I am only interested in getting it out of my home. I think she’ll understand that. Ann knew lots of things and I’m sure she knew that sometimes, not matter how much you want to love something, you just can’t. And she’ll help me pick out a brand new one the next time I am at the store, maybe even an upgrade, but nothing fancy and certainly not electric.

To My Other Favorite W.W....

I wrote a poem earlier (blame it on the Food Network) and then went into the archives. So I figured I would throw a few out there. It's interesting to read old stuff and re-live some old head space. XXXOOO


Untitled

The lasagna could have been
A lovely dinner
Or the perogies I know you love
My hopes ascend over recipes,
I make lists for all the favorites.
Fresh herbs, chicken stock,
Italian sausage, all the cheeses.
“I forgot how good of a cook you are,”
made my night.
We all forget in the fog of accusations
And lies, until the fog clears.
But then the guilt,
the guilt,
the guilt.
“Make me chicken dumplings
Forever.”
The lasagna could have been
A lovely dinner.



The Realization The Things Will Never Be The Same

Paper, like we cement
Grabs my stupid words
Permanently on page.
I stumble on my mind
Where, just to piss me off,
He lives.



Redemption

Rain drops grace
My tired face.
I tilt
My head back,
Slightly to the right
And think
About the words that have come
Out of my mouth.
So I open that mouth,
Just a tad at first,
And let the rain sink in.
I’m in Nebraska,
It is clean and pure.
I smile and walk to my car.



Kitchen Philosophy

Sit in the kitchen and think about
What you’ve done wrong this year.
It’s December,
It will take a long time.
I’ll cook you breakfast
And we can laugh about February
And cry about August.
August Twenty-Something.
The day you left me.
Everything you had entered me
And I struggle to let you go.
I’ll turn the pancakes.
You figure out where we go
When we die.

3,652 days...

“I had no idea what time I’d left, how I’d gotten home, who’d been up here, and how long he, she, or they had stayed. Another night, added to the hundreds that had gone before, shrouded in mystery. Really, when you thought about it, it was creepy. My own life was a secret to me.” ― Heather King, Parched

It’s the last line that gets me—“My own life was a secret to me.” Addiction is so secretive. We hide our feelings, our actions, and our use. We hide from people who love us. I did a lot of hiding for about a decade of my life. The lies I told myself might have been the worst ones. Like Heather, I was a secret to myself.

10 years. I guess I can now start typing my time in survivor years from addiction using numbers instead of having to spell out the number. Maybe that’s just the English major in me, or maybe it’s the part of me that likes to downplay things. I don’t feel the need to celebrate my wellness time. I try to celebrate my health everyday.

Last week Monday, I was on a plane coming home from Chicago. I’d had an amazing weekend with my mom and two of my aunts. The goal of the trip for me was singular, to finish the Chicago Marathon. I’d run two marathons previously, so I knew I could do it, but Chicago is one of the World Major Marathons. (New York, Boston, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo are the others.) They are the majors for a reason—they are the races everyone wants to run. The elites are there. The biggest prize monies are awarded. You have to have good qualifying times to get a bib. Or, like me, you have to find a charity team to raise money and run for to secure your bib. They are the premier events of the sport and a chance for someone like me to say I ran a course with Rita Jeptoo, albeit hours behind her. I doubt I will ever play on the same court as Michael Jordan. As I told a friend, I was going for a Sunday morning jog with 45,000 friends.

If you know me, you know I am no speedster and like I said, I secured my bib by running for a charity. My team was the Girls on the Run Solemates. I have been a volunteer coach for the local Girls on the Run program for two seasons, so seeing the positive impact that the program has on little girls made requesting to join that team a no-brainer. To any of you reading who encouraged and supported my fundraising efforts for the Solemates, I thank you. To date, our team has raised almost $285,000 dollars that will provide program scholarships for low-income girls. Shameless plug, if you are still interested in donating, the site will stay live through December.

The Chicago Marathon was an intense experience from start to finish. With 45,000 runners to manage, it’s quite a masterpiece of logistics. Everyone is assigned a corral that corresponds with one’s bib number. For the purposes of that morning, I was H 40845, like something out of a sci-fi novel. The energy was palpable as I entered the corral. H Corral lined up right in front of Buckingham Fountain, in Grant Park. Yes, I thought of Al Bundy. Lots of small talk with strangers—I should say Corral Mates, including one woman who runs with her Husky (three to five miles max, so she was quite impressed with the Bitches) and several who were experiencing their first marathon. One poor girl who was supposed to be in Corral D, but ripped her bib hopping a fence. She was relegated to the second wave with the rest of us 4:00+ runners. She took off like a bat out of hell when we crossed the start line.

Crossing the start line at a race that big is interesting in and off itself. From the start of the second wave, it took me almost 17 minutes to get stop-go shuffled to the actual starting line. The funny part is that the 17 minutes to get to the start seemed to take longer than the 326 minutes I was out on the course.

