the longest shower

I was in the shower for at least 20 minutes.
My hair is barely dry, and already I want to crawl back into the warmth of it.
I was trying to wash off my dream.
It was too real, and I was the girl in it.  Not the woman I am in my life today.
I was the girl of 15 years ago who was raped by 2 football players.
I was the girl who walked home with her underwear wadded up in her pocket.
I walked home with vodka still rotting in my mouth.
I sat in my apartment with hands jammed into pockets of my winter coat.
I didn't move for a long time.  I just sat on the couch.
I inhaled slowly, so as not to disrupt the pieces of myself.
I wanted my roommates to wake up, but when they did, I couldn't speak to them.
"When did you get home?"
"This morning"
"Oh."
They went about the kitchen making coffee, recovering from their own hangover.
This is just college, right?
We all have bad nights....

I tell myself, I tell other people, I don't have any secrets.
But this isn't true.
This is a secret.  This girl is a secret.  But she is still with me, and today she cried in the shower.
And she is crying now, because she knows she is not supposed to feel ashamed, but she does.
She knows she is not disgusting, but she's hiding in old sweats and could barely meet her husband's eyes.
She clutched the down comforter against her body and couldn't let him touch her.
Once again, she couldn't speak.  Her soul was wadded up in her throat.

People tell me, "You're so brave to write this blog about your eating disorder."
And I suppose that's true.
When I began, I was very afraid.  But I'm not ashamed about it anymore.
But this...I am ashamed of this.  I am scared for my Dad to read this.  I am scared for my grandma to read it.
I am scared to be tarnished.
But just like the eating disorder, most women can relate, and I write for them.
I write so I can come out of hiding, so we can come out of hiding.
More than 25% percent of college women report being sexually assaulted.
Many more never report it.  I never reported it.
I am not a minority.  I am the norm.
If it is so common, then why am I so ashamed?

Andrew just called to ask if I am okay.
"Not really.  But I got Sophie to school,"  I am curled up in a ball and crying.
"I'm sorry you had that dream.  I'm sorry you have to feel this way," he says.
I know he means it.  I know he cares.  Neither of us know what to say beyond this.
We sit in silence, hoping the other will fill it.
"I don't know what to say," I tell him.
"You don't have to say anything.  I just wanted to check on you."
This is why I trust him.  He knows some things cannot be fixed by words.
And he's not mad that I'm not fixed yet.

Rape is nothing like I imagined as a kid.
I remember the first time I learned the word.
I was shocked, terrified that such a thing actually happened to people.
It seemed the worst act ever to be committed or endured.
But it's not, and it takes a long time to catch up, to become real.
It is not sharp or acute. It is in slow motion, blurry, like trying to see under water.
I want to say, 'It's not so bad, Dad.  Don't worry.  I'm okay.'
The bad part is not the experience, it is the aftermath.
It is the girl who feels like a lie.  The one who is stuck between two worlds.
The world where she stands tall and has nothing to hide.
Versus the world where everyone can see through her clothing and knows she is not so tough after all.
It is the hollow dropping in my stomach now, as I write.  The contrition that will not subside.
"I should have been better.  I never should have let this happen.  If I had been more careful...maybe.
Maybe I deserve this."

This is the crux.  The placing of blame.  Because it is true.  I did put myself in danger.
I was drunk.  Really drunk.  If I don't care about my body, why should anyone else?
Did I not send the message that I am disposable?
Yes, I did.  I wanted to be.  I wanted to be trivial, evanescent.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Therein lies the lie.
The lie is, "I don't matter.  I am not soft.  I am impervious if I choose to be."
If I acknowledge the lie, then I have to admit that it hurt.
It did.  It does, hurt.

Tell all

I've found myself waking up lost.  As if my voice has been silenced or I've forgotten how to walk.


I stopped writing chrysalisbreak about 2-3 months ago.
I did it because I wanted a rest.  I didn't want this thing which started out so life-affirming to be one more chore on the list of things I must do to maintain functional-adult-status.
But now I am missing it.  I miss my fingers dancing on keyboard like a seasoned pianist.
I miss the tiny clicking into place when I tell myself the truth by accident.
I miss the deep sighs I breath only when I am alone here with my coffee.  It is the air which goes to my core and lets me know everything is going to be alright, in spite of everything I've just admitted to.

Also, I've had things going on at home that I cannot share with the world.
So it seemed I couldn't write.  Because the truth I had to tell was too delicate, too fresh.
It is not only my story I tell here.  It is the story of my family.
I wish I could bare all.  I wish I could walk naked and let whatever jiggles be exposed.
However, I'm learning that sometimes love requires discretion.  I hate this. I hate that we are so fragile.
I wish we didn't need to hide behind identities constructed out of words and paper cut-out clothes.
But that is only upon initial response.
It is this sensitive nature which makes it all worth it.  I need the parts that make no sense, that ache for no reason other than I want to be heard, understood.  I want my face to be caressed when I cry, and I offer the same to those in my care.
I do not want my husband to be his calloused hands.  Sometimes I wonder how he can feel my skin through all that work.  But he does.  He kisses the top of my forehead as we fall asleep together, curled into the formation we've perfected over 7 years.
I want to honor that.  I want to preserve a space for us to be soft.  This means respecting his trust.  This means I do not tell all.

soft spot

flying buttress

I am the hole in the donut...

