What makes it so hard for me? I watch them do it with sucess. I watch them do it with some honest trepidation, but since it’s truth they feel lead to communicate they just do it. It’s not that many of them don’t way the cost. It isn’t that they are loose cannons or reckless. They do care what people think. But they say where they stand anyway. Why do I struggle so much doing that?

I think I often use the argument “I don’t know if I’m doing this right technically. What if I don’t form it correctly before delivering the message? Did I “cross my t’s and dot my i’s” so to speak. What if the mechanics are wrong and I look ignorant?” It’s just an excuse. I once wrote and posted whether I got it technically immaculate or not. Once upon a time I just wanted to write. And I wrote. I wrote honestly what I believed at that time from the information I had to work with and what I knew. I know that maybe the technique still is a worry for me, but that isn’t the real wall I am trying to break through.

I often argue, “No one wants to hear this. They aren’t listening anyway. Why do it? Like Brandi Carlile says, “But the stories don’t mean anything, when you’ve got no one to tell them to…” (Carlile, 2007) .” That also didn’t matter to me when I felt like had freedom to write. I had to write. Whether someone was listening or not. I still do. I will journal, scribble on napkins, menus, used envelopes, whatever I can find, but I write. It’s what I do. So that isn’t the wall either.

I think the barrier has to do with a lack of privacy and judgement. I recently went with a very dear friend who is a communications professor to faux audit her class. I sat in the room listening to a panel of approximately six women of various ages discuss interpersonal communications. One of the topics was, why is it so challenging to discuss negatively percieved emotions. Why is it so hard to share them? I’ve been thinking a lot about all that I heard that night. Let me offer this as a summary of sorts. It doesn’t cover everything, but it says a lot of what was raised in that room.

Allison Iraheta – Scars

Truth and art are often times a great deal like a newborn child. You want to protect it. It is personal to the one who sees it. It is dynamic. It breathes. It grows. It can be hurt. It’s part of who you are. Often it tells a great deal about the one who claims to believe it. We’ve all been scarred. “Did I say something stupid?”

A more comical expression of the seniment can be found in L. M. Montegomery’s classic Anne of the Island. Anne Shirley finds that her best-friend submitted her story as an advertisement. Anne explains her pain about this:

“I feel as if I were disgraced forever. What do you think a mother would feel
like if she found her child tattooed over with a baking powder advertisement? I
feel just the same. I loved my poor little story, and I wrote it out of the best
that was in me. And it is SACRILEGE to have it degraded to the level of a baking
powder advertisement” (Montgomery, 1915)

While this seems comical when you read it (Unless you are an artist or a writer then it’s more bittersweet because you get it!)  the truth inherient in art is serious and exposing our hearts that freely is exposing it to judgement. What will people think of me if they know. No one can see in out hearts and heads and there there are so many truths that make us who we are that it just seems safer and easier to protect behind out rib cages and skulls.

Recently I’ve done a great deal of soul searching and a lot of changes have occured in my life. I don’t know which is worse for me, the fear of what people think of me or the fear of what I think people think of me. Letting truth out exposes you and it exposes those you love. You want to keep those you love in an ivory tower and you want the world to love them, too. Love is so all inclusive on the one hand while private and sacred in the other. That’s why our homes and bedrooms have doors. Doors that open up when we want to share and feel safe. Doors that close when we want to be intimate and in a healthy way selfish. When you write something down, it’s doors wide open.  Artist Jennifer Knapp wrote,

“Careful what you say
Careful who might hear
Someone else inside the
universe
Could write it down
And you’ll be hearing it for years” (Knapp, 2010)

Basically if you’re going to write it, be prepared to own it. That is what scares me. Can I own it? Can I say it and own the consequences?

References:
Carlile, Brandi (Performer). (2007). The Story [Recorded by Brandi Carlile]. On The Story [Medium of recording: CD] New York : Sony. (2007)

Gad, Toby (Lyricist), & James, Elyssa (Lyricist). (2010). Scars [Recorded by Allison Iraheta]. On Just Like You [Medium of recording: CD] New York City: 19/Jive. (2010)

Knapp, Jennifer (Performer). (2010). Dive In. On Letting Go [Medium of
recording: CD] Nashville: Graylin Records/Thirty Tigers. (2010)

