Medium.com Cross-Post: Today, I Found The Lost Cookie of Childhood

As originally posted today on Medium.com.

breathe

Cookie Monster knew what was up. I heard somewhere that he has had to learn the art of loving his fruits and vegetables, these days, much like the rest of us. But, back when I was a little one, I remember that he never failed to joyfully appreciate the value of a good cookie.

In fact, I doubt very much that he ever failed to appreciate even a bad cookie. Monsters know things that take human-type people a long time to learn.

Thanh Nhat Hanh knows a few things about cookies, as well. He also has some things to say about breathing, about walking, and about smiling.

Suppose, for example, that you were having a bit of a bad day. Which of the following should you do (assuming you can):

A) Breathe

B) Walk

C) Smile

D) All of the above

You know, come to reflect on it, I am convinced that “all of the above” is genrally my favorite selection on multiple choice questionnaires. Why limit the options?

These things are simple, but as Larry Winget loves to remind people, just because something is simple, it does not necessarily follow that it is easy. Take breathing, for example.

You are breathing right now. Did you notice?

Yeah! It’s pretty cool!!

No really, please don’t stop. BREATHE.

Good job! Now… notice yourself breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out.

In the background, Ben Lee is singing to me. “Gamble everything for love,” he sings. “If you gamble everything for love, you’re gonna be all right.“

How often do you pay attention to the act of breathing? How present are you in the present moment?

When my babies were tiny, I would sometimes watch them as they slept, just to watch them breathe. Infants do not breathe like adults. Their breaths are tiny, fluttering, and fragile.

My babies would be very, very, still when then slept. But when I could see them breathe, I would know they were still alive.

We are alive. This is a precious thing to remember.

When Thich Nhat Hanh was a child, his mother would bring him home a cookie when she went to market. He speaks movingly in his writings about mindfulness, about being here now in the present moment.

He gave me the gift, today, of remembering to value what is. He also reminded me of something else:

Maybe you have the impression that you have lost the cookie of your childhood, but I am sure it is still there, somewhere in your heart. Everything is still there, and if you really want it, you can find it.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step.

Congratulations! You, my friend, are alive.

Please have a cookie.

Medium.com Cross-Post: I Confess: I’m Madly in Love With Myself

As originally posted today on Medium.com.
loveyou   Narcissus gets a bad rap in mythology, which is ridiculously unfair. He was cursed by the gods. He lost his life, even. You know, I really feel bad for the guy, even if he was kind of a jerk. Narcissus made the fatal mistake of rejecting a suitor. Her name was Echo. Never insult a woman who is the personification of echoes. It probably will not turn out well.

Last August, I did something strange. This was not unusual of me, since I do moderately odd things on a regular basis, but I have to say that making a secret facebook group in order to talk to myself was audacious even for me, and I was a little bit impressed with myself. It was to be the beginning of a beautiful love affair.

memyselffb

You see, last August I was going through a particularly rough patch in a whole backyard lawn of rough patches. I had recently discovered secret groups on Facebook. I decided to create a support group of several of my closest friends, and began posting frequent updates on a daily basis. Being a massive extrovert with a tendency to babble prolifically, this was a much-needed outlet, and things were going well. I began to make progress in a number of areas, from getting appointments for medical treatment, to unravelling the labyrinthine government bureaucracy around unemployment, to waking up and taking showers on a regular basis.

I started to get excited. It was working! It was all coming together! I was going to turn my life around, kick ass and take names, make history. All things were possible. In my enthusiasm, I began to expand the group membership to include more and more friends, and then to active lovers and dating partners. While everyone I added was a deeply trusted friend, many did not know how to support me in the way that I craved. After a while, it became apparent to me that my dynamic with the support group had changed for the worse.

sadmuffin

My primary relationship was in a deteriorating state. I had added the boy in question to the support group, so I felt awkward and limited in my ability to talk about our relationship. But, I did not want to lose the progress I had been making, and I missed talking frankly and fearlessly to my friends about anything and everything. The internet had been my friend at all hours of the day and night. I still needed this vital lifeline.

Then I had a crazy idea. What if I made a support group for myself, and wrote to myself totally honestly? I could provide my own supportive feedback and love. I decided to try it out.

There was a catch. Facebook didn’t allow the creation of a secret group with only one member. Thus, my evil twin was born. Enter Jackie Shelley: the other me.

rescuemeprincess

Things got really tough for a while. I got a new job, moved back in with my family, and went through a major breakup. There was a lot of painful transition involved. I grew, but I also stopped using my support groups entirely as I got busier and more and more sad. By December, I was seriously depressed. I write elsewhere about hitting that particular bottom, so I will not devote much time to it here, except to say this: depression SUCKS.

At the end of December, I somehow discovered this little gem of a book, by Kamal Ravikant.

loveyourself

In the course of the narrative, Kamal convinced me that self-love was an important force for good. Falling in love with myself might be the magic key to unlock my compassion for others, my spirit, or even my deepest heartsongs. Besides, by that time I really did not have much left to lose.

So, I have a not-so-secret crush on myself. I might even love myself. No one else understands me like me. I can buy myself roses. I can curl up with myself to read my favorite books and watch my favorite movies. I know when I am feeling sick and need extra tender love and care. When my heart fills up with joy so sweet it may just overflow, I can be there to throw handfulls of glitter in the air and dance like a madwoman.

