The Gurly Life

Where Grownup and Twelveyearold meet

As my regular readers, friends, colleagues, and pretty much anyone who's ever met me knows by now, I have been taking a creative nonfiction writing class. This has been a lot of work, and I assure you that I'm behind. It made me admire folks who go to law school part-time: not only do they work all day but then they have several hours of homework/class after work each day. Frankly, I don't know how they do it. I do one hour of homework at night and I'm dead to the world and feel like I've accomplished something if I shower and brush my teeth.

Anyway.

One of the assignments is a longer piece, 10 pages or so, which gets critiqued by as many other writers as get the opportunity to do so, and by the instructor in some detail.

My longer piece was in a very early draft form. I decided not to tinker with it too much before the next draft and to wait for the feedback before launching into the inevitable major rewrite.

So far, having my work critiqued has not been particularly traumatic, so when this went up I asked folks to be honest and tell me what they thought worked, but also what they thought didn't work. The comments were very helpful, and honest, and I enjoyed the feedback as much as I had enjoyed playing around with a longer piece. How grown-up of me, I thought.

Until I read the instructor's notes. Taking me at my word, she really gave me detailed notes about what didn't work, and some suggestions of things I could do in my next draft. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't mean or rough or anything. She gave me very useful, specific feedback. But there was not much in the way of atta girl, at least not according to 12 year old Elena.

Because that's when the 12 year old took over. I was all, hey, wait, I've seen her comments on other people's stuff, she was much nicer to them than she was to me. (In all fairness, most of the other pieces had already undergone several rewrites.) I mean, I know I said be honest, but COME ON! What the heck! This means she hated it, couldn't stand it, it's garbage, I'm garbage, I can't write, who was I kidding with this? I might as well just give up right now this is so embarrassing, how could I have turned in such a bad piece of writing? Well, I'll tell you: I'm a lousy writer, that's how. 

12 year old Elena has delusions of grandeur, or the typical teen fantasy of suddenly being discovered as the talent of our ages: to be recognized at last, at long last, as the shining beacon of something or other. Heck, if I can't be a beauty, I'll be a genius writer. Elizabeth Gilbert, shove over, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. But now, my childish fantasy has been dashed against the rocks of cold, hard reality. My dream is over, crushed like the delicate violet that it is, under the stomping feet of the people who don't get me, who don't understand me.

The grown-up piped up just long enough to ask, "What was this dream that has been crushed?"

12 year old Elena, whining: I just want to be good at something, anything, really good at one thing. Why can't I be really great at one thing? I wanna be the best in the world at one thing, just one, that's not asking too much, is it?

Grown-up Elena: Ok, but did you in fact have some specific goal, or dream as you say?

12 year old Elena: Yes, I was going to be the next NYT best-selling memoirist. And now I can't be because I suck. [stomps foot, crosses arms and pouts]

Grown-up Elena: Really? Because last time I checked, you were completely satisfied tinkering around on your blog, which maybe 30 people read, if that.

12 year old Elena: Yeah, but I wanted to take this writing class and be discovered as a natural talent and suddenly be catapulted into the stratosphere of writers. [ok, so a 12 year old might not use the words catapult and stratophere in the same sentence, but you get the drift]

Grown-up Elena: I hate to break it to you, but most writers who are any good have been writing diligently and honing their craft for years, probably decades. 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration, and all that.

12 year old and now grown-up Elena: Damn it.

I spent a few hours pouting and moping and saying things like "I might as well just give up now" to myself. "I'll just slink away quietly, and then if anyone asks, I'll say I got really busy at work and had trials and hearings and all kinds of city emergencies." In other words, if anyone calls me on it, I'll lie. In my defense, I have strong cowardly tendencies.

After a good night's sleep my delusions of grandeur took on their true form: delusions, period. Grown-up Elena had reasserted herself. She reminded me that the reason I took the class was not to win a Pulitzer but to be a marginally better writer, and that if I was a genius writer I would not be taking the class, I'd be teaching it. I got over myself and sent the instructor an email to ask if I can submit a new draft. I might have to switch to a grade, which would virtually guarantee me nothing higher than a C (trust me!), but I'd get more feedback. I call that a win-win.