I’ve always said that the marathon is a mini-life in that you experience every range of emotion out on the course. I don’t take my phone with me to take pics, Facebook, or Tweet like some runners do. I keep those photos locked away in my brain space, just for myself—the photo wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling of running through the underpass with thousands of others, a mess of neon dry-fit, everyone screaming and whooping. We were like caged animals in the corrals, now free to find our pace and enjoy the beautiful morning. And beautiful it was. Clear skies and perfect temps. The first seven miles were really just a dream, figuring out my pace, crossing the river a few times, and enjoying the city. Of course, I found some beautiful real estate on Sedgwick Street. Everyone there had gorgeous dogs like Whippets and merle Am Staffs. Leave it to me to find the dogs on the route. I did manage to not stop and pet any this time, something I was totally guilty of at the TC Marathon.

When we were crossing the river by Marina City, I remember a woman with a sign pinned to her back that said, “I am running for the love of my life,” with his photo. He’d died on September 28 and was 37. My age. You see those stories through races, of who we are and why we run. I admired her courage and determination.

I got to blow kisses to drag queens and hear my Girls On the Run Cheer Squad hollering in the charity village. I won’t try to describe how sticky the ground was at the halfway point, where the aid station was handing out Gatorade chews and lots of people ate one or two and dropped the rest. Actually, I can tell you—it was worse than the old carpet at the Top Hat. Worse. I was particularly thankful for shoes at that point. I only saw one man running barefoot, which is one of those runner things I have never even tried to understand.

The funniest point of the run was at the 17.5 mark. I was trotting along, when I felt something splash on me, even on my face. Splash might not be the best word, as it had some force behind it. My first thought? Somebody puked on me. Gross. I touched my face and wished I had a photo of my face as I looked down at my hand and saw a red streak. My second thought? It’s blood. Red was also spattered down the side of my pink Girls on the Run singlet. Great, I’ve caught the Ebola. I looked to my right at the woman and man next to me were also splattered. Hell, she looked like she’d been stabbed. Thankfully, this all happened in about three seconds and the logical part of my brain took over and realized she must have stepped on one of the hundreds of packs of GU that people had dropped along the course. Nobody stops to pick anything up, they ditch and go, which was slightly horrifying for a second, but provided a little comic relief for me.

The people of Chicago are amazing. Every neighborhood was playing music, passing out water, and welcoming. There were kids in dragon costumes dancing as we ran through Chinatown. A Black church was out in full force with “You are anointed” and “Run for Jesus” signs.

To be truthful, I really don’t remember looking at my Garmin after mile 21. There was some sort of energy that pushed me on. Sure I made a pit stop and a couple of stretch breaks along the way. This was never about the time. It was always about the feeling. And I let the feelings rule the last few miles.

Once you are going north again, you are running to the skyscrapers and I was just focused on those buildings. I remember seeing this particular woman for the third time along the route, who was holding signs for her daughter, Emma, and the signs were covered in cats, like she was a crazy old cat lady or something. It was sort of perfect. I remember people stopping to hug loved ones and take pics. I remember people who couldn’t run anymore and were walking it in, knowing they had plenty of time to meet the 6.5 hour cap to be an official finisher and receive a medal.

I thought about a lot of things during those 26.2 miles. My life has been out of kilter and slightly chaotic the past few months. I thought about all the people who helped me get to the race. I thought about Man Friend. I thought about a friend who is nearing the end of her life. I thought about Alli and Joey, my beautiful Bitches and the best trainers a girl could have.

The crowds increased during the last mile and as I approached the spectator village, I was still sassy enough to repeat the performance of my first marathon and yell at the crowd for being too quiet. Yes, I did get some cheers.

When I turned the corner and saw the 400 meter sign, I ran as hard as I could. I probably passed two hundred people. What’s a quarter mile at that point, really? And when I crossed the finish line, I wept. I buried my face in my cap and I wept. I heard a woman’s voice say, “You did it, honey. You did it,” and felt a hand on my shoulder. But I couldn’t look at her.

I kept moving so the med folks didn’t swarm in and I looked up at the buildings at the end of Millennium Park. I thought about how cool my life was now. I thought I had myself collected so I went to the line to receive my medal and started bawling again.

“You did it!” said the woman who gave me my medal. I’m sure they thought I was upset about something silly, like my time. But the tears were pure gratitude. I was thinking about how close I was to my recovery birthday and I was thinking about my life 10 years ago. I was thinking about what a Sunday morning was like then. It was trying to piece together the previous day(s). It was a life so secretive, it was a secret to me. That life certainly didn’t include going for a jog with 45,000 friends.

My secret life kept me from discovering who I really am and what I love about life. Discovering running has been one of the greatest gifts of my recovery life and for that I am truly grateful.