Remember the Secret

There was a time, about two years ago it seems, when you couldn't swing a crystal on a hemp rope without hitting someone who wanted to tell you about the Secret. My God, that was fucking annoying; particularly since I believe strongly in what the Secret is trying to convey and horrified that the message got lost in a rapacious fad that made the whole thing seem ridiculous. After a while, because of that, I felt a little ashamed to admit that I was still trying to follow the model for personal success and happiness. I feel even shittier that I lost track of something that was making me feel like I was heading in a good direction. Now, I need that positivity more than ever, and am finding it hard to call it forth.

 

I started a job last October that should have been, well… a piece of cake. With a mind toward getting myself back into school, I took a position that sounded as though stress would never be a factor, with a 10k pay cut (which would presumably help in terms of getting financial aid) and all for the expressed purpose of knowing that would be the foundation I needed to get through school at the ripe age of 40. Since that time, my job has been re-orged twice, and my responsibilities and duties have changed three times. My stress levels went from a pebble to a mountain in a snap, my work hours became ridiculous (and overlooked), I had no training and was expected to get up to speed immediately… most of which I did. In all that time I have been screamed at for the most miniscule reasons imaginable in front of more than just my department, scapegoated to an absurd degree, given a reputation I didn't deserve and then supposedly given a chance to prove I didn't deserve the reputation, while secretly, my new managers were having my dishonorable co-worker report on every mistake I made.

 

Not one to want to dwell in the negative, I have tried to look at all of this as a challenge, something to overcome and hoped that it would be enough reward to have the pride of knowing I did so. But it has become clear that any advances I make are being disregarded in favor of exploiting my mistakes. And in knowing that, I find myself accidentally and seemingly pathologically making mistakes that will only fuel their fire. At this moment, I fear that after this week, I will once again be unemployed because if it. Which brings me to think that if I hadn't lost my positive thinking, my focus on what I want and what is important, that perhaps this wouldn't be happening now.

 

Admittedly, nine months of torturous unemployment, losing my last remaining Aunt and my mother and taking a very unwanted trip to the hospital shortly before starting this job, helped me to lose a grip on my positive thinking and even if I don't lose my job this week, I know I have to start looking elsewhere. This position is clearly not right for me and not right for what I need to get back into school and take care of my future. There are still so many painful distractions that continue to pull my focus and I'm having a hard time getting back on track. But I'm trying. I'm trying to remember who I am and that I am not as miserable as this job is making me; that I have more to offer than purchase orders and being the target of blame-storming.

 

In that spirit, I am sending this out to the Universe… I want to find work that makes me feel happy and fulfilled, respected and well-paid. I want to work with people whose main concern is a job well-done, who are honorable, respectful, responsible and professional. I want to end my work day with plenty of energy to finish getting a degree, and start a new and rewarding career. If I must work while I do this, I want to work in a place that supports my efforts and elevates me.

 

I hope that if this cannot be immediate, that I have at least planted the seeds for some positive changes to come soon. In the meantime, my friends, send me any positive vibes you can spare. Help me to not let my foes kill my focus and my spirit.

 

Turning Corners

Just when I think that things can't get any weirder, oddly enough, they almost always do. So, I won't say the last six months has been any more challenging, funky, bizarre, stressful, cathartic, silly or fun than any other year before it. I will, however, say that no matter how accustomed I am to having strange things go down in my life, I'm not completely prepared for everything that comes down the pike. That's where I am today.

This time last year I was starting what would turn out to be the funnest temp job ever, and was falling in love with the absolute worst choice of partners (I didn't know he was the worst choice at the time, of course). I was still reeling from the most abominably painful issues with the EDD, having lost my home of seven years to their inadequacy, their apathy, and ultimately their bureaucratic bullshit; and I was just about to lose my Aunt Julia and my mother within two months of one another (I won't bother you by delving into the insurmountable disappointment, disgust and pain that I endured at the disastrous sham that was my mother's funeral). All of which would be punctuated by re-entering the job market (as well as the company I moved here to work for) at 10k less than I was making four years ago. Just recounting all of that makes me feel exhausted.

