The Acceptance Speech

“Just tell me what it is I should be doing and I will do it!” my mother exclaimed as we sat folding laundry. She looked at me pleadingly and through her tears said “whatever it is, just tell me what to do and I will do it! Just tell me what I need to do to make it stop.” Her pain was so raw. She was utterly defeated. I would do anything to stop that pain. I found myself saying “Yes, I will too! Whatever it is, please God, just help us!”

My father had deepened again. Like so many times over so many years, he’d gone from being medicated and somewhat normal to going off his meds and running amok on a manic high. Like so many times before, he was now being held in the psychiatric ward at Eastern Washington University for observation and treatment.

This time however, had been particularly gruesome. My dad had a tendency to run away. As his mania escalated, his grandiosity would transform into a plan that included walking to Zion and concluded with his stripping off all his worldly belongings (read: clothes) and getting picked up by local law enforcement. On most of these instances his strip tease was kept within the confines of the city and he was apprehended fairly quickly. But on this occasion he’d gone off grid and ended up wandering for three days barefoot in the farmlands outside of Spokane. He’d walked all the skin off the bottom of his feet and on the third night he sat, bleeding and naked on a hillside communing with “the light of God”. When the sun rose, he realized his holy light was a floodlight on the side of a barn and decided he probably needed to get help.

These scenarios were devastating for my mother. She desperately wanted to believe there was a cure for my dad’s illness. She wanted to get him back on his feet and back to his virile self. That the funny, quick-witted, athletic, handsome alpha male she fell in love with would one day return through the determination and devotion of her love. She felt that all she needed to do was the “rights”: the right job, the right medication, the right balance of hearth and home and my dad would become a functioning, supportive member of society again. She desperately clung to the faith that her love would concur his illness and that there would be an end to his disease.

I loved the promise of this simple solution for two reasons. One it meant that there would be an end to my dad’s illness and two that I could make it happen. In a house of chaos, I spent most of my time feeling tense and sad and confused. The fantasy of love, faith and devotion trumping all was sweet tonic that soothed the chaffing of weirdness, offered respite from the constant uncertainty and built protective walls against my confusion and discomfort. So I eagerly invested in my own form of wish fulfillment believing that if I my prayers were earnest enough, God would save me. Everything that made me uncomfortable was responded to with a stream of prayers and promises that I would remain good, dedicated and devoted if only God would protect me.

Because my truce with the Cosmos was founded on the inevitable not happening, it was a doomed and fragile thing. Anything could derail my absolution. Routines and order became my salvation. If I got through one day without chaos, I needed to replicate that day. Get up every day at the same time. Eat the same foods at the same time every day. Wear Monday’s clothes on Monday, Tuesday’s on Tuesdays, etc. Walk the same route to school. Walk the same way home. All transgressions, from fighting with my sisters to wanting my best friend’s doll, were potential grounds for nullification of the treaty. It was imperative that I not ask for things. When you do ask for something, apologize and don’t take it. Do not covet. When you do covet, thank God for all you have and apologize for being selfish. Be nice. When you are not nice, apologize, then be nice and pray for forgiveness. Do not think bad thoughts. When you do think bad thoughts, say you are sorry and pray for forgiveness. When chaos ensued I assumed I didn’t pray hard enough, I neglected some crucial part of the routine, wasn’t grateful enough or I wanted too much.

This constant vigilance and self condemnation became a pressure cooker for absolutism. Right and wrong became my only anchor. Everything was either black or white. I started to see myself as an arbiter of morality. I became hawkish, harsh and judgmental. Everyone was either good or bad. I developed a sharp tongue, gossiped freely and offered my opinion and advice whether asked for or not. I also developed a belief that I was working towards personal perfection. As if one day I would get everything right and would stop needing or wanting anything. I felt that each day I was working towards a more perfect physical existence in which I would need less sleep, less food, less stimulus and that at some point my physical body would just reach this zenith where it would hover in perfection for all time. It wasn’t until I was much, much, oh so much older, that it actually occurred to me that the physical body goes through cycles every day. I literally had not made the connection that the body’s need for nourishment, activity and rest is an every day occurrence. The simple realization that the sleep I collected the night before gets used up the next day was mind-blowing.

But that was after college. College actually made me worse. Through various twists of fate I’d landed a full scholarship at a small college in New York City. It was the chance of a lifetime for me. I’d always wanted to get away, to break free, spread my wings and explore the wider world. In my attempt to mask my understandable fears and insecurities, I became more outspoken, sanctimonious and hard. I joined “purpose” clubs and became an outspoken feminist, environmentalist, basically any -ist that allowed me to be proud and loud and generally obnoxious. My principles were both bitter and biting, laced with sarcasm and contempt for anyone who did not conform to my ideals. I never held back an opinion or a judgment on other people’s lives, believing that my clear vision and purposefulness surely trumped all their small mindedness. I also developed a “non-specific eating disorder”. I didn’t purge or starve (those things would be far too attention grabbing and weak-minded for me of course), but instead maintained a strict daily fat grams and caloric intake diet that would keep me thin, but never too skinny. When I could maintain this diet I felt victorious and happy. When I could not, I was devastated. Control was the name of the game. Keep my hunger under control, keep my desires in check, maintain my integrity, maintain my composure and above all, be principled. Be sanctimonious. Be above reproach.

It would take years before I realized how little my principled rigidity was not serving me. I started to lose friends. People started to avoid me and hide things from me. They stopped confiding in me. When I found out that my best friend was cheating on her boyfriend, her reason for not confiding in me was “because I knew you’d be mad at me.”

And she was right. I was mad. I was hopping mad! I was incensed that she couldn’t be more principled and make better choices and that she was wrong, wrong, wrong! But, I was also embarrassed. It was humiliating to me that someone I loved was choosing to withhold information from me because she was afraid I would be mean to her.

It finally occurred to me. I had a choice. I could either choose my principles or choose people. I couldn’t have both. If I wanted people in my life I had to accept them for what they were, not what I wanted them to be. We are flawed. We will never live up to the principles we aspire to. But, when we accept each other, warts and all, that’s when friendships, understanding and healing begins.

Likewise, it would take a near death experience before my dad accepted that he could not be cured of his bi-polar disorder. It was a part of him. In order for him to be a functioning individual, he needed to accept the fact that there was no end to his illness. He needed to work with his disease rather than against it. If he wanted a life worth living, he had to accept its limitations. When he finally accepted this he was able to open up to its possibilities, find peace, be truly forgiving and offer genuine loving care.

This is one of the fist tenants of a yoga practice. When you step onto the mat, you are asked to be where you are, to accept the moment as it is. No judgment, no expectation, no projection into what it is going to be like when you finally “nail” that handstand. This simple, yet so difficult, practice is the building block to a more advanced asana practice, but even greater, it is the building block for healing and love. By accepting the moments as they are for what they are, we become interested. And when we’re interested in something we become compassionate. When we’re compassionate we feel love. Acceptance brings love.

I wish I could say that I am just a mellow fellow these days, that that I am open and receptive to all beings everywhere. But, I’m no where near that. I get crabby with my kids on a daily basis, have no patience for bad drivers, and am prone to bouts of guilt, disappointment, anger and bitterness. I am painfully human.

And that is just something I’m going to have to accept.

The Typwriter

When I was a kid my dad started his own business. He set up a home office and purchased an electric typewriter. It was a pretty high-tech piece of equipment for the time (this totally dates me I know. It's true, I'm officially middle-aged) and a source of fascination for me. It sat on a short, black, metal bookcase, a pedestal that separated it from the rest of the desk riff-raff. It was a totem of progress and possibility, a shiny and sleek white machine with black keys and a red “power” button.

The typewriter evoked a feeling of busy, efficient progress and purpose. When it turned on, it hummed. The keys made delicious, slapping sounds as they smacked against stark white paper and envelopes. When the typewriter was on, the basement was flooded with light and hive-like movement. When the typewriter was on, adult things were happening and we had to “go play somewhere else”.

Sadly, my dad’s business did not make it and the typewriter ceased to have any practical purpose. It was demoted to “toy” for my sisters and me.

I loved this toy. I would spend hours sitting at the typewriter trying to unravel its mysteries. I would pound away at the keys, typing so furiously that they would get all tangled up in the middle. I’d untangle the keys, study how they lined up in their proper places in the bed of the typewriter and then do it all over again.

It had an auto return feature that would automatically roll the paper up, thus permitting one to continue to type uninterrupted. This was a marvel for me. I would set and re-set the margins at various widths and line spacing and then type away, watching the paper fly. Sometimes the lines would be really far apart and others they’d be so close to together the type would be on top itself. Other times I’d try to make a solid black line by setting the line spacing so short that the typewriter would auto return over the same line over and over again. It was an exacting exercise that never bore the results I’d hoped for, but kept me entertained for a really, really long time.

