Dear Sugar (a rambling thank you note)

This is a bit of a thank you note to Cheryl Strayed, aka Sugar of the "Dear Sugar" advice column at The Rumpus. It won't seem like it at first, but I assure you it is, if you stick with it long enough.

First, though, I have to talk about mental illness, artistic ennui, and "The United States of Tara."

Hey, I guess I never really ever could say
That I saw it coming
But when you push a feeling far away
Still your body's humming
And I held it in
Long as I could then
But now all that's changing

This story starts during the holidays last year. I was in a less than awesome place, as I almost always am at that time of year - on top of the usual holiday chaos most folks deal with, my day job goes completely overboard with work and stress for year end....but this year there was the added layer - as there had been a couple years prior - of a major child rape "scandal" weaving its sick way through news and blogs and pop culture. Cue sleeplessness and anxiety and emotional volatility and all the fun that PTSD can be. It got so bad that I stopped looking at my Twitter feed more than a couple times a week. I only logged onto Facebook to message back and forth with a friend who shares some of my issues around anxiety and abuse. The "Mark All Read" button on my feed reader got a serious workout almost every day. I couldn't watch Rachel Maddow or Jon Stewart or any of the other sources that I count on to stay informed about current events and politics and activism and most of the things that shape my world outside work and music. I distracted myself with cookie-baking and holiday music; sometimes it almost worked.

It got so bad that, when I sat down with my guitar and a notebook and a pen, I would stare at the blank page and nothing would happen. I would play the same covers - George Michael's "One More Try," The Eagles' "Take It To The Limit," "Somewhere Different Now" by Girlyman - over and over, trying to find something of my own to express. Night after night, nothing.

So, I guess you never truly ever can know
Where on earth you're headed
You just barrel on down that road
Till that road starts bending
Here we are again
Not a bitter end
But the end of something

My therapist sat with me in her office, and we talked about going back to two visits a month. I'd been really happy about cutting back to one visit a month after starting out at two a week way back in the day, but I knew things were getting rough again. I hadn't regressed back to daily panic attacks yet, but I could tell that the basic functionality I usually maintained pretty well was wearing a bit thin. We talked about deep things, heavy things. I told her sometimes I felt like my entire life was built on top of a bottomless black reservoir of rage, pain, despair. I told her that, yes, I had been much better about letting myself feel my feelings; if I felt like crying, I went ahead and cried....but I never felt better after. It wasn't cathartic, it wasn't cleansing. It was just one more way of being in pain. The reservoir never seemed to get any less deep.

I'd come home from work and try desperately to turn my brain off. I watched the entire series of "The United States of Tara" in, probably, less than a month. I felt drawn to it - seeing so many sides of my own experiences...having been a child of a parent with significant mental illness and knowing the incredible unfairness of that, the constant internal battles and the inevitable, horrible mindfucks; standing on the inside of my own mental illness, and watching how it laid down challenge after challenge not just for me, but for anyone who cared about me, too. Then, of course, there was the part where we learn (spoiler warning) the root cause of all Tara's issues: she was molested by her stepbrother as a very young girl.

My first reaction was: well, I'm doing great, ain't I - at least I haven't dissociated! My next one was: the world of pop culture thinks what happened to me is bad enough to cause a person to shatter their identity into seven different people. That's how fucked up the world thinks I am.

That is how fucked up the world thinks I am.

Well, I guess I know a thing or two about hell
It's when you lose your fire
You go back to the same old well
Without the same desire
I've been treading earth
From the time of birth
You can't stop this turning

That's why it took me so long to dig into the work of trying to heal this bullshit, that's why I didn't talk about it for most of my life, that's why it was always this thing that I knew, in the abstract and in my gut most days, was not my fault...but I still had to be ashamed of. Thirty years I spent (mostly) silently bearing the pain of something that was so awful, so horriffic, it could justify massive dissociation - because silence was easier than bearing that pain openly and adding on the spectrum of bullshit that comes with that openness. Because that's how fucked up the world thought I was, and I didn't want to let them know they were right - because, on some level, "that" was how fucked up *I* thought I was, too.

In the very last episode of the show, there's this moment when Tara's husband (played by the always fantastic John Corbett) totally loses his shit. He breaks down in a screaming rant in the middle of a family dinner. He throws a turducken across the room. I can't even describe to you the sound I made watching that moment. I was instantly crying the kind of sobs that hurt. He says: "It's not fucking funny, and it's not fucking fair, and we deserve some fucking mercy!" Exactly, something in me was screaming: we deserve some fucking mercy.