A story

When we moved to Iran, I spoke no English. Zero. My parents wisely decided to send me to the American school in Teheran, figuring that it would be helpful for me to learn English. My dad drove me to my first day of school. He tried unsuccessfully to teach me a few basic phrases on the way, and and when we got there, he dropped me off at the gate, pretty much, and left for work.

I think I was 9 or 10 at the time.

Normally, I tell this story to tease my dad. It's fun to watch him squirm, and see how my mom to this day is still indignant. After all, what is point of having kids if they don't torture you?

I recently was telling this story to someone at the office, not sure how it even came up, and she laughed and said, "Oh my god, that explains everything I need to know about you." Which of course got me thinking about why that is. Normal people would likely point to this story to explain their abandonment issues. I have no such issues.

I've been trying to remember what feelings came up for me that morning. Fear or insecurity were not prominent. I'm sure I had some anxiety or anticipation, but I just don't remember this as a scary incident at all. I remember walking around for a brief period of time and running into someone and speaking to them in Italian. I feel like I knew what they were saying. But then, when I was a kid, I could understand what people said in other languages (oh I was a genius when I was a kid). Eventually, they figured out I belonged in an ESL class.

I also have a memory of telling my dad he could go I could take it from there. Who knows, maybe he walked in with me and pawned me off on the first adult he found. Maybe none of it happened the way I remember it. The point is not so much what really happened. The point is that I remember it more as an adventure and a challenge than anything else. And that I was going on that adventure on my own.

Many people associate "on my own" with isolation and being disconnected. I don't, at least not all the time. When I'm by myself, I am not bored, I am not lonely, and I'm quite happy to go on adventures on my own. I love my peeps, I'm certainly not a hermit, but I don't need to be around other people all the time. And there's something about adventures where having other people around could slow me down.

Last weekend, Willow and I were talking about relationships, and the truth is that I'm not that interested in being in a relationship, my protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The truth is that unless being in a relationship is significantly better than being on my own, I won't bother. And since being on my own is pretty damn great, the likelihood of a relationship happening any time soon is not very high.

So, after all the scraping of layers of make-wrong and all the other stuff that I peeled away at Landmark I am left with the simple fact that I'm quite happy on my own. When that is the starting point, and then you add all the other drama and decisions one makes during life, well, there you have it.

Part of me was frustrated with Landmark because I didn't get the one thing I said I wanted out of it: a relationship. But Landmark can't give me what I don't really want. The tools are more effective than anything else I've seen, but they can't materialize something I don't want. The next seminar I take, I'll be more honest and instead of repeating the meaningless intention of finding the relationship, I'll put something at stake that I actually want. What a concept.

But if I really think about the things I like the most, running, writing, taking pictures, reading - they are pretty solitary endeavors. Yoga is, for now, a group activity for me. I just won't do it on my own.

What does it all mean? Nothing, really. It's an observation, and part of the never-ending quest for authenticity and integrity. The question now is, what will I do with this new distinction?

"Other"

Yesterday I had an interesting experience. Someone asked me about lunch plans, and I ended up explaining that I will not be spending any money eating out this month because I’m taking a writing class at Stanford, which takes up the better part of my discretionary income for the month. His reaction was, to say the least, odd. Not entirely unexpected, but odd.

He rolled his eyes and started mocking me in a sing-song voice, something like “Ooh, the poor little girl she has to not eat out for a month because she’s taking a fancy class at STANFORD. I feel so bad for you, having to sacrifice so much.” And then he concluded with a scornful “You are so spoiled, I can’t believe it!”

Frankly, I was speechless. I had not indicated that not eating out was in any way a sacrifice. I was merely explaining why, so it was odd that he went down this tangent. Plus, spoiled would suggest that someone gave me this as a gift just because I'm so fabulous, but I'm paying for it out of my own pocket, with money I earned. How that makes me spoiled is puzzling, but whatever. I was reminded to how much scorn the “educated elite” are subject. I use quotation marks because I’m not so sure that being educated puts me in the elite class, but for the sake of this post, let’s assume that that is the case.

