The First Leaf Unfurls

125 Marbles 

    My favorite shirt right now is one given by my running partner to my son who promptly outgrew it.  I was in the process of throwing it into the donation bin when I took it out and kept it.  I started wearing it despite the fact that I don’t really like t-shirts.  It is a light green shirt with a silhouette of an expansive tree with roots reaching deep into the ground.  It reminds me of a yoga teacher who once kept us all in Tree Pose for a delayed amount of time and told us all to “Grow roots.”  At first I was fixated on trying to maintain my balance but that phase passed and soon I reached a few moments of equilibrium where I was just able to be.  It was only when I was able to let go of my focus on balance that I was truly able to find my core. 
    I went into my kitchen this morning and noticed that my rubber plant (Marble 295) has grown a new leaf.  At first this tender new leaf grew protected in a spike-shaped sheath but today the protection fell away and the new leaf unfurled. 
    It’s been 242 marbles and almost eight months since Ex-man moved out.  I finally feel like my feet are directly under me and I have my balance, now the question is “Where do I want to go?” (I can’t stay in tree pose forever.) I’ve been thinking about that question a lot these days and the response that keeps pestering me as I’m working on my script is, “I want to go to New Orleans.”

Do you feel that you have your balance post breakup? If so, where would you like to go?

Every Love Story is a Tragedy…

126 Marbles …If you follow it to the end.
Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.  
Kahlil Gibran

       I had a writing teacher that used to say, “Every love story is a tragedy.”  I used to think that her point of view was pessimistic but since then I’ve seen her sentiment in action.
        Ex-man’s parents were Irish and shared the uncommon names of two famed lovers in Irish folklore.  When the real-life lovers met, there lives entwined and they became best friends, spouses, and travel companions.  Theirs was a relationship of acceptance and abiding love.  I remember watching as they slow danced in the living room at a family dinner after forty something years of marriage.  I basked in their glow.
       Then the husband got sick.  At Christmas dinner he was still asking, “What can I get you in a glass?” with his heart-warming Irish accent.  A couple of weeks later he was diagnosed with cancer and in February he died.  His wife was in deep mourning and shock of losing her husband in less than two months.
       Ex-man’s parents were both so engaged in life and his mother continues to make efforts to life a full life.  Yesterday at eighty-something, she went on a cruise through the Panama Canal.  I saw her before she left and I admired her spunk but I can still sense that there is a gaping hole where her mate and lover used to stand beside her.  I wonder to myself, will I be brave enough to sustain that type of love, especially if every love story ultimately ends in tragedy? 
       Tennyson’s In Memoriam says, “I hold it true, whate’er befall;/ I feel it, when I sorrow most;/‘Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all.” These words have become trite but this much I know for sure: There’s always risk with love - risk of loss through breakup or even death -  yet I would rather risk this and know love again than the alternative of shutting my heart down.

Is it time to open up your heart to the possibility of loving again?  What comes up for you when you think about it?  Are you still mourning the loss of your past relationship?  (PS As much as I’m moving on and rebuilding, I know I still am.)

Integrity

127 Marbles 
Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

     My eldest sister came for a visit yesterday and we chatted about the lessons that we had learned from growing up in our family.  One of the things that I learned was to be aware that people might not act in my best interest, or the best interest of the family.  We laughed at our inclinations to prepare for the worst case scenario. I told her, “There’s not much that surprises me,” then I added, “Actually it surprises me when people act with the highest level of integrity.”
     But I love being surprised…I borrowed my Ex-husband’s computer this afternoon to do some writing work on a program that isn’t available for my Mac (unbelievable but true).  We shared a meal and a glass of wine afterward and talked about our son and how proud we are of him.  My Ex said, “I’m happy that things have always worked well between all of us.  I hear horror stories of people’s court battles and I can’t imagine that kind of pain.  I hope our son will be spared that in his life.”
    My ex-husband was emotionally open and honest through our break up, he was non-judgmental, vulnerable, and strong.  He never used anger as a shield for his vulnerability.  I will always admire the space of integrity he held for us during that time.  We made a promise that we would always share a glass of champagne to celebrate our son’s birthday.  As time went on and our separate families grew, we didn’t always have the champagne but we did preserve was the spirit of the commitment to always be on good terms.
    When the author of Life’s Little Instruction Book wrote the above quote about fairness, caring, and integrity, he didn’t write the caveat: unless of course, you’re divorcing the other parent.  But breakups often bring out the worst in people.  What would it take to stand in integrity especially during a breakup?

What would it take to follow Miguel Ruiz and “Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love”? If you’re still going through the details of your breakup, what would it take to allow these words to set the tone?

Audacity

128 Marbles 
With audacity one can undertake anything.
Napoleon Bonaparte

    Audacity fascinates me.  Intrepid humans make me cheer their fearlessly daring acts (and sometimes they make me thankful that I’m not their mother). They embody T.S. Eliot’s belief that, “If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.” The audacious are the ones that have that strength.  
     Lady Gaga, the pop queen of boldness, has built her brand with audacity.  What interests me is her confidence that her fame was destined even before she “arrived.” As a result, she deflected everyone who told her otherwise. She says, “I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.’” She was right;  He was wrong.  
    To be audacious is to be “bold or insolent, heedless of restraints, as of those imposed by prudence, propriety, or convention.” Yet I wonder, although those restraints may look like they are imposed from the outside, how many of us are really chained from the inside?  Perhaps Lady Gaga was in a relationship with a guy who didn’t believe in her because she still held that shadow belief about herself.  Was he an exterior mirror for an interior belief?  Did he graciously play the role so she could cut off her last chains of self-doubt and comfortably take center stage?  
    As girls, we are often taught to avoid rocking the boat.  The audacious rock the boat without care of who’s not holding on.  They are the ones who change history by their bold moves such as Rosa Parks’ refusing to go to the back of the bus.  They go against the tide and impose their terms on life.  What is deemed audacious is indicative of the times - who would think it bold for an African American woman today to remain seated in a bus whilst a white woman stood? Yet a bold move in history made our current reality as it is.  
    Benjamin Disraeli claimed, “Success is the child of audacity.” Winston Churchill said, “The first quality that is needed is audacity.” Goethe wrote, “In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.” I say, “Bring it on.”

What would it take to be more aware of the chains that hold you back? What would it take to cut those chains and embody audacity?  

Trusting Your Compass, Again

129 Marbles 
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart ... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. 

