dread

We all have fault lines that run through us.
They have been acquired over time, these small cracks and fissures in our emotional facade; caused by overbearing or under caring parents, assholes that leave us, being lied to, betrayed, misunderstood, unheard and bullied; you know – life.

Just like geological fault lines, they can be triggered anytime (usually at the most inopportune) and may rupture without warning, causing an emotional earthquake.

Some fault lines we are aware of and will do everything in our power to keep them intact, and others catch us by surprise.
They catch us off guard with the fact that they even exist, triggered by something mundane, and also by the severity of the shaking that registers as fear, anxiety and dread on our emotional Richter Scales.

The after shocks can reverberate through every part of our lives, breaking mirrors (uh oh, add seven years bad luck) and making rubble of things that we have taken great pains to arrange perfectly.

So…here’s my query: are we better for them? Are our fault lines there to shake up the things that are stuck, so that rebuilding can occur? Or are they wounds that are so deep that if they were to crack, they could subsequently shake us apart? Are they our own personal Fukashima’s? Disasters waiting to happen?

It has felt to me personally at times, like one of those disaster movies, you know the ones, where the earth’s crust splinters open and swallows everything; cars, shopping malls, airplanes – swallows ‘um up whole – and then slams shut.
My friend calls those movies “Craptastic.”

I used to have massive anxiety attacks. They felt seismic.

If you’ve ever had one you understand without explanation.
If you haven’t, I can try to explain them to you, but it’s a bit like trying to explain childbirth to someone that hasn’t had children.
You get that it’s massively uncomfortable – but you really have NO idea! 

It feels like a heart attack on steroids. Like your heart will pound out of your chest.
Well, it would except there’s the weight of an elephant sitting on it, making it extremely hard to breathe.
I sat in many doctor’s offices in the early days, hooked up to EKG’s while the they’d tell me my heart was fine – it was all in my head.

For me, the sky felt like someone had lowered it to about……..ceiling height.
I felt like I had to duck all the time, keep my head down. Oppressive.

And the shaking. It is internal, and it feeds on itself if you let it.
If you tense up, it can get bad. Like uncontrollable bad.
If you go all loosey-goosey, you’re able to ride it out. I’m a master at that, systematically relaxing every muscle, due to many hours of practice in the middle of the night.

When I look back now at those fault line ruptures, I know they occurred because I let feelings build up that I didn’t want to deal with.
A marriage I no longer wanted to be a part of,
A job that had run its course,
A calling I didn’t want to follow.
The friction built up until it would break the surface…and get my attention.

The great Leonard Cohen wrote:
There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

So…..to answer my own question, I now believe that our fault lines are the cracks that let the light in. I have seen it in my own life. Once the fault breaks open and the pressure is released, it makes room for the light – if you let it, and rebuilding can occur through grace.

How have your fault lines let the light in to precipitate change?

Love you,
Xox

Between the violence in the Middle East, the weird weather, several plane crashes and Ebola coming to the states, this could go down in our collective memories as The Bummer Summer.

People are jittery.

Everyone I know is walking around with at least a mild case of malaise.

As someone who has been labeled an “energy uplifter” by several teachers through the years, (more commonly known as a Pollyanna) I will do my best to remind you that many experts, including Steven Pinker, have the statistics to prove that the world is the least violent and dangerous now, than it has EVER been in recorded history. That seems hard to believe, I know.

“As one becomes aware of the historical decline of violence, the world begins to look different. The past seems less innocent, the present less sinister. One starts to appreciate the small gifts of coexistence that would have seemed utopian to our ancestors: the interracial family playing in the park, the comedian who lands a zinger on the commander in chief, the countries that quietly back away from a crisis instead of escalating to war.

For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor—and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.”
—Mr. Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Excerpt from his book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” published by Viking.

Let’s all get a grip, shall we? We’re safer than we’ve ever been.
Like the above graphic says, 50 thousand planes landed safely, 7 billion people lived today.

So why is it, you ask, that things in the world feel as if they have gotten worse and we all feel anxious and poopy about it?

I blame the news, whose aim it seems, is to scare the bejeezus out of us between the weather, pop gossip and traffic reports.
If you can step back and gather your wits, it’s almost comical. I’ve laugh snorted coffee out of my nose while watching the first half hour of GMA more in the last three months than I can ever remember. Maybe that’s just me.

This Ebola coverage is crazy. It plays like an SNL parody of those pandemic movies, with the doctors in hazmat suits catching the damn thing SOMEHOW, and then the bright idea of an airplane transporting the Americans back here, to the states to see if we can save them…..
(Cue cheesy music)
I’ve seen the movie, I know how this ends.

Shit.

(The Universe with her wicked sense of humor, has just seen to it that for dramatic effect as I write this, we have just been issued a Flash Flood Warning – in Los Angeles. WTF? Can’t it just rain?)
I received this alert on the TV, radio and that other culprit, the inter web, simultaneously.

The internet also alerted me this morning to the fact that there was a pretty severe earthquake today in China. I have a CNN app that makes sure I know when anything happens – the minute it happens – anywhere In. The. World.
I can be reading or writing on my iPad; feeling Sunday unplugged, and WHAMO, there’s a chime and something awful comes up on the screen to get my attention.