There was a time in my life when I would have considered it a genuine miracle that I would still be standing after all of that. But honestly, I don't feel that way now. I look at how I have dealt with some of the shittiest life has to offer, realize that I am still reasonably intact, and know that is cause for celebration.

Of course, there are plenty of times when I feel despair over where I am in my career, that I haven't found a suitable partner yet, that I am still dangerously overweight, that I haven't accomplished all the goals I set out for myself, etc. However, I feel unfathomably grateful that the most overwhelming feeling I have on most days now, is happiness. Even in the darkest hours, my biggest accomplishment to date continues to be a source of pride, entertainment, support, sanctuary and love; that is to say that my having chosen my friends well continues to be one of my greatest successes.

Now, with the advent of Facebook (certainly more so than MySpace ever was), I am reconnecting with people from all over the timeline of my life. I now have the opportunity to talk with some people I always wished I'd had a better rapport with, and some people I lost touch with that I'd always regretting having misplaced. Just as important, I have gotten a chance to heal old wounds with estranged friends and acquaintances I believed to have lostchances to heal long ago. I had one of those moments that I want to share here.

This past weekend, one of my most longstanding wounds from my 20s was finally treated with some tenderness and I can feel it healing nicely. Out of the blue, I was contacted by someone I had always wanted to be friends with, but for reasons that are now obvious (but not so at the time); it had never clicked between us. Like a lot of people one adds to internet social networking, this person isn't exactly someone I could call up and ask to a movie, but someone for whom I have respect, admiration, shared memories / experiences and care. Consequently, it wasn't so much the content of the conversation that was of interest (even though it was certainly very interesting), as my finally fulfilling a dusty old wish, and the added pleasure of being able to look back at the girl I had been the last time I attempted to connect and feel relieved that I had the good sense to grow from that version of myself. All of which reminded me of something one of my most beloved teachers (Lee Tecang –my drawing instructor) taught me in college and how profoundly that lesson changed the course of my life.

It was the end of my first quarter of drawing class, and I was looking over my portfolio of drawings in amazement of how "ugly" the first ones were compared to the end of the quarter, and was pulling out the early stuff to throw it out. He stopped me at the trash can and said, "What do you think you're doing?!" I explained that I didn't want reminders of how bad I was before. He laughed and said to me, "If you don't keep these, then the ones you keep now will be the ugly ones you want to toss next quarter." He went on to add, "You have to respect where you have been to truly appreciate where you are." While I applied that to a lot of aspects of my life, it's taken me until very recently to apply that philosophy where it would do the most good.

As I was truly communicating with this person, for the first time in 22 years of acquaintance, I got this mental picture of a night 19 years ago, where we were sitting together, talking and neither of us seeming to understand a word the other said. I remembered how frustrated and upset I was (with myself) at that time with vivid accuracy; how much I wanted this person to like me, to want to know me, to understand me, and feeling desperately inadequate in my ability to connect. Throughout the conversation this weekend, I must have had the most ridiculous grin on my face. Finally, I could talk with this person the way I'd always wanted and for once, doing so was a genuinely pleasurable experience. It is a thrilling relief to not be that insecure version of myself any more, but more than anything, I am ecstatic at not feeling compelled to resent myself for having been so in the first place. To be able to feel love for past versions of myself (that I'd blamed for everything I'd wanted and never got) is, to me, a miracle and a major turning of corners.

So there is a lot to rejoice, these days, in spite of all the things I could tick off that are well worth complaining about. These joys may not seen big, like winning the lotto or getting engaged or the usual stuff that everyone gets excited about. But for me, they are huge. And I hope that as I begin to settle into my 40s, that this kind of growth and healing continues to trend high. Now, if I could just get my work life and love life to follow suit.

Thanks be to Sense-Memory!

You don’t have to be an actor to understand the concept of sense-memory. Thanks to Inside the Actors’ Studio, there’s been enough mention of it and what it means, that most folks are pretty aware of the phrase and method. If you’re one of the ten people who have never seen the show, don’t know an actor, or just have never listened intently to the ramblings of either, sense-memory is where you use an external trigger to recall an emotion, state of being, period of time, etc. Usually this is evoked for the sake of being able to easily bring about a necessary element of a character or performance.