Carl Jung

    Einstein believed that “the only real valuable thing is intuition” but because intuition is the silent voice or gentle prodding in a noisy and rambunctious world, it can be difficult to heed its message.  Our intuition doesn’t come to us as a post to our Facebook wall nor do we receive it through tweets. Yet, though silent, it can be insistently persistent.  Intuition can be a gentle awareness that keeps us safe and it can be the knowing of which paths we should choose to lead us to where we’d like to be. 
    Yet, after a breakup, intuition may be something that is questioned because most of us don’t desire discord and breakups but there we are, signing separation agreements, or splitting up assets.  Was it a mistake to marry/attach to that person in the first place? Was there a niggling intuitive feeling not to become attached? Or worse, did our intuition stay silent as we chose a situation that ultimately “failed”? 
    Eckhart Tolle wrote, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” Does that mean if you had a breakup, you were meant to have a breakup?  The breakup was exactly the medicine required to evolve your consciousness?  That’s a tough pill to swallow. 
    Perhaps the biggest trick is coming to peace with a breakup, whether it was self-initiated, jointly decided, or, in colloquial terms, like me, you were dumped. For a lesson, I turn to the guru of acceptance Michael J Fox who says, “If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without a moment's hesitation, tell you to take a hike.” Here Fox talks about living with Parkinson’s disease, yet it could also be the litmus test of a relationship - are you a better person than you were before the relationship? Before the breakup?

What would it take to be able to say, “without a moment’s hesitation” that you wouldn’t trade the person you are now for the person you were before your breakup?  If you can’t say it now, become the person who could say it. 

Liz Taylor

130 Marbles
A girl must marry for love and keep on marrying until she finds it.  

Zsa Zsa Gabor
I'm a very committed wife.  And I should be committed too - for being married so many times.
Elizabeth Taylor

    I am reading a biography about Elizabeth Taylor.  When I was growing up, Liz Taylor was thought to be a man-eater with her eight marriages.  In our Catholic home, one divorce wasn’t acceptable but several was considered a one way ticket to hell.  I remember not really knowing who she was, but having the impression that she couldn’t be tamed.  Charles Manson had been convicted as a serial killer but Liz was only slightly less culpable of serial matrimony in the skewed framework of the times.   
     Years later as I read her story, she doesn’t seem wild at all.  She was born in a time when you fell in love and got married.  She worked in an environment where the Hollywood studios promoted marriage (even for homosexuals).  She lived a long life, had a fiery personality, and probably wasn’t too well suited to being a “good wife.”  Perhaps if she were born today, those men in her life would have been a long line of affairs but we are shaped by myriad factors including the times we live in, the families we are born into, the jobs we do, our kitbags, etc. 
    My niece gave me the book because she said that I have the “same rare combination of grace, style & fire.”  Coincidentally, I haven’t always been the best wife or partner.  When I look back, I count three important relationships in my life and whereas I didn’t wed both of the men and the one woman, I did live with each in a committed relationship.  I wonder what my little-girl-self would think of the relationships that I’ve had? I’m pretty sure in her innocence, she would have been shocked.
    So how to bridge the gap between what my little-girl-self would find surprising and what my grown-woman-self sees as her history?  Well, I tell my little-girl-self that I have loved each of the people that I’ve been with, I have learned a lot and grown with each relationship, and I have left each relationship on good terms. And despite my desire to be with my childhood sweetheart (Ex-man), it clearly didn’t work out.  So maybe I’m more like Liz than I thought I’d be when I was growing up, yet that’s not as bad as I thought it would be. 

What would your little-child-self think about the adult you've become? Was your breakup a wild card thrown into your deck? How can you use that wild card to your advantage and allow your life to become more expansive? 

Chest Pain

131 Marbles
God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

    Yesterday, a co-worker complained about having chest pain while we were at work.  He is a young man in good physical condition, so despite it being a warning sign of a heart attack, it is unlikely.  I recalled how after my breakup with Ex-man, it felt like I had a leg-hold trap on the center of my chest and I suggested that the young man could be suffering from a broken heart.  He looked at me oddly (but now I don’t care if people think that I’m crazy - see Marble 133) but he replied that, indeed, he was suffering from lost love but he argued that his pain was at the center of his chest not at his heart. 
    I’m going to go rogue here and stray from Western thought concerning health. In Eastern tradition, the body has several energy centers, one of which corresponds to the heart and is found in the center of the chest.  Is it such a stretch to consider that if a person is grieving a loss that the anahata chakra (heart chakra) would be tight?  
     If you google tightness in chest, many hits list it as a precursor of a heart attack.  In addition, there are many chat groups with people looking for answers why their doctors and cardiologists can find no answers for their chest pain.  Some have undergone EKGs and other tests only to be told that there was no physical cause of the chest pain.
    Stay with me here as a relate a story of how I met a friend for dinner after he had just completed a medical school exam.  When I asked how his exam went, he complained that his whole class failed on one of the patients. He and his cohorts were asked to go around a room filled with patients suffering from various ailments.  The future doctors were then asked to diagnose each patient.  The patient who trumped them all was an older woman who complained of lack of sleep, loss of appetite, and other nebulous symptoms.  What eluded my friend and his cohorts was the detail that the woman’s husband had recently died (they didn’t ask the right questions).  Whereas her diagnosis would never medically be “a broken heart,” this was the cause of her physical suffering. 
    The chakras can’t be X-rayed or EKG’d yet who hasn’t experienced the warm glowing feeling emitted from the center of the chest when around a loved one?  Who hasn’t experienced the feeling of being punched in the gut (or manipura chakra) when experiencing a browbeating?  Who could say if those people who suffer from heart attacks are not also suffering from broken hearts?  (There are a many people who walk around for years with arterial plaque who never suffer from a heart attack.) How do our experiences affect our energetic body and our physical body?  How does our energetic body affect our experiences?
    What I know for sure is that after Ex-man moved out, my heart felt as dry as cracker juice and as tight as a fiddle string (I’m studying Southernisms, can you tell?).  235 Marbles later, my heart is happy as a clam at high tide.  

How is your heart feeling?  If it is feeling better than after the initial breakup, take a moment to appreciate grace.  If your heart is still feeling Grinchy (two sizes too small), reach out to people who make you feel safe and loved and do some heart-swelling activities*…

*My personal (celibate) heart-swelling activities are doing yoga and watching my kids sleep.

Choosing a Musical Score for Rebuilding

132 Marbles  

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.

Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity"

    In Marble 360, I talked about my breakup playlist of inspiring songs.  That playlist doesn’t resonate anymore so I created a new playlist of songs that I listen to - a musical score for the rebuilding phase of 365 Marbles.  These are songs that have less to do with holding on, and things getting easier and brighter and more to do with jumping in and engaging with life.  I believe in the power of music - as rocker Marilyn Manson says, “Music is the strongest form of magic.”

Here are some of the songs on my new playlist:

Chica Chica Boom Chic - Carmen Miranda
Both Hands - ani difranco
O Mio Babbino Caro - Sarah Brightman
If Love Was a Train - Michelle Schocked
Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
Feeling Good - Nina Simone
Tin Roof Blues - Louis Armstrong
Baby Please Don’t Go - Van Morrison
Precious Time - Van Morrison
History Repeating - Propellerheads
La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf
Mack the Knife - Louis Armstrong
Summertime - Ella Fitzgerald

    Some of the music makes me feel like dancing, some of the music makes me feel like loving, and some of the music makes me feel like taking a trip down to New Orleans.  All of the music in this new playlist makes me feel excited to be living.  As I retire that old breakup playlist I note that time and marbles have done their trick.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed/ for the existence of God/ was music.” Can you create a playlist that brings you joy when you listen to it? 