What I wanted to say, but refrained from doing so, was that if he wanted to have a better life or didn’t want to have to spend all his money on his wife and children, he should have gone to law school, gotten a lucrative job, and made different choices instead of pouring his distaste on me. But for diplomatic reasons, I did not. Note that I mentioned that his reaction was not surprising – this is not the first time he has made snarky comments about who he thinks I am. At this point, the next time he goes down that road, I will say something blunt and revoke his teasing privileges. Life is too short to put up with people’s regurgitations of inferiority. Of course, that will likely be followed by a conversation, initiated by me, of course, about how that particular kind of snarkiness is not constructive.

What this also reminded me is that several years ago there was a morning radio host on 98.7, Jamie something, who was loud and irritating and who despised anyone who was remotely educated or sophisticated, including her surgeon husband, lumping us all into a category of stuck-up assholes. Needless to say, said surgeon dumped her ignorant ass.

What is corrosive about this kind of attitude is not so much the specific prejudice, but the prejudice in general. It is yet another way in which people create separation from each other, “other” being the operative word. As soon as I am different from you in some way, I am “other.” I am no longer one of “us,” I cannot be trusted, and I am the fair target of ridicule and disgust. As soon as I am “other,” you no longer need to bother to listen to anything I say, or know who I really am. Everything I do or say is either interpreted to align with your view of me as “stuck-up snob,” “Jew,” “Muslim,” conservative” etc., or it simply does not register.

All of this reflection had an interesting side effect. I got re-inspired by my life all over again. I mean, really, even my worst days are better than most people’s best, and I have been lucky in just about every aspect of my life, even the ones that don’t work. I mean, how fortunate am I to have a career I love, good friends, a great family, cats (my goodness, the luck!), an amazing education, and the privilege to be able to take a writing class at Stanford just because I want to. That is pretty damn awesome.

The Big Stomach Achey

Before I continue writing about the weekend in New Orleans, I have to say this because it’s sitting in the back of my head, like a spider, lurking. Not to suggest that my blog posts are amazing, by any stretch, but I think it’s fair to say that I do have a certain … voice. What I have found is that if there is something unsaid, something hidden or that I just don’t want to admit, that voice is silenced, and all that comes out is a clinical blow-by-blow of whatever I’m describing. No one needs that, there are lots and lots of other boring blogs you could be reading (except for my mom and dad, who will steadfastly continue to read this blog no matter how boring it might become – bless them!).

Now with all that build up you’re all thinking, oh my god she went to New Orleans and got married again, to the wrong kind of man of course, and she is pregnant. Well, no.

So here it is: I was not crazy about New Orleans.

GASP!

I know, I’ll give you a moment to gather yourselves, catch your breath, fan yourself, mutter things like “What?!?” “Oh she has gone too far this time!”, “Lordy lordy lordy”, or “Mercy!”

I am glad I went, and I did enjoy it, so don’t worry, this is not a bitch session about New Orleans. It’s more to do with me and my life than it is to do with the city itself. I got to spend 3 days with my good friend Faith, and that was awesome. She moved away from LA years ago, so it’s nice to be able to spend some face time.

What I did not like boils down to this: New Orleans is a bacchanalian town. There is drinking, there is eating to excess of fried and spicy foods (you can already see where this is going, I think), there is staying out till all hours of the morning to party and to listen to music. I am, for lack of a better word, an ascetic person. Yes, it means a dried up old prune, in case you were wondering.

Well, perhaps not. What it means is that I live a life that is not given to debauchery and excesses, quite the opposite. (Merriam-Webster Unabridged defines it as "refraining from self-indulgence.") I have a restricted diet for health reasons, I don’t eat processed foods, sodas, alcohol, and so forth. I like getting up early and going to bed early. I exercise and do lots of yoga. I eat lots of veggies, an increasing amount of raw food, smoothies that do not contain ice cream or frozen yogurt, and so on. My friends Dee (a vegan) and Deirdre (a raw foodist) would tear their hair out in this town.

Do you see the problem? Yup. New Orleans and I are on different ends of the life-style spectrum. ¶In the city’s defense, I did not get to go out at night to listen to music (too tired from the days’ activities) but what I did catch walking by the clubs and cafes was absolutely superb. If I had had another day, I would have gone out to catch some jazz and whatever else I could find. But not being a huge music aficionado, it was not a big priority for me.