Life, though....life doesn't care about fair or mercy. Life marches on right over the top of pretty much everybody, and no matter how sad or tragic or deserving or horrible, the options are simply and starkly: keep living, or don't. I get furious that that's what it all boils down to, but there it is, whether I like it or not: keep living, or don't.

So gee, I guess anyone could've been me
Staring at my reflection
Wanting just a little bit of relief
From my self-deception
There's nowhere I can run
This is how it's done
You just start all over

So: Dear Sugar.

One afternoon in May of 2010, I followed a link on Twitter (tweeted by the also inspiring and badass and fucking fabulous Shannon), and read this column through tears ("This is called fuck yes!"), and then another and another, until I'd read all of them. There were twelve.

I happened upon Dear Sugar at a time of pretty intense transition. I had recently moved into a new apartment, alone. My job situation was super complicated and stressful. I still wasn't really "over" the massive triggering that started with the whole Polanski business. I was having panic attacks every morning before work, and really struggling just to get through every day. Two months later, I Nervously Broke Down and spent three months off work getting my head on straight. To encounter Sugar at just that moment was a little bit like a beacon for me. It was amazing to me to see someone giving such radically compassionate advice - to see someone hold both the precious fucked-up-ness and the everyday amazing-ness of the human condition - while also pushing people to be fucking real with themselves and others - while grounding in gratitude and joy and beauty - while acknowledging the gravity of the truly terrible that sometimes must be lived with. I don't want to say that Sugar's the reason I eventually got some professional help, but I would be lying if I said that the tenor of her advice didn't give me hope that there was a chance I'd find help that would actually help, without making me feel like total shit.

I wrote Sugar a couple different letters over the months after finding her column. She didn't answer them, and I'm frankly glad. They weren't the real questions I wanted answers to, anyway. I bet she knew this when she read them, hearing the empty places of the words I didn't write just as clearly as the words I did. I could totally be projecting, but I just get the sense that Sugar has a really good bullshit detector.

Earlier this week, on Valentine's Day, this dearest of Sugars came out as Cheryl Strayed. I had never heard of Cheryl Strayed, but I immediately went and read all of her work I could find online. Then I ordered both her books. Because Cheryl is Sugar (the second one, anyway) and Sugar (the second one, anyway) is Cheryl - the writing (I could find) isn't really all that different, even without people asking for advice. Because, for some people, telling their life story is the best advice they can give. And - maybe I'm projecting again - because it seems like maybe there might be someone else walking around creating joy and light, and carrying a bottomless black reservoir of rage and pain and despair, and not pretending otherwise. Not pretending those things are mutually exclusive.

And that's some shit I want to read. And also, you know, vote with my dollars and support indie artists and whatnot.

"Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do."

- Cheryl Strayed, Love of My Life, The Sun, Sept. 2002

I've spent most of my life ignoring, bottling, denying, and suppressing my emotions; it wasn't perfect, but it's how I survived and managed to grow into someone reasonably functional who I didn't totally loathe. This process over the past couple years of, like, stopping that? Has been incredibly challenging on many levels, but I am fucking doing it. Even when it's not fun, even when I feel like it's pointless, even when it turns out I am a goddamn cry-er. Even when it's all bottomless black reservoirs and no fucking joy. I'm strong enough to handle all that now, I think. Maybe I can do enough meditation and yoga to find some kind of peace. Maybe I can take enough deep breaths followed by more deep breaths to find a still center from which to move through the rest of my life like a serene Buddha.

I think probably not. I like the word "fuck" way too much. And besides, I'd just be happy with getting to a place where dinner out with friends doesn't make me want to hide in my bedroom for a week.

Because I'm an artsy type, I tend to look to artsy types for inspiration and comfort when I'm feeling overwhelmed. There are a few artists whose voices have been hopeful, twinkly lights during my own personal dark nights: Girlyman, Patricia McKillip, Van Gogh, even (don't fucking laugh, assholes) John Mayer.

And this time around, a wee little advice column written by Cheryl Strayed, for which I am grateful beyond my ability to express. But:

Dear Sugar,
Thank you.
Love,
Tari

* Lyrics quoted are from "Empire of Our State," from Supernova by Girlyman.

33 and all's (mostly) well.

I’m 33 today.

Birthdays, like the turning of the calendar at the new year, are a big deal to me….I like marking time as it passes. I think I find the scale of it, the acknowledgement of my life in a temporal context, comforting somehow. Or alternately, on days when I’m feeling inadequate and insignificant, alarming.