Don’t Care What Anyone Thinks of You

133 Marbles
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
Albert Einstein

    I’ve mentioned that I come from a crazy family, and unfortunately I mean that literally.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 26% of the population suffers from a diagnosable mental illness.  My family is letting some of your families off the hook. As Rita Mae Brown pointed out, "The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you."
    For most of my life I’ve tried to distance myself from the crazy - put myself in the camp of people who could distinguish what was real from what was unreal or imagined.  This was a very boring approach as I’d often censor my actions to determine if my family’s craziness was at all visible - was my crinoline peeking from beneath my Victorian attire?  It began to feel limiting to always be trying to hide my undergarments.  My new approach is to embrace the crazy. 
    How can I use crazy to my advantage?  Well, my own brand of crazy isn’t really on my family’s Richter scale.  It is quite tame by comparison but as I write this, I sense my lingering resistance to aligning with crazy.  But what are the advantages of being just crazy enough? Crazy offers more freedom to color outside the box.  It offers a freedom from caring what others think about you. 
    Hunter S. Thompson wrote, “If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.”  Perhaps in Hunter S’s spirit of gonzo journalism, I should enroll in some burlesque classes to see what the community is like from the inside.  A crazy idea but maybe just crazy enough.  My new mantra: Embrace the crazy. 

Calvin Klein once said, “I’m crazy, and I don’t pretend to be anything else.” Are there things you could do that would contribute to your life but you shy away from because of what the neighbors would think?  What your family would think? What would it take not to care what anyone thinks about you? 
   

A Cushion of Inspiring Stories

134 Marbles
Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. 

Thomas A. Edison

    Everyone needs stories in their kitbags - stories that hold gravity when you hear them - the ones you tuck away for a later date when you need a little inspiration.  For me, a few of these stories remind me about how much tenacity is required to follow your dreams.
    The first story is about John Kennedy Toole, a New Orleanian who wrote the brilliant novel, Confederacy of Dunces.  I read the book several years ago and was captivated by the quirkiness of the French Quarter and the comical characters who lived there.  Toole’s personal story, however, is not so comical.  After devoting much energy to his novel and having it rejected by several publishers, Toole took his own life in 1969.  Several years later, his mother brought the manuscript to an editor who relates the story in the book’s foreword, claiming it was the worst set of conditions to be given a manuscript - by a mother whose son had committed suicide as the result of numerous rejections.  Despite his reticence, the editor started reading it and was hooked from page one.  Confederacy of Dunces was published and Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 
    Another story in my kitbag is one told in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich about a prospector who did all his geological research and determined that a certain area would have a rich deposit of gold.  He bought the land and all the equipment and started excavating.  The excavation turned up nothing and the more they dug, the more he became in a financial hole until he finally gave up and sold everything.  The person who bought the land set to work and within a few days, struck gold - lots of it.  Yet the fellow who sold the land didn’t become discouraged - he went on to build a successful insurance business because he had learned the valuable lesson - never give up. 
    The third story is about my favorite Canadian author, Ann-Marie MacDonald.  Early in her career while she was working on her brilliant tome, Fall On Your Knees, she was offered a good job that would have given her a great deal of financial security but no time to work on her novel.  When she turned the job down based on nothing other than a gut instinct to keep writing, she said it was the hardest decision she ever had to make, “It was like watching a moving money train pass me by.”  Luckily, her own money train would stop for her after her book was published and Oprah choose it for her book club. Ching, ching. 
    So when I begin to feel like success will never come, I take these stories out of my kitbag and remind myself to keep excavating, working, while never giving up. 
   
Napolean Hill noted, “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” With this in mind, how can you label a failure when it may just be the doorway to success?  Most people judge a breakup as a failure but could it be a step closer to more happiness?  A better relationship with yourself? A better relationship with another?
 

Knowing What’s in Your Kitbag

135 Marbles 
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare, "Hamlet," Act 1, Scene 3, 78-81

    When Polonius sent his son, Laertes, off to study in Paris, he advised him on many things but summed it all up with the above lines.  Polonius stressed the importance of being authentic, but can we be authentic without having self knowledge?  I don’t think so.  The preliminary step in being authentic is to become familiar with who we are as individuals.  One of the steps in this process, is what I call, “Knowing what’s in your kitbag.”
    Each of us are born with certain characteristics or tendencies that can be used to our advantage or conversely, used to hinder us.  These are the equipment we are born with, and just like a sports kitbag, they are the tools that will help us get through life.  Most of these tools have a positive side (when they are used for good) and a negative side (when they are used as a hindrance).  For example, I’m “sensitive” - a trait that can be both positive and negative.  On the positive side, I can immerse myself in a situation and sense the dynamics. This can be great for writing as I am able to gain insights that may elude some.  I can be sensitive to the other people’s points of pain and I can be empathetic.  Yet on the negative side, I can feel like a sponge, taking on other people’s feelings.  In addition, I can become overwhelmed by my own emotions and become self-absorbed (if you’ve been following the marbles, this may not come as a surprise). 
    Another tool in my kitbag is tenacity - my sometimes unrelenting determination.  Whereas this is an essential trait of being a writer (think of the rejection letters - I call response letters), tenacity can be detrimental when not curbed in relationships (think of an annoying Pit Bull, not wanting to unclench from a bone/argument).  Yes, this is the trait that allows me to hike to the top of the mountain, run around the whole seawall, take the 365 Marble challenge, yet tenacity also has to be tempered with grace, otherwise I’m nothing but a Pit Bulldozer.   
    Doing an inventory of your kitbag is not only good for becoming authentically you, it is also great for determining what resources you don’t have that you may require to accomplish your goals/dreams.  I’ve mentioned how I used to be extremely shy, unable to carry on a conversation with someone who wasn’t a friend.  This inability to make connections with new people was something that stood in my way of living a full life.  After years in the restaurant biz, I’ve managed to become comfortable with conversing with strangers and small groups.  My goal now is to become comfortable in front of larger groups without breaking out in a scarlet red blush (nothing Toastmasters couldn’t cure).  The point here is if something isn’t in your kitbag, you can often go out and get it. 
    Think of your kitbag as the gifts that the three good fairies gave to Sleeping Beauty at her birth celebration: beauty, the gift of song, and the promise of true love’s kiss.  Each gift became both integral to who she was and to how her destiny was shaped.  What gifts are in your kitbag?

What shows up when you do an honest inventory of your kitbag?  Are there things that you’d like in your kitbag that you could acquire? Are there things in your kitbag that you’re not using in the most positive and effective manner? 

