Baree: 1

As you may be aware, it is my dream to become a published author. Technically I've already been published, as I have a few articles on eHow.com, but since I haven't been offered a book deal I have to assume that recipes for pie and instructions on using predictive text aren't grabbing the attention of any big publishers.

I've recently started yet another book, and I've decided to start posting my work here on the blog. I'd like to hear what you think of the work as it proceeds, and I'm hoping that by posting it I'll stay motivated to finish it. I hope you enjoy the tale. I'm calling it Baree at the moment, a better title will make itself known.

 Baree

Allow your humble servant to paint a scene for you: A woman sits alone of an evening, a single low-burning candle casting yellow light over the dull brown of her surroundings. The small house is silent around her save for the repetitive tick-squeak of a chair with cleverly curved feet, a cherished gift from her husband, long dead, tilting back and forth over dusty floorboards. Her face is remote, her dark eyes unfocused, betraying nothing of the tumult within, and is this not the state of all humans? If thoughts and feelings had weight she would be crushed where she sits, and her clever chair with her, but the gods were wise when they made humankind. The worst of what a person carries is invisible, weightless, and yet sharp minds will dull, strong backs bend, and hearts break or sink like iron under the constant pressure of pain and disappointment. She carries a raging torrent within her nondescript frame, expressed only through the movement of her legs as she pushes gently against the floorboards, just enough to keep the clever chair in motion. 

She is called Baree, which means in the language of her folk “a gentle breeze”. She does not know that in a far off land there is a fire-mountain which shares her name, for in that land the word baree means, “blazing giant”. It is the custom of her people to give at birth a name whose meaning the parents would like to see the child emulate. Baree's parents wished for their daughter to be calm, peaceful, a draught of reprieve to all whom she should meet in her life. They did not know that her name held another meaning entirely to the people in a far off land. When words shape our lives in such a way, is it any wonder that our lives fork as they so often do? Who can say when a gentle breeze may become a blazing giant? 

Baree barely moves, her eyes focused on nothing, but the energy of her existence is swirling inside her. All of creation is like this, energy swirling, eddying, clashing against itself, becoming more or other, never dying. Sometimes energies fight for dominance, in nature or in a human body. Betimes a steady current of water can wear away parts of a great mountain, and life has done this to Baree. All the shiny new parts of her have worn away beneath the current of life, leaving nothing but a whispering wind of her once gay breeze. Sometimes, though, the mountain booms like thunder, “ENOUGH,” and sloughs off parts of itself to dam the water, keeping itself for itself.

Baree does not notice as her legs become still, the chair becomes still, her thoughts become still. She is not aware that the slumbering giant within her has stirred to life, so she does not yet understand where the sense of a booming voice in her mind has come from. All she knows is that she is tired of sitting here, rocking another restless night away, waiting for the candle to burn itself out while she herself does the same. She doesn't recall moving, has no memory of her calloused hands pushing against the arms of her chair, does not remember her perspective changing as she rose, but now she is standing in the center of the house that used to brim with life, and there is nothing here that she cares to see any longer. The slumbering giant has spoken inside her, and it has said, “ENOUGH.”

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this so far. Please "follow" my blog to stay notified when I add posts!

Regards,

Allison

For My Mother

When I was very small, my mother made sure that I had a horse. It was plastic and it whinnied, and I loved it. She let me kiss it goodbye whenever we had to go somewhere. She knows that the first thing on every birthday list I've ever made has been "a pony".

My mother didn't get upset when my sister and I wanted to be dropped off half a block away from elementary school so that our friends didn't see us climb out of an orange Pinto. She just pulled over and let us out without telling us how ridiculous we were being.

When my sister and I got our ears pierced, my sister chose the silver studs and I picked the gold ones. Mom later mentioned to me that she, too, preferred gold jewelry. She didn't actually say that I was her favorite daughter, but I was pretty certain of her meaning. After all, we both liked the same metal, what else could it mean?