I may possibly BE a madwoman, but I don’t think I care.

myfriend

I hope I avoid the fate of Narcissus. I will be watching out for echoes. Until then, I will continue to enjoy, and develop, my split personality.

eviltwins

Buggy

This is a guest post by Kelly Marie Pettit.

I saw it posted to Facebook today, and thought it was so lovely that I asked for permission to cross-post it, here. Thank you to Kelly for allowing me to share it!

buggy

Spokane, WA, circa 1978

I was living with my mom, stepfather, and variety pack of siblings. We lived, all seven of us, in a condominium, with mattresses on the floor, and not much else. We subsided on macaroni and cheese, quite happily, really. We were extraordinarily poor. Looking back, I reflect with no shame, because I know that true hunger and loneliness are much worse than anything I felt those days. I had my three brothers, my big sister, and we were enough. We were plentiful.

A family moved in across the way, and I quickly learned that they were a mother escaping an abusive relationship, with her three children; a little girl and her slighter less little big brothers. They all had giant scared eyes, like bottomless bowls of brown rivers.

They had nothing. Nothing but one crocheted blue blanket. Only that blue blanket. It matched the bruises on the mother who was rarely there.

My brother Todd and I saw this immediately as an opportunity. At the time, we did not know it was an opportunity to serve, we saw it as an opportunity to play, and kids who played needed clothes, and something to eat, in our estimation. Todd and I had much earlier devised a way to get our clothing needs met, and the vehicle of our heists was a very large, and likely very valuable vintage baby buggy of unknown origin, one that between gigs we made deals with each other to roll down the hill in front of our home (with the other in front), each promising to never let go. We always let go.

We told the new kids that we were gonna take them out for supplies that day. The first stop we made, all of us in a curved line, was at the local thrift store. It was named “Value Village”, and that name to this day cracks me. My brother and I had made the moral decision that taking things from the donation dumpster out back was not technically stealing, but more an interception of charity. He and I had spent hours out there during that summer, neck deep in clothes, toys and housewares, filling our buggy with our unburied treasures, then pulling a blanket over our “baby” and walking it primly home.

dumpster

This particular day we were there for reasons much more fascinating than us. We were there to clothe our poorer than us neighbors (we were quite excited that such a thing existed). I remember tossing down clothing choices to the little girl, between my hollers of excitement when I located something in her size were her gasps and nearly silent soft comments, like a new puppy. My brother dug up clothing supplies for the boys (matching awkwardly fitting green shorts and random t-shirts with emblems of campgrounds and fund raisers).

We continued on our way, and stopped by the butcher shop and begged a ham hock. I knew enough about cooking to know that rib sticking food involved ham and navy beans. From our place we absconded the last couple handfuls of navy beans from my mom’s industrial sized bag (the bag was paper, plain white, and “NAVY BEANS” was printed in military letters on the outside), a pot, and then went to their house and simmered the hell of that ham hock and beans. We didn’t even have salt.

We spread their blue blanket in the middle of their living room floor, the little girl put on one of the dresses we had intercepted, and we sat and ate the soup out of styrofoam cups and spoons conveniently borrowed from the local convenience store. I don’t remember much beyond that except that their mother walked in, stood by the door for a really long time, just looking at us, looking at us like we were all strangers, then going into her room and closing the door, leaving just us and our NAVY BEAN soup and the blue blanket and our tangled fishing line ball of hope.

Medium.com Cross-Post: On Not Using My Powers For Good

As originally posted today on Medium.com.

dragon

I promised to use my powers for good. I probably even meant it when I said it. It certainly did not seem like this would present a problem.

Then, someone took me at my word. Ok, he said. Go ahead, now, and while you are at it, take this sword of truth with you.We really were not using it much. It was just over here in the corner, gathering dust. Off with you, now.

Warrior princess, sally forth and find yourself a worthy opponent. Do battle. Slay dragons. Shoo.

I admit, I was a little bit taken aback. I thought I was just playing with the universe, a sweet little game of “go fish.” I did not expect it to fish back, metaphorically speaking. Truth be told, I was hoping to hang on to that rainbow fish card a bit longer. It was pretty.

Sometimes, I forget that the universe has a weird sense of humor.

Ok, said the universe. Go ahead. Use your powers for good. But when the time came to sit here in front of the keyboard, I found myself at a loss. What were my powers? How could I use them? What would using them for good even look like?

I was guessing that this was not supposed to look so much like a game of “go fish.” And I do not have the least clue what to do with a sword of truth. I much prefer the bow of infinite jest.

So, I’m not doing it. Nope. I refuse to use my powers for good.

You can stop reading now, if you really want to.

Brinksmanship with the universe is generally not recommended, but then, I have a weird sense of humor.

What Now?

Perhaps I should try for something a bit more profound.

I will say this: maybe, just maybe, there was a time when you, too, promised to use your own powers for good. Maybe, like me, you have also been given chances that you did not really think you deserved.

Once upon a time, like all fairy tales, it all started with such good intentions. We meant well, you and I. We thought we could make a difference. We thought we understood things.

But the truth is that I am mostly not using my powers for good. And if you will be honest with yourself, neither are you. Deep down, we know it. If we were, this world would look a lot different.

That feels pretty rotten, along the lines of that terrible and haunting moment in the battle when the Hero at last says to the Worthy Opponent, “You could have used your powers for good.”

She returns, “I know, but it is too late now.” She fights back, instead. Then, she dies.

Oh. Wait a second. I am not dead, yet.

It must not be too late. I can still be the Hero, if I want. Maybe.

Ok, universe. Go fish.