It Just Has to Get into the Right Hands

136 Marbles 

    Whenever I get overwhelmed by the amount of work that I have to do in order to write the pilot of my series, I take a breath and come back to this truth: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” (Lao Tzu). I’m at the first step - doing the research.  Second step- writing the outline.  Third step - First draft.  After that, there’s a lot of rewriting, after that - pitching?   
    Sometimes it can be pretty challenging to be creative when there are kids to be fed, classes to go to, and a job that pays the bills but these days I’m grateful for the balance that I have with family time and time without my kids.  If it weren’t for the breakup with Ex-man, I’d still be a 24/7 mom and there would be less space to do what I’m doing.  As much as I love my kids, they take up a great deal of focus and attention so now I can fill my weekend days with writing. 
    Some call me an extremist, but I like to immerse myself in a project from several angles.  This term I’m also taking an Earth and Ocean Science course and my prof has accepted my proposal to study the Mississippi River delta for my final project.  This way I’ll learn about the physical foundation that is underneath the series that I’m building. 
    Whenever I get overwhelmed by the amount of details that have to align in order for my work to see the light of day, I take a breath and come back to this truth: It just has to get into the right hands.  Maybe this is my own brand of surrender - doing the work necessary and allowing it to find the people that believe in possibility and can make it happen.  I’ve formulated my mantra: It just has to get into the right hands. 

Do you have something in your life that would benefit from a personal mantra?  I have a friend who was getting discouraged with being single and she chose the mantra, “It could change in an instant” knowing that any day she could meet someone who could turn into a significant other. 

Surrender

137 Marbles
God can dream a bigger dream for me, for you, than you could ever dream for yourself. When you've worked as hard and done as much and strived and tried and given and pled and bargained and hoped...surrender. When you have done all that you can do, and there's nothing left for you to do, give it up. Give it up to that thing that is greater than yourself, and let it then become a part of the flow.
Oprah

    Surrender - how can three little syllables pack such a big punch? For me, it evokes images of submission or yielding to another, and giving up control (not something that I’m super comfortable with).  With images of the Wicked Witch of the West skywriting “Surrender Dorothy” with her broomstick, surrender doesn’t feel like an awesome thing to do. 
    The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines surrender as, “giving up completely or agreeing to forgo especially in favor of another.”  It can also be defined as ceasing resistance to an enemy or opponent and submitting to their authority. There seems to be an adversarial relationship inherent between the surrenderer and the surrenderee.  Yet when you examine capitulate (one of surrender’s close friends), it is defined as giving up all resistance, which is somehow more acceptable to me. 
    Yet how can I be someone who actively creates my life and surrenders at the same time?  Aren’t those two actions mutually exclusive? 
    Eckhart Tolle has an interesting way of looking at surrender.  He writes, “If you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn‘t say, ‘Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.’ Resignation is not surrender. You don’t need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the “isness” of this moment. Then you take action and do all you can to get out of the mud. Such action is called positive action. It is far more effective than negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or frustration.
Surrender, one could say, is the inner transition from resistance to acceptance, from “no” to “yes.” When you surrender, your sense of self shifts from being identified with a reaction or mental judgment to being the space around the reaction or judgment. It is a shift from identification with form - the thought or the emotion - to being and recognizing yourself as that which has no form - spacious awareness.” In other words, accept the moment and do all you can do to change it if it is undesirable. 
    But what if all your efforts to effect change come to naught?  Oprah would suggest it is time to let go and surrender.  She explains, “letting go is not about giving up on a dream - it’s about knowing you’ve tried everything you can think of and deciding to accept whatever comes next.”  For now I’ll surrender to my unwillingness to surrender. 

How can you let go of control and be more comfortable with surrender? Is it possible that a better relationship with surrender would have made your breakup with X a little more tolerable?  Is frequent resistance to what "is" the cause of your struggle? Could you be more comfortable with "white flag" moments? 

Without a Shadow of a Doubt

138 Marbles

    Yesterday’s doubt marble has got me thinking about how much we affect life and how much we are affected by it - in other words, how active or passive are we in our lives?
    It seems to me, the people that we admire most on this planet are the ones who set their goals and doggedly work towards them, overcoming all obstacles until their dreams have been achieved.  They are the “successful” artists, the athletes, the businesspeople - anyone who has made a mark in their own field.  We tell stories about their determination - the power of the human spirit -  and somehow their victories are our victories, or at least a damn good inspiration to get our own butts off the couch and get active in our own lives. 
    One such person who was active in his own life and effected change in many people’s lives was Steve Jobs. As the co-founder of Apple Computers, Jobs was infamous for his Reality Distortion Field or his ability to use his charismatic charm to convince himself and others to believe almost anything.  Apparently he had many tools in his toolbox that facilitated this process including: bravado, hyperbole, marketing, and tenacity.  He set forth many “impossible” tasks for his team but by distorting what they thought was possible, he made it so. He seemed to abide in the realm of without a shadow of a doubt. 
    More incredibly, Tererai Trent was once a young girl with a dream to move to America and obtain her PhD.  This goal doesn’t seem far-fetched but considering she was from rural Zimbabwe and was forbidden an education because of her gender, the goal seemed insurmountable.  Her mother told her to write her goals down on a piece of paper and bury them wrapped in a piece of tin.  Check her out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tererai_Trent to see how sometimes a long and winding road can lead us right where we wanted to be. 
    How is it that some people create their dream lives while others do not?  In her book, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, Carol S. Pearson, claims that the people that are good at achieving their dreams are those who have activated the magician within.  She writes, “When the Magician archetype is activated, you feel confident that you know what ought to be done to transform your life or your world. You stop letting others make your decisions and you develop a vision for where you want to go.  You also are willing to risk action - to get behind the wheel of your life.  You activate the gear shift of magic when you begin to act in keeping with your values and your life purpose.  It is as if you place yourself in just that magical position that allows the gears of the universe to align with you and support your efforts.  When you do so, you find that fortuitous coincidences begin to occur that open the path for you.”
    Perhaps by activating the Magician archetype we become active and passive simultaneously - actively moving forward while somewhat more passively magnetizing those situations that support our goals. But where does surrender fit into the equation?  That’s a whole other marble…

How can you claim the Magician within you and make her/him more active in your life? 

Doubts

139 Marbles
Linus: [to Sally as she walks away with everyone else] Hey, aren't you going to wait and greet the Great Pumpkin? Huh? It won't be long now. If the Great Pumpkin comes, I'll still put in a good word for you!
[realizes what he just said]
Linus: Good grief! I said "if"! I meant, "when" he comes!
[calmly]
Linus: I'm doomed. One little slip like that could cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by.
[calling out]
Linus: Oh, Great Pumpkin, where are you?
Charles M. Schultz, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”

    I recently came across this quote by Eileen Caddy,”The secret of making something work in your lives is first of all, the deep desire to make it work; then the faith and belief that it can work; then to hold that clear definite vision in your consciousness and see it working out step by step, without one doubt or disbelief.”   Hmmm, without one doubt or disbelief? That seems a little unrealistic, doesn’t it? If that’s the recipe for baking up some magic and if doubt completely ruins the cake, I’m a tad worried if I’m ever going to bake anything that’s edible.
    Is life really that unforgiving that we can’t hit pockets of doubt and still manage to create magic in our lives?  It feels a bit superstitious to me, like Linus in the pumpkin patch thinking that because he used the word “if” instead of “when,” his own version of magic would not manifest. 
    For me, it’s a bit more of an ebb and flow - there are times when I confidently forge ahead and there are those low tide times when I hit a pocket of doubt and I have to regroup and clear the doubt so I can ride the wave again.  I like Lillian Smith’s attitude, “Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve.”
    When I hit a big pocket uncertainty, I often look to my fellow humans who have traveled the roads before me and see what they have to say about whatever situation I find myself in (note all the doubt quotes). In this process, I’m not looking to adopt another’s beliefs, but more I’m trying to connect to those beliefs that resonate with me.  Words can be like a tuning fork and when they hit the right note, I know from a vibration at my core. It's like hitting a road sign that will point you in the right direction on your own personal path.