Insides shriveling under this hulking blanket of mundane and khaki pants.
Is no one suffering?

flying buttress on Notre Dame Cathedral

Screaming in love anymore?
Have we all been sedated by quinoa salad and gym memberships at 4x's per week?
Has our passion been stripped monthly in $100 increments on automatic bill pay?
What will be left of me?
No more alcoholism.
No more gritty sex in tiny sedans under musty blankets and Mazzy's Star.
No more starvation and guts sinking in and around powerful ribs like a cathedral's flying buttress.
No more purging all food, all love, all failure and all bile to digest. to care.

No more free fall into shimmering pool of love to drown all worlds.

a 700 foot sink hole for which we dangle roots for miles to only taste.
No more breaking dishes when the fever can find no outlet.
No more whiskey burning and knowing it'll all be over soon
no more singing, wailing like dead cats deep into the night
...songs to say what we can no longer annunciate.
no more.

You may rage no more. wings are clipped.  food rationed.
all you have is
poetry.
and paint.
and fingers to climb and feel fear from 100 feet upon granite with the tiny swift birds, gliding.
the occassional sex that is only a misting of lips...my roots skimming.
but knowing we could go so much deeper if we didn't have to get back to it.

only me.
worrying.
flattened.
mourning.

Painting the deck where the paint has rubbed off.  listening to Red House Painters on my ipod.
ironic.
and crying...the inaudible cries of a housewife before her kids wake up.
                                   
a deep inhale brings the scent of cigarette smoke on hair from another time.
hair stuffed against a pillow I don't remember lying down upon.
and the wet spots where tears laid with me all night.
It brings the stomach lurch
the realization - I have to wait an entire day with all her hideous sunlight.

It was not better.
    It was not better.
        It was not........better.

thinking of Ginsberg and painting

For my friend, Misty Brown Sunflower Sutra I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry. Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery. The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily. Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust-- --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past-- and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye-- corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb, leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then! The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives, all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial-- modern--all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown-- and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these entangled in your mummied roots--and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form! A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze! How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of the railroad and your flower soul? Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive? You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower! And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not! So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter, and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen, --We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed by our own seed & golden hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision. Allen Ginsberg Berkeley, 1955

life fresh from the dryer

the moment after Pepper was born

I just pulled Pepper's baby blanket out of the dryer, bundled it around my nose, enhaled deep and exhaled
tears.  The smell was of a newborn sweetness, milk, and new life.  I huddled around this memory. I was shocked by it's potency.  I slid to the floor against the washing machine's humming.  Like the last hug of a lover, I held on. It started slipping the moment it came to me.
This will never be mine again.
My time for fresh life is past.  Now I have obnoxious sacks of angst bouncing against each other.  They are chaos and raw potential, and I have to figure out how to organize them. There are many paths, and we stumble together, holding hands, trying to find the right one.
My sister is next.  Her baby is coming in November.
And it's ok that I won't have another newborn baby.
In a way, I am more able to relish this baby than she is.
As my Mom was with mine.

having a conversation on the Train at Lagonn

I never understood why my mom was content to hold my crying babies.
I just wanted to get the hell away from them.
But she would always take the bundle.  She'd lay it down gently and re-wrap it slowly.
Then she'd just rock and coo with a gentleness that seemed unending.

I think I could do that now.

Pepper is the best for taking naps with, just as her Aunt Nennie.

God is not

I miss him.
I miss knowing we are doing the same thing, together.

I miss taking our kids to the pool and realizing they will be grown too soon.
I miss knowing he loves the sun on his back just as much as I do.
I miss hearing him dream, seeing him reach long fingers with fire in his eyes.

Once again, someone I love has gone to a place I cannot follow, and I hate to watch him walk away.
It seems this is my lesson.
My whole life - I have been watching people walk away.
I thought I'd be better at it by now.
It hurts every time.  It is a shock every time.
I know I have friends who will die.
Who are dying...
I should get ready, right?
I should prepare for the call.

I am afraid he will commit suicide.
I am afraid he will put himself so deep in a hole that he cannot come out.
I am afraid because I have to set boundaries, and I am left to watch from behind my baracade.
I am sick of watching.
I am sick of watching people self-destruct.
However I am torn, because I know it is part of the path.
I am afraid because I know this is the only way to freeom.
But, not everyone makes it all the way through.
They die in their suffering.
I cannot make this add up.
It is senseless from where I stand.
Our most desperate attempts to live are swamped by chaos, like the tiny turtles on the nature channel.
They are killed before they make it to the ocean.
With all their gusto for life, they flap straight into death's open mouth.

I am afraid he will die right in front of me, but still breath.
Still wearing the appearance of someone I once knew, he will not let me grieve.
I am afraid I will watch my friend's ghost struggle for an exit.
Perhaps this is the origin of ghost stories about people stuck between two worlds.

And all of this I must do from behind my wall.
I hate the wall and it's necessity.
It is a privilege to be able to say, No.  The dignity of choice, right?
The gift and the burden of eyes wide open has placed me here.
I don't know.  Maybe I just hate that I am not God.

Or that God is not...helping everyone.

My only consolation is what I do not know.

I have faith that so much more is happening then I can see.

So, in the end, Grace is not what I know, but what I do not.

Mine

Vincent Van Gogh

Painfully awake at 4:30 am.
My muscles certainly needed more rest.  They creak to movement down the stairs.  I have to be careful with the angle on my knees.  They could buckle at the wrong step.  I feel 33.  Maybe older.
I ate a chocolate chip cookie and washed it down with milk.
I think I did it because I could.  Pepper threw up all day yesterday.  She can't eat anything.
The cookie was good.  The milk afterwards washed out a memory of being a kid before I knew any rules about what you're supposed to eat for breakfast.
After that I watched a Youtube video of some kid dribbling a basketball while playing the guitar.
I stopped myself from making a smart-ass comment on my x-boyfriend's Facebook page.
Then I scanned the celebrity gossip website to see what everyone was wearing.
I poked around the classified ads for used rock climbing gear.