It was very difficult to find food I could eat, and I ended up eating stuff that was not bad, but certainly not what I would have liked. This is an issue because not being able to eat a certain way makes my hip and back hurt more. Granted, I did walk an insane amount this weekend, so that is mostly why I had pain, but the heavy food did not help. As an aside, the city could use a few more trees. But that’s neither here nor there.

I can’t help but compare this trip to my visit to Boulder, CO earlier this year, where I fell in love with it IMMEDIATELY and will move there. Boulder was like the mothership. An unfair comparison, it’s like apples and hippopotami, but there you have it.

I think in the future I will need to do more research re the city’s lifestyle that I’m visiting, and then plan my itinerary so that I can do the touristy stuff and also eat the kinds of foods I like to eat. It is clear that eating a certain way is a limitation. No doubt about it. And having someone like me along for the trip is probably more irritating than anything else.

Why am I writing this whiny post? Primarily because a lot of you are travelers, and for each of us there is something that we do at home that supports our well-being or that is important to us for some reason, and that we need to do without while traveling. My suggestion is to figure out what is important to you that you might not easily have access to when you travel, and then manage it so that you can get the most out of your visit. The locale you visit might not be your cup of tea no matter what, but at least you won’t come home with a swollen and painful stomach. And by the way, in case you're wondering, the way a swollen and painful stomach resolves itself is by a lot of farting. You can see how this might not work. Thankfully, I'm home now.

Practice, and all is coming

This is from Pattabhi Jois, founder of Ashtanga Yoga, who very recently passed away. I think what he meant is that not only will you get better at yoga, but also you will get all those other health and serenity and spiritual benefits that come from practicing yoga.

I just got today that it applies to everything. I really saw it: Practice, and all is coming. Practice yoga, practice law, practice being a good person, practice having fun, practice good grooming habits, practice good eating habits, practice relationships, practice friendships, practice whatever. All is coming.

I am not the pretty one

Whoa!

41 and finally, I get it. I'm not the pretty one. Listen, seriously, please don't respond by telling me how beautiful I am, that I'm attractive and all that, because who cares and it's not the point.

Just recently I gave up this idea that I might one day be a glamorous beauty. I mean, really, right? How it came about is that I looked down at my feet, in hiking shoes. I had been thinking about getting back on match.com, and being truly authentic in my profile, and how to explain the shoes was a sticking point for me.

I go to court in hiking shoes. Hiking shoes are the only shoes that I wear that the more I walk, the better my back feels. I looked at my goofy, hiking-shoe clad feet under my business suit, and suddenly realized that my style never has been and never will be the very polished, hair perfectly coiffed, fake nails, high heels kinda gal. My style is a suit with hiking shoes.

My style is daytime pajamas, sweats, and generally clothes and shoes that are comfortable. And poop jokes. It's not to say I don't pay attention to how I look or don't take care of myself, of course, but you know what I mean.

I have always struggled so hard to be ladylike (not succeeding, by the way), always waiting for the day that my beauty would be discovered, at last.

Pah.

And then I realized, oh my freaking god, I am not the pretty one I'm the funny one. Sort of. Sometimes I'm not funny, I'm just plain fucking annoying.

Suddenly, women who are traditionally feminine are not the sun to my moon. They are just how they are, and I am how I am. Just today I was around firefighters with a friend/colleague who is very beautiful and very feminine. Normally I would have felt awkward and frumpy. Today I was more than happy not to even pretend to be pretty, or wish I was pretty. I was just myself. Do you know how hard it is to be myself around hot firefighter guys? Oh boy. But I was. Because I really didn't care whether they thought I was cute, or feminine. Of course, I got more attention than I anticipated, especially in light of the fact that I'm an attorney and firefighters don't like attorneys.

And you know what the best part was? I didn't care at all.

So guess what, people? I'm not the pretty one. Thank God.

The fray or not the fray?

So I'm considering getting back into the fray, i.e., the dating game. I'm bored and nauseated just thinking about it, but as Dean says, the idea of me dating in my mid-70's is kinda gross. Long story.

I might do a scorched earth type of thing, where I sign up for several different online dating services. If nothing else, it'll make for excellent blogging.

