Drinking 1 My first drinking memory

Me: OK, I'm here.
She: Great. What's your first drinking memory?
Me: Sipping the foam off the top of dad's beer.
She: OK, Go!

It's at home. I'm sitting on dad's knee. Julie is probably sitting on his other knee. We're taking turns. Only the foam. We don't sip the beer. We get foam moustaches and laugh. It's a nice time. Sitting on dad, happy. Dad's laughing and happy. We are happy.

At 5 o'clock the focus of the household turns to dad coming home from work. He comes in the bus that Mr O'Lusky drives. Dad and the other office dads who work in town get dropped off at the corner of Patterson St and Hardy Street. We run to the corner to meet him, compete to hold his hand. When we get home, one takes his coat. One gets his slippers. One brings him a beer. I know getting the beer is a real memory. It would have been my job because I was the oldest, and I had the steadiest hands and feet. Did he have a beer every night? Did we race to the corner every night to to meet the bus? I don't know. 

I do know though, without a doubt, that dad has to go to work to pay for everything for us girls. Our clothes, the house, food, toys, school fees, music lessons, holidays. That's why we have to make such a fuss of him when he gets home, because he makes this huge sacrifice for us. I feel uneasy about this because I don't really think it's the truth. But I heard it enough times I've never forgotten it. Is it really true? Nobody ever says he goes to work to pay for mum's clothes, or his beer, or the sacks of oysters for the garage party on Friday night, where men in singlets shuck oysters into slimy jars, drinking beer poured from flagon, laughing loud. They take the jars to the pub and sell them, or raffle them, to make money. Dad liked to do that -- make money and have fun at the same time.

But he has to go to work to pay for us girls who are expensive. Like we have any say in the matter. I have a deep sense of justice and injustice. This is the first time I was aware of it. We didn't ask to be born. We didn't ask to go to Catholic school. We didn't want music lessons...

She: are you OK?
Me: Yes. I'm just remembering so many things. It's starting to feel sad.
She: that's good. It's why you're writing.
Me: OK. Maybe I'll stop now.
She: How about one more drinking memory?
Me: OK. How to pour a beer.
_____
I learned how to pour beer properly when I was really young... it was well before I was ten.  Dad taught me to do ith properly, slowly, with the glass on a tilt to start, gently pouring the beer down the inside of the glass, bringing the glass upright, gradually, so when it was filled you had a glass full of clear amber liquid with the perfect amount of foam on top. This might have been my first lesson in home economics. Dad had a way of teaching us things so we never forgot. He made sure we knew what we were doing, and why. He was logical, and constant in his pursuit of more efficient and clever ways to do things. Nothing escaped his scrutiny -- how to squeeze the toothpaste tube, light a fire, grill a steak, grate apples, warm the tea cups, dig toeroas, hammer a nail, balance the cheque book, refold a map, knot a tie properly, shuffle cards, play scrabble...  lessons delivered with such attention and detail, and indisputable sense. These are the things I never forget. I have always poured a perfect beer!

Me: Is this OK?
She: Yes. How are you feeling?
Me: OK. A bit sad, but not overwhelmed.
She: See you tomorrow?
Me: Yes.

NEXT Drinking Memories Aftermath

Tell Your Story

She, gently: Tell your story.

3 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.

2 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.

1 month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I hear you.
She: Good. Tell your story.
Me: But I'm so scared. Even the thought of it... see you've made me cry, dammit. Why do you always make me cry?

I month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I can't. It's too much. Even the thought of it breaks me open and makes me feel like shit. See? Crying again. I'm NOT doing this.

2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: Seriously? Do you want to know why not? Because whenever I even think about doing that, there's all this garbage choking me up, all this dark, sticky, smelly crud that gets stuck in my throat and nose, and presses down on my chest.
She: Good description!
Me: Really? I fucking hate that feeling and you know it. It burns and chokes, and twists me into a hot knot of hate. I'm not doing this. I've done every other hard thing I've needed to do, but I'm Not Doing This. Sorry. I just can't.

2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: No. I'm sorry to be such a looser about this, but I'm fragile and anxious at the moment, and I just need to get some peace in my life. I need QUIET. I need to read, and teach yoga, and be sober. And keep my freelance business going, save for retirement, and move to Canada. And crochet things. Sorry. I'm busy.

1 week later...
She: Susanna, Tell Your Story.
Me: Really? You're serious, aren't you?
She: Yes.
Me: OK, I'll do it. Happy? Now please leave me alone. I've got a book to write.

3 months later...
She: You said you'd tell your story.
Me: Shit! Busted. Can I tell you what happens when I try to make a start?
She: Sure.
Me: First I get a surge of heat, from my belly spewing right up into my throat. My eyes water. My chest goes tight. My shoulders crunch up. And I feel like running a million miles away, but I can't move. I'm frozen. Hot and frozen all at once.
She: Good description.
Me: It's horrible.
She: It's a good description.
Me: And then I hear "Who on earth would be interested in your story?" "What could you possibly have to say?" "Who do you think you are?"
She: And who do you think you are Susanna?
Me: That's a good question. I'm still working on that one.
She: That's why it's time to tell your story.

(And that's when I knew the story was for me, not for anyone else. The story is for me.)
NEXT

Never Waste a Good Trigger

Here's another excerpt from my 750 word writing practice. I really enjoyed reading this for the first time, a couple of months after writing it. The process of watching what triggers me to be small and recoil continues to be a challenge and entertaining all at the same time.

Never waste a good trigger
According to Ana Forrest, that’s the thing. I am recognising what triggers me, not just to emotional boiling point, but to shut down, close off. An email from XX, before I’ve even opened it, resulted in a shut-down reaction. Interesting. I carried it to the yoga studio (knowingly) and had it again – it was trying very hard to keep going, shut out further, the wrong sign out, the room cold, the rain falling from the roll door onto my head. Not prepared, feeling crap, feeling set apon... I was watching it. I know that I’m actually much bigger than that limited little series of reactions. And yet they are there too. No beating up. Just patient observation. They were gone by the time class was over. I didn’t chase them away. Just watched quietly. The bigger our experience of this life, the bigger our concept of it, the smaller these neurotic responses seem, feel. They don’t take over. They try, start to hop into protective mode... “Yikes, there’s XX, duck for cover, she’s going to try and manipulate and use you, ask for more than you want to give, and laugh heartily in the process, completely unaware of your feelings.” = Shut Down fast!! It’s quite cute to watch actually. I’m just protecting myself. It is all making a difference to how I walk through life, what it feels like. The play is the same. The reaction gentler, less volatile. Instead of coming up against an edge – that point I give in and duck for cover (drink, drink, drink) I’m just standing still with my eyes wide open. I find myself burrowing into the covers, napping, hiding in the endless stream of social media. But I come out and I feel alright. Good enough. This work is enough for a lifetime. Just finding out what triggers me out of my peace, and working with that, curiously and openly. I’m less fixated on an endpoint answer, and more interested in what’s going on now. I am also gaining an experience of being where I’ve always been dreaming about going. Pulling the focus into this shower, this nap, this garden, this house, this dog-patting, this meal, this food preparation. Before I would be doing all that, fantasising about how marvellous it was going to be in the future – when we got to NZ, when we get to Nova Scotia. It’s funny. It’s a gentle shift, a refocus on now and seeing now for the marvel it is. Appreciating. It’s good to be able to get juice from life now. I’ve been practicing the loving kindness meditation too. That’s quite a challenge too. It’s easy to numb out when I get to a type of person or scale of people that I can’t relate to in that way. It will grow. I’ve been working on the Ms in my life, the nemeses. Every person I’m anxious about. Names all start with M. Oh well. I need to prepare for the yoga workshop tomorrow. And finish up the msac website. And I’m also experiencing a shift in reaction to time pressures. Able not to be anxious about things coming down the pipe. There is time and space and room for it to all get done. That’s a feeling of being supported rather than set apon, ripped off, used, manipulated. It’s a big shift, and hard work to maintain, but I notice it. And then it shifts. I don’t have to spend this life worrying about being tricked or used. Little miss ripped off – I became aware of her a really long time ago. Back in the very dark ages. It’s only now I’m getting the awareness, the grace to know how to care for her, and release her from those protective mechanisms. It’s all ok. The bigger we get, the less separate and vulnerable we are.

I write, therefore I am?

The latest assignment from the wonderful writers' group was for me to publish something from my personal journal writing. This came after I'd talked about my writing going underground these past 18 months. "It looks like I'm writing nothing," I reported to the group, "but look, I've filled three huge notebooks and typed 35,000 words of random 750-word pages! That's nearly a whole book, isn't it?" I think what I was really saying is, "I write, therefore I am. Right?"

Anyway, here's something from the 750-word, private, never-to-be-published material. I feel weirdly wicked anticipating pushing the publish button on this one.

750 words about writing and reality

What is it? Words and reality. I write therefore I am? I write to feel real? At some point, writing things down became a necessity for me. A necessity my family tried to prohibit. But I kept on doing it. It was one disobedient thing I did, knowing I was breaking their rules, but knowing it was a good, healthy, important thing for me to record my feelings and experiences. It had to be done. It was the only way I had of making sense of my life. And that was most likely because it was the only privacy I had, outside my own young head. There was nobody to talk to. At least not about what life meant. The Catholic catechism was the final word on that, and short of learning the rote answers, we were not supposed to have any involvement. Nothing was up for discussion or exploration. But my mind was busy discussing and exploring. I could see through all that stuff, and I knew from a very young age it didn’t add up. I’ve even to this day got a huge intuition for uncovering bullshit and things that just don’t stack up in the truth department. But anyway. Yesterday I read Stephen Cope’s book, Yoga and the search for the true self, probably for the 12th time (at least) and it spoke directly to me, where I am now, in my own version of the reality project. My reality is shifting, steadily and somewhat painfully from what he calls a false self to a true self experience of living. I prefer to call it from a survive self to a thrive self. Every step of the process he examines from a psychotherapy and yoga perspective is evident in my experience over the past three years. I’ve been doing it in isolation a lot of the time, in my own head, in my journal. There’s been nobody to talk to or lean on. It’s just been me and the couch a lot of the time. And that’s my history. It may change, and I would welcome that, but for now I am being my own adult, my own teacher to lean on and learn from. That is OK. But writing, in this context, has gone underground, inside. Journals, these pages, are the bulk of my writing over the past two years anyway. The writing has helped me weave a place to be, an environment, it’s a way to contain and examine the experiences I’m having while I shift from survive to thrive. Quitting drinking was a huge step in this process. Pivotal. It has freed me up to be aware and fully conscious all the time. Cutting the TV cable was pivotal. Quitting a full time job was pivotal. Everything adding up to the time and space needed to examine things properly, and open up to a different perspective of what life really is. What its limitations are.  What its potential is. The limitations are its physicality and mortality – not them in themselves, but our belief that they’re limitations. Our belief in life being just those things. The potential is to see physicality and mortality for what they really are. Facts. Reality. They just are. So that’s all. I think I’m beginning to experience what is called equanimity. I think that just means a balanced and sane reaction to whatever happens. Seeing things for what they are – just things. Not layering any meaning into things that doesn’t apply. And not taking things personally. Not even our bodies or the things that have happened to us. They happened. That is all. I know this sounds rather weird and unsatisfactory on many levels, but it also feels peaceful to me. I feel like I can hold that view and live in it. Hopefully. I have been looking for peace for so long. Peace comes when we feel real. That’s probably the peace of authenticity. I have never felt that real, on my own. I have been looking for reflection, validation... mostly how useful can I be, how helpful. The more useful and helpful, the more real I feel. That’s a false self belief. A survival technique from childhood. How useful and helpful I am makes no difference to who I am at all. I am helpful and useful. That is all. When we take away the personal aspect, things just become things, and we can look and see them, and look away. It’s much more peaceful like this.