    I am currently smack dab in the shallows of doubt - doubt that my writing projects will ever see the light of day, doubt that I’ll ever be able to maintain a happy relationship… (the list goes on).  What I’m aware of is that this doubt feels like a fog.  It can be challenging to advance through an encompassing haze of fog.  I usually just try to clear the doubt or wait until it lifts.  But I’m starting to wonder - is there another way around it rather than going through it?   

Bertrand Russell says, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”  What would it take for you to adopt more cockiness (without the stupidity;)? 

Dinner Conversation

140 Marbles

    Today while I was having a normal dinner conversation with my kids, in between pass the carrots and telling my son to sit down while he was eating, he spilled the beans about his Dad dating.  His sister shot him a warning glance but it didn’t work. 
    I tried to sound nonchalant as they proceeded to tell me how they hated the woman and her young daughter, how their Dad was the first unmarried man she’s ever dated, how she really wanted a “nuclear family” so she wasn’t so keen on them being around, how she was a “closeted lesbian” - all the details I took with a grain of salt.  I also heard how she had just been looking for directions one day while she walked by their house and came in to use the phone.  She looked around and asked Ex-man where his wife was (he keeps a very homey house) and when he mentioned that he was single, the deal was on (although if my kids were right, it sounds like the deal would have been on even if he weren’t single).  
    It was somewhat challenging to remain neutral with the barrage of information that made my stomach feel like it was being pummeled. I tried to sound chipper when I told them that she’d probably grow on them and that they probably wouldn’t like anyone their Dad or me dated at first.  I cited kids who they knew that didn’t like the stepparents at first but grew to love them eventually.  I said all these things without the aid of my best poker face (which admittedly isn’t great) so I’m pretty sure they saw through my veneer of optimism. 
    Later when they were occupied doing the dinner dishes, I went in my room and had a quick and quiet cry. What the hell?  I’m at the “rebuilding” stage of the process.  Why does this bother me?  I wish I could just get on with my life already.  I cried a few tears of frustration that I was still being affected by what Ex-man chose to do with his life.  And I was jealous.  It would be heck of a lot easier to move on if I were the first one to be dating but because of marbles, that wasn’t a possibility. 
    So I’m human and at times frail. So what?  I tried to soften the place that was judging myself for not being okay with it.

What would it take for you to be okay with your X dating (if you're not already)?  What would it take for you to be okay with not feeling okay with X dating? What if his dating opens a space for you to invite more into your life?   

Fortuitous Accidents Continued

141 Marbles

    There’s a lady who paints amazing pieces of art on rocks and sells them at the local farmer’s market.  She uses every contour and blemish in the rock then paints it with inspiration from mythology, fantasy, and symbolism (check out her magical pieces at michellevulama.com).  She told me a story recently that caught my interest - her larger pieces are valuable as they take her countless hours to finish and she had recently completed one of these multi-thousand dollar pieces when she dropped it and it split into two.  Obviously she was upset to have the piece ruined and she put it away and started on another piece. 
    Some time later, she came back to the fragmented rock after she had gotten over her disappointment about the accident.  She sat with the pieces, wondering what to do with them. Then she started painting the blank sides that had been divided.  When she was done, she mounted the two pieces onto a base so that they could be turned to reveal the paintings inside.  The result of this “accident” was by far the most interesting piece and it also had the best story.  
    Other stories involving “accidents”  - old Archimedes who was banging his head against the wall trying to discover a way to measure the volume of irregular objects.  When he got into his bathtub, he shouted “Eureka” when he saw the level of the water rise before his eyes.  He recognized that the volume of water that was displaced must be equal to the volume of his submerged body parts.  He was so excited that he jumped from his tub and ran naked through the streets of ancient Greece.
     And then there’s Alexander Fleming with his discovery of penicillin.  He was researching staphylococci when he went on holidays, messily stacking his samples in the corner of his lab.  When he returned, he discovered that there was a mold growing in some of his sample dishes but the samples with the mold no longer had some strains of bacteria.  This led to the creation of mould juice or penicillin as an antibiotic.  Fortuitous accidents. 
    The amazing thing about these stories is that it reminds me to avoid judging outcomes that don’t fit in with what I had hoped would happen.  They remind me to avoid labels such as “accidents” and they help me expand my vision of possibilities.  In addition, the rock lady’s story is a perfect metaphor for a break up of a relationship.  Most of us don’t go into relationships thinking about the inevitability of a breakup but if they do break apart (no matter how stable and solid they had seemed) the only question we’re left with is, "What do I want to paint on the broken pieces?"

What are you not seeing because you're too fixated on seeing things in a certain way? 

Mechanical Problems

142 Marbles

    Bloody hell.  I was driving the kids to school today when I noticed smoke coming from the front hood of my car. I dropped them off, stopped the car and called a local auto mechanic who told me to bring it in.  When I was driving there, I noticed how stressed I was getting as I watched the smoke waft from the hood.  I stopped myself, wondering, “Why the stress?”  True, I know nothing about cars and the not knowing what was wrong was a bit troublesome. Yet I was on my way to the place where someone would know.  True, it was only 6 marbles ago that I had to get new brakes on my car.  I was hoping that I’d be free from car problems for a while.  But these things tend to come in threes – the brakes, the pinworms, and now the wafting smoke.  Hopefully I’m done.  
    The mechanic was a banjo-playing ex-marathon runner who drove the same Honda as I do so I figured I was in pretty good hands.  After poking around a bit, he told me I needed a new radiator – nothing life-threatening, just a new radiator.  I asked him to throw in an oil change and tune-up and call it a day.  Yay Visa. 
    Today I remember that when I feel myself getting tense and stressed out, I have to ask, “Why?”  There is nothing that can happen that I can’t get through (not that I want to really put this theory to the test).  Getting stressed out about inconveniences isn’t good for me, nor does it move me closer towards a solution.  When I feel out of control because I lack the skill set to tackle a problem, there will always be someone who does have the skill set.  Someone like the banjo-playing mechanic.

What would it take for you to move into more ease? 

