You know a wall is seriously thirsty when the first coat of Kilz (supposedly one coat coverage) is not white, but a paler shade of beige when you’re done. It’s covering my fingers better than it’s covering the walls.
This is going to take a while.
That 2 to 1 estimate on time is going to be more like 1 to 1. It took about 5 hours to cut in and put one coat of primer on the walls today. It will need two coats of primer. This is before I put down any color. Then I will need to do trim. And we do have that built in bookshelf.
I spent some time reflecting on the journey I’ve taken with painting in my life. I remember the first time I ever painted a room. I was about 17, maybe 18. I was a senior in highschool. One of my two best friends wanted help painting his bedroom. So he and I and another friend got together one Saturday and painted his bedroom. I don’t remember what color we painted it. I just remember that we did. I also seem to remember that we laughed an awful lot. And that perhaps we did not do a very good job. But we had a lot of fun. I also remember that I found speckles of paint on my contact lenses that evening. I’ve gotten together with other friends over the years to help them paint various rooms in their houses. Kitchens, bedrooms, livingrooms. In my world, painting is a community event. It’s sort of the barn raising of the 21st century. You make a party out of it and have fun.
When we first found our CLB they were involved in service worship for three months. They had taken three months to do service and see what God had in store for them. So we decided to walk along side them for that and see what happened. Much of what we did involved painting. We painted a community room. We painted bathrooms at the homeless shelter. We did a lot of cleaning too. But I remember the painting most of all.
Now I’m painting alone. Significantly, I’m painting my livingroom. It’s the room where many communal events from my CLB took place and where the most abusive act of all took place. The meeting in January where I was emotionally abused by my dearest friends happened in my livingroom. They all got to go home. I had to live in the place where I was abused. I thought about that today as I covered the walls with clean white paint.
I’m making the room new. I’m doing it alone. Something new is growing now. When I’m done, the room will be new. It won’t look the same. I think I will even change the furniture. I’m exorcising the ghosts who have walked the halls of my house for all these months.
New things will happen in my new livingroom. New community will happen there. God will come again to visit. He is giving me new dreams to dream. I think I might be able to look forward to that.
The day before we left Vermont was that strange time. That time in between – liminal. It’s the day when we pack up and leave. We never quite want to go and yet staying isn’t possible. There is a sense of elasticity to the day.
LightHusband and I spent some time down on the big dock throwing tennis balls for Sam. He loves swimming and retrieving balls. I watched the last sailboats of summer parade up the lake. Grand and glorious ladies they were, dipping and swaying in their billowy skirts. The breezes were just right for them yesterday.
I thought about the wind again as I had the day before when LightGirl took her glider ride. She had expressed some misgivings before hand to her grandparents because the glider is so small. They talked about the fact that gliders are actually safer than airplanes because they are built to glide on the currents; their body shape and wings are aerodynamically made to glide to safety, but an airplane is made so that it relies on its engines for lift.
I pondered the difference between machine travel and windborn travel as I watched those sailboats yesterday. Machine travel is definitely more efficient. We have much more control over when we leave and when we arrive. Humans are in control of the process when we use machines. But there are costs involved for gaining that efficiency and control. We give up the ability to control our level safety. Gliders and sailboats are much safer than airplanes and motorboats. We also have to count the environmental cost of running large airplanes and boats.
I thought about embracing that spirit of being blown in the direction of the wind. Of casting off the lines that hold your boat to the dock and setting sail. Or casting off the line to the tow-plane and setting free on the thermals. It’s not efficient. We cannot control it. We don’t know how long we’ll be in the air or on the water. And we can’t take very much with us.
I’m currently reading The Celtic Way of Evangelism. I have been under-impressed with some bits of this book. But the current chapter has been an intense look at drug culture and rehabilitation. The author makes a good point that people who are intensely involved in drugs have taken on an entire way of life. When they attempt to rehabilitate they need a new story. However, they are only given assistance with the medical part of their problems. They need help learning a new language, gaining a new wardrobe, learning life skills, finding a new tribe, etc. They need a new story. So we help them get off drugs, but they are left to wander in a desert, bereft of story, friends, language and tribe. They don’t know what to do anymore or where to go or how to be.