Then there was the “erase” feature. It had two ribbons one black, one white. If you hit the “erase” button, it would go back and stamp white ink over what you just typed, thus effectively “erasing” your mistake. I would type full lines and then hit erase, erase, erase, erase, erase. This feature fascinated me. How many times would the typewriter obey my request to erase? (Answer: indefinitely. You just hit the button and the white tape would pop-up. Every. Single. Time.) Could I re-insert a page and get it to erase something I’d typed previously? (Answer: No. That’s what white out was for.)

The actual act of typing was a mystery that I assumed must be accomplished by sheer act of will. I would randomly strike keys, watch the paper roll through the machine and then scour the page to see if I had actually typed any words. I got in a few “hog”s, “as”, maybe a “lik” and thought for sure I was getting the hang of it.

But, for as much as I loved the typewriter, I also grew to loathe it. After my dad’s business failed, he suffered his first in a series of nervous breakdowns and was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. His bouts of mania were often ear-marked by late night typing sessions. The happy clickety clack of “daytime typewriter” morphed into the pneumatic drill of “nighttime typewriter”. Nighttime typewriter would slowly, persistently, draw me my out of my dreams and into the late night hours of mania. I’d rouse from sleep, hear the keys and groan. I tried to ignore it, but the harder I tried, the more insistent my mind latched onto it. I’d toss and turn and eventually give up the fight and lie there, eyes wide open, trying to will my father back to bed.

One night I stumbled out of bed and asked him, “Dad what’re you doing?”

He startled then snapped, “What do you want?”

“Nothing, I just heard the typewriter. It woke me up.”

“Well,” he paused, “I’m sorry about that, but can’t you see I am busy?”

Not wanting to upset him further, and knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, I curled up on the couch and watched him. All his manic energy was focused on trying to make some elusive thought tangible. He was wild-eyed and disheveled. His hair was greasy and matted to his forehead, indicating that he probably hadn’t bathed or slept in several days. He sat hunched over his work so that his glasses slipped down his nose, making him look like a strict, rather wild, school teacher.

His intensity and size made him frightening, yet I felt kinship, a feeling I rarely ever felt for my father. I understood his desire to make that typewriter manifest something. I understood the draw of the keyboard. For the first time, I saw myself in my dad. I closed my eyes and listened. Eventually the sound became soothing, rhythmic. I fell asleep.

Having a mentally ill father taught me early on that empathy can be a powerful tool for finding compassion. When I struggle to break bread with a person who challenges me, throwing in a little self-referential empathy is often the spice that makes the stew a feast.

Yet, while empathy allows me to hold the space for others, it is a spice best used judiciously. Use too much and it overpowers all the other flavors. Boundaries blur and I find that rather than standing by, I am walking through the quagmire of someone's life for them.

This past weekend I witnessed a family whose member is going through his first in what promises to be a long series of bi-polar related manic episodes. My heart breaks for all of them. I know how difficult the years ahead are going to be. To watch someone you love tear himself apart and refuse help is horrible. But, at some point there is simply nothing you can do but say “I am here for you. When you are ready, when you decide you need help, come to me and I will help you as best I can.”

This sounds callous, but it’s not. Each life must be led individually. We all have to find the recipe that makes the most of all the flavors in it. Each stew, casserole, etc. is different and can only be made by the person whose skin it is in. No matter how badly I want to say “I can see you’re having trouble, why don’t you just scoot over and let me do that for you”, the best I can do is sit close by, hand you the salt and respond to your efforts with love.

Club P

Yesterday was all about poop and pee. Jai woke up with a diaper explosion. Poop up the back, poop out the sides, mustard yellow poop on everything within a six inch radius of the source. Jai’s poop was so messy I had to call John over to help me clean-up for fear that he would put his hands, which he’s recently discovered and loves, into the poop and then put those same hands into his mouth.

After soaking and cleaning everything that was near the baby, our needs-to-be-potty-trained toddler gave us a full day of hide-and-seek poop. Jack hates the idea of potty training and, coupled with his general dislike of having his diaper changed, he’s taken up the practice of Poop and Dodge. Since he prefers to sit around in his own doing, once he feels a poop coming on, he’ll scurry away and play in another room so we don’t smell it. The stewing fecal matter, combined with the chaffing of his diaper, has resulted in welts on his inner thighs. When we change his diaper, the welts get poop in them making diaper changes very painful. That pain exacerbates his desire to dodge diaper changes and the gross, vicious cycle continues.

After a long day of Poop and Dodge I had a brilliant idea. Let’s just get rid of all diapers, training pants, etc. and put him in underwear. Let’s rip the diaper band aid off and have him see what it feels like to have accidents. Let’s get the potty train rolling!

This was a dumb idea. Apparently when you pee on a diaper rash, it hurts a lot. Jack’s choking “Stop! You’re hurting me!” sobs and crocodile tears rip my heart out. I try to remain calm, but I can’t help feel, yet again, like I am failing Motherhood 101.

At this point I have one of those “parenting sucks” moments.

Of course a huge part of the trauma of potty training is my fault. I’ve put it off. First there was the “we just moved” excuse. Then there was the “new baby” excuse. Then it was “let’s wait until summer”. But really, I hate the idea of potty training. Hate it. I could say that it’s because it’s a rite of passage that I’m not quite ready to go through, that I don’t want to let go of my little baby boy, or that I am afraid of doing it wrong and damaging my child, all of which have some sliver of truth to it, but the real reason I’ve put off potty training is I don’t want to deal with the mess.

After three years of diaper changes I am inured to poop in a diaper, but I shudder at the idea of mess splattering onto grocery store aisles, of ruined clothes and furniture and the inevitable frustration that always comes with introducing anything new to Jack.

Potty training is the first major rite of passage that will send my son out into the world beyond me. It is a huge hurdle that, once we are over, will propel Jack that much further away from me. This is both a welcomed and sad thing. Like most transitions, we will have to pass through the gross to get to the good. Transformation is murky, muddy and generally gross. In yoga, the lotus blossom is used to illustrate the process of transformation. The lotus, a beautiful flower that blossoms on top of stagnant water, plants its roots in the mud below. In order for it to grow, it must first root down into the mud and then grow up through the muck to blossom into radiance.

I have no delusions that Jack’s mastering of toileting will be a radiant experience, but I do know that passing through this grim rite of passage will move him closer to blossoming into an independent being so I gotta suck it up.

I look up from the bath I am drawing and see John. We lock eyes and I say, “I loathe the idea of potty training. I don’t want to do it. All the mess, ugh, I’m sorry but it grosses me out.”

“I know, I know, me too.”

I sigh, “God, this day.”

He lifts up his hand and high fives me, saying “Solidarity man. Welcome to the Poop and Pee club. Woo club P! Rock it! Rock it with the poop! Rock it with the Pee! Woo club P!”

He walks away, swinging his hips and singing, “Rock it club P! Woo!”

Jack runs bare bummed after his dad singing “Woo! Club me! Rock it to Me! 21, Four, Zero, Eight!”

Merry Spend-Mass

Tonight, rather than making dinner, we went to Roundtable Pizza. It's a chain restaurant with a salad bar and a "fried food bar" (pretty sure that's not what they call it, but that's what it is).

It's very kid friendly. On any given night the place is crawling with whacked out, over stimulated kids playing video games, running around like they've just been released from solitary confinement or (literally) rolling around on the floor. Its the kind of place people without children avoid like the plague and the only place where parents of small children can go without feeling like lepers. We love it there.

Being the day before Christmas eve, the place was packed, so I took Jack over to the driving video game while John got in line to pay.

There was an elderly man in front of John who ordered the all-you-can-eat salad/fried food bar. It costs $4.32. He only had $3.32. He was frantically rummaging around in his pockets, in all the folds of his wallet, etc. as the woman behind the counter yelled "Its FOUR DOLLARS Sir! You only gave me THREE DOLLARS".

It was apparent that he either forgot to bring the right amount, or simply didn't have it. John put a dollar down on the counter. The man pushed it away and continued his futile search.

Defeated, he finally looked up and said, "I don't have enough money."

The cashier said "You do! There's a dollar right there!", pointing to John's dollar.
"That's someone else's dollar, that's not mine!" he said pointing to John.
John said, "Sir, its for you. Happy Holidays."
He paused, looked at the dollar and then to John. "Thank you, that's very kind of you. 'Tis the season I guess."
"Sure. Merry Christmas."
"You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar."
John laughed and then gave the cashier the money.

After a day of running around like a crazy person, of snipping at my child, of trying - in my typical haphazard way - to find last minute gifts, bows, tape, cards, etc., of running to get the packages shipped, of bitching and grouching over what I have since renamed: "Spendmas. The Worst Holiday of the Year", it was exactly what I needed to see: someone doing something nice just because.

It hasn't necessarily changed my view on Spendmas, but it certainly improved my mood and made me like John a whole lot more.

That, in and of itself, is a great gift.