Montgomery, L. M. (1915). Anne of the island. Canada: L. C. Page & Co

“I don’t know why you don’t go back to college and get your degree,” he said
“You could be anything you want to be if you’d only believe that you’re
Worthy, beautiful, you don’t need their approval,
And I’ll be the rock that you can lean on…”
“I’ve watched you work the room – people hanging on every word,
You build it, then kill it, leaving a mystery everybody needs,
You’re broken, beautiful, you fascinate them all,
And they’ll be the wind that you will lean on…”
“And why are you everybody’s girl?
Why (do) you throw your arms around the world?
When I am all you need to see you through, ”
“I don’t believe it, no, I don’t believe it, no, I don’t know, know about you…”
“I don’t know why you don’t give up the wild life and come be with me, you know,
‘Cause I feel you, and I’m real, you’ve gotta believe that I never would leave
you, ’cause
I’m strong, dependable, and I could give you the world,
Why can’t I be the one you lean on?”
“And why are you everybody’s girl?
Why (do) you throw your arms around the world?
When I am all you need to see you through,”
I don’t believe it, no I don’t believe it, no, I don’t know, know about you…”
“Because I always fell short, because they always wanted more
Because he left and shut the door before you came along
I couldn’t feel anybody’s love, so everybody’s love was not enough
But I know one day, it’s going to fill me up
And that’s why I am everybody’s girl
That’s why I throw my arms around the world
‘Cause I cannot believe it could be true
I don’t believe it, no I don’t believe it, no, I don’t know, know about you
That’s why I am everybody’s girl
That’s why I throw my arms around the world
‘Cause I cannot believe it could be true”

Reference:

[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/everybodys-girl-lyrics-jen-foster.html ]

I suppose that is what hurts the most

Not “with” but “for” and you couldn’t do it

So I am left with this ghost

I was warm to come home to

There were new things to learn from me every day

It didn’t hurt that I worshipped the ground that you stood on

That I would throw whole self into the fray

But you held back just enough

I suppose that is what hurts the most

Not “all”, but “some”; you couldn’t do it

So I am left with this ghost

I was open; I was so wide open

You build a castle in the clouds and I believed it

You changed the morals and the rules to suit the moment

I was confused watching you pulling back bit by bit

But you set standards tailored to restrain

I suppose that is what hurts the most

“Today it’s like this but not tomorrow”, no guarantees

So I am left with this ghost.

Now the sky is so dark, limitless, expansive
It’s beautiful and frightening to see so much room

So much unknown sprawling out now over my head
Where I once saw pictures and adventures

I just see too much.

I use to believe that space was to be fought for
Once upon a time was so possible with hard work

Now it’s as if I’m a newborn; flailing limbs
So much room now after birth, so much air, too much

And the unknown is just a vacuum, cosmic and extensive
Where I once dreamed of grand adventures, of drinking deeply

I just see too much.

And as much as I miss them twinkling, glinting
As much as they are wanted it would seem that

There are no more stars out.

          “His text was from Proverbs: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”

     He seized the sides of the pulpit with his powerful hands, glared at the congregation, decided to look benevolent after all, and exploded: “In the hustle and bustle of daily life I wonder how many of us stop to think that in all that is highest and best we are ruled not by even our most up-and-coming efforts but by Love? What is Love — the divine Love of which the—the great singer teaches us in Proverbs? It is the rainbow that comes after the dark cloud. It is the morning star and it is also the evening star, those being, as you all so well know, the brightest stars we know. It shines upon the cradle of the little one and when life has, alas, departed, to come no more, you find it still around the quiet tomb. What is it inspires all great men—be they preachers or patriots or great business men? What is it, my brethren, but Love? Ah, it fills the world with melody, with such sacred melodies as we have just indulged in together, for what is music? What, my friends, is music? Ah, what indeed is music but the voice of Love!”. “   -Sinclair Lewis

       It seems to me sometimes that I have a rare knack for landing in the middle of situations that bring me to this place. No matter how one finds themselves here …. a terminal illness of one you love, a move when you’re ten and you wave to a best-friend as you drive away, a pet runs away, divorce, broken connections of relationships, an unexpected accident or tragedy… I think no matter how you arrive at this place, grief  is never pleasant or easy. Good bye is just not something easy to hear. “The end” rarely felt like

Instead I find that it is constantly more like

No book by Kulber Ross fixes the pain even if it helps us understand it. 

Or according to Changing Minds.org the extended grief cycle sounds like:

• Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news.
• Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
• Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
• Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
• Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
• Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions.
• Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.

(http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/kubler_ross.htm)

I’ve read Dr. Paul Brand’s book, The Problem With Pain.  Here are a few quotes thanks to Stauros’ Notebook:

All down the ages people have reacted against victims of leprosy. They have been called “lepers” and turned out of society. The disease has been said to cause rotting away of tissues and fingers falling off. Now that we understand the disease a little better we know that most of these problems are not due to the germs of leprosy. The germs simply destroy the nerves of pain. Once pain is gone, patients destroy themselves.