I have become so undisciplined.

When I was first in recovery, I couldn't sleep either.
The weight of my necessary overhaul would pull me from bed to squat on the porch and smoke cigarettes.
I'd watch the sun come up and ask God to be real, and to help me.
I'd write the mundane truths of my life in that moment.
I knew I was missing something, and I searched for answers in those quiet morning hours.
Now I don't know where to look.  I don't look.
Do I assume there is nothing more to learn?
Of course not.  However I am rarely propelled by a sense of urgency anymore.
I miss it.

I think this is the danger of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.

I mistake apathy, or sleep, or acceptance, or even fear - for serenity.
I am afraid to loose so I will accept my place and stay here.
I am afraid to care, so I will accept any outcome.
I don't see what is unacceptable because I am asleep.

I have been saying this prayer for 8 years now, and I think I need to augment it.
I need to ask to remember that life can be urgent.

synonyms for urgent:

burning*, called-for, capital, chief, clamant, clamorous, compelling, critical, crucial,crying*, demanded, demanding, driving, essential, exigent, foremost, heavy*, hurry-up,immediate, impelling, imperative, important, importunate, indispensable, insistent, instant,leading, life and death, momentous, necessary, paramount, persuasive, pressing, primary,principal, required, salient, serious,  vital, wanted,weighty

There are things worth burning for.
This whole second chapter of my life, this sober chapter, came from a desperate desire for one more chance.
I was graced with what I wanted, and in the beginning it was paramount.  It was crucial.  It was vital.
In fact, all the most precious aspects of my life are those for which I have pined.

My recovery.
My husband.
My children.
My family.
My home.
My education.
My healthy body.

Yes, I use the word "My."  Not because I assume ownership, but because I have taken stewardship of these things, and I take the priviledge seriously.
If that is true, then I need to pay attention.  The celebrity gossip, the Youtube, and the classified ads are not urgent.
The sun still rises everyday, and I still have so much to learn.

Vincent Van Gogh

sun-baked and solid

Climbing "The Boot" 5.10 - Potash Road

Home from Moab.  My thinking brain is rusty, and creaking to make stiff gears roll.  I have been wholy in my body for the last 4 days.  Climbing every morning at 6 a.m. and then again at 6 p.m.  We chased the shade.  We stayed dirty.  I wore the same cut-off jean shorts for days, and hair went unbrushed, swooped up into a bun.  I stuffed a duffel bag of clothes for the kids, yet Beckam lived in his diaper, and Pepper in her swimming suit.  I hardly saw Sophie at all.  She whisped in and out of the cabin like a gypsie, jingling red sand from her fingertips.

By the last day my fingers had the thickness of strong climbing.  They became my focus, and they found their place easily in the rock.  It is hard to give this up.  Everything becomes so simple in the desert.  Now I am back here where everything is diluted.  Colors are broken down into tiny shapes.  Down there it is a vast red swath of flaming rock, with blue sky above.  Two colors.  I am small against this back-drop.  I eat to climb, not so much that I can't move in the heat, but just enough.  I drink water, water, water.  My kids are filthy, but content.  We sleep in the middle of the day when it's too hot. or we swim in the pool.

Sophie, Me and Katrina - my lad

Pepper amazed me.  Until now I have considered her flimsy and easily defeated.  Instead she walked barefoot across hot rocks to the swimming pool 5 times a day.  She cried the first 2 minutes when she
floated alone in her life-vest.  Then she took right to it, like a little tadpole.
"I am a Pepper-fish, and this is my fish bowl."
She told everyone they could pet the Pepper-fish if they wanted.  She played freely with other kids twice her age.  She sputtered and beamed a smile when water was splashed in her face. She strutted her tiny butt with confidence around the pool.

Sophie looks like a different kid.  Her skin bakes hard and fast like the top layer of cheese on lasagna.  Her cheeks grow pink and she glows in the desert.  She always has.  She is fearless and strong.  People approach me and say,
"Your daughter is amazing.  She is brilliant."
She rode the river without me and tackled full-grown adults off the raft into the water.

Now back home again, I feel proud of my hearty family.
We must be doing something right.
I can't put my finger on it, but I can feel it after a long day in the dirt when my girls and I hold hands and pray together.
I can feel it because they want to sleep close in the same bed, sisters cuddled up like kittens.
I can feel it because Beckam floats easily on the cushion of people around him.
I can feel it because I want to call Andrew and tell him about our day even though he is back at home.

We are disciplined in our growth at home.  When we strike out into the world, we are strong.

6 am climbing

Beckam lounging in the shade 

Kai and I sorting gear before the sun finds us

Me laying on the ground belaying Katrina

Housekeeping

Lydia - pastel drawing on paper - 2007

Sitting here at the computer, I just had the thought,

 Isn't there some more laundry that needs to be done?

But there isn't.  I did it all yesterday.  I folded it.  I put it away.  I cleaned all the toilets.  I mopped the kitchen.  I went through Beckam's clothes and set aside the stuff that doesn't fit anymore.
As I vacuumed the entire house, I thought,

Look at you.  You are falling for the illusion that if you get everything done, you can relax.
You have to relax in the midst of everything, because IT is never-ending. You are funny, Sarah.  Tomorrow you will have no excuse not to write.