Edited to add: You know what? Plan scrapped. Oh yeah baby. The online thing is out. Done. Deirdre made an excellent point: going into it already resigned that I'm just going to be wading through bozos in the dim hope of meeting someone decent will not work. Well, it'll work if all I'm doing is looking for ridiculous people to write about, but ostensibly that would not be the reason. Actually, what Deirdre said is that an open and compassionate heart is necessary to find the right person. I think she's right. But I don't have openness and compassion for online dating, and I'm not interested in creating it.

Therefore, I'm going to follow my own advice (and Willow's): I'm going to go do the things I like to do and create being open while living my life.

Sex is boring

There. I said it.

You might say, WTF? This is the big breakthrough you had in the Sex and Intimacy Seminar? Well, I don't know if it's the big breakthrough, but it's a breakthrough.

Here's what I got: sex is like absolutely everything else in my life. There are stories and weirdnesses around it, pressure, performance anxiety, thinks we think we know about sex, fantasies we have. Here are some examples: sex is good, sex is bad, sex is fun, some people are good at it, some are bad, men always want it, women don't always want it and so on. If you have too much sex, there's something wrong. If you never have sex, there's something wrong. And let's not forget, if you don't use it your lose it. This is in the realm of normal sex, because then there are all the so-called sexual dysfunctions, which I'm not even going to go into. But most of all, everyone is always talking about the great sex they have, or that they want more sex. Sometimes people are honest and they'll tell you they have crappy sex or that they don't like it much at all. And then you think they're weird or feel mildly sorry for them and change the subject awkwardly. You know what I'm talking about.

But all that stuff is just made up. Just like everything else we make up about everything else. Sex is just sex, and it doesn't mean anything. Nothing.

And the truth of the matter is, I'm not that interested in sex. I used to be. For a while there, after Julian and I broke up, I was downright slutty. It was awesome. It was fun, and freeing, and easy to come by. I have lots of stories.

But priorities shift. And sex, by itself, is boring. That is to say, sex by itself is not worth that much to me. It's very pleasurable, don't get me wrong, but by itself is not worth that much to me anymore. Napping, writing, doing yoga, working, hanging out with friends, watching movies or tv, traveling - all of these things are worth more to me than sex.

I've been making myself a little bent out of shape about it because, hey, it's not socially acceptable to just say I'm not interested in sex without automatically becoming an old maid, the crazy cat lady, or some such bullshit. But since I really really got tonight that all those stories are just as made up as anything else, who the hell cares?

How I've been being about it is that I pretend that I can have sex with no strings attached. Again, this was the case for a while, but that was several years ago and it no longer applies. That's my schtick: no strings attached, boys, you won't have any trouble from me. None of that emotional stuff, no demands on your time or your affections.

I've known for a while that this no longer applies, and that it no longer works. But it's been undistinguished, and so I keep getting all the sex-only propositions. My only option has been to simply say no and wonder what was up.

So what am I interested in? Living my life the way I want to live it, kitty cats and all, and when I find the guy who is worth my time (and who thinks I'm worth his, obvy), then the sex will reenter the picture. Until then, I'll be busy doing my own thing.

The protector and related thoughts

[In this post, when I'm describing what I got out of my most recent therapy session, I go off on tangents, which are in italics. The tangents are related to the session, but are thoughts that came later, hence the italics. I hope it's not too confusing.]

On Thursday morning of last week I woke up with a major headache. This, I believe, is because I had my second therapy session on Wednesday night, and something came up that stressed me a lot.

As an aside, I am once again ridiculously glad that I have done so much Landmark work, getting to the crux of the matter is so much faster. I also found out that yet another friend is taking the Landmark Forum within the next couple of weeks, I'm so excited!

Back to the point. One of the things that the therapist had me do was watch some movies. He had me watch The Secret, Defending Your Life, Akeelah and the Bee, and Dangerous Beauty. I had watched the first three. During our session we talked about them, though I apparently didn't really get the point he was trying to make with them. I mean, I guess I did, but the whole movies thing doesn't really do it for me as a therapeutic technique. I'm all, you don't need to use metaphors with me, you can just get to the point, I'll get it. Besides, does anyone think I need to be entertained? Anywho.