When I was thirteen I spent a month at my Grandma's house. When I came home my mother had wallpapered my bedroom, bought me an awesome bunk bed with a desk and book shelf and matching dresser, new bed linens, and a radio! (I still have the radio, going strong!)
 
She planned my baby showers, she cried when her grandchildren were born, and she has bailed me out of so many situations that I can safely say that, giving birth to me aside, she is the reason that I am where I am today. On this Mother's Day, Such Good Advice honors my mother by sharing with you some of her very own Good Advice, and a few things I've learned from her in my own words.

No one can make you do anything you don't want to do.
When you're upset, go ride your bike around the block a few times.
It's never too late to learn something new.
Don't try to tell a secret to someone who's in the shower.
Not everything on TV can be believed - especially Charmin commercials.
My father is not as funny as he thinks he is. (He's very punny though!)
If you throw something away that's been collecting dust for years, it's an easy bet that you'll need it the very next week.
If you must take a phone call while cooking dinner, bring the phone with you to the stove.
Let go, and let God.
There is nothing that a determined woman cannot accomplish.
It truly is better to tell the truth.
The best way to laugh is to laugh until you're crying, wheezing, and cramping - then take a deep breath and laugh some more!

Thank you, Mom, for being my one sure thing, the pillar of my life, my shelter in the storm. Thank you for telling me that you love me and admire me, and thank you for not taking me back out of this world when you undoubtedly would have liked to! When God gave me to you, He also gave you to me.

Happy Mother's Day,
Allison

Hope and the Triple-Damn of Realization

The ray of light continues to shine on my upturned face, and I think I just realized something. It's not possible for a ray of light to hit your face if you're not looking up. I think I'd like to dedicate this post to the topic of hope.

Hope can be a great companion, a light in our darkest hour, a reason to continue when we most want to give up. Hope can make us question our sanity, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, each time expecting the outcome to change. Doesn't hope make us think we can achieve a different result if we just keep trying? Hope is an enduring friend, difficult to eradicate from the heart even when time and experience seem to show us that we are fools for hoping at all. I've gone ten rounds with hope myself, and I'd like to share some of that experience.

My feelings about hope were first influenced by the story of Pandora, the curious goddess of Greek mythology who opened a jar containing all the evils of mankind, leaving only hope inside when she replaced the lid. Since discovering that myth I have believed that hope is a gift to mankind, that it is what has enabled our survival and encouraged our adaptability. Hope is so important to humans that we most often describe it in terms of a flame, a spark, or a light - in other words, we equate hope to the one thing that has guaranteed our survival: fire. It wasn't until much later in my life that I considered a possible downside to hope.

I spent many years in a situation that caused me to wonder if hope wasn't making me crazy. Though I was approaching the situation with love, my experience over time was not encouraging. Things did not ever seem to get better, in fact they got steadily worse. I maintained the hope that things would improve. I maintained the hope that there was a reason why I was in that situation. I hoped through long days and long nights, month after month, year after year, that my efforts and my support wouldn't be for nothing. Then one day I was watching an episode of House, and I swear the writers were speaking to me when House said, "Hope is for people who are too weak to save themselves." He elaborated on this topic, illustrating that strong people see when something is no good and move to change their lives. Weak people sit in the situation and hope that it will get better or that someone else will fix it for them. Damn, damn, damn.

Obviously that made me re-think my hopeful nature. I don't have to be hit with a dead cat more than 20 or 30 times before the message sinks in, or so I like to think. I did some quick reshuffling of the deck I play with and determined that House was right. I made a change in my life and watched the ripples spread out. I'm not ashamed to say that I watched the ripples with hope. You see, like all good things in life, hope is something we need to balance carefully. Of course we need hope to keep us going - if I didn't have a reasonable degree of hope that someday I will be debt-free, why, I think I'd just go join a convent right now - I hear God forgives all debts, public and private. But it's important to be thoughtful, to be vigilant against false hope. False hope is what you have left when all reason for hope is gone and evidence is mounting that your belief is unfounded. For instance, playing the lottery once a month is hopeful. Playing it once a week is more hopeful. Spending your entire paycheck on Millionaire Bucks while the kids eat can after can of off-brand soup is not hopeful - it's harmful. Stop playing the lottery so much and pay off your bills - then you won't need to earn as much money in the first place and you'll have the freedom to at least partially retire from the rat race. Be hopeful - always! - but be smart.

