fears

I’m sitting in my den watching the news when the phone rings. Someone I love wants to be soothed. By me. I feel ill-prepared which always leads to me shoveling raw cookie dough. 

By far the question most asked of me on week one of the pandemic was was :
“Are we going to be okay?”

The uncomplicated answer was…

“Yes. But, I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, and I don’t know what that’s gonna look like.” 

Silence.

Some people who weren’t already crying started. The ones who were crying continued. That’s what happens when you ask a question you can’t imagine the answer to. You hear something you may not like, or even worse—be emotionally prepared for. 

I suggest not giving anyone, even me, that power. 

I believe in deferring to the experts. My gut and my heart. 

And I’m not gonna lie, even they had a hard time finding the truth inside all of the fear, adrenaline and cortisol coursing through me that first week. I mean, they told me I would be okay even if I got sick and died. But no matter how much you believe it in theory, that’s not something you want to put into practice— and it’s certainly not a truth you pass onto your friends when they text or call. 

So I didn’t. 

“Are we going to be okay?” They asked.

“Yes.” I simply said. “Yes, we will.” No further explanation offered. That’s when the crying stopped. 

Weeks two and three: Shit gets real.

I’m making cookies for the neighborhood. I’m answering the unasked request for cookies that came to me in a dream.

It’s barely 8 am.

A friend is talking to me on speaker-phone. “I had to delete some of my fears, she says. “I just don’t have the room for them in my head anymore!” She exclaims over the sound of my mixer. “They’ve been replaced by bigger, life or death ones now.”

Which got me to thinking; I’m sorry if I’m a bit indelicate here but don’t the things that triggered you previous to the pandemic (a sentence I never imagined writing) don’t they seem, well, ludicrous?

I mean, come on, hasn’t this put all of our pre-pandemic fears (which I won’t list here for fear of embarrassing us) into perspective?

Listen, I think we can all agree, global shaking of the Etch-A-Sketch on this level hopefully only happens once in a lifetime, and since no one can tell us for sure what the future will look like, our fears have an unbelievably limited job description these days:

Kill the virus. Do I have enough toilet paper?

And all the Karens of the world with their free-range outrage, doesn’t what you were on hold to complain to customer service about only one short month ago seem ridiculous?

People are scared, Karens.

People are dying. 

People are lonely.

People are worried and hungry and need more masks, and gowns and hand sanitizer! 

For the love of God, Karens, make yourselves useful, rage on that!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Week four: Adaptability.

I’m waking up…happy. What. The. Fuck. 

Who am I to be happy amid all of this death, uncertainty, and sorrow? I go immediately to the place in my brain to shut that shit down when I get stopped by curiosity. How did this happen? Three weeks ago I was waking up terrified. Am I suddenly brave? uh, no.

You know why? Because human beings are incredible creatures. 

First, we freak out, cry, hide, or run. Then we adapt. 

Eventually, we fall into a “new normal” because it’s how our brains are wired and seriously, what other choice do we have? 

Because I’ve never witnessed a “disturbance of the force” of this magnitude I’ve also never seen this level of adaptability.
It’s mind blowing. It takes my breath away. 

The creatives are back to creating.
The inventors are hard at work, as are the big thinkers and the innovators.
Zoom is connecting us in ways that were incomprehensible six months ago. 
Easter services were streamed online. Andrea Bocelli sang Amazing Grace in an empty cathedral in Milan and we all saw it. Same with the Pope holding mass in St. Peter’s. 

At seven PM every evening entire cities gather at their windows to cheer doctors as they change shifts. 

Food is still being delivered to school kids in need.
Classes continue for most students online.

My husband’s Dermo was able to diagnose his hives over the phone via a video chat. 
My doctor sent me a similar link.

People are holding happy hours on Zoom. There are video yoga classes, video meditation, video AA and mental health care. The list goes on and on and on. 

Ben Affleck held a video poker game for charity. 
Chris Martin and John Legend to name a few, have held video concerts.
Birthday caravans drive neighborhood streets with kids and balloons and singing.

The farmers market and local bakery in my sister’s neighborhood are offering $25 and $40 boxes of veggies and baked goods a couple of times a week and donating the rest. 

Adaptation—the ability to change with new conditions. To change you’re expectations and pivot. 

It looks to me like we’re all starting to get the hang of this. 

Who knows what the following weeks will bring?

Carry on and stay well my friends,
xox

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

“Is that my imagination?… Can I believe in that?… Because I don’t want to create something in my life that’s not real.”
~Me

What is “real” anyway? And what is…not real? Fantasy? Make believe. Hokey pokey? Flim-flam, paddy-wack, and Cracker Jack?

Remember me? Let me introduce myself. I’m the woman with the wild-ass imagination.

“Is that just my imagination?” I used to say that to myself at least twenty times a day. Now it’s down to maybe twice a week, and it makes me laugh every time I think it.

Where the hell do I think the things in my life are first created? Uh, somebody’s imagination…hello?…

My iPhone was the brainchild of Mr. Jobs.

My relationship with my husband started in my imagination and then became more tangible with a list I made of suitable qualities for the man of my dreams.

My house was the bright idea of some developer way back in 1936 when the nearby studios decided they needed housing for all of the workers in the growing movie industry.

The design of my car probably woke some German guy up in the middle of the night who was tasked with thinking up an elegant station wagon design. Well done, Gunnar!

Germs were an unfathomable idea just before the turn of the 20th century. Imagine. Invisible living organisms that can invade your body and make you sick. Well, that’s right out of science fiction!
Who’s sick and twisted imagination thought of THAT?

And what about science fiction? Our present existence would look like something out of science fiction to someone from a century ago. Bluetooth? WiFi? Electric cars? Microwave ovens? Smart phones and personal computers! Oh my!

All of those started in some smart person’s imagination. Because that’s what smart people daydream about. Life changing smart stuff.

Me? I use my imagination to scare myself to death on a regular basis.
Most always at three in the morning. I can vividly imagine and talk my rattled, sleep deprived little mind into a myriad of catastrophes that make me sweaty and weepy. My hall-of-famers are; a motorcycle crash either with me on the back or without, an Armageddon type unavoidable meteor strike, a Trump presidency, or publically failing at something that means the world to me…while naked.

Those become so real in my imagination that I never even bother to step back and question them. They become my virtual reality. Because here comes the science: Your body doesn’t know if it’s real or imagined. What?

But what about all the good stuff? Writing a script? Big money? Wild success? A movie??
Oh, don’t tease me you rascally imagination! Could those things really happen? Are those real?

What a ding-dong I can be! Honestly! If I played you guys the dialogue in my head you’d laugh your asses off it’s so ridiculous…but…wait a minute…I’d venture to guess, so is yours!

What are you unwilling to believe because it seems too good to be true? Why can’t the really good stuff, the far-reaching stirrings that lie deep inside our hearts come true? Why do we poo-poo those? Why aren’t those REAL?

They can be. All we have to do is believe in them as much as we do those awful scenarios that keep us awake at night.

Someone once said: If you can imagine it—you’re most of the way there.

You’ll be happy to know—I’m on this! I’m working on it day and night. I’ve decided to unleash my imagination and let it run rampant (only in a good way) with my life. I’m thinking of keeping a journal about my journey into this new radical reality because I have it on good authority that this next stretch is about to get super juicy!

Wanna come with me?

Carry on,
xox

I have a friend who’s a bit of a germaphobe.
Before and after every meal I’ve ever shared with her she has to run to the restroom. “Washies” she says doing that shoulda putda ring on it gesture with both hands, you know, the one from the Beyoncé video.

Inside ladies rooms, even the swanky ones, she won’t touch the doorknobs, sink or faucet handles.
She has an elbow that is so dexterous it could tie rope into a Mariners knot. The automatic electric eye and the hot air hand dryer (which I can’t stand by the way, give me a fucking paper towel goddamnit) are her friends.

I once heard her freak out because there weren’t any toilet seat covers. She actually screamed.
When she begged me for one, her fingers grabbing frantically under the shared wall of our stalls, and I informed her that mine was empty as well and that there was full, unprotected ass-to-toilet-seat action happening right in the stall next to her, our freindship tooks months to recover.  Meanwhile, from what I heard, she went through an entire roll of toilet paper to protect her lady parts from those nasty germs.
But guess what?

I could see her handbag on the floor between us. Her black Marc Jacobs messenger bag just sittin’ there, soaking up the Ebola, and enjoying the view from the floor of a public restroom.

I wasn’t going to mention it, you know, I wanted to have a reasonably sane lunch—until she put her bag on the table. That’s a deal breaker for me, go figure.