So we moved on. We talked about the fact that the only thing that really shows up in my life is married men. I'm not interested in married men, but single guys are not interested in me at all, except ridiculously young guys, and then not in a relationship sense if you catch my drift. And by ridiculously young, I mean young enough for me to comfortably be their mother. Not quite jail bait, but pretty close. Although there was this one time during law school when I got hit on by a 15 year old. I probably could have been nicer about it than "Are you out of your cotton' pickin' mind?!?" but I was hoping to discourage him from pursuing mature ladies altogether. I doubt it worked, but you can't blame a mature lady for trying.

Why do I attract unavailable men, he asked me. I don't know, of course, but I can speculate as to why unavailable guys show up, and this has to do with me, by the way. As you know, whatever shows up in my life shows up because that's how I designed it, consciously or unconsciously. I'm not talking about control, here, I can't control people or circumstances, nor do I want to. I'm simply referring to being responsible for how my life looks. From that perspective, the answer to the question, I think, is because I don't have to deal with unavailable men in any real way, and that's what I want deep down and therefore that's what I attract. But more about this later.

He asked me why married men in particular are attracted to me. I think it's because there is no drama. I don't judge them, I don't try to fix them, I don't get offended or get my feelings hurt. Perhaps they don't think I'll get emotional and they can have sex with me without accountability (which they can't, by the way - being even-keeled does not mean I'm not emotional, it just means I'm even-keeled). But I speculate.

I should point out, for anyone is unclear about this, that the fact that I get propositioned by married men does not mean that I'm interested. The answer is always and unequivocally No. I'm uninterested in the morality of such a choice, I just don't see what's in it for me. Although I must say after watching Dangerous Beauty I did wonder if perhaps I should stop resisting this tendency and just embrace being the other woman. The movie takes place in 16th century Venice, and it's about a girl who can't marry the man she loves because she is not of the proper station, and becomes a courtesan instead. She does very well, becomes educated, and independent, which is more than could be said for the women who married. There is something appealing about it, but the times have changed. It is no longer true that women have only the wife, nun, or whore choices. Women can be educated and have their own careers, and are not considered property. And men are not stuck in arranged marriages that are seen as little more than a contract. There's all kinds of reasons why it wouldn't work, which I won't go into, but suffice it to say that it's not really a viable option. But I did seriously consider it for a couple of hours.

I told the therapist that I had recently realized that I do not want to be in a relationship. Actually, this is probably what's at the crux of my being a magnet for unavailable men. I mean, in theory I want to be in a relationship, but in reality, I don't. I was listening to a friend talk about a conversation she had with her boyfriend, and something she said reminded me of how painful it was to be in both of my marriages. It was at that moment that I realized that all the Landmark programs in the world weren't going to make a difference: there is no way I am willing to be in a relationship because all the ones I've been in have been excruciating.

Ah.

Which finally brings me to the point of this post, the protector - the Elena who makes sure that Elena DOES NOT get into a relationship. This is the Elena who is that "if you hurt me, I will kill you." The funny thing is, I am not at all on the defensive with friends, family, colleagues, bosses, clients, random people. Only in relationships. Protector Elena runs the show. In fact, I think protector Elena is the one that makes me stupid when I like a guy. She'll do whatever she needs to do to keep him away. Get goofy, be really really really smart (obnoxiously and intimidatingly so), get argumentative, get shy, get loud, get butchy, whatever it takes. And I suspect that she has a knack for picking the way of being that is guaranteed to scare off the particular guy. Sweet.

So my homework, which I've been resisting A LOT, is to write a letter as the protector. Surrender to her completely. This is an unpleasant and scary thought. The protector is mean and vicious. I didn't know her until the end of my first marriage: Mario's idea of having a discussion was to use personal insults. I can't tell you how many times I had to hear how much of a pain in the ass I am. And not in a cute, jokey way. After years of this, I finally snapped. And when I did, I was MEAN. And once that came out, there was no going back. Ever since then, the protector has been stifled and suppressed. I'm sure she's come out once or twice, but not like back then. But even all these years later, she sits watchful on my shoulder and stares men down: if you hurt us, we will kill you. She's violent, too, cos it's not just kill you but drive an ice pick through your eye. Eeesh.

