“We had a lovely Roast Beef dinner at the church last night. And I stayed up the night before and made SEVEN pies. It was nice. It was really nice. You know? Just nice.” This is an example of what I over hear when I drop Cate off at school in the morning.
If these words ever come out of my mouth, you have my permission to get the knot ready for my noose.
I’m trying to think of a way to sum up my experience at Kripalu with Shiva Rea in less than ten pages and without sounding like a devotee to some new age cult….which Kripalu isn’t. But it seems as though my fifth chakra is completely blocked upon returning home…surprise, surprise.
To put it short and sweetly, I survived 45 hours of Chakra Vinyasa (flow) Training over 5 days. Somewhere in there insert almost 108 prostration push ups,( I say “almost” because I lost count somewhere around 82.) and a wild time yoga trance dancing in the dark on the last night. Turns out, my second chakra isn’t as frozen as I thought it was…once you get me out of my usual environment.
And a few words on Shiva: Hilarious, Genuine, Loving, and a talented surfer & DJ. If I wasn’t walking the path of a yoga student/instructor, I’d be jealous.
Last night Rick and I made an executive decision: we both cannot stand our therapist and so no more couples therapy.
I’ve been in therapy for some time now (thanks mom) and he’s just begun going to his own therapist, as well. Three therapists are a crowd….both mentally and financially. Plus, it’s complete bullshit, also known as IMAGO therapy. Google it. We sit there and read from a script in order to learn how to perfect our communication skills. I can’t believe I went to college for this crap.
Excuse me if I believe that some things should not be communicated. Some secrets are best kept that way and some peeves are better left unsaid. For the rest of the stuff that falls in the middle, I doubt we need to pay 175 a session for in order to figure out.
I really felt like if I went to the session last night, I was going to tell this guy how full of crap I think his technique is. How would that make YOU feel, doc?
I’m thinking. I swear. It’s just that my life is especially boring at the moment. A fair amount of income is going to many different types of therapy for many different types of problems for more than just one of us now. You’d think that would make for great blog, fodder…truth be told: if I gain anymore self knowledge, I think I’m in danger of disowning myself. The therapy novelty has worn off and the backlash has hit. We’ll see how all this pans out during my next session which happens to fall on my birthday….OCT 14…in case you want to send gifts.
….when asked to use our brand spanking new communication skills with one another in front of our therapist, Rick decided to “communicate” to me the following…first, let me set up the scene:
Therapist: Rick, I want you to say something to Anne…anything you like…and then she will mirror it back to you letting you that she has heard what you said.
Rick: Ok. (a little squirming, refolding of the hands…me thinking, “oh shit, here we go.”) Anne, I want you to know that I’m really upset that I’m missing the opening kick off for the season right now.
Me: ………..
Therapist: Anne?
Me…..I really don’t know what to say to that
Therapist: That’s not what you’re supposed to say back to him, Anne
Me…….
Therapist: Anne?
Me………….so, what you’re saying is, you’re upset about missing the game?
Therapist: Very good, Anne. Now that will be $175.00. See you guys next week.
Because she is the only thing going on in my life at the moment, I give you the second installment of her life on paper…or screen…or whatever. She’s far from being finished. So shut up about character development and how there needs to be more. There will be. For now, this is all I got. Besides, I’m lying on my back at the Jersey Shore and really can’t be bothered by mail order brides at the moment.
Petra grabbed her Burberry umbrella leaning in the corner near the doors, shook it open at the same time pushing the glass door open with the toe of her shoe, returning to the rain. With an absent minded gesture, like flicking a mosquito from her skin, she let the second letter flutter into the garbage bin stationed outside the post office entrance.
With each click of her heels through the rain, she felt the urge to return to the garbage bin grow heavier in the pit of her belly. It was almost impossible to walk completely upright. The weight was an anchor tied to her waste. The next puddle she splashed into could be an opening to the sea, and the end of her.
As she waited for each light to turn green, she glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of the post office. It was getting further and further away. She could not dive into the mail slot, but she could dive straight into the garbage bin, retrieve the discarded letter, open it, and find out for herself what exactly she had set in motion regarding her husband’s fate. But she didn’t. She kept walking. Besides, there would never be enough time to back track and make it home by 4:30. And there was the dinner to get ready for….a dress to pick out, shoes to slide into, a face to put on.
For the dinner party there was nothing for Petra to do. All assignments had been dolled out to the staff by her husband. Her only responsibility was to show up in her seat at exactly the right time, looking exotically beautiful and silent. There was no reason for her to know anything about the people attending, or exactly what is being celebrated. This is fine with her, this time. For she would have something else on her mind, for once: the letters. Yes. The distraction of the letters would get her through the tedium of formal business talk she did not understand. She would be wondering about the mail slot and the garbage bin. She would be thinking about home, her father, who named her, and her brothers. And of the name of the addressee printed neatly in the middle of both envelopes. She would be re-writing his name over and over with her mind’s hand. Before she knew it, the dinner would be finished. Everyone would retire to the library for more drinks, which was her signal to make herself scarce.
Unfortunately, with her head full of these very distractions, Petra made a terrible mistake: She spoke.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized her mistake. Her throat, she was sure,was frozen in fear… for a second, she imagined icecicles hanging there like stalagmites, paralyzing and poking her voice box.
Maybe no one understood her. She found herself hoping, for the first time she had been in the US, that her accent was thick enough that no one had any idea what she was mumbling about. She was Russian. She was Afghani. She was nothing but a mail order bride. She was sure no one was paying attention. She was wrong.
Crystal wine glasses were raised toward gaping mouths. Other guests at the table were intently scraping their knives against their plates, heads bent in such a severe manner, Petra thought they might begin lapping up their food like dogs.
She broke the rules. Was it the wine? No. She always only allowed herself a few sips just for this reason. The anxiety pills? Did she take more than her usual dosage in anticipation of the dinner? No. She never forgot the dosage. Besides, the pills were always delivered to her personally by the hand of her husband.
She knew why she spoke out of turn. The subject was close to her own heart and the stranger seated directly across from her had made her forget the presence of her husband all together. It was the blue in his eyes…a color so rarely seen in the mountains of Afghanistan, but when seen among the children there, one knew without doubt who a child’s father was. It was the blue of her own eye. And then her mouth began to move, to the horror and rage of her keeper.
“Well,” the stranger had offered to the conversation, “whenever Petra and Thomas DO decide to have children, they will be exceptionally beautiful.” He took another sip of his red wine and stole a glance at Petra over the rim of his glass. “ I mean, thanks to Petra. God knows you’re an ugly son of a bitch, Tom.”
His sarcastic remark brought the appropriate, acceptable amount of giggles and sighs from around the table…even from Thomas. But then, Petra told a truth involuntarily as she stared directly into this man’s eyes; one of many truths1 that were suffocating under a grave of lies.
“But there will be no children, Thomas can’t….”
I am. I hide it no longer.
I’m on the computer way too much.
I yell too much.
I don’t clean enough.
I let them watch too much tv.
I don’t have them outside enough.
Sometimes lunch just doesn’t happen.
I’m lax on the diaper changing…if it doesn’t smell, I’m not changing it. Think of it as saving money
I don’t jump when they fall or cry.
I rarely play with them, since they have each other to play with now. That’s why I had a second one.
I make pancakes and french toast for dinner.
They eat too many hot dogs in one week.
I tell my four year old to beat up my 22 month old when he hits or bites her.
I’m just too damned tired to put up with anything. If I get the basics done with minimum screaming, I consider the day a success.
Julia Roberts and Kelly Ripa can shove it.
I haven’t blogged in a while. Mostly because I either have nothing to say, or the things I want to say would end certain relationships in my life for sure.
So, I give you my latest writing assignment from the Gotham Writer’s Workshop. It’s nothing fancy. Just a little ditty about a re-occurring dream….which was what we had to write about. (no choice in the matter of assignments, you know.)
Anyway, it’s something to read.
I’m walking through a run-down neighborhood at night. Screen doors hang off of their hinges, couches with the stuffing pouring out of them take their final rest on front porches. Scattered, working street lights guide my way through the dark down a street pock marked with pot holes. There isn’t another person in sight…just dogs barking at me through chain link fences as I pass.
I should be afraid. I’m alone. I’m in the dark. The neighborhood is dodgy and I’m trying not to trip over myself in the blackness. But I walk with the assuredness that I’ve been here before. I know every house by heart, brick by brick. I’ve rested on these porches with friends and family. I know these dogs in the darkness. Though they scream at me as I walk by, I know with certainty, they would never harm me.
It occurs to me, I’ve lived here before. Flowers bloomed in pots on these porches, instead of couches. White picket fences sprouted from the grass, instead of hard chain link. Dogs wore smiles and shook their rears in anticipation of a scratch or a pet. Despite the condition of the neighborhood now, I’m still happy to be here, walking down its streets.
At the end of one street, with the river rushing past the front door a couple hundred feet away down a large slope, I walk up the crooked crumbling steps of a particularly ugly home. The screen door practically falls off in my hands as I turn the knob to enter the porch. The floor boards beneath me are few and far between. My feet automatically find the right places to step as I move, with a smile, through the front door.
The furniture is barely standing on what legs it has left. The sofa is slumped onto its left side. The rocking chair needs to be stained and is missing a bar at its back. The piano is encased in cobwebs. I feel my smile shine brighter, the spot in my chest where they say your heart should be, is light and open. The living room should smell musty. But, to me, I can’t get enough of its aroma into my lungs. it is the smell of something past…of something good in this run down, dirty room.
The entire room seems to be tilted onto its side. Something is missing everywhere. The glass windows breathe through gaping holes, the throw rugs are worn through so that each individual stitch can be seen. It’s here, standing on one of these rugs in the middle of the room, that I notice something different from the rest of my dream. How is it that I can notice all these imperfections? Big and small?
And then I see it. Tiny streams of light making its way through the dust and grime covering the windows, poking its persistent head through those holes there, and the cracks in the roof, even coming up from the floor boards to touch my feet. It lights up the cobwebs around the room and they seem like the twinkle lights on a Christmas Tree. The darkness I walked through outside doesn’t live in here. Although, the home is coming undone, and it’s clearly in a dangerous state to inhabit, it contains the brightest scene of my dream.
A girl 16-24 who is overly tan, very skinny, has no real personality, isn’t that smart and dates a guy who is a bro.
…hmmmm….(i’ll leave the demeaning comments to the urban dictionary. but I have been running into my fair share of bro’s and their bait, lately…)
What a drag it is getting old
“Kids are different today”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill
There’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
“Things are different today”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband’s just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day
Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
“Men just aren’t the same today”
I hear ev’ry mother say
They just don’t appreciate that you get tired
They’re so hard to satisfy, You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight
Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
“Life’s just much too hard today,”
I hear ev’ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day
man, do i give diana ross a run for her money,with a straightening iron in my hand and "someday we'll be together" playing on the ipod.