When I read that I understood how that feels. We are wandering. Bereft of story. We need a new one. We are searching now. The wind is becoming our friend. We are dropping our possessions and learning to travel light. We are not in control of how long we will remain windborn and we can’t take very much with us. My heart is in my throat and I need to let go of tow line. It is a wandering time.
I am scattered today. My mind is skittering around and trying to process several things all at once.
One of the things that I’ve been sorting through and want to do some more reading about (if I can find it) is a theory I’m beginning to nourish about the differences between the Celtic Church and the Roman church during the 500s and 600s and just why was Pelagius declared a heretic? I wonder if it had a lot more to do with who he represented than what he thought. But I’m still thinking and reading and need to organize my thoughts before I can do any serious writing about it.
We had dinner with some friends up here last night. It was funny (weird), but I’ve known about these people all my life. Just now we’re becoming friends. Another person dropped in towards the end of the evening. I’ve also known of him my whole life. But not known him. They all knew and hung out with each other all summer every summer. Their families summered here. I just came to visit my aunt for a few days here and there each summer. Sometimes I’d spend a week. We had a conversation last night about the gangs they ran with. To them those gangs had been all inclusive. To me, I could never find an opening. LateComer declared “Oh, if we’d known you were here, you’d have been part of us.” None of them remember me; they remember my youngest brother. But I remember them. Which leaves me wondering … am I really that withdrawn?
I remember the first time I took the MBTI and got the Introverted result. I thought it was wrong. But now I as I look back over my life and remember all the times I’ve tried so hard to be outgoing and failed. Or gotten it wrong. I remember being shoved out, off the porch to “go find the kids, they’re all over the place.” But I just could not do that. I wouldn’t know what to say when I got there.
So I’m trying to put all that together. It felt like a sucker punch. It wasn’t meant that way. LateComer was trying to make me feel belatedly included. But … the reality hit hard.
I’m continuing to recuperate, but not as quickly as I’d like. So thoughts like this … “What if I have pancreatic cancer?” keep springing into my head. I have to say them out loud so that LightHusband can help me push them away with the reality of this takes a long time to recuperate from. But I have a strong imagination, it likes to win.
My cousin and her children came to visit yesterday. It was fun, but too short. Next year, we’ll gather here again for a longer day. I will feel better and be able to do more.
The next big battle to fight with LightGirl is getting her into some decent clothes for Thanksgiving dinner in November. I’ve got 84 days. We’ve invited LightHusband’s parents, siblings and their families for the holiday. So far it looks as though everyone will come and they’re all excited about it. My 11 year old niece exclaimed, “I’ll go if I have to drive myself!” And it’s an 11 hour drive for her … But this side of the family dresses for holiday dinners. So. LightGirl will need something appropriate. Not made of tissue paper. Not looking like a ‘ho from the ‘hood. In other words, nothing from any of the local or on-line shops for girls her age. I will have to make it. Not a big deal for me. But it will take some … (how shall I say this?) … negotiating. So … let the games begin.
Tuesday we spent the day on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain. We were neither here, nor there. Not in Vermont. Not in New York. We were in international waters! Well … not exactly. We were in sub-national waters. Or something. But we were on an island that was not subject to any state law. Very interesting. We didn’t break any laws, so it didn’t matter.
We spent the day with LightHusband’s sister, her husband and their blended family. There was fishing, swimming, hot dogs, hotdogs, wet dogs, a temporary aquarium for the caught fish, an adventure on a tube, and sundry other activities … all law abiding.
I got to have several really good conversations with LightSIL. We re-connected again. It was good. But something she said has been rattling around in my head for the last couple of days. We were talking about some of her interactions with her first husband and working out custody arrangements. Things get dicey sometimes. She mentioned some boundaries she needed to set that were entirely for her children’s safety. Her ex-husband is a practicing alcoholic and the court has set some stringent standards for his behavior that she needed to remind him of. She said, “I didn’t want to threaten him, but he needed to remember what would happen.” I reminded her that she wasn’t threatening him; if he broke the standards set by the court, it was the court which would take action against him, not her.