For those of you who know me well, you know that my violent tendencies are not likely to overrun me any time soon. But that viciousness is there and feels like a jack-in-the-box: if I lift the lid, out she pops, in all her clownish glory. I think you can see why I'm not thrilled about the assignment. But I said I would do it, and it's pointless to spend money on a therapist (or a Landmark program, for that matter), if I don't actually do the homework.

The other aspect to this is that I've never really surrendered to the protector. I've been overcome by her, but have not surrendered. Very different. The prior homework was to write a letter as weakness. For about 2 weeks I couldn't write it because I realized that I didn't even have access to the language of weakness, it was crazy. I'm experiencing a similar phenomenon with this assignment - I've been working so hard to suppress this protector that I don't even know how to turn to her now.

Weakness

Recently I was confronted by my fear of weakness. The question was "What is your core fear?" My first response was to go to some well-worn favorites: being alone, not being loved, blah blah blah. I even got a little emotional. In case you haven't noticed, it doesn't take much for me to get emotional. Anyway, the therapist shook his head at me and said something about my core fear not being something familiar. After a while he asked me how I feel about weakness.

To be honest, I burst out laughing. Which is not the usual response when I uncover something hidden and icky. Normally, the discovery is tinged with sadness and the cost to my life and the impact on other people. Oddly, this made me laugh. I think the truth of it was so immediately liberating that I had to laugh.

It still took me a few minutes to see it, and to be honest I'm still seeing new facets of how I feel about weakness, but the short version is that I despise it, have no patience for it, and certainly no compassion for it. I can see that my life is arranged around strength, and therefore around eliminating weakness. I have a strong personality (there's really almost nothing I can't handle), I am attracted to physically very strong men, I always gravitate towards strong things, like Ashtanga yoga, which is a strong practice, running, and so on. I am frustrated by my body's limited athletic ability and have a hard time accepting that, or that I need to slow down when I have injuries. There's lots of other ways in which this yin-yang between weakness and strength plays out in my life, but I think anyone reading this who knows me at all will recognize this immediately. We are, after all, always the last to see things about ourselves.

From this place, of strength vs. weakness, I've been looking at Ashtanga yoga. It's all been about how I'm not strong enough, I need to get stronger before I can really tackle the entire primary series, it's a strong practice, it will kick my butt (as in, it's stronger than me and will make me weak), and so on.

I was confronted with this conflict this weekend because I signed up for an Ashtanga yoga weekend with Tim Miller. I figured that a master teacher is always worth being around, even if I'm a beginner. Well, maybe especially since I'm a beginner. But frankly, I thought the weekend would do me in. It didn't help that I got my period on Thurday, the day before the weekend began. Friday night, after the first session, during which we only did 30 minutes of yoga, I was pooped. I almost didn't go back Saturday. I was all, this just isn't for me. I'm not strong enough for this. Etc.

But I had paid my money and said I would go, so I went.

On my way there I began reflecting on weakness, and on surrender. Surrender has come up before in Landmark courses, and came up again during the conversation with the therapist, and once more on Friday evening when Tim was talking about yoga beyond the asanas (poses). As I understand it, surrender is a high state of being.

So I chose weakness and I chose to surrender to the primary series. I did the series from a place of weakness and did not resist anything. I didn't resist my injuries, I focused on my breathing, I didn't try to do it right. I just practiced. Wouldn't you know it, the series occurred to me as gentle. There are still LOTS of poses I can't do, but suddenly the series was not something to slog through, with the goal of being able to do it all, but just the context for practice. Nowhere to get. Commitment versus attachment.

I should add that the primary series is called yoga chikitsa, which also means the cleansing series. The point of the series is to bring the body back to health. It is the foundation before going on to the higher series, and the idea is that the first thing you must do is bring the body to health. This is totally in alignment with my focus the last 2 years.

That also affected the context of the series for me. If its purpose is to bring the body to health, then that includes injuries. It doesn't mean ignore the injuries, but I can see that over time the series can support my body in its natural ability to heal. Sweet.

Today I go back for the third day. We will do a more free-form Vinyasa style yoga today, and begin to look at yoga beyond asanas. My muscles are sore. Therefore, I am weak. In the past, I would have dreaded this day, and viewed it as something to survive. Instead, I'm comfortable going and doing what I can and not doing what I can't.

Embrace the weakness.