I'm an idealistic person. I still believe America is the best idea anyone has ever had. I believe that people are basically good. I believe that God has a great sense of humor and doesn't give a damn if I curse or have sex outside of marriage. I believe that everything will work itself out, one way or another. And I will always believe that there is a reason to hope.

Spes melioris aevi,

Allison

Get Zen: Finding Grace in the Motion of a Flailing Arm

I recently had another epiphany. I say "another" because it seems that lately I've had all sorts of "ah-ha!" moments regarding my life and myself. This one came to me as I was driving down the road after a much-dreaded appointment had finally concluded. I suddenly felt as though a ray of sunshine had burned its way through a bank of clouds to shine full upon me, and a chorus of angels began to sing directly to my heart. It was an uplifting moment, and I've been riding the joy-wave since.

As you know from my previous post, things have gotten hairy for my little family recently. I lost my job and still haven't found a replacement. In spite of numerous pleas to the universe in general, my bills keep arriving in the mail like clockwork. (Someone out there has a job that they take very seriously indeed.) My daughter and I had to go before the Truancy Review Board because she missed so many days at the beginning of the school year (for valid reasons, which I may go into at a later date.) All of this madness has occurred halfway through my first ever experience living in my own place (look, Ma! I'm independent!), and to say the very least, it has been stressful.

Ok, stressful does not quite cover it, and it's important that you understand where I have come from. My daughter, who is brilliant and beautiful and who almost never gets emotional about anything, finally went off on me one night after yet another of my anxiety attacks and told me what a hell it has been living with me. This is a person who has been with me through everything since I was 19. She's seen it all. She knows how I was, who I am, and what I've become. I respect her, I value her opinion, and as strange as it may seem to say this about your own child, I want her approval. To hear her express what a cracked up pain in the ass I had become really made me think. (It also pissed me off, but hey, I'm only human.) So I added 'being a disappointment to one of the best people I know' to the list of pressures building steam in my head, and of course, promptly had another tantrum. She was right - living with me was a nightmare, for me as well as for her. I felt like hell, bouncing continually through my range of feelings like some sort of perpetual e-motion machine. The best I could achieve at any given moment was to tell myself, "This too shall pass. Everything will be okay," and then try to believe it, which I didn't. I might have a moment where the anxiety seemed to subside a bit, I could breathe, and I could hope - and then my car would overheat or the coffee pot would refuse to work and it would push me into a downward spiral of misery.

Then, the moment. I remembered something I read many years ago that has influenced my beliefs a great deal: A book titled Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsh. It was the first in a series, and there were parts of that book that made me feel so comforted that I actually cried - just like when I read The Shack. There are many great things that I've taken away from that particular book, but my epiphany was based on this one: Humans are three-part creatures, comprised of Mind, Body, and Soul. The Soul is the part of God that resides in us - it is how God experiences Himself through us. The Soul has a purpose, a plan, a goal at any given time - what it wants to experience. Our greatest moments of strife occur when our minds do not understand our soul's intent and we fight against ourselves. Allow me to illustrate:

I am a smart person, very intelligent, very creative, very loving. But I have never had to struggle in life, not even as a single mother. I have been blessed to have wonderful parents and an amazing sister, as well as supportive friends and even co-workers who have made my life relatively easy. Because I have never had to struggle, there is a part of me that believes I can't be taken seriously as an adult. How can I say that I am a grown-up if I've never really had to deal with anything? I have always wondered, as I moved from relationship to relationship, into and out of my parents' home - could I do it on my own? Could I survive? Could I provide for my children alone? I believe that my soul is on a mission to answer that question. My soul wants to struggle, it wants to know what it feels like to dance on the edge of uncertainty, to flail wildly with pinwheeling arms on the lip of the chasm of failure. And my mind, which understands that the edge of failure is not a secure place to be, has been fighting tooth and nail to keep me from having this experience.

But my soul doesn't want to stop at experiencing the struggle, no! I have always believed that I have the ability to survive, that I can handle anything! My mother didn't raise me to fail. My father didn't raise me to shirk responsibility. And my soul isn't half-formed, it's a fully realized fragment of The All. Herein lies the grace: I see what it is that my Soul is doing now, and I have stopped fighting. I am happily accepting that this is where I am, that I am not meant to struggle forever, and I am not meant to fail. I am in the process of realizing my full potential, I am in the process of fully experiencing Who I Am. I will explore this period of uncertainty and discomfort with curiosity and joy, take from it the pain and the fear that I am meant to comprehend finally, and bask in the sure knowledge that I will survive - that I will thrive. I will dance upon the waves with a joyful heart, because this is exactly where I am meant to be.

I also understand that there is a gift in this turbulent period: I have time to write. It is my lifelong dream to write a novel, and so I shall. After years of doubting myself, of thinking I had nothing to say that anyone would be interested in reading, I now know that the story is within me. I look forward to the journey and the process of giving the world something lovely and fulfilling to read someday. I hope that anyone who is struggling  right now can find a space to ask themselves, out loud as they drive down the highway, "Am I choosing misery? Is my soul choosing to experience this?" If your soul wants it, then so be it! Don't fight - relax, be calm, and know that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

Love and Regards,
Allison

Motherhood: Great Benefits, No Lay-Offs

Every day my son tells me that I am his best buddy. He follows this spoonful of sugar with other like sentiments, such as, "You're my best friend," and "I love you," and "You're the best mom ever." In other words, every day my son restores my feelings of hope and love. It is a blessed good thing that he does, because there is a lot of shit pie being served in my personal cafe right now.

To be perfectly honest, I thought about creating an entirely new blog because of this recent run of bad luck or whatever it is. Why would I do that? Because the things happening in my life right now involve other people - people who live in this town, people who have names and reputations. Though I am so angry right now that I would love to cast some serious stones at these people, I am trying not to upset my karma at this time. You see, I have to find a new job, fast. Let's take stock of my situation and see whether I can do this without casting any stones (or throwing anything at all).

I am nearly six months into my one-year lease. Rent is due no later than 5pm today (I believe I mentioned that rule in my last post). My electric bill is payable on Sunday (which we all know means it should have been paid Friday). My cell phone - my only phone - was actually suspended when I woke up this morning. (The first loan I've had to request got it turned back on - I have to be able to get calls from prospective employers.) I emptied one checking account to fill my gas tank (gotta get the kids to school and back - in my freaking Xterra), and the other has been dangerously low since Christmas. I have been paid $200.00 for the last three weeks of work - I am owed a considerable sum. Because of this stressful situation I am not sleeping well at night, and I am fatigued all day. My stomach and associated areas have been upset to say the least. I have been an unpredictable source of tears and anger which is, I'm sure, a real delight for my children. And just to top it all off, I am so fiscally constrained that I can no longer afford to buy Breyer's Chocolate Ice Cream. Don't worry, I'll wait while you get your Kleenex.

In any case, my intent after the last post was to continue in the vein of self-analysis and discovery. I was going to catch everyone up on how I started this process, and then start blogging about how it's all working out for me - being assertive and committed to change, etc. - personal growth, you know. As it turns out, being jobless, near penniless, and staring at the threat of homelessness will cause one to speedily rearrange one's priorities. My new focus is surprisingly narrow: find a new job. All of this focus on trying to stay balanced while finding a way to provide for my children has prevented me from exploring the deeper issues of my nature, much less blogging about it, for the last week. Yes, this situation is embarrassing - I keep wondering how I let this happen - but this blog is very important to me and I don't want to put it on hold while I struggle. I want to stay committed to this endeavor. So I'm going to blog about these latest challenges until I can afford the peace of mind necessary to pursue the original theme.