I’ve really been thinking about that interchange for the last couple of days. I’ve been thinking about how truth appears to people. Some people see truth and it’s clean and clear for them. They welcome it into their lives as a measure with which to measure themselves against. They face truth without fear. Others, see truth walking toward them and they pull out the fun house mirrors in an attempt to bend it and manipulate it and make it into something they can control for their own purposes. If they cannot bend the truth, if they are faced with a truth they cannot manipulate, then they manipulate those around them. But in the end I’ve come to realize that the only people who are threatened by the truth are those who want to manipulate it for their own ends.
Emerging Grace did some writing a few weeks ago about an issue that has grabbed me by the teeth. Or hair. Or something. In any case, I can’t let go of it, or it me. We’ve been wrestling with each other, this issue and I. Neither of us bloody yet, or unbowed. But, after weeks of grappling, pondering and meditating, this issue and I are still taking the measure of one another. She wrote about the issue of leaving a church under a cloud (to put it mildly). The two posts that have me thinking the most are: Always Be Nice and Church Politics. Go read them now, and the comments if you want. I’ll wait here for you.
Yep, they really are that good, aren’t they? I thought so too. That’s why I wanted you to read them.
In any case, here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about as a result of reading her posts. One is that her most recent post, Church Politics, finally gave me a name for some of the things that have happened to me in church. I’ve been bullied in church. Who’d a thunk it? That there would be bullies in church … it’s the one place where we are supposed to be safe from such behavior. But it’s also the one place where bullies are kept safe. They learn early on how to operate, manipulate, and scheme within the system because no one can believe that such ugly things are happening in, of all places, a church!
With a nod to Grace for putting me on the trail, I found this website on bullying that is from the UK. It is quite dense and informative. It’s focus is on bullying in the workplace, but I think the crossover can be made to church quite easily. There are other sites for bullying and it’s sibling, mobbing, out there, but the UK site by Tim Fields is the most comprehensive site I found.
I spent hours on that site. Torn between flabbergasted and relief. Relief that I hadn’t imagined it; I wasn’t off my gourd or going crazy. Flabbergasted that this is so prevalent amongst adults that websites have been dedicated to it. Flabbergasted to find that my experience is far from unique. I wish it were unique. I wish that other people had not gotten hurt as I’ve been. But there it is … I’ve left a church as the result of bullying. The bully did things like:
There were other pieces of the puzzle that fit too, but those were the glaringly obvious bits. Then I found that Mr. Fields has identified four different bully types and was astonished to discover this description in there. It is my sense that many bullies which are “called” into ministry fit in this description, so I’m posting it here for those of you who will find it useful (remember … not all of these need to be present in a person, simply a preponderance of them make a bully):
The Attention-Seeker Motivation: to be the centre of attention Mindset: control freak, manipulation, narcissism Malice: medium to high; when held accountable, very high
The Attention-Seeker
Motivation: to be the centre of attention Mindset: control freak, manipulation, narcissism Malice: medium to high; when held accountable, very high
emotionally immature selectively friendly – is sickly sweet to some people, rude and offhand to others, and ignores the rest is cold and aggressive towards anyone who sees them for what they really are or exposes their strategies for gaining attention overfriendly with their new target, especially in the initial stages of a new working relationship overhelpful, ditto overgenerous, ditto manipulative of people’s perceptions, but in an amateur and childish manner manipulative with guilt, ditto sycophantic, fawning, toadying uses flattery to keep a person in authority on side everything is a drama, usually a poor-me drama prefers not to solve problems in own life so that they can be used and re-used for gaining sympathy and attention capitalises on issues and uses them as a soapbox for gaining attention exploits others’ suffering and grief as a vehicle for gaining attention misappropriates others’ statements, eg anything which can be misconstrued as politically incorrect, for control and attention-seeking excusitis, makes excuses for everything shows a lot of indignation, especially when challenged lots of self-pity often as miserable as sin, apart from carefully constructed moments of charm when in the act of deceiving demanding of others easily provoked feigns victimhood when held accountable, usually by bursting into tears or claiming they’re the one being bullied and harassed presents as a false victim when outwitted may feign exclusion, isolation or persecution malicious constantly tries and will do almost anything to be in the spotlight includes Munchausen Syndrome the focus of their life is to be the centre of attention
(italics mine for emphasis).
What I learned, both in my actual interactions with the bully and in my later research, is that there is nothing that can be done. There is no path one can take to save face or save the relationship, or relationships that have been destroyed. Any activity is like wriggling your fingers in a Chinese finger trap … the harder you try to escape, the tighter you are enveloped in it’s clutches. There is only one method of release and that is turning around and walking away. Relax, admit defeat and walk away. Admit you are powerless, admit you have lost everything … and leave before anyone else gets hurt. So that is what I did.
I’m alone now with my husband and one or two friends. I wonder often now, how it is that God could have left me so high and dry, so vulnerable in His house, His Body. Who is this God who abandons His child in the midst of His temple? Perhaps, then, it wasn’t His temple after all … it’s really the only conclusion I’m left with.
Sunday afternoon I left LightGirl on the campus of Penn State University amidst hoards of other teens, all there for summer sports camps. There were boys there for wrestling, football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, swimming and etc. There were girls there for ice hockey, basketball, gymnastics, figure skating, softball, swimming and etc. Hoards.
I left her with a few of her teammates. They were standing outside of their dorm caught somewhere in between deer in the headlights and small children who had spied a fresh plate of cookies. They uncertain of which world to occupy, I turned and walked to the car certain that they would choose rightly. The ensuing phone calls have done nothing to disabuse me of this notion. She is, indeed, thriving.
In the meantime, LightBoy is attending a hockey camp of his own here at our home rink and is having a ball. I have no idea whether or not he is learning anything, but he is coming home tired and smelly so he is, in the least, active all day long.
It’s been an odd week. I came home on Sunday to shocking news. A friend’s husband had committed suicide back in December and my mother sent the obituary. Her children and my children play every summer up at camp in Vermont. She and I spend a good deal of time on each other’s porches dilly-dallying and chatting about everything and nothing. We look forward to each other’s company each year. We look forward to our families’ spending time together. But now there will be a hole ripped in her family and a hole in each of our hearts where her husband’s laugh used to be.
So much to process.
“Pink cards and flowers on your window, The sun will set for you Your friends all plead for you to stay. Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple. And the shadow of the day Sometimes goodbye’s the only way. Will embrace the world in gray And the sun will set for you, The sun will set for you. And the sun will set for you And the shadow of the day, Will embrace the world in grey, And the sun will set for you.” Shadow of the Day (by Linkin Park)
“Pink cards and flowers on your window, The sun will set for you Your friends all plead for you to stay.
Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple. And the shadow of the day Sometimes goodbye’s the only way.
Will embrace the world in gray And the sun will set for you,
The sun will set for you. And the sun will set for you And the shadow of the day,
Will embrace the world in grey,
And the sun will set for you.” Shadow of the Day (by Linkin Park)
Yesterday, Smaug roared. He didn’t just rumble or growl or roll over a bit. He sat up and roared. It made for a bad morning. I didn’t know where to turn or if I would be able to escape. Fortunately, I had an appointment for a med check with my psychiatrist in the afternoon.
My psychiatrist is truly wonderful. He’s not supposed to listen to me as much as he does, but he does. I told him about Smaug’s roar and how I’ve lost my way and I don’t know quite know who I am anymore. We talked for a while. He had a suggestion. Now I have a doctor’s note to quilt more. To define myself by the things I like to do rather than the things that I hate. But I have permission to have fun. Permission. I stole something from Smaug yesterday and he doesn’t realize it yet. I think I’ll get this one out of the cave too.
BlazingEwe and I were all set to go out to dinner. The LightChildren and FlamingLambs were at the rink with LightHusband. BlisteringSh33p has a mysterious fever so he was home in bed. BlazingEwe got a phonecall from a mutual friend, TexasBlueBelle. Her teenage son had disobeyed his father and had left their house when he’d been told not to. Both parents were over an hour away and son has been having a troubling year. Would we go pick him up? He considers us his other mothers. So, off we went on a mission of merciful chastisement.
It proved to be an interesting several hours long conversation. BelleSon was completely and utterly honest with us. Oh, he spun a few yarns and gave us a few lines that he thought we’d want to hear (and I will revisit those at another time). But it was another gem I stole from Smaug’s pile to recover and build a relationship with a teenager last night. I had forgotten how wonderful those interactions with teens are. We laughed some and gave him some key things to work on. He said he’d like to keep meeting with us. A small miracle happened right in front of my eyes.
So I ended the day with 2 pearls in my pocket, two miracles that I do not deserve. But I will keep these. Somehow I will get out of the cave with these.
Since I left my church almost 2 months ago, I’ve begun working out regularly. I realized this morning that it’s become a place of worship for me. Is that possible? There is music. There are people. There are encouragers, exhorters, evangelists, prayers (spoken and unspoken). There is no sermon; not directly. A wonderful thing about my place of worship is that it is for women only. Women have voices here and women are heard. My voice is heard here. I do not choose to speak tho. I have nothing to say. I watch and listen and exercise.
On Saturdays when I go to my place of exercise/worship I drive past a set of low office buildings. They are mostly nondescript. I drive past them on weekdays too, but there is nothing noticeable about them on weekdays. I think that there must be a women’s health services clinic in one of the offices, because on Saturdays there is always a small group of people picketing against abortion on the side of the road. It’s almost always all men. I know that abortion is a tangential issue for men. But why don’t more women take up pickets against it? That’s interesting.
Hockey has now consumed our home. LightGirl has 2 sets of goalie gear and 2 of skater gear (in-line and ice) and LightBoy is working on 2 sets of gear. There are bags, sticks, skates and pads everywhere.
Missional is becoming trendy in Christian circles. Brother Maynard even has a cool graphic to show which way the trend is turning. It’s the latest watch word for Christian branders to run after and get while the money is to be made; WWJD for the 2000’s? The only problem is that actually being missional is important. Bro. M. posted his cool graphic because that’s where his heart is at. There are a lot of us following those numbers in a not so idle fashion because we want to see it catch on somewhere deep. We want it to be real … not trendy. Trendy would just break my heart one more time.
So missional means (to me) living a life that more and more comes to resemble that of Jesus. It means treating everyone who’s path I cross as individuals with gifts and needs and a life and a story to tell, even if all I will hear that day is a sentence. It means giving out of my abundance to those with less; not from a pedestal on high, but from a bridge across. For many people missional seems to mean living an urban lifestyle. Their desire is to live in and among the urban poor. I’ve been contemplating whether or not missional can be taken to the mountains successfully. Do rural folks need missionally minded people in their midst? Maybe an artistic quilter or something? I don’t think I’m cut out for many more years of this city living. It’s strangling my soul.
My most beloved television program is “Law & Order.” I’ve been watching it for years. I first discovered it in re-runs on A&E during the day. I was breaking a very naughty soap opera habit and looking for something to replace them with. I was newly home with a baby and bored out of my skull. I know that the proper emotion to express as a new mother is delight and everlasting joy at your new child. But housework and infant care are also boring beyond belief, especially if one is accustomed to daily adult interaction and stimulation. So, I began watching “Law & Order” reruns during the day … 1 o’clock in the afternoon on A&E. Then I’d turn the television off, in an act of supreme self-discipline. Sometimes.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that this television show was in production on NBC! WOW! What you have to understand is that NBC is not on my radar. It just doesn’t exist. Well, it exists, but you see … we don’t get that channel. It broadcasts on the other side of the mountains in New York, so we don’t get it. I know, now there are the wonders of cable and satellite (not to mention that I currently live in Virginia not Vermont), but I forget about all of that and just discount NBC. It’s just not on my radar. Other people watch it, because they get that channel. I don’t. Weird wiring from my childhood strikes again. So anyway. I watch Law & Order very nearly obsessively. I watch it in reruns on TNT. I watch Special Victims Unit on USA. I watch Criminal Intent on Bravo. If it’s on, I find it and watch it. Some of the episodes I know so well, I can begin to recite the dialog. But there is one episode in particular that haunts me.