I called a woman I know to see how she was doing.  I called because her best friend had just died.
I asked,  "How are you? "
She replied,
"I'm ok.  I've just been cleaning a lot."

killing of the yellow bird - oil - 2006

Cleaning.  It is our best drug.  It is odorless, tasteless, and not a single house-wife can be faulted for it's indulgence.  It allows me the illusion that everything is exactly as it should be.  The red dish towel is hanging in my mostly green kitchen.  A perfect compliment.
Every pair of the kids' shoes are in a separate compartment.
The toilets without a single splash of urine anywhere.

Beckam slept from noon until 4 pm and all I did was clean.  What a waste of silence.
But sometimes I rebel against myself.  I don't know why I do this.  My Art Professor used to call it:  The War of Art.  Their is a book about it.  I just looked it up on Amazon.  It costs $9.85.  Their are 7 holds on it at the city library.  Apparently we all want to know how to win.  But I already know.  Just keep going...no matter what.  No matter what your head tells you, don't believe her.  She will tell you it's not important.  No one cares.  You are not different.  Nothing you have to express matters.  No one cares about your mundance experience.
In the face of all this doubt, I write anyway.  I teach anyway.  I paint anyway.
Right now I teach an adult art class at the family homeless shelter.  They are so excited every Friday.  They are excited for one hour of color and focus.  I know it will not change their lives.  It takes 1,000's of droplets to force a wave of change.

Sophie light - acrylic and pen - 2006

Another thing my Professor used to say is,
"There are literally 1,000's of art students in studios just like this, doing the same thing you guys are doing.  If you don't care about your art, no one else will either."

He'd say,
"If you don't need to paint, when you leave here, you won't."

Now it is 3 years later, and I need art more than ever.  I know it's cliche, an artist who needs to create in salvation of her soul.  Because without it, her soul will shrivel into a brown peel and be ground into the dirt.
I am ok with that.  Because I am not cultivating this soul for anyone other than the people I love, and they are worth it.  We are worth paying attention to.  We are worth aching for...attaching to.  I would rather love and suffer.  Here again I fly in the face of the detached buddhist I sometimes aspire to be.  However I am not other-wordly.  I live here.  I want to live here.

Traffic Stop

The disaster that was yesterday is now over.  Thank you sleep.
_________________________________________________
All I could do was slog through one task at a time on about 3.7 hours worth of sleep.
I kept Sophie home from school because I was too exhausted to get up and drive her there.
Instead we stayed home and finished her book project.
Brilliantly, I decided to cut open a feather pillow and give her a glue gun.
She added blue food coloring. sequins, graham crackers, and ramen noodles to the mix.

I tried to take solace in the shower.  I let the hot water lull my eyes into a daze.  I rested my forehead against the cold tiles.  After 4 minutes a tiny hand pasted itself onto the shower door.  Judging by the height, I could tell it was Pepper.
Mom, are you in there? I need you to open my fruit roll-up.
Fruit roll-ups for breakfast.  Awesome.  They do not involve cooking.
I open the shower and find a racoon looking up at me.
Did you find Sophie's make-up?  I ask.
She holds up the wrapper.

My friend Linda called to see if she could drop off tomato seedlings.  Hearing the voice of another sane adult brought tears to my eyes.  She doesn't know it, but her presence bouyed me up for the next wave of responsibility.

After cleaning the house, dropping the little kids off at the babysitter, and the gymnasts at their carpool, I drove silent and alone to work.  Again tears sat on the rim of my eyes.  It was only 2:45 pm.  I still had to teach my class, load their final painting project into my van, spend at least 2 hours doing touch-up on it, pick up the kids, make dinner, give baths, pick up the gymnast, make dinner again...

I stopped at a stop light.  I looked to my left.  A girl, about 22 years old sat on the curb.  Her hands cuffed and her face buried into her palms.  Her feet were splayed out like a baby giraffe.  She wore Converse.  Her feet were small, size 6, like mine.  Two cop cars were parked on either side of her outdated maroon sedan.  I strained to see if I knew her, but her head was buried deep.  Her lime-green purse had been purged, along with the rest of her posessions.  It looked like maybe she had been living in her car.

And it all stopped...

On Friday I will be sober 8 years.  This girl was me.   I wonder if she felt relief because the cycle had stopped for a minute.

As I drove the rest of the way to the school my thoughts were:

Thank you for letting me go and teach my class today.
Thank you for this mini-van and it's 2 carseats.
Thank you for my kids.
Thank you that I have a home for them to be...and spread out...and thrive.
Thank you that I am not in that cycle anymore.
Thank you that I am sober.
Thank you for the clear eyes that are Sarah - for eyes to see far beyond pain and inconvenience into the heart of things.

Google dispels ghosts

Sophie just woke me up at 5 am.

Sophie 2006

"Mom, I have this really bad pain in my side."

I jolt up like a piece of bread from a toaster.
Appenidicitus.  Can kids get appendicitus?  Get the iphone and Google...

I don't show her this mental panic though.  I caress her head and gently lead her to a hot bath.  I turn off the sharp lights and light an orange scented candle for her.  Then I squat on the toilet seat and Google appendicitus in children. It is most common in children over 10 years old.  She will be 11 in 3 months.  It could be, let's relax.  She tells me it is a "pulling" pain.  It could be muscle soreness.  She is a gymnast and spends 16 hours a week flipping, stretching and crashing.  It could be that.