A different friend shares a similar affliction. She won’t eat or drink anything that she’s not certain is…safe. Because the story she tells herself is that all food is out to kill her.
Restaurant dining with her is a lark. Such a relaxing and pleasant experience (that right there, is sarcasm).
The menu is frantically read and re-read like it’s the assembly directions for a FLAAGENHOOPER from Ikea. Even the small print. Especially the small print. “That’s where they hide the fact that they use MSG or GMO’s” she whispers conspiratorially across the table.

Like I care.
I eat any gluten-laden, GMO ridden, piece of warm bread you put in front of me. Real butter? Even better.
Oppps. Fell on the floor? Butter side down? That’s okay—five second rule.

One day at lunch, said friend was relaying the story of another friend’s upcoming nuptials. “Oh, that reminds me. I had better get this card in the mail TODAY” she announced, pulling a pale pink envelope out of her purse and dropping it onto the table.
Suddenly her hand dove back in. Soon it was both hands rifling around inside her bag, pushing stuff all the way to one side, then the other. Exasperated, but with absolutely no break in the conversation she removed its entire contents, piling it up beside her plate.

“Hmmmm…that’s funny” she mused, searching the bottom like a deep-sea treasure hunter.
“Ah, there you are!” she said, triumphantly producing a stamp.
One single postage stamp. It was obviously the lone survivor of a role used up long ago.

Covered with purse lint and flecks of tobacco, hair, the sweat of a troll, and who knows what else—she stuck out her tongue and licked it—placing it squarely on the upper right hand corner of the card. “There” she said, pressing it down firmly, pleased with her salvage mission.

I know my face must have registered my horror, so I hastily picked up my napkin and pretended to wipe my mouth, smearing lipstick all over my chin.

Although I probably could have eaten the stamp—I don’t think I could have licked it. Ewwww.

I have some other friends, a couple whom I adore, that eat super healthy, work out like beasts six days a week, drink alkaline water, fly separately so their kids will always have one living parent — and smoke.
Cigarettes.
I know.
What gives?

Fear of germs. Fear of disease. Fear of dying. Fear of life.
It’s all relative. Subjective. Open to interpretation. One man’s perfectly good butter-side-down bread, is another man’s germ infested trash. (FIVE SECONDS!)

It’s tragic. And hilarious. And we all do it.

Pay attention to your fears. What are you doing that is in direct opposition to what you say you’re afraid of?

Carry on,
xox

PS: I’m afraid of her bra…

“I’ll know that I’m finally happy the day that I invite the demons knocking at my door to come in and sit down for tea while I take a seat nearby and smile at how old and tired they all look.”

~Marisa B. Crane

Enjoy your tea, loves!

xox

Check your thermometers and change your vacation plans because,
HELL HAS JUST FROZEN OVER.

That is a picture of a GUN in my hand.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch now, relax, I’ll explain.

This morning my expert in all things gun related, paid me an early visit; while I still had both courage and coffee running through my veins.

My husband you say? No way!

His lifetime allotment of patience wouldn’t be enough to allow him to tackle teaching me about weapons. Although he is an aficionado and quite a good shot, ( I framed a target from the range that one of his buddies brought me. There’s isn’t a mark on it – except for a giant hole in the middle, where he emptied his pistol) we both agreed that Ernie is up to the task at hand.

Ernie is the guard at the jewelry store I used to work at, and since he is allowed by law, to carry a concealed weapon at work, he has to stay very current and adept with his gun skills. I have always been silently grateful for that, since my life was in his hands; and I’m ashamed (only slightly) to admit to having plied him with cake, brownies and cookies to stay in his good graces – so he would save me first.

He takes everyone (my husband, his friends, my friends – everyone’s friends) to the range for practice when he goes, and is a very skilled, thoughtful and patient teacher.

I’ve never gone. I’ve always declined because I’m scared beyond all reason.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had an irrational fear of guns. 
I can’t look at them, let alone touch one. (Check out the old dog’s face, she can’t believe what she’s seeing).

If I even catch a glimpse of Ernie’s gun it makes me cry, so he never removes his jacket; even when the air conditioning broke and it was an oven in the store.
Yes, he’s THAT nice, and yes, I’m THAT mean.
I’m telling you – it’s irrational.

When I was in line at a fast food restaurant and a couple of cops were next to me and wearing their weapons, I froze, then I started to shake and cry, and I had to run out.
I wasn’t nine, I was forty nine. That’s crazy, I know.