Soldier by Soldier

143 Marbles

Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you no man ask for…
Queen & David Bowie

    I’m in a pressure-cooker week: school just started and already I’ve got assignments coming out of my yin-yang, my dishwasher is broken, and my kids have pinworms.  For anyone who doesn’t know what pinworms are, good for you - neither did I until this week.  Not only are they disgusting but they involve doing loads of laundry (I guess I can be grateful it’s not the washing machine that’s broken).  Fun times. 
    I feel a bit like someone who is in battle and I’m being faced with an onslaught from the opposing army.  My only job is to stay out of overwhelm and to take one soldier down at a time:  Each shift at work - down;  Each load of laundry - down;  Each assignment from school - down.  Take that, suckers.  I’m still standing.     
    Exercise is helping my nerves keep from getting completely frazzled.  I try to squeeze some form of moving my body around into most days - a walk, a run, a yoga session, a wee weight routine.  Exercise time is my time, it keeps me sane and usually I can tap into some part of myself that knows that these little inconveniences are just part of life and sometimes life can feel like a pressure cooker, but that feeling never lasts forever.  Phew!
    But other times, I just want to come home to a partner who would talk me off the proverbial ledge. 

What would it take to maintain perspective when the pressure is on? What would it take for you to always be able to talk yourself off the proverbial ledge?  

Who Knew?

144 Marbles
The only real valuable thing is intuition.
Albert Einstein

    I took out a few library books to help research New Orleans burlesque for my script outline.  What I’m discovering is that the city has a rich history of burlesque and presently has a vibrant neo-burlesque scene.  Who knew that when I blurted out New Orleans as the setting for my series that I was onto something?  I was also amazed to find that brothels were often called “sporting palaces” - maybe that will be the history of the building and another generation of the women in the story - perhaps the original owner of Burlesque Palace. 
    One of the guest lecturers who we had last term was a director who described how some of the scripts he received had locations and situations that couldn’t be shot in the city where he was shooting the series he was working on.  He said that often, writers were located in LA and they had no frame of reference for the areas and settings where his series was shot - for example, they would write scenes set in car manufacturing plants when there were no such plants for thousands of miles so they’d have to improvise.  I don’t want to be one of those writers who pens a setting that I haven’t experienced.  Eventually, I’ll have to go down and experience New Orleans first hand - the heat, the language, the food -  the jambalaya of energies that make it the Big Easy.  Lots of effort for a school assignment?  Maybe it won’t just be a school assignment.  

The medical researcher Jonas Salk noted, “Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”  What would it take to fully mine your intuition as the valuable resource that it is?  

Family Photo Night

145 Marbles

     I was recently thinking how as a singlish parent there isn’t much opportunity to have photos taken of me and my children and presto, here one is.  My son’s school is having a fundraiser tonight - $20 for a family photo. 
    My kids complained about getting a photo taken, saying that those photos are always so “lame.” I asked them to humor me - in about a dozen or so years they may all be on their own and I wanted photos of us along the way.  
    A few months ago I would never have considered going to the school with my kids to take a photo of us as a family.  I would have been slightly embarrassed in front of all the “whole” families.  Now I think of it as a snapshot of where we are, and it is good - nothing’s broken here.  It’s also part of my commitment to focusing more on the family I have and less on the family I don’t have (or didn’t have as a child).
….
    Just got back from taking the photos.  We were put in several standard poses and in hindsight, I should have also asked him to do a candid shot.  We all thought the process was quite hilarious and we had to contain our giggles, especially when the slightly geeky camera guy said, “Say monkeeee”.  I can’t wait to see how they turned out.

Are you ready to tackle some things that you weren't able to right after your breakup?  If you felt slightly broken after the breakup, are you able to see yourself as more whole? 

Happy Car Accident

146 Marbles

    I used to have a Volkswagen Convertible that I loved.  It was fun in the sun, dependable, and big enough to drive a few kids or friends around.  One morning when Ex-man and I were in bed he said, “You really have to get the rust on the door of your car fixed.”  I shuddered to think of how much it would cost so I replied, “I wish someone would just hit my car on the driver’s side.”  Realizing what I had just asked for, I added, “When I’m not in it, of course.”  Within ten minutes we heard a crash on our street.  Then a knock on our door and a neighbor who told us that someone had just hit my car.  Ex-man and I looked at each other and then went to look at the car.  Sure enough, the person had hit it right on the door where the rust was.  Ex-man looked at me and said, “You’re kind of freaking me out right now.”  I teased him that he should be careful because I’m a witch.  To make matters even better, the girl who hit my car came back to apologize and give me her insurance info - she had been on her way to an exam when she hit a patch of ice and she didn’t have time to stop.  The rust on the door was fixed and I didn’t even have to pay the deductible that I would have if it were a hit and run.   
    After a few years we moved to a new house and Ex-man again pointed out the rust that was growing like a cancer on the other door.  By then our daughter had been born and money was a little tight.  Again I put out a request for something to happen on the passenger's side.  One morning we woke up to find that someone had broken into the car and had used a tool to get under the door handle.  The metal on the door was completely wrecked so once again the rust was fixed. 
    Before too long, the roof started getting cracked with age.  Slowly it started to leak and Ex-man pointed out the obvious, “You need a new roof”  (The fact that there was no “we” need to get you a new roof is besides the point).  Again, I began wondering how I was going to swing it.  One dark night when Ex-man was going out for coffee with his friend, his friend looked over and said, “Hey, isn’t that your car being broken into?” Ex-man looked up to see a man cutting through the roof of the convertible.  Both he and his friend yelled at the guy who dropped the scissors and started running.  They ran after him but he was faster and had a head start.  Needless to say, there was a new roof for the car. 
    Now if I were an insurance adjuster, I would have looked at the history of the car and started to question all these happy accidents and coincidental break-ins.  The fact is that they were all legitimate claims. Sometimes life has a funny way of answering our needs.

In “Anatomy of Spirit”, Caroline Myss writes, “There’s a magnetic force we radiate that draws help to us when we need help the most.”  What would it take to use this power to create something truly great? 

The Pitch

147 Marbles
A creative idea has its own energy field and can generate the synchronistic involvement of people and circumstances required to carry the idea through to the next stage of life. 
Caroline Myss, Ph.D.  "Anatomy of Spirit"

    I met with my prof this morning to talk about my series ideas.  When I presented her with the two options (writing a script from my developed series or going with the new burlesque series) she strongly recommended the latter.  According to her, broadcasters like sexy (that seems like a blanket statement, but I’ll go with it).
    Today I had to pull my nebulous idea together enough to pitch it in class.  When I was done, someone asked me, “Where is it set?” Without thinking about it, my immediate response was, “New Orleans.”  New Orleans?  I know nothing about New Orleans except that it’s the home of hurricanes and jazz, and the setting for the wacky novel Confederacy of Dunces.  This should be interesting. 
    So now I’ve got a ton of research to do on New Orleans and the history of burlesque and neo-burlesque (that would be the current generation of burlesque performers).  More importantly, I have to figure out what happens in the story and come out with an outline of the pilot episode.  I’ve got three weeks. 
    When I got home from class, I had some time before I picked up my repaired car and my kids so I did some internet research and found a New Orleanian man (or Nawlander) who has compiled a series of on the legendary burlesque stars.  After reading through several life stories, I realized, ‘This is going to be fun!’   Then I went to my library website and requested books of interest: burlesque books, French Quarter architecture, New Orleans gardens, New Orleans history - any book that would help me flesh out this burlesque troupe that is assembling in my head and find a location for them to land. 
    The author Neil Gaiman said that when he was starting his career, he would see his goals/dreams as a mountain and when he was uncertain, all he needed to do was decide whether he was walking closer to the mountain or away from it.  I definitely feel like I’m walking closer to the mountain. I’m also aware that writing is really just a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia and I’m starting to hear the whispers of a troupe of interesting characters just waiting to get voices and bodies. 