After 15 minutes she tells me it doesn't hurt anymore.  I help her get dressed and put her back to bed.

Lately more than ever, it seems there is aways something.  I deal with strep-throat, teething, boy-crushes, forgotten homework, abscessed teeth....tooth extractions, and we have $7 dollars left until Friday.  This means the kids will be eating cereal, pancakes, ramen noodles, and My Little Pony fruit snacks.  I cannot afford to have a rigid ideal.  I need to flow with the other 4 lives in my family.  I don't have to.  I want to.

How exhausted would I be if I HAD to exercise and eat as I did 5 years ago?
My list of acceptable foods was maybe 15 items long.  I was not allowed to skip runs.  Exercise was necessary to allow myself to eat.

Now I am loose with all of it.  When I feel that quick tightening, I remind myself, this is all a gift.

When Sophie came in with the ghost of appendicitus on her shoulder, I thought,
Well, I guess maybe I'm not running this morning.
Now it seems perhaps it was just a ghost, and I am free for the moment.

Reboot

People have been asking me, Where is Chrysalisbreak?

I am wondering the same thing.  In conversation I keep telling people, I can't WAIT for summer!
I am doing something I am not technically supposed to do.  I am living in wait of a future time when things will be better, when I'll have more time, when I get to do what I want.
This is a set-up.  My life will most likely not slow down, ever.  Rather it will gain in momentum as my kids gain in size, age, and angst.

The thing about mindfulness, about spirituality, is that it doesn't work in my future life.  It only works now.  If I wait, and starve my soul, I wither very quickly.  I become a barking beast who hulks around the kitchen with eyelids slumping low, seeing nothing, and waiting to pounce on the next kid to spill their macaroni and cheese.

When I look in the mirror, I see the places exercise will not touch.  They become thick unnecessary growths.  I wish I could cut them off in the shower.  My solution to this is to stop eating.  My mind still reaches for relief in this way.  If I stop eating so much these growths would not exist, and I would feel free, unburdened.
I imagine how I would look if I had time for myself.  I would be like those moms who have matching work-out clothes.  I see them at my job.  I work in the daycare at the rec center.  They come in wearing colors like cantaloupe, mint and hot-pink.  Their shoes always look new, and their hair is clean even though they're about to get all sweaty.  They go to Zumba or Pilates or cycle for 90 minutes.

When I am quiet.  When I am centered.  When I am awake.  I don't want to be one of those moms.  I want to be exactly what, who where I am.  I take my kids climbing and we get dirty.  I look in the mirror and see a familiar woman.  I see someone who is doing her best.  I see someone strong.  My kids can spill their cereal, and I can say, It's alright, let's clean it up together.

Woman Before a Mirror - 1897
Henri deToulouse-Lautrec

So I'm writing today, so I don't have to wait for life to start.  I'm writing so I can eat breakfast.
Another thought which keeps passing across my forehead is,
Have I stopped writing because I think I'm "all better?" Do I imagine that because I've written this eating disorder blog for a year, I am somehow done?
This is certainly not true.  I still carry the clipboard everywhere I go.  I check off the boxes each time I see a woman.  This sucks.  Plainly sucks.  I wish I didn't do it.

• skinnier than me      
• bigger than me
• thicker waist then me
• eating less than me
• wearing the right shorts for her legs
• it's 3 pm - how many calories have you consumed today?
• is she bigger than the last time I saw her?

Really, this is just my brain trying to figure out whether or not it can get away with going back to old ways.  It is constantly rebooting and looking for a person who is successfully undereating and overexercising.  But every time it tries, it is now confronted with the truth.  The truth is:  no one gets away with disordered eating.

I don't have to look for very long anymore.  Now the reboot happens in seconds, and I can see the actual person very quickly.  I can also find myself after a few deep breaths.    

symbiosis

My tidy husband has swept old journals back into their box and up to the shelf.  I had hoped to pick up where I left off yesterday.  Now they are out of reach and I am left grinning at my childishness and his care-taking of me.  He prompts me to wear my seatbelt, to bring the insurance card, to vacuum the mini-van. I accept all this guidance because I know I am only mostly an adult.  Like a teenager, I still believe I don't need a seatbelt, and all ailments will be cured with a stout, sweaty 4 mile run.
When I wear high heels, our noses meet.  Without them, my head rests under his chin.  This creates an illusion.  He is stronger than I am.  He is taller, wider,  heavier more capable with his rough mits for hands.  I used to hold his palms in mine and study them.  I'd turn them over and over like a sandy, beach treasure.
How can they be so dry and not hurt?  How can you just let them crack and bleed?  How can there be spots  which will never come clean?  Engine grease is pressed so deep into the crevises that it didn't even come out on our wedding day.
He can withstand things I can't understand.
He props up my everyday life.  He is my steel frame.

Pepper and Dad at our first house

Because he of him, I am free to simply tell the truth and let it be.
I get to write without worrying that it will ever be lucrative. He offers me a luxury far better than any object.  I have stumbled over this often, but never told him.  Without Andrew's support, I would feel immense pressure to BE something.  One thing I learned in school, when you MUST be creative, it is nearly impossible to think of anything good enough.
Without a partner, I could not be a whole-hearted artist and a mother.  My energy would be sucked away by the daily tasks and expenses, which he assumes for me, for us.

I get to be with our kids every single day.  I greet them when they wake up and hold them in their jammies.  I sing to them, "Good morning to you....we're all in our places...with bright shining faces."
We stay in our p.j.'s until 10, and make pink waffles.
They move in and out of days with ease, one trickling onto another like a pond accumulating a delicate soul.

Sarah

This is my gift to him.  This family.  Sarah, Sophie, Pepper and Beckam.

Sarah to fold into at the end of the day. Sarah to sit on the back of the toilet and listen to his stories while he takes a shower. Sarah to make morning coffee.  Sarah to dance with at weddings.  Sarah to catch eyes with across the room and to know without words.

Sophie

Pepper

Sophie to battle and to adore.  Sophie to challenge his authority and make him laugh at himself.  Sophie to flip through the house and stir up the air.  Sophie for tenderness to Pepper when we have none left






.


Pepper to wear sparkly shoes at the end of whispy legs.  Pepper to squeeze into Dad hugs.  Pepper to ask questions from her world of imagination, "Do elephants use their trunks like a telescope when they swim under water?"  Pepper to remind us to read books and to slow down.

Beckam

Beckam to marvel at the strength of his noggin.  Beckam for being stout and studly.  Beckam for his red hair and for looking just like Grandpa Andy.  Beckam to snuggle the tags of his tattered blankie.  Beckam to bop his head to a music beat in the back seat.  Beckam to bring us all together, and sew up our family tight.



Thank you husband.  For being exactly what you are.

Blind spots

The Golden moment - 60" x 48" acrylic 

Back sore like a set of old scaffolding threatening to collapse.  Every morning I wake up with aching muscles.  I can always find my age somewhere, in the arch of my foot, the small of my back, the ridges along my waist or bolting up the front of my thighs.  It used to be I could run everyday and experience no pain.  I could climb rocks in the desert from sun to sun and not ache.  Now I am always aware of my deficiency.  And once again, I am having the experience of "Those old people knew what they were talking about."

I am not fresh anymore.  I am not invincible.  I am not immuned to the rigors of time.
Yet, I always think I was "better" in the past, and this is not true.  I imagine I was more free, strong, honest, creative...so I look to my old journals, and I find that I have been doing basically the same thing all along.

This one's from 2005.  The year I quit drinking.

 Degeneration of sunflower 60"x 48" acrylic  2008

"Talking about writing as artists and dreamers do.  
In our flip-flops
 in our lounging
 in our thick-rimmed glasses
 in our apathetic shaggy hair
 in our youth
 in our uncertainty
 in our sickness
 in our hope.

barely able to breath through the cloth of our pretense we are all eager to try.
It is so satisfying to put it out there - all that we know.

And  I jump right in 
wagging my tail, tongue sloppy, eyes darting for the next bone."

6/2001

These are the sunflower series I painted in school

"Last night I was haunted by my artwork.  Every painting seemed to be alive and so desperate. Each one had been intended for the answer, but instead became just another beautiful expression of something so much smaller.  Ironically the sadness was in the beauty.  You would think that was the whole point, to create something beautiful.  But that's only part of it.  It is to create something which reflects the madness I feel. To stop it in it's tracks long enough, and completely enough that I can look at it and find peace.  So that I can know it has some sense.  It is real, and not merely circumstance or pre-programmed feeling.  That's why I'm in such a hurry."

I suppose there will always be some sense of inadequacy.  Maybe I will always know that the perfect expression is impossible.  Because I have blind spots.  But what a shame it would be, if I let this keep me from trying to express what I do see.

Owning Orange

So, I've been invited to write for this blog called: owningpink
Trouble is:  I haven't been writing.
I go onto the site and it's all about the transformative power of telling your own story.
It says if I can teach what I know, to even a handful of people, I will be amazed.
And I am.
I know.
This last year of writing Chrysalisbreak has brought me to tears on so many mornings.
It made me hear my Sarah voice again.  The one I never doubted as a young girl.  She is the one who has always known where home is.  The one who wrote pure poetry at the age of 11 and never stopped.
But I undervalue her still.
Because it is still easier to have no needs.
My writing has stopped because I have stopped valuing her - me- whatever.
And now I'm crying again.  It happens so subtly, like falling out of love.
I don't understand these airbrushed photos of women who always have time to wash their hair....and blow-dry it.
I don't understand their struggle and how they turned it into money.
I don't understand how I would ever fit.
I don't know that I want to.

looks simple right?

Because women who are sick don't believe women who are well.
At least not that well.
Not well enough to be on Oprah.

But I started out this whole thing because I realize I will never be "fixed."
There is nothing to fix. I wanted to help people like me, if I could.  I thought, "At least we won't be alone, and maybe we could have less shame.  Maybe I will learn something."
Apparently, I was not the first one to have this thought.  People are making money with this idea all over the internet.
They're called life coaches, and they are replacing God.  Or maybe they're just supposed to be the conduit, I don't know.

Last weekend I sat in my kitchen with a good friend picking at my salad.
Not eating it.
"I don't know,"  I trickled, "I've never known this version of myself.  I'm afraid I will look back and realize that I was asleep.  That I should've been more passionate or that I mistook slumber for peace.  Maybe I just feel quiet because actually I am asleep......I probably am."

But if I'm writing.  I know I'm not asleep.  It flows like water, even if it has to find the one crack left, it will come out.  And by "it" I mean the truth.  I know it because I cry and I find myself writing things I never would have known were there.

What is there now?
I am afraid I will be absorbed by my husband and my kids.
I'm afraid I already am.