I don't want anyone worrying about us - know that I have family and friends who are looking out for us financially as I try to regain my footing. Besides, this whole situation is an opportunity for me to handle a stressful situation with longed-for grace. Every day I tell myself, "This, too, shall pass." I try to keep my spirits up by taking action - applying for jobs, mostly. And I just learned that the Chinese New Year (which started on the 3rd) is the Year of the Rabbit. I am a Rabbit person, so this is my year! This is just a crash-course in true independence and my chance to prove that I can survive.

I feel confident that when the dust settles I will be wearing a tiara and hiring people to chew my food.

Collin's best buddy,

Allison

Don't Attempt Metaphors When You're Out Of Coffee

As I said in my previous post, I have my own place for the first time in my life. As I also said in my previous post, this is not the bright carefree venture that I imagined it would be. I can't blame Disney for this one. Disney movies may have misled me about romance, but they never said anything about what a joy it would be to live on my own as a single mom with a head full of things to sort out. Princesses live in castles (or occasionally a quaint country cottage), and Princess life doesn't involve a rent check due by 5 pm on the 5th of each month. I live in a townhouse in Clarksville - and "by 5 on the 5th" most definitely applies to me. I guess I'm not a princess.

There have been other clues that I am not royal. One of the most evident is that I am not assertive. Everyone knows that royal people are assertive - their first word is actually a finger snap, loosely translated as, "Bottle, now." I, on the other hand, only snap my fingers to indicate that I just remembered something I should have done earlier - like pay the rent. I'm pretty sure this is where the phrase, "Oh, snap!" originated - created by fingerless people who also forget things. But I digress.

My mother will tell you that one of things she likes best about me is that when there is something I want to know about, I just go learn about it. It's one of my super powers, this ability to become so familiar with any subject in so little time that I can be prepared to liven up a cocktail party hosted by a champion duck breeder with only a few hours' notice. Naturally, when I realized that assertiveness was something I lacked, I went online to figure out where I could get some. As it turns out, it's one of the few things you can't buy on eBay or Amazon. It's something you have to develop.

I really dislike it when I'm told that I need to develop something, though that has nothing to do with why I am not a photographer. You see, in order to develop a skill or a habit, you need to have a whole host of other skills and habits already developed, like will power, commitment, consistency, and a firm belief that the thing you are trying to master is worth mastering. I don't have those other skills and habits, so I've hit a bit of a wall in the self-improvement process. The phrase I tend to employ in situations like this is, "Drat! Foiled again!" The comfort food I tend to employ in situations like this is Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream.

So what does one do when one has to build a birdhouse, but one lacks all the necessary tools? Obviously, I need to acquire some tools. Ordinarily I would try to borrow the tools from someone else, or if I absolutely had to buy them I would try to get them at Goodwill or maybe Harbor Freight (if I didn't need them to last for more than a couple of small jobs). But I'm building a birdhouse here...wait...okay, yeah, I'm building a birdhouse, but it's for an emu, so it needs to be built pretty well. I need to go to Sears and buy Craftsman tools - because if they break later I can get new ones for free. Or maybe since I am working on self-improvement, I should go for the obvious home-improvement joke and buy my tools at Home Depot. Or Lowe's - I'm not getting paid by either of them (though I would like to state that I am open to sponsorship proposals, advertising contracts, and book deals). Oh, forget it - I've chosen instead to go with my Anton Chekov impression as I say, "Abandoning analogy now, Captain." 

Before I can learn to be assertive, I need to decide if becoming assertive is something worth doing. Then I need to learn how to follow through on things I start. In other words, I need to develop consistency, and for that I'm going to need to develop some will power - the ability to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. And the thing that will motivate me to keep doing the right thing even when I really don't want to is going to be my firm commitment to this process. It's a good thing I don't have anything else going on in my life, because this is going to take a while. I'll take these on one by one starting tomorrow, but before I do...