I'm Included

I had my first epiphany when I was 11. That was when I found out I was a child, not a parent, and it was a Very Big Shock indeed. Here's how it happened.

The whole family was in the kitchen. Dad, mum, me, Julie, Polly, Maria, Angie. In that order. We were getting ready for our usual Sunday family picnic. It must have been winter because mum was filling the big green thermos with steaming Wattie’s tomato soup. Dad was leaning against the bench, finished buttering the white Sunday bread, probably thinking about the racehorse he’d put a bet on. I think he liked to spend his winnings in his head a few times before he actually won them.

Mum and dad were having a conversation, probably something ordinary like what time to leave, or which beach or bush to go to given the weather. I was standing by, as I did, watching and waiting for instructions. My four sisters were playing about in a girly tangle, as they did, giggling probably, and being told to behave themselves by mum. Or dad. Whoever got irritated with them first. Then mum said it to dad, or he said said it to her... I don't remember the details, but it was something about ‘the girls’ that clearly included me. First it puzzled me, then concerned me deeply, and then caused me to look at them both and ask “Am I one of the girls?”

If you knew my father, you’d know how deep and meaningful his laugh was when he heard something ridiculous. He laughed a particularly good one that time. Mum said something, but I wasn’t listening, because dad’s laugh said it all. And all I could think as my world view crashed around me was “What an idiot! I don’t even know who I am.”

I honestly didn’t know, until that day, that I was one of the girls. I am the oldest, and they started coming thick and fast from when I was three until I was ten. In practically every childhood photo after age three, I have a baby under my arm. The communication between my parents and me was mostly like this: “Are the girls ready?” “Where are the girls?” “Can you call the girls for dinner?” “Can you put the girls in the bath?” “Time to read the girls a story... get the girls in the car... put the girls’ coats on...” It never occurred to me that I was one of them. I was part of the mum+dad+me girl herding unit. Those four giggling tangled up creatures were the girls.

Anyway, dad eventually stopped laughing, mum finished filling the thermos, the girls got themselves untangled long enough to get into the car and tangled back up again, and we took off on the Sunday picnic. Life quickly got back to normal -- or so I thought.

I don’t tell this story for sympathy. Not at all. I loved that job. I loved those girls. I watched them grow from babies, to toddlers, take their first steps, speak their first words, suffer their childhood illnesses. I doubled them to school on my bike. I dressed them, and wiped their cute little noses, and sang to them in the car when they were wailing with boredom or car sickness. That was my job, I was really good at it, and I loved it.

I tell this story, because I've recently had another epiphany, equal and opposite to that one.

I've been listening to Tara Brach's teachings about self compassion; she's the reason I even thought about that situation when I was 11. During one of her meditations, I realised I've been still stuck in that "What an idiot, I don't even know who I am" story, all these years later. It's an intensely anxious feeling, and I've spent a lifetime numbing and zoning out and desperately trying to disprove it.

It's played out as hanging about on the fringes, shrinking, second-guessing, isolating and not trusting myself. I've quietly thought the good things in life apply to other people, not me -- things like the law of attraction and book deals,  for example!  I expect to be whacked from behind, when I least expect it, and I've spent a good deal of energy making sure I'm ready to counter-attack when this happens (which it never does, by the way.) I am very shy of strangers, terrified of mingling and networking events. I think other people will find me crashingly boring. I could go on, but you get the picture.

I've been living scared. I don't even know of what. Scared and anxious. Believing I'm not OK and not acceptable, not safe, and accepting the resulting low-level background anxiety as a normal part of life. This is crippling and limiting. And totally exhausting.

So. How cool is it to stare that one in the face and watch it back down? Very cool indeed.

Tara Brach explains the limbic brain, or reptilian brain, which humans share with other animals. It's in the back of the head, and it has very useful powers and lightning speed responses to keep us safe, alerting us to dangers and kicking in automatic reactions like fight, flight or freeze mode. It's responsible for basic survival. Useful stuff for sure.