Yesterday I went climbing and remembered what I am capable of.
I realized, I am not 20.  I realize it even more today.  I walk like an arthritic woman up the stairs.  I have to gather my breath when I pick up a kid, and I make a funny face like I've just sucked on an atomic fireball jawbreaker.
My thighs ache.  My ass aches.  My lats ache.  My abs ache.
I felt fear.  I dragged my kids through the dirt.  I carried two toddlers up and down mountains.
I climbed a crack that kicked my ass 12 years ago, and it did it again...but not quite as bad.
It was me - it was Sarah - doing all that.  Sarah whose hair turns to fire in the sun.

I watched 10 year-old Sophie climb a 5.10a crack.  She never voiced fear.  She was a tiny woman in her taut calves and the arms of her father.
The trail up to the climb  is the same one I hiked 11 years ago when I was in labor with her.
I called my Aunt from the top,
"I think I'm in labor."
"Where are you?"
"Up in the canyon rock climbing."
"Why are you in the mountains if you're in labor!?  Get down and go to the hospital!"
"It's not that bad yet.  I'll go down soon..."

I can withstand so much, but not stagnation.  It will kill me faster than anything.

Sophie took this picture of me, and I didn't know it.  So I guess it's pretty accurate.

Fever

I've spent the morning reading Johanna Wendell's psychology thesis on the Eating Disorder Spectrum.
She is relating this spectrum to low "psychological flexibility."
Psychological flexibility refers to one's ability to "go with the flow" without being defined by it.
It is to know their worth, independent of outside stimulus.
Easier said then done.  Good solution.  Can you bottle that, please?

Of course it is all broken down into miniscule parts and WAY too many words.
The reason I am interested is because she uses the term Eating Disorder Spectrum.
She acknowledges about 60% of the female population display ED symptoms, and that most of them are never diagnosed as clinical cases.
This population is suffering, but not enough to get real help.
They exist in a low-grade fever which sucks life from them, but never kills.
This is the population I am concerned with.
It is me.  These are my people.

Lalla Essaydi. Converging Territories #26, 2004.

We walk around believing our spouse thinks we are not good enough.
We exercise while our kids watch cartoons.
We make dinner for everyone else and don't eat.
We hide and nibble protein bars in the pantry.
We exercise when it does damage to our bodies.
We measure our waist by pinching imaginary love handles 7 times a day.
We are lured in by every new diet.  We often bite and get dragged.
We are not sick enough to get help, and not well enough to eat.

She also claims college students are especially vulnerable to this spectrum.
Because of their high aspirations and constant evaluation of performance, they are at risk.

In order to achieve, I must not deviate.  
There can be no mercy for me.  If I am gentle, I will slack and ultimately fail.
I can rest after finals.  Everyone else can do it and I have to keep up.
I can't be the one who falls behind. 
Flexibility equals mediocre, and I've worked too hard to be mediocre.

Yes, this was my brain in school.
This was my brain long before school.
It was my reaction to gaining weight and the loss of identity which came after.
It is the voice of Lydia.  (the voice of ED)
It is the hardest one to love, and the one necessary to embrace.

Lalla Essaydi. Converging Territories #30, 2005

I haven't read this woman's whole thesis yet. I am curious to know her solution.
She had better offer one.
My solution is to bring these voices out into the open.
It is to acknowledge the 60% and let them know, they are not alone.
We do not have to compete with each other.  There is no arriving at the top.
There is only the fear of falling, and the queasiness from looking down.
We perpetuate this sickness.  We generate its heat with our jealous leering at one another's bodies.

"I already know all this,"  I thought, as I read.
This is the crux.  I knew all along, but I didn't want to let go.

I am going to keep researching the concept of an Eating Disorder Spectrum.
I can't find much on it right now, but I believe it is the next step for ED recovery.


Here is the link if you want to read it:

http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=psych_theses

Also, here is the artist bio for Lalla Essaydi.  I think she fits the perpetuation of female imprisonment as equal to beauty.

lucky charm

Finally got my computer back!
Andrew had ACL surgery, and he took over the office.
Then Grandma came to stay and the computer is in the guest room...which I am not complaining about in the least.  I love it when Grandma comes, and would gladly give up the computer in exchange for her presence.

So, for the last 2 weeks I have been writing blogs in my head.
I have forgotten all of them.
Now the loudest thought in my mind is,
"I don't see what all the hype is about Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  I think it sucks."

As far as eating disorder recovery goes, my head is stuck.
It keeps returning to this article I read on Intermittent Fasting by Sara Solomon.
Apparently - IF - which is the ridiculous abbreviation for this tactic - is the newest diet craze.
How did I fall for this?
How did I get sucked into believing the right strategy will allow me to eat without guilt?
The how is irrelevant.
I should have known when I saw her pictures and read the language.  This is just another quick fix.
I should have known. This is not truth.
Images of her taking a photo of her own ass in the mirror should have told me.
"All you have to do is eat whatever you want for 6 hours a day and fast for the other 18!"
She may as well have been saying,
"All you have to do is maintain control and you'll be sexy like me!"

talisman string for every diet I've tried...

This is no different than any other promise I have made to myself.
And I always fail.
I fail because I am not meant to be a diet.
I am meant to be a whole person.

I've been afraid to write about this
I wanted to believe Sara Solomon.
I wanted to carry her like a secret charm in my pocket.

But I knew.  I owe it to myself and to my handful of readers, to be honest.
I started this blog with the intent of holding back nothing.
So here I am.  Admitting that I fell for it once again.
Now this is me, throwing my little charm into the D.I. box.  It holds no value for me.
It is a cheap imitation of life.

To be alive is to gaze out beyond tightly wound compulsions.  It is to perceive the entire rotation and to stand in awe of my meager place.  I am just one butterfly still in chrysalis.  This is also the relief offered to me by truth.

