we are stronger than we know...

I'm amazed by how hard and then how good life can feel, all within such a smidgen of time. I'm so familiar with the roller-coaster riding by now, you might think I'd be better at remembering that another high is always around the bend... Those moments of plummeting are just so breath-taking, though. Such velocity. But here I am, chugging skyward. Standing, at the very least, at the top of a big pile of gravel.

My nephew, A, is pictured here on that very gravel pile. He got me to run/fumble up it with him and then sort of ski back down many, many, many, many, many times the other day. I only see my little sister and nephew a few times a year, so it's a very special treat to spend time with him. He's an amazing little person, and he's been awesome at having conversations for a pretty long time, considering that he's not yet three.

When we were all together the other day, my 14-year-old brother, M, was working on a writing assignment at the computer. He'd been given a character prompt: Tiny-foot Johnson. I thought that he should be a winner of sack-races at family reunions, but my brother thought that he should be a mafia boss in Chicago. He managed to find a particularly hideous image of a body builder on Google, and he stuck the image right into his document so that his teachers could fully appreciate what he had conjured up. When A saw the picture, he ran in to tell us about it. "That weird man on the computer has nurses!" Nurses = breasts. I am beside myself just thinking about it.

Today I was out in the palatial yard of some people I work for, playing with two of the cutest children you can imagine. The five-year-old takes on different characters every day~ Harry Potter, Pharaoh, King Tut, Buzz Lightyear, etc. Today she was Robinson Crusoe. She was swinging -her new favorite thing- and all of a sudden, she hollered, "King Tut is in my pocket!" I laughed and asked if he had shrunk. She gave me that grown-ups are ridiculous look and said, "No... he's really just a piece of mulch, but I'm pretending that the piece of mulch is King Tut." Ha!

Tonight there was a family-friendly Dia de los Muertos event. I made sugar skulls for the kids to decorate, and they were a huge hit. I ran out quickly, so now I know to make about four times as many next year. (Everyone was very groovy about the skull shortage, and we made clay skulls after the sugar ones ran out.) I adore this holiday and am thrilled that more and more people are celebrating it each year. Since I'm on a roll with the kids' comments, my favorite snippet from tonight was:

"Audrey licks pennies."

"I do not!"

I get so much energy from events like this that I have trouble winding down afterward... and I have an early, early start tomorrow, but I'm too buzzy to go to bed...

Before I go and try to be appropriately snoozy, there's one more random thing that I wanted to share. I was looking at Craft magazine at Borders (hooray for free looking, especially when a magazine costs $15) and this woman's dolls were featured. I am in love.

Happy everything to everyone~

*A*

picking up the pieces

I've been spiraling downward, curling inward, losing my way. It's a desolate place I travel to sometimes, and I always tell myself I never want to go there again, but sometimes I just parachute right down into the center of it. And there I am, weary and teary and sitting on my butt in the middle of nowhere.

Things are not peachy right now.

I seem to have ended a relationship that was sweet and wonderful in so many ways. (Please, if you know us, help me to respect his privacy by keeping the lid on names and details.) The friendship won't end, ever I hope. And the romance is far from gone. But I finally had to accept that sometimes love doesn't conquer all. And that sucks.

So, I've been on the verge of tears a lot of the time, feeling like my whole life is dumb because I'm so dumb and everything I do turns out to be a great big neon mistake. Can't fall asleep, can't wake up. Wanting to be alone, to eat things that will ultimately just make me feel worse, to get really unhinged and run far, far away. But as away as I go, I'm still me, and my heart still has to mend itself. (I just had a little image in my head, of my big cartoon heart stitching itself up with a pink silk thread...)

Someone said something to me yesterday that shook my brain a little. Basically, depression.

Oh, who, me? Oh, no, I'm not depressed, no no not me no sir.

But what do I think it is? It's not just this relationship. I was feeling a lot of it before that. I've felt a lot of it at a lot of times. And maybe I'm too stubborn, too much my little virgo nanny goat self, to admit that I'm not all fixed and done. I want to be, but I'm not. Part of what I had to face is that, despite all of the work I have done and despite the fact that I'm much less deflated than I was a few years ago, I still have some big work to do before I can be truly healthy and grounded in a relationship.

So yesterday I was feeling very bad. I cried when people asked how I was. If they didn't ask, I could sort of pretend to function, but as soon as The Question was hanging in the air between us, I was sopping and furrowed and concave. And as soon as I was free from my obligations, I came home and watched TV until my butt was numb.

This morning during a business networking event, people started receiving text messages. Unsettling ones. We had a sniper in town. Our wonderful, magical oasis was under fire. I was immediately queasy, hating the windows all around us. But we finished the meeting and went on our separate ways. I was pissed. I didn't want to suddenly become more paranoid, questioning the safety of every formerly-friendly place around me.

And then something shifted, like magic. I thought of all the people all over the world who walk through their lives every single day in much more danger than I've ever had to face. And I felt lucky.

Then, this afternoon I was gifted with the funds for two visits to my therapist. I love my therapist, and haven't been able to afford her for quite a while. It wasn't much of an issue when things were going along like a nursery rhyme, but this week I really could use some extra care. When this gift was offered (by someone I cried in front of yesterday), I was humbled and grateful and speechless. And that alone created another shift. I moved into the next phase of my day feeling so much lighter.

And. Another gift tonight! At another networking meeting- a very different one- where I connected with wonderful people and opportunities... someone I was wishing I could have a session with gave each of us a certificate for a free session.

Ask, even in a whisper, or between sobs, and you may be given just exactly what you need.

words to live by

"Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure- just a big field to wander in."

~ Natalie Goldberg

in and of the world

I went missing, eh? Not exactly intentional, but a month has slipped past. My life feels not my own at times, and I'm trying to correct that, as much as possible... At the same time, there are things I simply can't share~ because they're not really mine to share, and I have to respect the boundaries and privacy of other people in my life.

So what can I share that is mine enough to share?

Last weekend was Lotus Festival, a magical event that I look forward to each year. The colorful character to the right is a member of the first group we saw on Friday night~ The Dhoad Gypsies. They made bizarre and intriguing noises and did bizarre and intriguing things! In the photo, he is balancing a vessel full of water on top of two glasses on top of his head. He danced around, stood on nails and a sword with bare feet, bellowed fire... I had to look away a few times!

There's always so much running around at Lotus, skipping in and out of venues, trying to catch bits of as many acts as possible. Along with the Dhoad Gypsies, we saw Balkan Beat Box on Thursday night, and snippets (some more snippety than others) of MC Rai, 17 Hippies, Red Stick Ramblers, Amazones, March Fourth Marching Band, Golem, Javier Garcia, Chic Gamine, and Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas. (I'll add links later... I'm supposed to be asleep right now.)

So much wonderful music! And amazing performers. I think that my favorite actual music was from Chic Gamine. They have an album coming out in November, I think... I will be having a copy. Oh, yes.

The other really lovely thing about Lotus is all the people who come back to Bloomington for the festivities. I got to see so many people that I hadn't seen in too, too long. Amen and hallelujah to that!

Now, as noted, I need to vegetate. Tomorrow is another busy day, and I've been a sleepyhead of truly great proportions. I didn't manage to habeas my corpus out of bed until after noon today, and even then, I only got up because I had a 1:00 meeting to scram to. Tomorrow I have to be ready to leave at eleven. Can you imagine?! Woe to me, y'all. Woe to me. But it's all worthwhile~ it's my grandpa's 80th birthday, and he most certainly deserves to be celebrated. :)

So, here I go. I'll be back much sooner this time...