Author, Chris Widener wrote, “You conceive your world in your mind then create it with your hands.” What would it take to use your hands to create the world that you want? 

Lucky Flat Tire

148 Marbles 

    My daughter got a scholarship to an acting school and today I dropped her off at her first class.  When I parked the car at home, I heard a hissing sound coming from the tire as it quickly began to deflate in front of my eyes.  I ran inside and Googled the nearest tire repair shop and found one about a dozen blocks away.  By the time I got there the tire was completely flat. 
    Luckily, they were able to fix the tire before I had to be back to pick up my daughter.  When the guy had the tire off, he told me I only had about 5% of my brakes left and that I’d have to fix them before the rotors wear down and the repair becomes more expensive.  I told him to book me in for tomorrow morning. 
    As I was driving home, I was thankful for the flat tire that had initially annoyed me.  The tire only cost $16.95 to plug but I had been ignoring a niggling feeling that the brakes needing to be done.  If it weren’t for the flat tire, I may have left it until the pads were completely worn down or worse, until the brakes failed. 
    My drive home was filled with gratitude: gratitude for the tire getting fixed so quickly; gratitude for the brakes getting fixed before they put me and my family in danger; gratitude for my daughter's acting scholarship; and gratitude that the expense of the brake repair is covered by a timely “bonus” paycheck of a three-pay-period month.  The universe works in magical ways and sometimes a flat tire is part of the magic. 

What magic do you ignore because it comes disguised as an annoyance? 

Overwhelm

149 Marbles 
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt

    So I’m trying to work on the pitch for the day after tomorrow and I’ve come up with a bit more info about the story:  I know that there’s a mother who was a burlesque queen legend who recently died;  She was survived by a grown daughter and a son;  And there’s a building, her building - the Burlesque Palace. 
    I’m starting to get a bit overwhelmed at the amount of research that’s involved with this project.  I know so little about the history of burlesque (except that my dad occasionally went to burly-q shows in the fifties).  I’m thinking that it might be best if I pitch an idea for a script for my animated series that is already developed.  I know this would be the infamous “easy way out” but it is also banking on the known instead of the nebulous unknown. 
    I know that everything that I’ve ever started has begun with a kernel of an idea and as Edison said, “Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.”  The idea is the easy part;  The hard work that comes after is the challenge. Emerson wrote, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Well, with  Burlesque Palace, I’ll need a machete to clear a path, but I might be able to leave a trail.  I think I’m starting to lean toward the work involved with Burlesque Palace.  Yikes!

Do you like finding the path or leaving a trail?  What would it take for you to do more trailblazing? 

Open Space

150 Marbles

    Yippee! I just got an email that the “Writing for TV” course that I was wait-listed for has an open space. The trick is, now I have three days to come up with an idea for a TV series and pitch it to the class this week.  I’ll have to write the pilot for the series and it’s something that I’ll be working on for most of the year, so I want the pitch to be good.  I also have very little time to get creative. 
    I was thinking about a series that is filled with women’s stories.  Most of the series that I see on TV now are men’s stories and the women are just accessories.  I want a series where the sun revolves around the moon - where women are the center of the universe. 
    I also want a series that is sexy.  I used to come home after work sometimes and find Ex-man watching the late night show Red Shoe Diaries.  The dialogue made my ears bleed.  It seemed to me the whole purpose of the show was to get the characters in situations where clothing was unnecessary. I told Ex-man that I knew that there could be a show that was erotic and had a good story.  He’d argue that those shows already existed but when I asked him to show them to me, he came up empty handed.  I’m thinking a little more sex, a very different city. 
    Last year I went to a burlesque show after work and as soon as I saw the first performance, I knew that it could be the key to creating a show that was sexy and filled with potential for story.  So I’ve got this amorphous idea about burlesque and women and an interesting city.  Let’s hope that I have more than that to pitch in three days…

What would it take to stay open to inspiration?  What would it take to use the straw of an idea and spin it into gold that could help support your family?  

Old Stories

151 Marbles 
“…How did you find peace? I took away your parents, everything, I scarred you for life.”
“See that’s the thing, Shen, scars heal.”
“No they don’t. Wounds heal.”
“Oh yeah.  What do scars do? They fade, I guess.”
“I don’t care what scars do.”
You should, Shen, you gotta let go of that stuff from the past cuz it just doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now.”
Kung Fu Panda 2


    I met an amazing woman and new friend for coffee yesterday.  She is successful in her field and has been in a loving relationship for thirteen years.  What I noticed as she was pulling out her stories is that, despite her being in a very different place than where she came from, she still clung to her stories like they were an essential part of the fabric of who she is now.  Perhaps the accepted sentiment is that we have to know the paths someone has trodden to truly know who they are, but I question if holding onto those (survival/victim/orphan/fill-in-the-blank) stories isn’t what sometimes holds us back?  Are the old stories part of the scaffolding in the mind that Steve Jobs was talking about in yesterday’s marble?  The grooves that we get stuck in? 
    After my meeting with that lovely woman yesterday, I was so grateful to her for holding up a mirror for me.  I saw in her what I do myself - I hold onto the stories of my crazy family and Ex-man despite the stories having nothing to do with who I am now and where I stand.  They are survival/victim stories, but do I really need them anymore? I chose Ex-man because he was familiar - and it’s not coincidental that the root of the word family is in this word that means “Often encountered or seen; having fair knowledge; acquainted.” Together Ex-man and I created something that was not dissimilar from what I had known from my family, but now that chapter is clearly over, what else is possible? 
    As I was taking the bus into work yesterday, I was feeling such gratitude for the woman whom I met, the woman who held up a mirror to my tendency to cling to stories and create a rigid scaffolding of who I am in this world.  I was appreciating how sometimes we learn about ourselves by looking at other people.  As I was ruminating, a song that I loved when I was thirteen came on my iPod.  As I listened to the song, I remembered the girl who I was and it was über clear that I am no longer in the same place that I was when I listened to that song as a child.  So much has changed and I feel like I’m in a good place heading in the right direction. What would it take to shed the sad stories?  

What would it take to destroy the old stories and create something completely new?  Can you let go of the stories that no longer serve you? 