I’m at an interesting juncture in my life – both more at peace with who I am and how I move through the world…and more certain that some things in my life are in need of significant shifts. The past year has brought me down a rough road, but one that I believe eventually leads me to a more authentic, more honest place that’s more in line with my values. I think that’s the big lesson I get every year – the more I learn about me, the less interested I am in trying to meet someone else’s standards, the more bullshit “rules” from society or assumptions I’ve made about what I was “supposed” to do or be I reject utterly in favor of letting my choices come from my internal compass…and my definition of that internal compass gets clearer and clearer.

Unlike the ideas I had when I was a kid, watching my dad navigate a complicated divorce with grace and aplomb at this same age, my current beliefs about “growing up” take into account the fact that I’m probably not going to ever “get my shit together,” let alone really understand what that means in the first place. I feel good about resigning myself to being mostly uncertain about a lot of things. C’est la vie.

So. At 33, I know that I don’t know much, but I’m really interested in learning more. I know that I’m fucking fabulous and probably only going to get cooler. I know that I’ve been blessed with some wonderful gifts and the resources to more or less successfully weather some pretty shitty stuff. I know that I am lucky enough to have a family that – even at its most dysfunctional – loves me very much, and am further honored to call a tremendous roster of truly amazing people friends.

To everyone who’s taken a moment out of their day to wish me happy birthday, my deepest thanks. I have guarded my time and energy so jealously over the past year (even more than usual), and I truly recognize the gift it is to share that moment with someone. I am so grateful for each and every person who took that effort on my account. Between now and my next birthday, I hope that I can find more energy to return the favor, in gratitude for everyone who’s made a little room for me in their thoughts and their lives.

It's like a sampler pack of actual blogging.

I was watching this movie, part of which involves this group of folks hacking their way through a jungle. It's one of those romantic travel movies where some kid from the suburbs randomly falls into global adventures, and where it's never explained how he manages to pay to get from point A to point B or, you know, beer and food. This film was an alright example of the genre, which I have an incredible soft spot for. I sometimes feel like the older I get, the more boring my life becomes. I mean, most of my ridiculous stories involving crazy shenanigans come from damn near a decade ago.

Anyway. This film tweaked my Macchu Picchu lust something fierce, but also made me laugh at myself when they showed this kid wielding a machete all day on his first day, no gloves, no nothing. The color commentary voice in my head was all, "What? That guy would be crying 'cause of all his blisters." My next thought was, "Well, Follett, when have *you* hacked your way through a jungle? How do you know?" And then the one right after that was, "Well, except for that one day you worked as a Christmas Tree trimmer and spent all day hacking at pine trees with a machete, and were crying 'cause of all the blisters you got 'cause you didn't wear gloves."

After which I drove a 4x4 down a mudslide. True story! I was an idiot when I was younger.

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I've been off work for awhile, trying to recover from a nervous breakdown - specifically, a pretty fierce panic disorder. I tried to handle it in bits and bobs, and it just got to a point where I couldn't take it. The good news is that my treatment team (yeah, I have a team) is awesome, and things are improving, though not exactly "better," whatever that means. I'm down to an average of only one panic attack a week, which is a huge improvement. Of course, the idea is to get rid of the dang things entirely.

I comfort myself with the fact that the litany of bullshit that has landed on my doorstep over the past few years (both through my own jackass choices and through the blind nature of life being rough all over), when compressed into a twenty minute recap, has been shown to drop the jaws of professionals. So, you know, I guess I have some stuff to be legitimately stressed and depressed over.

I vacillate back and forth over whether to be really transparent about what I'm going through, in the hopes that it will help break down some of the ridiculous stigma associated with these kinds of mental health conditions (not to mention save me awkward explanations down the road)....or whether it's too much work to try to express my experience effectively. Plus, I always have a vague worry that I contribute nothing but whining to the internet...then again, what is the internet for? Besides porn, obviously.

I still haven't exactly decided one way or another....so in the meantime, I'm just posting what I feel like and that's that. I go to therapy, I do a lot of yoga, I read about anxiety disorders (self help books, woo hoo!). I play my guitar a whole bunch. It's been hard to write much, my brain has been so scrambled and restless....but that's starting to be easier again. I take naps, I take walks, and I spend a lot of time thinking and processing my feelings. Sometimes I have rough days where I can't talk to anyone or do anything without feeling like I'm the Universe's Emotional Punching Bag.

It seems like this much time off work ought to be more fun.

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I picked up Rob Brezsny's Pronoia the other day, for the first time in yonks. Since my wordy brain is starting to come back, I though it would be nice to try that book, as an alternative to the whole twelve-step way of doing things (and put a pin in *that* for later). I flipped to a section at random, and read:

Teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control. Awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.