We've also evolved another brain in the front of our heads which gives us other powers like compassion, empathy, discernment, kindness, creativity, love. Don't you just feel relaxed and gorgeous thinking about it?

The epiphany for me was: I get to choose which brain is running my show. And I choose the evolved one at the front.

I know I'm grossly oversimplifying, but lots of us live with the limbic brain turned to full-on automatic mode. When that's happening, life feels dangerous, we creep around, tense and afraid, believing there's something wrong with us, that something bad's going to happen. That's the limbic brain's job. It's not wrong. We need it at times, for sure. It just doesn't need to be running the show all the time.

Our other brain, the front one, is wired for a totally different experience of life. It appreciates the beauty in the world and the vastness of the universe. It feels the pain and joy of others. It brings wonder and enjoyment into the picture. I've been watching very carefully what brain is in charge, and seeing the incredible difference in my experience of living, when I switch from back brain to front brain, from survive mode to thrive mode. It's amazing.

At the moment, it's affecting how I'm experiencing myself. It's healing to remind myself that everyone in the world feels their own version of not being included, not good enough, not worthy. It's normal, and I'm included in that too. It's incredibly good to treat myself to kind, compassionate thoughts. It's empowering to give myself time and space to just sit and feel what I'm feeling, not fight it or numb it, just watch it and feel safe.

Over the past few weeks, as I've experimented with functioning more from the loving compassionate front brain, I'm noticing a huge dial down in anxiety. I just don't feel anxious any more. This has opened up a massive expanse of potential. Do you know how much energy gets sucked up by constant anxiety? A shit load!

At 11, I realised I’d made a huge mistake—a case of mistaken identity, of myself. It went down as just another hilarious event in our family’s hilarious history. But something shocked and froze in me that day, and stayed frozen -- protecting and preserving all these year. Realising this was a source of anxiety, taking steps to explore it and thaw it out, relaxing with it and accepting it for what it is -- is just wow. I feel like I'm under the protection of an infinitely kind, loving, warm, understanding custodian. It's just me, operating from a different brain space. A space where everyone's included, there's nothing to be afraid of, and, well, all is well.

Spitting it out

I've been doing the 'morning pages' exercise from The Artist's Way (Julia Cameron, Pan Books). Maybe I should say "again" because I've been on this path a few times before when I've needed to get unstuck creatively and psychologically. Technically morning pages are a writing excercise with the following rules:

• Every morning, soon after you wake up, write three long-hand pages in a journal.
• Don't think about what you're writing, just write, stream-of-consciousness style, until you've filled up three pages. No cheating with a tiny little note pad!
• Don't read what you've written. 
• Don't show it to anyone else. 
• Do it every day, whether you feel like it or not.

This time round, I've got the morning pages in my laptop, in Word, with the font size set so one page of single spaced text with no paragraph breaks is 750 words. I start with the date, note the time, and write until I've filed the page, note the total word count and time, save and shut the file. If I don't agonise, edit, or think too much, it takes roughly 17 minutes, so not a massive time suck.

Some good things are happening. I'm looking forward to getting up and writing every day. I feel no anxiety, no struggle to stay focussed, no burning impulse to vacuum or clean the windows before I get started, or half way through. And I'm feeling no pressure or block. I am writing, and it feels bloody great! Yay.

And not only that; I've been motivated to do my own writing again. A couple of times this week I even woke up thinking about story ideas for my blogs. This is massive. For the past year or so I've been waking up thinking about some work problem. Usually it's a writing problem because that's what I do for a job. More often than not, when I wake up properly I realise it's an imagined, not a real problem, but it hangs around, whining and bothering me, and stopping me from actually working, or ensuring the work I do feels like agony. It's also exhausting, so I've had no energy  for creative writing either.

But as I said, a couple of times this week I woke up with story ideas in my head. It is a much better day when I wake up feeling interested, motivated, excited to get up and write. A much better scene altogether!