Some things I just don’t want or need to know, but I don’t seem to have a choice anymore.

I don’t know how to disable these alerts without deleting the app, but I’m thinking that’s my next step if I want any piece of mind at all.

I’m advocating a collective dismantling of the fear machine AKA the media in our lives and the quickest way to do that for yourself is to stay as far away from the news as possible….and read real books if you REALLY want to be unplugged.

Plane travel is safe, people are alive and Ebola, well, Ebola is in Atlanta for now.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm….

Let’s get our peace of mind and our summer back.

Now who do I talk to about this weather?

Love you more,
Xox

This weekend, in a heroic act of immense bravery we took BOTH dogs, the boxer shark puppy, Ruby and the old girl, Dita, on a road trip up north to the Mountains of Santa Cruz.

Seems we were spurred on by a false sense of confidence, fueled by hope (and the need to get away, eat and drink too much and the lure of a good party) and by the fact that the couple who’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary we were road tripping to see, are dog lovers and had recently lost their old girl, and needed a dog fix.

Our friends usually have a room in their home with our name on it, except this time, since so many family members were coming into town and they had a full house.

No biggie, we’ve stayed at the local dog friendly hotels in the past, easy peasy – with one dog.

Now one mature dog and a seven month old boxer shark puppy isn’t two dogs; the number multiplies exponentially by the misbehaving, excess energy factor and the general havoc wreaked; making it seem in stress and aggravation as if there are nine wild, howling hounds.

I’d like to file a grievance right here and now with the Canine Powers that be.

I was misled to believe that the old dog would co-parent the puppy; giving us a helping paw with the potty training and pass along all the amazing traits that had made her such a well-behaved joy, and our home such a well oiled machine.

What a fucking lie.
The exact opposite has occurred.

The older girl now eyes with intrigue, all the raucous misbehavior that had never even occurred to her, like jumping up to the kitchen island to eat our dinner while our backs are turned.

She hits her forehead with her paw, like “Doh” and feels she has a lot of catching up to do.

Dita had the training of a service dog…..not anymore.

The puppy’s bad behavior has begun to rub off on her.
Ruby has cajoled my sweet old girl into barking (unheard of) ignoring orders to sit and stay, flipping us off and sticking out her tongue at us behind our backs, making long distance phone calls and smoking behind the garage.
They are both behaving like thirteen year old teenage bitches.

If this trip had a title, it would be called the “what’s the worst case scenario dog and pony show?”

“Well, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” was our default expectation.

Those two could assume the roles of furry terrorists. They could trash the room like a couple of drugged out, over sexed eighties rock stars, they could jump on party guests, muddying white pants, overturning lavishly decked out buffet tables and leave two big poops in the middle of the lawn. That was our worst case scenario  speculation. We wanted to steal ourselves for the worst, like soldiers preparing for battle, so we could be prepared.

We have a doggie door at home, which in my opinion is the best invention since sliced bread.
It is better than sliced bread. I will happily slice my own bread, if my dogs can take themselves out to shit in the middle of the night.

When we go away, we are privy to our dog’s bathroom habits, of which we are blissfully otherwise unaware.

In other words, we have to wake up, get dressed, get a leash, walk down a long corridor, traverse stairs, find a patch of grass, and indulge Ruby’s urge to go star-gazing and maybe relieve herself of a thimble full of pee at 3am.

Then, back at the room, the minute you get everyone settled, get undressed and climb back in bed, Dita, who had been feigning coma sleep, yawns loudly, shakes and lets you know in no uncertain terms: now she has to go out.

I know they hatched this plan when we left them alone in the car while we ate lunch on the way up. They are now laughing the uproarious laughter that only the naughtiest of dogs can hear.

I’m certain of it.

I’m telling you, Mean Girls.

The Worst Case Scenario Dog and Pony Show.

I knew I had to stop this madness.
I had to nip this thinking in the bud, or it would become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

As I always say, it’s all in the energy of our expectations.

Why couldn’t we hope for the best instead of expecting the worst?
We had to.

I decided to rename the trip to the BEST Case Scenario Tour, where every thing turns out BETTER than expected, where the girls are well-behaved, everyone sleeps through the night, there’s no crying (Raphael) and everyone has fun.

Once I suggested we change our expectations, the vibe shifted.
Although we were still hyper vigilant at the party, we let them run free without leashes, playing with the kids and even ended up abandoning our plan to put them in the van once the food was served.

Truth be told, they played so hard with all the kids and the other dogs, smiling their big toothy dog smiles, (including a one hundred pound, big lug of a Great Dane puppy) that they were far too exhausted by the time the food was served to cause any trouble.
They fell asleep in the car two seconds after we left to go back to the hotel, slept through the night without a whimper and had sweet dreams of the best dog day EVER.

Did they suddenly become the best behaved dogs in the world? Or did we just chill out and stop expecting mayhem?

Hmmmmmmm, hard to tell.

What was the Best case scenario?
Exactly what happened.

*You can substitute the word dogs with children, co-workers or in-laws, it’s all the same.

Tell me about your dog/kids road trips. I’m sure you’ve got some stories to share.
Remember when you share it helps the tribe!

Sending big, wet, dog kisses,
Xox