It was good to read that, and I am reminded how much I dig Brezsny. I totally recommend that book if you're of a spiritual bent, particularly if you like your reverence significantly irreverent.

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So, at my therapist's recommendation, I went to a handful of different Al-Anon meetings. (I know I'm blowing the Anon part by talking about it, but here's me not caring.) The short version is they didn't really work for me. And I'll tell you why!

I hadn't ever read the twelve steps before going to a meeting, and when I did, I was really shocked. I didn't love the religious overtones (especially when 3/4 of the meetings I went to were in churches), but I could actually handle the Higher Power bit alright.

It was the idea of powerlessness that rubbed my fur the wrong way. I mean, I've been powerless. I know what that is, and maybe it's one of my issues, but I am not interested in accepting that state of being in my life now. Sure, there are things I can't control, but that's different from being powerless to me. I don't always have a good choice or a comfortable choice or a convenient choice or a pleasant choice or a desired choice....but there's always a choice. I would rather put my energy into recognizing the choices I have made, making better ones where I can, and having compassion where I'm still making less-than-ideal choices.

I totally get why a lot of people really dig the Anon meetings. They're obviously a powerful tool for so many people....but I just couldn't dig it. So, as often happens in my weirdo life, I find a different way to get there. Good times.

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I've been learning a lot of covers in my time off (since I haven't been doing much writing). My favorite so far (and who knows if this will ever see an audience other than my cats) is Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" smooshed in between verses of Queen's "We Will Rock You." I don't know why I think those songs sound right together, but I do.

So far, the cats agree.

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I blew my health insurance deductible for the first time since I switched to a high deductible plan, lo these many years ago. Considering this year has put me through pneumonia, persistent back-related bullshit, and a nervous breakdown....it makes sense. Makes me grateful for the luxury of insurance. And wish for actual universal health care. Le sigh.

I cut my hair off. Like, more than usual. I will post some pictures at some point. Probably.

For anyone who's sent me a message or note of encouragement....I'm grateful, even if I haven't acknowledged it. I appreciate the thoughts, though I am pretty much total shit right now at dealing with anyone but my therapist. That will change, and - depending on whether I wind up on antidepressants in the long term or not - drinks are on me sometime over the holidays.

Thanks for being patient with the crazy girl, y'all.

Inconsequential Greatness: a Ramble.

"It wasn't exactly like I'd sold out on my life and dreams and all that other bullshit, because the truth was I'd never actually had anything to sell. It was more like I slowly froze in place...more like some part of me just fell asleep one day and never woke up."
- Elizabeth Hand, Waking the Moon

Things at work are pretty crazy at the moment, such that I'm actually mostly doing actual work most of the workweek. Surely this offense to the natural order of things will pass soon, and I can get back to reasonable amounts of multi-slacking and stuff...but in the meantime, there's a certain satisfaction in it, a kind of honest challenge and joy in problems solved.

Friday, I left the office just after 5:00 and walked around downtown. The air was warm, humid, poised on the edge of storm, but it was nice enough that the sidewalks were packed with people: office lackeys like me, in Friday casuals and flip flops, walking from store to store; kids of every stripe, wearing shorts and radiating energy, excited to be outside and warm, like it was the first time this year; families of tourists, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to look at street signs, crumpled maps, and eventually passersby, in the hopes of finding someone who wasn't glaring and might be willing to give them directions. I stopped at a tea shop and read a few pages of my book while sipping a strawberry green tea concoction that was a refreshing counterpoint to the humidity and cigarette smoke and rushing.

I made my way home eventually, ignoring the creep on the train who asked me if I wanted a lollipop while staring at my tits, and walking the three quarters of a mile from the station to my apartment, slowly, as the sun set. I made dinner and ate while reading, then grabbed my guitar and held on to my hair as the music started pouring out of me.

I went to bed late, and woke up early, and went straight for the guitar and the notebook. I still liked what I'd written the night before, and was excited to tweak it a bit and run through it over and over until it felt right. I stopped to eat breakfast and get back to Sweeney Cassidy's story. I read all day, in between bursts of cleaning and unpacking and internet-ing and a walk around the neighborhood in the sunshine and a long phone call with my sister. After dinner, I fell asleep in front of the third Mummy movie, only to wake up later and rework an old set of lyrics from a notebook I unpacked earlier in the day.

I finished the book early this morning. After, I did some more housework and finished painting the den. I had a long conversation with my dad about politics and religion and overpopulation and genetic destiny and how much he doesn't like San Antonio. I made myself coffee and pancakes with lingonberries, and took an afternoon nap after fiddling with some more lyrics. I pulled off the painter's tape in the den and started pulling out stuff to hang on the walls.

Now I'm sitting on my couch in front of the open windows in my living room. Someone in my neighborhood is grilling steaks, and the smell of hot charcoal and seasoned beef is blowing in every now and then. It's cool, and twilit, and the sounds of traffic on the street outside don't bother me anymore. As I'm sitting here typing this up, there's a feeling in my gut like I've taken a breath for the first time in a long time, as if some tension I didn't even know I was holding has been released. I feel....content?

I'm not saying there isn't angst and whatnot still going on, for there surely is. I'm not saying that I'll be able to hold onto it, but for this moment, I just want to keep breathing deeply, keep feeling this satisfaction. I want to remember this peacefulness, this pleasure in the mundane details of a quiet weekend spent alone, at home. I haven't done anything spectacular or even particularly noteworthy....just eaten and slept and cleaned and read and made music. It still feels like an accomplishment to me.

When I was a little kid, Howard Carter was my hero. I aspired to do what he had done - make some revolutionary discovery, do something sensational that would change the world and put my name in history books. I wanted to be special like that, Destined For Greatness or something. It's not that there isn't part of me that still aspires to greatness, or holds out the possibility that maybe someday I might find myself a historical footnote.....it's more that the older I get, the more I believe that that kind of "greatness" has less to do with hard work or brilliance, and more to do with circumstantial advantages and pure chance. The kind of greatness I can count on is the kind I felt this weekend - the satisfaction of everyday tasks completed, of a comfortable home (or working towards one), of creative expression and good food and books and rest and sunshine. (And yes, I recognize how much that kind of greatness is tied to circumstantial advantages and pure chance, too, but that is a ramble for another time.)

Maybe it's complacent or even lazy...but honestly? It feels as close to happiness as I've been in awhile, and that's a nice enough feeling that I don't really give a damn.

A Love Letter.

I love my hands.

Now, generally speaking, I recognize that I have a thing for hands. I have been reading palms for over half my life. Hands are one of the body parts I tend to find super hot on a dude. I love watching a guitarist's hands while they play. I dig the idea of hands (and their delightful opposable thumbs) as one of the driving factors in human history. There's a certain romance to hands - they're such a basic way humanity interacts with the world around us. (The geek in me wants to call them the Original Interface Device.)

But even above this thing I have for hands, I really dig my hands specifically.

It's not just that I think they're attractive - though to be clear: I do! I like the shape of my fingers and my fingernails and the proportions and the ratio of palm-to-fingers and the texture of my skin and even the small mole on the back of my left hand that reminds me of a beauty mark. An ex once earned himself big gold stars by stumbling into my hand-related vanity and constantly raving about my fingers (and not just in a naughty way). Sure, they're big and strong and not small and dainty the way girl hands are supposed to be....but my hands are nonetheless pleasing to my eye.

More importantly, though, I love the gifts my hands give me every day.

They give me the feeling of a string meeting fretboard, plucks and strums and the edge of a pick hitting wound bronze, the sound of pen moving across paper to jot down lyrics and chords. They let me make music in any number of ways, and that's pretty damn awesome. My hands are a big part of how I enjoy the finish of my dining table and the faux fur duvet on my bed. They give me a lover's heartbeat and take away boring white walls. They help me play games and fiddle with tech gadgetry and assemble shelving and put my books in order.

They also bring me information - whether or not it's raining, whether or not the oranges have gone bad, not to mention the more intangible kinds of information they bring me via all this typing. Which reminds me - they're also a huge part of how I make a living.

My particular hands are not without their peccadilloes. Like many guitarists, I have obnoxious tendonitis - my brand is tied mostly to my thumbs, which I have to be careful about stretching and not overusing. I worry about carpal tunnel, too, since I do make a living at a keyboard. I have crackly knuckles and weak fingernails that break all the time, and that one finger that I jammed in a door in high school that's just never been the same.

They have some scars...they've borne their share of the ramifications of me being pretty klutzy, and two non-declawed cats who I insist on playing games with leave their marks, too. And of course, there are the guitar calluses and the bump on my right middle finger that holds my pen when I write. Character, I guess, is what I think my hands have, and the older I get the more of that I expect they'll develop. I'll probably have to be more conscious of stretching and taking breaks and using lotion and parraffin dips and all the care-taking I do in a half-assed way these days.

Today, though, as I was painting a second coat of paint on the wall of my den, and my tendonitis was firing a few warning shots across my bow, I was just thinking about how much I enjoy my hands, and how grateful I am for the gifts they give me. It's a privilege to have them, and not one I should take for granted.