It’s one of my favorites and, yet, it makes me cry every time it airs. It was first aired in season 6, entitled Pro Se. It’s about a homeless man who went on a murderous rampage and killed 3 people. It turned out that he was schizophrenic and off his medication. Once he was in jail and on his meds, he calmed down, stopped hearing voices and turned out to be a brilliant attorney. He defended himself during the case (hence the title of the program) and was well on his way to winning when suddenly he threw it all down, decided to allocute and spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.
During his allocution it became apparent that his inner demons were back, indicating that he had stopped taking his medication some time during the trial. He had been faced with Hobson’s Choice. He knew that having freedom meant that he was responsible for himself and he was unlikely in that instance to reliably take his medication. Being institutionalized meant that he would be medicated and therefore aware and able to function, yet in an environment where he was unable to use his faculties. Or be institutionalized and not medicated, yet others would be kept safe from his delusions. There was a lot of dialogue concerning this decision and all of the ramifications; whether or not an adult can be forced to take medication against his will when not taking it meant that he became harmful to others. There was even a small part of his mind (soul or brain) which knew this, but could not overcome the power of the delusions caused by the schizophrenia. On the other hand, taking the medications caused such a fog to come over his thought processes that that was not who he was either. In one particularly gripping scene, he said to ADA Claire Kincaid, “It’s taking every single ounce of energy I have, just to hold this conversation with you. When you leave, I will be exhausted.”
In either choice he was caged. In one by his illness, in the other by the state. There were no choices left for him and if he chose physical freedom, he was likely to harm others again. A fact which he knew and abhorred. But neither could he abide the fog the medication caused. I can understand that. I take medications for combined seizure disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. Sometimes it takes all of the energy that I have just to hold a conversation. To keep my thoughts in one place and have them come out of my mouth in a cohesive organized fashion. I did not used to be this way. So I empathize with the character in this episode, even though my problems are an anthill compared to his fictional issues.
All of which is to say that I did not make the comparison between a person with multiple personality disorder (e.g. mentally ill) and the Bride of Christ lightly yesterday. Nor did I do so in criticism of one thread of memes (People Formerly Known As …). My criticism, if any, was aimed at the increasingly shrill commentary coming out of blogs more associated with the institutional church than with the emerging conversation. I am sad because for two years now I still hear the same complaints and criticisms. Yes, indeed we are, many of us, terribly hurt. I’ve been hurt by two churches now; the second badly enough to increase my medications. I’m not for one moment suggesting that the conversation take on a plastic positive spin. I am suggesting that we remember a couple of things.
The first is that we are all of us, both hurting and whole, institutional church and emerging conversation, all who claim the name of Christ as Savior, are part and parcel of His Bride. When we engage in this name calling and so-called Truth bearing, we are harming each other and putting distance between ourselves (Christians) and those we want to invite to the wedding feast. People, for good or ill reason, fear the mentally ill and they are sequestered on the fringes of society. I’m not terribly concerned with being on the fringes, but how can we invite people in to the banquet, if they’re looking askance at us?
The second thing we need to remember is that we have a Lover who is anxious to heal us. So while there is no magic touch. No miraculous cure. He is there is to gather us up under His wings as hen does her chicks; giving consolation and comfort from He who can provide it. I’m not calling for false bravado, but real grace which comes from Living Water. That as the healing takes place we will each encourage one another to stand in forgiveness. That this grief, hurt and anger will indeed be a journey and not a stopping place.