In my case, I’ve been experiencing sense-memory long before I was ever aware of what it was or why one would use it. In fact, I can remember the first time I felt the déjà vu-like sensation overtake me. It was springtime when I was in 5th grade, walking through the back field of my elementary school during lunch recess. My friends and I were blowing bubbles from the bottles we had gotten at a birthday party over the weekend and something about the air smelled sharply familiar, like it was charged with electricity, and suddenly I was transported to a Spring that I had lived before. It hit me so hard, I couldn’t move. Even now, as I write about that day, I can feel being 9 years old, I can smell the air, the humidity rising off the thick blades of green grass that had been heated by a blazing Spring sun. I can almost feel the breeze on my face and it makes my heart race a little. It’s incredible.

One reason that particular memory is so clear is because I vividly recall asking my classmates if they “smelled” it too. It was frustrating not to have the capacity of thought to convey what I was experiencing, which was a slightly fearful but equally exhilarating occurrence; scary in that I was the only one that seemed to know what I was talking about. That moment, in that day, stuck in my mind forever. I think of it every time the sweet scent of newly blossomed honeysuckle wafts through the air and mingles with warm grass.


The only thing that transports me more easily than obscure combinations of scents and energy in the air, is a song. Not every song has a memory connected to it. Not every song evokes a specific time or place or emotion. I am, however, aware of how easily such a thing can be imprinted onto a beloved song, so when I am going through something really lousy, I’m usually very cautious of listening to anything dear to my heart. For instance, I listened to Travis’s 12 Memories exclusively when I was going through some of the worst of my breakup with my ex-fiance’. It took a long time before I could listen to Love Will Come Through or Happy To Hang Around without immediately experiencing an aching pang in my chest, a pit in my stomach, and an expectation that the weather should be rainy and grey (as it was when I bought the album and as it was when I spent hours of time driving back and forth to Santa Monica to seek solace from KS).


Luckily, the same can hold true for happy, silly, sensual memories. When I hear “I’m Only You” by Robyn Hitchcock, I am instantly transported into my 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback, cruising down San Carlos Blvd in San Jose, with LFS in the passenger seat, chattering about how anxious we were for the Cactus Club to open. The song "So Good" by Destiny's Child calls to mind driving through Pacheco Pass in the middle of the night in a rented SUV, couriering my worldly belongings to storage locker in Los Angeles, just before finally leaving home. And every time I stumble upon They Might Be Giants's “Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head”, I’m 19 years old, standing at the copier at the legal offices of AAA, the unnatural taste of Cremora glacky in my mouth, thinking of how much I wanted to be just about anywhere else and repeating the lyrics in my head, “Quit… my… job down at the car wash didn’t have to write no-one a good bye note. They said the check’s in the mail and I’ll see you in church and don’tcha ever change.” (From the files of “Sunny knows the Secret works”: They laid me off a month later. Focus enough on leaving, leaving’s gonna happen!)


This is on my mind today as a result of my picking random songs on my iPod, trying to remember that there are bands other than Kaiser Chiefs, Keane and People in Planes to listen to. I landed on “After Dark” by Tito and Tarantula (off the “From Dusk Til Dawn” soundtrack). MAN, the sensations that song evokes! Not every time, mind you, but when I’m susceptible to the self-hypnotic suggestion, it’s like a sledge hammer to my psyche. Instantly, I am right in the place where I am filled with the force of longing for sensual connection in my life (at the time I first heard the song) and not knowing how to release the stranglehold of repression that had built up over time; the discomfort of beginning to transition out of my 20s and realizing that the irresponsible lifestyle I was holding onto no longer fit me and what I wanted, but didn’t know what I was heading for or how to get there. Yet, even though a good deal of what After Dark evokes in me is remembered struggle, longing and awkwardness, I don’t mind that it brings me back to that place. And even though I know that the lyrics hold a different context than the ones I apply to them (as lyrics often do for the listener), the final lyrics of the song nail home exactly how I felt about wanting to get to the next plane in my life, wanting to know who I really am and scared of letting her see the light of day:

In my heart
A deep and dark and lonely part
Wants her
And waits for After Dark

Here I am today, feeling more true to myself than I have in years and realizing that while I face my share of struggles now, I passed through one that I didn't see an end to and can feel a sense of relief (and not the smallest sense of achievement) wash over my like a cool mist on a sweltering day. And since I sucked at keeping a diary or a journal to document these things, I’m grateful for the natural tool that is sense-memory to allow me to travel in time. Sometimes you really need to acutely remember where you were and what that place was like, in order to recognize your journey and how better of a place you are in now.

A Lovely Distraction

Once upon a time and not that long ago when I think about it, I was a girl who loved to indulge in fantasy. Since my imagination is vivid and rich, they started out being incredibly fun, but I didn’t know when I come back to reality and would inevitably end up deeply hurting myself. It never occurred to me that being adopted by The Captain and Tenile was pretty ludicrous (although it was only a few years later I learned I had already been adopted so perhaps not as far fetched as it may seem). Nor did it occur to me to realize that I really couldn’t change the weather just by willing it to do so. I also considered it to be a perfectly valid question when I asked my mother if she’d let me go on tour with Journey as their backup singer.

During my formative years, I was heavily influenced by a woman who had a cursory grip on reality at best. She lived much of her life in a perpetual state of fantasy, most of which was unpleasant. Say what you will about my mom, she had quite the imagination on her. She would simply decide something was real and no longer be able to discern the truth from her fiction. That scared me about her and caused ungodly amounts of confusion and pain when I got out into the world. So much of what she had taught me was based on a seriously dark and twisted perception of life. I was constantly bitch-slapped by reality like so much Crystal Carrington on the receiving end of a Joan Collins special, and I stopped letting myself fantasize… about virtually anything. Consequently, as many children do, the things I found most unsettling about my mother are the things I took to the extreme opposite. Fantasizing was one of the first to go.

True, I prefer reality (even when it sucks the high holy one). Unlike most folks, I would rather eschew the disappointment of being blindsided by reality, than indulge in even a moment’s pleasure of entertaining the seemingly (or legitimately) impossible. I say “unlike most folks” because it has been my observation that a staggering number of people I have met, chatted with, read about, seen on television interviews or heard stories of all lack the ability to accept a fantasy as being nothing more and refuse to take responsibility for their own disappointment. Nevertheless, I get that it is not exactly something we are all taught to take responsibility for. By and large, the general populous tends not to do much of anything unless taught to do so. We are virtually programmed not to take that kind of initiative and that is not by mistake, I guarantee it.

Still, I have to say that it is nice when a pleasantly humming fantasy slips its way into my thoughts like a gentle breeze on a Spring afternoon and lets me take a little time off from all my self-enforced certainty. Today it is a man and that is one place I nearly never allow myself to go (because it feels almost exactly the same as rejection when my fantasy never comes to fruition). This is a man I cannot have and don’t need to have and I’m okay with that (for a change). Once in a while, we have moments that make me blissfully fluffy and floaty and I cannot seem to find anything wrong with it because unlike my past experiences with fantasy, I know when to stop and go back to reality.

Today, I found my mind drifting off to a place where I was wrapping my arms around his lean, broad shoulders, resting my face against his chest, and listening to him talk. When I realized what I was doing, I noticed I was quietly smiling to myself; calm and relaxed. When I snapped out of it, that feeling went with me for the rest of the day and for the first time in a really long time I had a fully good day.

It is a tremendous feeling to loosen the death grip I’ve had on my imagination and feel like I have grown enough to know how to protect myself. The trick is knowing when to let go and pull back; knowing how far you should let yourself indulge and not place icky expectations of where your daydreams will end up. But more than anything, it makes me happy to know that I have finally found a place in my life where I am not afraid of reality (no matter how bad it can be), and believe me… that sure makes it easy to come back from fantasyland.