Since I’m in my fifties I’m all about confronting my fears.
They are imaginary after all; just the stories I keep telling myself. A gun is plastic and metal, and is only dangerous in the wrong hands, and it cannot kill me if it isn’t loaded. Still, I must be shown ten times, that there is no bullet in the chamber before I will even LOOK at it.

Let me set the record straight, I’m no fan of the second amendment.
I can’t fathom why, in the twenty first century, we need the right to bear arms. That all made perfect sense to our founding fathers because it was the 18th century, and the only thing I know for SURE about guns is that their only intended purpose is to kill.

That always makes me say: I HATE GUNS, when the more accurate statement would be: I’M SCARED OF GUNS, I HATE GUN VIOLENCE.

That being said, I find myself surrounded by men and women who take guns and that amendment very seriously. They are well trained, and practiced and I gotta tell ya, if the zombies come, I want them on my team.

Another thing I know for sure: Knowledge is Power.
At this stage of my life there aren’t a lot of things I know NOTHING about, yet, I am completely clueless where guns are concerned, which has started to make me feel…..disempowered. That does not sit well with me at this age. I want to conquer my fears. I want to know how to load and hold and fire a gun.

There. I said it.
(It still makes me shake.)

Can bungee jumping and sky diving be far behind?
Yes, yes they can. Maybe sixties for those.

So… It’s time. I’m going to pull up my big girl Annie Oakley pants and I’ve made the commitment to go with the whole gang to the range on Monday.
That’s why Ernie started the aversion therapy today.
Part two will be Thurday. I suppose what comes next will be me holding it for more than thirty seconds.

I may forget to be home Thursday.

After getting all testosteroned up at the range, they have a tradition where they all go to Hooters for lunch – because the chicken wings are so good. I swear, that’s their story.
I think the sight of boobies helps them back to balance.
I’m a good sport, so I’ll be tagging along.
I’m looking forward, no, I’m actually counting on the boobies bringing me back to balance.

I’ll let you know how this goes….

What fears are you conquering? Have you waited as long I have?
Who’s afraid of guns out there? Who hates them?
Yell at me, talk some sense into me.

Love you,
Xox

The last few days I’ve witnessed something really interesting with the Boxer-shark puppy, that feels like a metaphor for life. 
I have to preface that by saying that my powers of observation have become incredibly keen. I’m not kidding…maybe just exaggerating….Bear with me here.

The human body is a miracle in regards to perpetuating our survival. It replaces the senses that have shut down due to lack of respect, with others that are freakishly heightened. 

I have no business out driving the streets, running errands, aka living my life, with the puppy screaming in her crate in the back, but somehow I am. My guardian angel will be getting her hearing checked and going into seclusion after this, leaving no forwarding address.

I have no sense of humor, can’t remember where anything is and could cry at the drop of a hat, but damnit if I can’t smell puppy poop that’s two days old, under the couch, in a room that’s had the door shut the whole time. WTH?

I can hear the tiniest whimper in a dead sleep at 3am. 
My husband, he can sleep through her wailing as if her foot is caught in a bear trap! How does he DO that?
Sleep deprivation has left me bleary minded and craving carbs…for survival, people!
Really?…I can hear you!

Anyway… We have a 6 inch step from the bedroom up into the bathroom.
If the Boxer-shark stands in front of it, she is the same height.
She struggles with the step.
Especially going down.
It’s from stone to a hard wood floor and she’s been launched, catapulted, flung and just plain rolled off of it this past week, many, many times, so I get the trepidation.
But she’s only cautious when she’s just sniffing and exploring and silently looking for havoc to wreak.

When the other dog is home and they’re running and growling and fighting/playing (I’m using the word playing when I really mean taunting.) She FLYS off that step with the grace and ease of one of the gymnasts from Cirque du Soleil. She doesn’t even look down, she’s a freakin’ professional, (she’s clearly gifted) Not a second’s hesitation!

If she STEPS off after much careful deliberation, when she’s alone, one paw timidly feeling for the floor, she inevitably falls, and then rolls…so it looks like she meant to do that.

Don’t we all do that? I do!
If I over think an obstacle, I can make it so scary that I inevitably falter.
Better to do a quick evaluation and sail right over it! Run then jump!
…Or follow the big dog.
I’m still deciding which metaphor I like better.

“She took a leap, and built her wings on the way down.” 
– Anon

Another week and the step will be a non-issue, she will have outgrown her fear.

What’s your bathroom step fear, and are YOU ready to follow the big dog and outgrow it?

XoxJanet