Last, we all in all of our separate communities are standing separately before God. As with my meds, the insanity is taking every ounce of our energy just to think about the conversation. There is very little left for moving forward or even more importantly looking around to seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters. We were given a commandment by Jesus (to love God and love others – our neighbors) and a Commission (to go out, taking the Gospel to our neighborhoods, our towns, our cities, our countries, to the ends of the earth) and deliver it in a winsome fashion, not beat people over the head with it. What is there about the Gospel that is inviting? We know what is inviting, but we need now to make the venue welcoming. Our human equity has long since vanished. So the time has come, I believe, for us all … every last one … to be humble in repentance for the wrongs we’ve done each other and ask for healing within the Body, the Bride. That the meek will be lifted up and carried forward to receive comfort and blessing. That those without a voice, will be given an open throat and ears willing to hear.
There is a Promised Land somewhere out there and we must stumble towards it together, because separately we are hearing voices and slowly but surely losing our way.
I am grateful for Smaug.
Smaug, the dragonification of my depression and panic disorder. Not quite a year ago I faced a Balroc in a deep cave in the mines of Moria. For those of you who have neither read nor seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this will not make sense. Suffice it to say, I faced a large monster who lived in a deep, dark hole in the ground. When I turned to face it, I was standing on solid ground and thought I had sufficient weapons at my disposal with which to conquer the monster. But the ground crumbled from underneath my feet and my weapons proved fruitless. Like Gandalf in the scene from Lord of the Rings, it appeared that I had beaten the Balroc, but at the last moment, he pulled me down with him. Down into a freefall for months.
I am deeply afraid of heights. More accurately I am afraid of falling. When I approach the edge of a great precipice I have the sensation that gravity will cease to function and I will spin into space falling off the edge and down into the abyss. This is particularly problematic when we have cheap seats in large colosseums. We cannot take our seats until the seats in front of us have been sufficiently filled so that I do not feel as though I might suddenly become airborn. Believe me, I know this sounds completely ridiculous. The LightChildren and I joke about it, yet I can’t quite overcome the sensation. They both know that any foolish notions they have about bungey jumping or hang gliding or parachuting out of an airplane had best be done without their mother’s knowledge … after they are 18. Preferably after her death. There is every chance that the knowledge will cause her death. Or immediate heart failure.
The sense of freefalling was horrible.
Then, I lived. It was amazing. But I lived. I’ve come to learn a few things about things. Falling doesn’t kill me. It’s the hard stop at the end. That’s not really as silly as it sounds. Unless I really am actually falling, I don’t need to worry about it. I won’t get hurt. Virtual falling will just sort of end.
Another thing I’ve come to learn is that I live life like an amoeba. My walls are quite permeable. But I am deeply uncomfortable with that. I don’t know how to say, “No. That won’t work for me.” and make it stick, without causing all sorts of rumpus in someone else. I watch men do this all the time. They get asked to do something. They consider it. No, they decide, it won’t work for them. So they tell their questioner, “Sorry, that won’t work for me.” And the questioner moves along.
I read these words the other day and even posted them because they were so dangerous and beautiful … I’ve been re-reading them and allowing them to soak into my soul. I’ve been creeping around Smaug’s cave lately. The stench from his nostrils has been enveloping me and making it difficult for me to see clearly. I can not find the exit from the cave anymore. It stinks in here and I think I’m dying alone and in the dark.
When people want someting of me that I do not want to give, I react. React with aversion and anxiety; words like, “flight,” “get out of my inner sanctum” and more visceral feelings difficult to name rise up, and I fight the old crap within me that hinders me from calmly setting boundaries without feeling awry and dismayed, gruilty or angry for having to set them at all. I instinctively push people away when I feel they want something from me that I am not comfortable sharing or giving, when I feel their emotions, desires or needs intrude on my psychological space. Peace is disrupted and I am furious; how could so-and-so dare disrupt my peace with their feelings or perceived needs that conflict with my feelings and perceived needs? I become more angry over the disrupton of peace than whatever substantive issue triggered my internal dissonance in the first place. And then the self-hatred for being so easily thrown off course, for not being enlightened or spiritual enough to be what I intellectually understand.