Last night I drove in my car with a girl new to recovery.
"I never used to notice the changing of seasons,"  she said.
 I smiled.
We sailed along Foothill drive above the valley and watched a cantaloupe-colored sun sink into the great salt lake.
"It looks almost tropical,"  she said.
"It does.  That is the perfect word for that color of sun," I replied.

hoopty truck

Driving with Sophie listening to the new Maroon 5 song on the radio.

We're on our way home from gymnastics.

She knows I like this song, so she leaves it on the station.

"And when the daylight comes I’ll have to go
But, tonight I’m ‘gonna hold you so close
‘Cuz in the daylight..."

"Mom, Why does he have to go?"

I am staring into sky turning turquoise.  She can tell something is inside me.  Her glance keeps flickering over from the passenger seat.

"Because sometimes you have to leave the people you love."

"Why?"

"It's just part of life."

We keep driving.  The hole I've just exposed is still a mass of cold blue concrete.  We pass the off-ramp to Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Her Dad and I used to live up there.  I remember coasting down the exit in his grey truck.  It smelled like desert dust and sweat.  It smelled like him.  A huge metal "cow-pusher" sat on the front.  We'd ram it against a big stump on our flight into the driveway during winter time.  It took a lot of momentum to get up our hill in the canyon snow.  Every rally was a miniature triumph.

I was pregnant with Sophie in that snow.  We had fires every night at the Cabin in the Pines.

Sometimes I cried alone in the bathroom, looking at my belly and trying to understand what was about to happen.  

"Mom, what are you thinking about."

"I'm just thinking about Dad, about how I loved him and I had to leave.  I was thinking that probably doesn't make sense to you."
"It does."

This response surprises me.  

"I loved him so much.  When we met, I could never imagine not wanting to be with him.  Then I got so sick in my heart, and I couldn't find it anymore.  I was confused and I kept trying to find the thing we used to have and I couldn't find it.  I didn't know...I just didn't know.  In a way, I guess I still don't know.  I don't know why it had to happen the way it did."

"I know, Mom.  It's okay.  I am sorry I used to be so mad at you about that.  Remember?  When I was so mad at you?"  she asks.

"You're not mad anymore?"

"No."

"I'm glad.  You were mad for a long time."

We are in the parking lot of Dick's sporting goods.  Tears squat in her thick eyelashes.

I reach over and put my arm around her gymnast shoulders.

We go inside and find her Dad a birthday present.  A swift blue cycling jacket.  

They are going to the desert this weekend.  I wish I could go with them.   I know I made my choice, and I wouldn't undo anything.  But I will always love that little threesome which started my family.  

Passionate Tuesday

My husband is having surgery today.

I passed his crutches by the front door like a stranger in an elevator.
He is having his ACL repaired.
This means he will be home with us for a whole week.
I am skeptical of this set-up.
We got married because we wanted to be with each other.
Because magnets set up by God sucked us into each other and we could not push back.
I guess you could call this "wanting."  In a way it seemed impossible to do anything else.

He crawled into bed hours after I'd fallen asleep and whispered,
"Come 'eer.  snuggle.  This is your last chance for 2 weeks."
I groaned,
"Ugh...you're so cold, and I'm so warm....I'm sleeping...."
He chuckled and I could hear his smile.
"Come on Kappos."
I roll over and kick my right leg onto his thigh.  My head finds its groove in his shoulder pit.
I breath him deep in through my nostrils.  I exhale all my air.

We have gone to marriage counseling twice.
I'm sure we will go again.
Our first counselor called us a hand in a glove.  His strength fits my weakness.
I hold space for shapes he cannot see.
Andrew has taught me how to be consistent, how to respect other people's time and work.
He has taught me the power of doing the same thing over and over day after day.
He has taught me there are no right or wrong feelings, just feelings.
I've learned how to put myself into shoes I would never want to wear.
My definition of myself has spread into a whole woman, not the flighty, over-romantic girl I was when we met.
I am thick.  The veins of life run under my eyes.
I no longer see how things are supposed to be, I see them as they are.

On Saturday I drove my Grandma to Uintah.  It's about an hour drive.
This means I had a whole hour to myself on the way home.
Rare time alone, and I got to listen to my own music.
As Amy Lee sang, I could see her whole mouth splayed open.
Her voice roars up her throat and out completely in an ultimate purge.  She leaves nothing behind.  All of her air is exhaled.
I remembered passion.   Salt Lake City is full of people overcome with passion right now.
People burning and aching for a phone call or a painting or a partner or a ticket to somewhere else.
It sits in their gut and consumes them at stop lights, at the movies, while they fold laundry.
I don't ache for anything.
Not now.  Not usually.  Hardly ever.
To some, I suppose this is sad.
For me, it is just new.
I had my time.  I chased passion for 10 years.  I know exactly what it tastes like.
So when I hear Amy sing, I can still smell it, and it makes my stomach rumble.
But then I remember. I am not hungry.  The creases under my eyes fold into the same smile they have been making for 33 years and I am sated.

I had the urge to keep on driving so the aroma would stay with me.
Instead my hands and feet drove me home.
I found Andrew at the kitchen sink.  He was prepping his ice machine for the upcoming surgery.
I lasso arms around his broad shoulders.  My fingertips could hardly reach and I was on my tiptoes.
I smiled into him holding back nothing.  I am young.  He couldn't help but melt into a grin.
I know this face.  It's his - "I wish you'd let me get back to work, but I adore you." - face.