*snap* Ice cream, now. 

Regards,
Allison

If You Don't Like The Band, Don't Go To The Concert

About one week before I turned 35, I did something rather momentous. For the first time in my life, I moved into my own place. My residences up to that point had been shared with the following people, in order: parents, friends, parents, boyfriend, parents, husband, mom, boyfriend. In 35 years I had never experienced the singular (dare I say it?) joy of living on my own. Admittedly, I live with my children, so technically I still don't live alone - but it's not alone that I was looking for. Independence does not require solitude.

For many of my friends and family, maintaining their independence has never been an issue. These amazing people seem to move in and out of relationships without ever sacrificing their identity. I say "seem to" because we all know that sometimes the face we present to the world isn't exactly a true representation of who we are at home. This is in part why powerful CEOs pay professionals in PVC to make them crawl on the floor (after signing a binding confidentiality agreement, of course.) We can't always safely expose who we are to the world at large. There are even times when we can't share who we are with those who love us. The strong don't want to appear weak. The weak don't want to seem foolish.

My friends don't seem to have this problem. If they like Indie Rock before they start dating Bob, they are by God going to like the same thing when Bob is gone. If they dressed for comfort instead of style before Kate entered the picture, that's not going to change just to please her. More than anything else, they still take time to do what they want. I see these people living their lives completely blissed out on independence, and I wonder if I missed a class somewhere along the way. I must have, or maybe I just read the wrong books. I've been doing it all wrong for years, that much I know.

My mom used to tell me I was a chameleon, changing to match my boyfriend. At the time, I really resented hearing that. My logic told me that if I wanted someone to like me, I had to make myself likeable. Besides, look how much I managed to learn over the years about sports, cars, outdoor activities, classic rock, and computers. I used to tell her that both parties "won" because the guys got to do what they wanted and I got to spend time with them, and that I was learning so much that it didn't matter if we broke up eventually - I was richer in knowledge! At 35, I have this to say about my 17-year-old logic: I am a walking encyclopedia of trivia that only matters to people I am no longer dating. It's revelations like these that make you wonder what the hell you've been doing with your life.

Moving out was undoubtedly one of the smartest things I've ever done. For once - and I think I can honestly say that - for once, I am doing something for myself. This is not easy, it is not comfortable, and I am at loose ends constantly for want of someone to follow. Currently, I am not very good at doing "what I want" - but I am getting better at not doing what someone else wants to do. I recently did not go to a particular concert with a guy because - guess why? I don't like that band. At 35, I feel reasonably certain that this should not be such an achievement. I know some of my girlfriends will be rolling their eyes or even slapping their foreheads as they read this. But some of them might be saying, "I remember that moment." Some of them might even be saying, "You can not go?" So to anyone who is walking behind me on this journey, let me say it: If you don't like the band, don't go to the concert.

This blog is about what I'm doing to change my life for the better, and the first thing I did was get my own place. It's terrifying in a sense - but that's because there are two little people in this dinghy with me and I can't let them down. Mostly it's frustrating, because I've been hearing for so long that being on your own is so great that I keep expecting it to feel great. It doesn't really feel great yet, because this is just the first step. I have a lot of other things to work on before this even feels comfortable. But sometimes there's a glimpse of what that greatness will be like. I imagine the weather turning warm in a few months, and I picture myself taking the kids to the pool whenever we want to go. I imagine summer evenings and my neighbors grilling on the patio, and I see my back door open so we can all talk to each other. The other day I was dreaming that my mom was telling me to get out of bed to clean the house - and then I woke up and realized that I don't live in her house anymore.

Yes, every day is a little bit like Christmas in the sense that I wake up hoping that I'll get the one thing I really want: A feeling of contentment that stems from being happy, healthy and fulfilled in this life. But even though I haven't gotten it yet, I've learned a really valuable lesson: I don't have to wait for someone to give me what I want - contentment is a gift I can give to myself.

Regards,
Allison