So what's going on? I think the morning pages are a bit like housework. It's like I go into my brain every morning, and clean it out -- throw away rubbish, wipe up dust and grime, put stuff in its right place so I can find it when I want it. Wipe the benches, run the dishwasher, pick up clothes, do the laundry, take out the garbage, sort out that junk cupboard, give some stuff away. Think of all those things that make your house nicer to be in. When you don't do them, everything's harder, more stressful, a drag.

The morning pages are my brain's housekeeper, keeping things in order so I don't have to navigate around chaos and clutter when I'm working. These days I'm more likely to sit down to work feeling fresh and clear. A bit virtuous even, just like I feel when my clothes are picked up and the kitchen sink is sparkling.

Perfect Lies

I am perfect. Seriously. I don't say this in a boastful or gloating way. I say it in a whispery, almost embarrassed way. It's only taken me fifty two and a half years to get to this simple truth. I only just realised it.

I've been the victim of perfect lies. Mostly waiting for things to be perfect. Waiting for perfect timing. Waiting for the perfect opportunity. The perfect moment. The perfect outfit. Hairdo. Job. Holy shit, you could spend your whole life waiting for things to be perfect.

In the past year, the perfection thing has really been strangling me. I've been a writer all my life. I've written stories, poems, journals, essays, blogs, letters, speeches, emails. I write for fun. I write for a living. I love words and words seem to love me too. We're perfect for each other actually.

Three years ago I decided to write a gardening and cooking blog. It was an experiment to see if I could sustain a writing practice because I wanted to be a column writer in some future, perfect stage of life. I loved blogging. I wrote two or three posts a week, took photos and developed a sideline interest in photography. I loved my blog very much. It felt like an expression of the real me and my passions.

After a year of writing in quiet anonymity I started to promote the blog -- you know, to experiment with having other people read it. And that was pretty thrilling too. I got a lot of positive feedback and some followers. People left encouraging comments. I had site stats to analyse. I emailed a link to my favourite food writer, Nigel Slater, and he read it and sent me a gorgeous email that made me cry with happiness. I joined the NZ food bloggers' association and went to a conference. I handed out business cards and started getting followed by other food bloggers. The editor of Cuisine magazine started reading my blog. (She's my cousin, but hey, she's the editor of Cuisine!)

Awesome eh? Except as soon as I'd attracted an audience I stopped writing.

It's been excruciating, not writing. But I have felt totally unable to write. This block comes with a physical symptom -- like someone's standing behind me, holding my arms down by my side and pulling in on my solar plexus. I can't breath properly, I can't yell out, and I can't get away.

I realised today that this is the grip of perfection. Telling me that there's no way it's going to let me be a real writer. Telling me I'm not smart enough, original enough, creative enough, or strong enough to make it as a writer. It's yelling to stay away from the edge. Don't get burnt. Don't, whatever you do, open up too much, get hurt. It's OK to doodle around in a journal, and post on a blog nobody reads. But that's IT.

OK, so that was quite a shocking realisation. I haven't just got writers' block. I've got perfection doing a permanent Heimlich maneuver on me! Good to know. 

It's clear enough that perfection is the inner critic in this situation. It's a belief that I need to suffer and struggle and sweat and perform miracles to be good enough to get anything I really want. And believing that even then, I probably won't get it. I feel embarrassed and ashamed writing that. But it's true. The vice of perfection gripping me and holding me back is a just part of myself that's terrified -- of being honest, expressive, known, read. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that those are also the things I want the most -- to be honest, expressive, known, read.   

This is exhausting -- wrestling myself over what I want most and fear most. It's so exhausting I've had no energy to write. Which, perhaps, is the perfect truth of our struggle with perfectionism.

I was trying to meditate (perfectly of course) today, and all I could see was this big old self-inflicted fist fight; all I could feel was the pain in my solar plexus. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I called a truce. No fighting for a few hours, so I can write something.

This is it. It feels kind of exhilarating. It's a relief. It's perfect. I'm perfect. Just like this.