No Conflict

152 Marbles

    My youngest son asked me today, “What does conflict mean?” I was busy in the kitchen and I answered him, “It’s when two people don’t get along.”  Then I thought for a nanosecond and said, “Actually, it’s could also be a clash between two countries, or two different belief systems.”  He thought for a moment and asked, “But what does it mean when there’s no conflict in a story?” “Ah, that means that there’s no real drama, or nothing really happens to move the story along.” I could see he was still a bit confused so I added, “Okay, it’s when there’s no clash between the good guys and the bad guys.”  That, he understood. 
    I’ve been thinking about my blog lately, wondering what it’s been missing the further I get away from the inciting incident of the breakup.  Granted, Ex-man is not the bad guy, but the more I let go, the more I get on with my life, the less conflict or “opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.”
    So what is the conflict inherent in 365 Marbles now?  It has shifted more to an internal conflict.  My house of cards collapsed, the questions are: “What do I want to build in its place?”  “Did my house of cards collapse because I tried to build the foundation with its footing on a partner?” and “What would it take for me to be the third little pig that builds her house with bricks?”
    Steve Jobs once said, “Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind.  You are really etching chemical patterns.  In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them.”  Now is the time to reevaluate the scaffolding.

If your breakup has been filled with high conflict, what would it take to move into a stage of low or no conflict? 
Is the third little pig's house of bricks like rigid scaffolding - safe but stuck? Is there a trade-off between the perceived safety of conditioned patterning and the perceived risk of breaking out of the groove? 

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em...

153 Marbles 
...Meet ‘em where they’re at

    After picking my kids up from their various schools yesterday, I asked them about their new teachers.  My daughter has a new teacher at her school who has an interesting approach to the growing number of cell phones in class.  He said to them yesterday, “You think I don’t see you randomly staring at your crotch? You think that you’re getting away with it but I can see you when you text in class.” He claimed that he had tried various punishments, including taking cell phones away, but nothing seemed to hinder their use.  Finally he arrived at his manifesto which he delivered shouting from his chair on the first day of class, “Let them text!”
    For five minutes every day in the middle of class, he breaks and allows the kids to type their little fingers off - checking emails, texting, posting to Facebook - but for the rest of the class if he sees anyone using their phone, it goes out the window.  I asked my daughter what she thought about his approach.  She said, “It’s fair and reasonable.” 
    Today I’d like to take inspiration from my daughter’s teacher and open up to the possibility of thinking outside the box and finding creative solutions to age-old problems (isn’t texting in class a permutation of note-passing?)

Where are you rigid in your thinking?  Where could you benefit from an “If you can’t beat ‘em, meet ‘em” approach?  How could you find the win/win solution to problems more easily?  

First Day of School

154 Marbles 

    Today my kids started school after summer break.  I don’t have classes until tomorrow so I spent the day cleaning the house from top to bottom, getting rid of all the grunge that builds up during the busy days of summer. 
    One of my cleaning techniques is to take all items off a surface, such as a shelf, and dust each item.  As I’m dusting, I try to decide if the item still holds value for me (or for my kids) - if it does, it gets to go back on the shelf, if it doesn’t it’s toast.  I ask “why?” a lot in this process, “Why is this here?” “Why am I holding onto this?”  An item that caught my attention today was the only framed photo of Ex-man and me.  It didn’t make the cut, not because I want to cut him from my history, but because the photo felt old to me (my kids still have a nice photo of their dad in their room).  I tried to take the photo of us out of the frame (so I could replace it with a photo of the kids) but the photo stuck to the inside of the glass and wouldn’t come off even after soaking.  Finally, I scrubbed the photo off the glass, cutting my middle finger in the process (nobody said breakups were a spectator sport).
    I love the spacious feeling of the house after a good clean.  I’ve noted a few things that I could do to make our little nest homier.  I’ve let go of the old and I’m making way for the new.  I just hope the new includes getting into my writing for TV class at school…

What would it take for me (and especially my kids) to keep our home cleaner everyday?

Moving Away

155 Marbles 

Don't take anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Miguel Ruiz

    My Swiss German friend has been a sweet support through this breakup.  Every Friday after work she would walk the three blocks from her work and drop by to visit me.  Sometimes she’d have a coffee, sometimes she’d just give me a hug.  The visits meant so much to me, especially during that raw phase right after Ex-man moved out. 
    Today my friend told me that she would be moving to another city with her husband.  It’s true that over the past few months her life with her new husband has gone in one direction and my single life with kids has gone in another.  In addition, I’ve been working at a job that conflicts with most people’s social schedule - she’s a nine-to-fiver. 
    I’m happy for her.  She’ll be moving to a beautiful city and she’ll be able to afford to buy her own home with her husband.  I’m happy for her but sad for me because I’ll miss her. I’m sad and part of me wonders how much more I’m going to have to let go of?
    This is my friend that always says “When one door closes, another one opens – but it’s hell in the hallway.”  But I’m noticing that my hell in the hallway is largely self-induced, often because of a propensity to take things personally.  It’s amazing the things that I can make about me - a friend moving, an ex buying a cabin, a breakup - the list is endless.  What would it take for me to move away from taking things personally?  
    Seeing as I’m not an expert, I’ll have to defer to the expert: Ruiz writes, “It is not important to me what you think about me, and i don't take what you think personally.... I don't have the need to be accepted. I dont have the need to have someone tell me, " Miguel you are great"... What ever you think, whatever you feel is your problem not my problem…Personal importance, or taking things personally, is an expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me!! Nothing people do is because of you!! It’s because of themselves!!”

I keep pulling this card lately in the deck of life.  How much needless suffering do I incur by taking things personally?  How much more freedom would I have if I finally got this awareness and trickled it into my cells? 

Betting on the Wrong Ponies

156 Marbles 

    There’s a girl I know who claims that all her boyfriends start making money after she has broken up with them.  She’s had a string of boyfriends who have been relative paupers while dating her and extremely successful once they're her exes.  She’s starting to wonder if it’s just an annoying coincidence or if somehow she is a springboard for these guys and if it is the latter, why doesn’t she stay around to do the springing? 
    It’s not like her former dates were all in med school - they’ve all had their successes in various fields.  Maybe she’s attracted to the potential in a person and once they start getting closer to achieving something, it’s less attractive to her.  She feels like she’s always betting on the wrong ponies but I don’t find that belief particularly helpful (even in her analogy, it’s not the wrong pony, just not waiting until her pony hits his stride). But gone are the days when a woman has to rely on a man and a man’s success or failure in his career.  I’m wondering what it would take for her to get herself in the race?
    I wonder what it would be someone like Oprah’s ex-boyfriend, one of the ones who kicked her out for eating crackers in bed?  Are there bragging rights for such a thing or if it’s more of a dunce cap?  In truth, it’s neither but in this human world of successes and failures, it’s gotta smart. 
    I hear from my kids that Ex-man is looking to buy a cabin.  It smarts a bit because for all the years that we were together, we never purchased anything jointly.  For me, it is less about finances and more about an unwillingness to allow our relationship to grow and expand (and that clearly was lacking on both our sides). His cabin-hunting is a reminder of what didn’t exist in our relationship.  And the breakup has given me the freedom to create what I want to create.  What would it take to get me in the race?

What would you do if you found out your ex won the lottery?  What would you do if you found out your ex declared bankruptcy?  Could you let go of all attachments to what your ex does or doesn’t do?  (Yep, if there are kids involved, this is über tricky.)