Pain Frees

It is pain that allows me to be free. When I started to study medicine I would probably have said that my purpose was to relieve pain and suffering and to save lives. Today after a lifetime of treating those in pain and those without pain I would say that my purpose is to relieve suffering and to improve the quality of life. The main difference is that then I thought of pain as an enemy, while today I think of it as a help, indeed as an important element in the prevention of suffering.

How often I have heard people complain about God when they have pain. They do not blame God for giving us a signal that tells of disease or injury, but why make it so unpleasant and why not make it easy to switch off? Now I know why. Today there are ways to switch off pain. Pain killing drugs quickly become addictive because the addict seems to be living in a problem free and pain free world. We are seeing more and more of the results of this in our hospitals.

Easing Pain

Even when we know that pain is good and beautifully designed, we still have to face the problem that it some times goes on hurting even when we are doing all we can to get better. When we are busy even severe pain may pass unnoticed. There seems to be a gate – a sort of bottleneck -which limits the number of impulses of all kinds that can get across from the body to the brain. I remember in World War II how soldiers who had been severely injured would tell of how they lifted their helpless buddies and run to safety on legs. They said they scarcely felt the pain. Later, in the silence of the hospital ward those same soldiers would cry out from the pain of the hourly injections. When we understood the role of activity, we can often make pain very much more tolerable simply by keeping busy and active, and especially by giving all our sensory nerves a lot of sensations to carry.

Mind-Pain

Whereas pain, when it comes from in the body, is usually quite precise and quantitative in relation to its cause, when it gets up to the conscious mind its significance varies enormously according to how it is interpreted. Fear multiplies pain. A sense of helplessness multiplies pain.

Confidence diminishes pain. The realization by the patient he can do something also helps to minimize the pain.

How to Master

In ancient civilizations and cultures of India and to Southeast Asia where pain and hunger, disease and death, have been for centuries a part of every day life and where easy relief of pain by medication has not been available the people have developed a realistic attitude towards pain. The personal mastery of pain has become an important part of yoga and other forms of discipline. In the West we have come to think of pain as an unwarranted intrusion into our lives. Above all we have come to think of it as something that should be immediately suppressed. The whole thrust of television advertising repeatedly asks only one question about pain. How quickly can it be relieved. Product A relieves it 20 seconds faster than Product B. There is no hint that before the pain is relieved it should be understood and its message should be listened to.

Pain as Friend

Athletes are perhaps the only segment of our society who study pain and who deliberately impose stresses upon themselves. They rejoice in the fine interplay between stress and pain and exhilaration. If they achieve mastery over their own body, pain is no longer an enemy, but a valued friend. I believe that all of us, early in life, should deliberately cultivate the same attitude toward pain. It is not an enemy from outside, it is part of ourselves communicating with ourselves, it is expressing a need, it is explaining a condition, it is identifying a need for help.

(http://www.stauros.org/notebooks/v01n4a01.html)

       I deeply respect Dr. Kubler Ross’s information. I’ve observed and experienced the stages. Mentally I can agree with the research. And I can mentally grasp Dr. Brand’s logic. I can mentally accept pain as a friend or messenger. I can agree with my head that pain is purposeful and wise men listen to it. But to my heart and head it still feels like

“All we can do is keep breathing…” -Ingrid Michaelson

When the storm hit

When it was icy

When the rain fell

When I froze inside

Where were you

Say, lady blue

When the music stopped

When all ears went deaf

When silence surrounded

When I cried out mutely

Where were you

Say, lady blue

When those most loyal

Gathered and rallied

Gathered shattered pieces

Mending my wings

When they lifted me skyward…

Say, lady blue

When I was blue… the bluest blue

When I needed you

….silence…

Lady blue, where were you

Artist : Martin Sexton

Song: Friends Again

Album: Sugarcoating

       Yes, what you are seeing behind Abbey are wall to wall 3rd graders. There was an equally large sea of small fry bodies on the opposite side! Lots of children, dropping and rolling balls, sugar in the form of sodas, brownies, smoothies, and candy were everywhere!

My little chocoholic thought the quarter pound brownie was awesome.

She did proclaim that the PINK balls were too heavy!

     You haven’t lived until you hear an ocean of 3rd grade voices all singing loud and proud Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb”!

       Mathew had his own exciting moments. “The play’s the thing,” said William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Mat would agree. Especially, a Texas History play where there are cowboys, monks, Native Americans, Praire women, tornados, and line dancing!

       I think the next to last Line Dancing number to a Shania Twain tune says it all: